Nightingale (3 page)

Spurred by the ooze that trickled into his brow, Jessica leaped up, again aware of the sound of running water.

“I’ll be right back.”

The man flapped his free hand wildly at the emptiness between them, wheezing objections as she rustled beyond his reach.

Ducking, she wriggled through another span of undergrowth, gained her feet and found a brook not fifty feet from the man’s position.

The hem of her worn petticoat tore easily. She rinsed and wrung the scrap, let it soak, then squeezed it only a little as she regained her feet and scurried back to the man.

On her knees at his side, she pressed the dripping cloth to his lips. He clamped a huge hand onto her wrist as he sucked enough water from the rag to swallow twice before he spoke.

“Are you an angel?” The words were soft, but his voice sounded stronger. “Your song is a solo in the forest’s chorale.” He attempted a smile. “It trills, like a nightingale.” He sniffed the air. “Your fragrance, too, is cleansing.” He frowned. “Are you real?”

She smiled and wiped the cloth gently over his features, working around the beard, cleaning smudges that could be removed from his face. Other shadowy presences appeared to be bruises.

“No, I am not an angel, and this nest where you roost might be fit for a nightingale, but it is not Heaven.”

His features relaxed. “Good. The discomfort here is more than I expected of Heaven.” He arched an eyebrow. “Not as severe as I imagined Hell.”

She rewarded his jocular effort with a little laugh, but continued her ministrations.

As she brushed leaves aside and his person came into full view, Jessica was impressed by the man’s size. Nicely made, he had breadth to match his length, which spanned six feet or more from his head to his toes.

“What happened?” she asked, dusting debris from his shoulders.

“I objected to being robbed. I put a ball through one and my blade through another before someone bashed me in the head. My last clear memory is of pulling my feet out of the stirrups. I did not want death to catch me beneath the heels of my temperamental steed. The lack wits beat me some, but it was a halfhearted effort.”

“Thank a merciful God for that.”

He cleared his throat. “Of course.” His eyes didn’t follow as she crawled around him, raking away leaves and twigs. Instead, he gazed blankly into the emptiness where she had been. Interrupting her raking, Jessica again used the dampened rag to mop bits of blood from the man’s neck. The sticky liquid had saturated his neck cloth. Her touch startled him and he looked momentarily alarmed before he checked that reaction in favor of another.

“Thank you,” he said, turning his head in what appeared an attempt to address her face. “Vindicator is an exemplary war horse, but not at all adept as a nursemaid.”

The man groaned as he pushed all the way to a sitting position. His supporting arm trembled and Jessica pushed her shoulder closer to steady him and, perhaps, conserve what remained of his strength.

“Later, I roused,” he continued, as if eager to recall the happenings for his own hearing. “Men argued. It was full dark by then, the night like pitch, as it is now.” He rolled his eyes and waited, apparently giving her time to confirm or refute the darkness.

She glanced at the moon. For the moment, it illuminated their surroundings and gave form to shapes around them.

She didn’t speak, instead resumed her work with the cloth. She dabbed a splotch from his full lower lip. My, he seemed a handsome man. His eyes were deep set but squinting, perhaps against the headache he mentioned. The trim beard gave him a look of devil-may-care abandon and, at the same time, of authority.

Her swabbing reopened a wound at his hairline freeing blood to trickle anew down his forehead.

“I crawled into the weeds, thinking to hide until my sight cleared,” he said, seemingly oblivious to her ongoing ministrations. “I wanted my head to stop pounding and the world to cease spinning. I made for the sound of water. I didn’t get there, did I?”

“You are very close,” she said. Jessica was wiping scratches and scrapes on his hands, but neither those minor abrasions nor the cuts on his forehead were severe enough to be the source of the gummy dampness soaking his shirt collar and neck cloth.

Carefully, she brushed her hands over his face, which he moved with her touch. Her fingers rasped over the narrow beard as she ran them into the thick hair above his ears, searching for the source of the profuse bleeding that had begun again in earnest.

Suddenly her roving fingers slid into a warm moist well and the man shouted a barrage of what sounded like fluent French profanity.

“Be still.” Her voice rang with a competence she did not feel.

Changing position, scooting on her knees to get closer, Jessica steeled herself as her fingers cautiously tracked the blood back to a long, deep gash at the base of his skull. She traced the cut, trying to determine its length and depth.

“Have care!” He snapped the words, but remained still as she continued her probe, attempting to see with fingertips that came away dripping blood.

She shook out an unused strip of the dampened petticoat and dabbed at the gouge. When that scrap was soaked and unmanageably sticky, she tore a dry length from the garment.

“Be still,” she repeated, again assuming the authority of the one in charge while attempting to hide her own uncertainty.

He stiffened, started to speak, then, apparently reconsidered, and did as he was told. Perhaps he was a soldier, accustomed to taking orders. No, he wore fine clothes and the boots of a gentleman, not a uniform.

She wrapped the new length of cloth twice around his head and tucked the loose end into itself before checking the improvised bandage. The covering crossed one of his eyes then circled his crown giving him the look of a buccaneer. Jessica disregarded his evil appearance, satisfied that the wrapping covered the wound. She had secured it tightly enough to reduce the free flow of blood to an ooze.

Jessica crawled all the way around him, surveying, but found no other gashes, although shadows played tricks, occasionally making it appear there were more splotches, each of which she investigated despite the man’s grating objections. The wound on the back of his head looked to be the worst of it.

As she examined him, she attempted to revive their earlier conversation. “Has your head stopped pounding and spinning now?”

He squinted and cautiously tilted his head. “Not yet. Tell me, child, how did you come to be here in the dark? It is not yet morning, is it? We are still well hidden, are we not?”

Just as she had guessed, in spite of his denials, he realized the problem with his eyesight involved more than poor lighting. She would play along, not dispute his references to the darkness.

“Sweetness. Your horse brought me.”

“Not my horse. My horse’s name is Vindicator.”

“I see.”

“Are you part of a search party sent from Gull’s Way?”

“No, sir. I came alone.”

Her statement seemed to annoy him. “What do you mean?”

“I rode Sweet … the horse, sir.”

“My mount’s name is Vindicator. He comes from a long line of warhorses revered for their courage in battle. He is not fit for a woman to ride. It was not Vindicator who brought you here.” He sounded insufferably, unyieldingly certain.

She frowned into the pale face as he sat cross-legged, staring at nothing. His one uncovered eye shifted anxiously. Obviously he could not see and felt threatened by her nearness.

“I see no reason to argue, sir, over your mount’s name or lineage.” She liked sounding so mature and reasonable. “A large, gentle, black horse carried me to this place and … ”

“Are you an experienced rider?”

“No.”

“Well then, it’s exactly as I said. The animal that brought you here is not Vindicator. He has thrown every man who has attempted to ride him, including me, until we reached an understanding. In seven years in my stables, Vindicator has accepted no other rider. I personally bred his dam to the finest stallion in all of Britain. Vindicator’s bloodlines rival those of the nation’s finest families.”

Jessica fought her vexation at this injured man who insisted on pursuing an inane argument about a horse.

“Please, sir, might we discuss your horse’s name, his ancestry, or his philosophy of life another time? We have more pressing concerns.”

His lips twitched and she thought he almost smiled, and then appeared to catch himself. “I am merely assuring you that the animal you rode to my rescue here tonight is not my horse.” The man suddenly puckered his lips and gave a sharp, clear whistle.

Beyond the foliage, the horse whickered.

The man scowled, bleated a dismissive, “Ahh,” and set his sightless eye back on his companion. “What is your name, child?”

She stumbled getting to her feet, but answered curtly. “My name is Jessica Blair, sir, and I am a woman grown, not a child.”

Eying him, she puzzled as another smile nearly escaped his constraint. She had real difficulties to overcome at the moment without wasting precious time speculating about this stranger’s mercurial smile.

Jessica stepped to her right just as a breeze sorted nearby leaves, masking the sound of her movement. The man’s face did not follow. As he continued looking sternly at the place she had been, he lowered his voice to a coaxing tone.

“You sound like an intelligent girl, Jessica Blair. Have you not learned that lies seldom improve one’s position?”

He tried to stand, but as he did so, his poor, injured head grazed a low limb. He flinched and bent, looking uncertain and thoroughly vulnerable.

Jessica wanted to be as truthful as possible with this man whom she now felt certain had no sight at all. “I lie, sir, only when I deem it entirely necessary.”

Still stooped, he turned abruptly, addressing the place where her words originated. “And stop calling me ‘sir.’” He hesitated, then lowered his voice to a kinder tone. “I am properly addressed as ‘Your Grace.’”

Again he tried to straighten, presumably to assume the regal stance of someone of importance, and again banged his poor head into the same low-hanging bough.

“A duke? You, sir, are a nobleman?” She took his hand and tugged him a step forward, out from under the abusive bough. As she did so, she tried to see beneath the dirt, the injuries, and his general dishabille. Except for the expensive clothes, he didn’t look the part he claimed.

Still, she saw no benefit in arguing. “I fear the blow to your head did more damage than shows, Your Grace,” she muttered. He had nerve, chastising her for suspected lies, then feigning lofty position.

The leaves whirled again and he started, obviously uneasy. She hurried her next words to placate him.

“Sweetness — that is, your horse — is strong, Your Grace, and uninjured. He doesn’t even seem tired. You, on the other hand, are spent. We will get you mounted and deliver you to an inn. Surely there is one nearby where we can summon a physician.”

“No.” Fumbling, he flung a hand forward to brush then catch her wrist in a grip so firm she gasped. “You will convey me to my home.”

“Tonight?”

He relaxed his grip slightly but maintained his hold on her arm. “Yes. At once.”

“But you need a doctor.”

“No.” His grip on her wrist tightened.

She forced herself to hold silent.

“You must take me to Shiller’s Green. My home, Gull’s Way, is near there. Do you know the place?”

“No, Your Grace. I live near Welter. This is my first journey beyond the river valley.”

“What are you doing here now then, alone, and at night?”

“As I told you … Your Grace,” she stammered again over the title, “your horse brought me.”

“A horse, like a soldier, goes where he’s commanded.”

“Your horse does not, Your Grace, to your good fortune.” She didn’t like seeing this large commanding man at a disadvantage, stooped as if he were cowering in the shadows. “Do you plan for us to cower here among the thistles and weeds debating all night?”

He seemed caught off guard by her brash words, then covered his surprise with bluster. “Of course not. However, I do expect you to provide a believable explanation of your presence here before this night is over. You would do well to come up with a more convincing story.”

With that, he turned abruptly, as if leading a charge. Jessica stood glowering at the back of this man who displayed such a vexing lack of regard or appreciation for her considerable effort and inconvenience on his behalf.

After moments of flailing and being slapped this way and that by wayward branches, he finally set a steadying hand on the trunk of a sapling and assumed a mostly upright position.

Again taking his measure, Jessica straightened to her full height. He definitely was of a size to fit the huge horse waiting beyond the briars. How in heaven’s name could she manage him through the underbrush and see him onto his immense mount? As she delayed, the man cocked his head as if listening to her thoughts.

Profoundly aware he could not see her, she had a fleeting, unconscionable thought. She could abandon him. Could take his precious horse, for that matter. He could scarcely prevent it.

Where had such an outrageous idea come from? It was more like John Lout than Jessica Blair. It was this man’s fault. He annoyed her almost beyond patience. Of course, she could never live with herself if she left him helpless, friendless. Friendless was probably this man’s usual condition, and through no fault of hers. Surely he displayed a more civil attitude toward his peers than he showed those less fortunate who were foolish enough to render aid.

As to his horse, the animal probably would refuse to go in any direction without him.

All right. She would see the ingrate to his horse and mounted. Then the four-legged one, which still had its eyesight and what appeared to be an unerring sense of direction, could deliver this duke home.

She regretted having told the man her name or having mentioned Welter. It would be better if she had simply reunited this insufferable soul with his steed then turned her feet toward home.

Jessica shuffled as she approached the man with new determination, intentionally making noise so as not to startle him. Addressing him in the kindly tones one might use with a recalcitrant child, she fitted his arm around her shoulder.