Amanda Scott - [Border Trilogy 2] by Border Moonlight Read Free Book Online Page A

shook her head, her gaze fixed again on the stubborn hank of hair.
    “Kit, you must know why they behaved so badly. Were you doing aught to attract their attention, or anger them?”
    Kit shrugged. “Just walking by the river and . . . and talking a bit is all.”
    Watching her, wondering if she knew more and just did not want to tell, Sibylla tried another approach, saying gently, “What is your brother’s name?”
    Kit had worked her way halfway up the strand she held and got onto her knees as she murmured, “Dand . . . They do call him Dand.”
    “I warrant his Sunday name must be Andrew then.”
    Kit shrugged again. “I call him Dand. D’ye think he’ll die?”
    As Sibylla started to assure her that God would not be so cruel, she hesitated, knowing it would be crueler to raise her hopes with what might prove a lie.
    Instead she said, “Whilst his lordship . . . the laird . . . was here, we should have thought to ask him how Dand is faring.” Wondering then if Kit had intended to divert her with the question, she said, “Have you a Sunday name, Kit—Cristina perhaps?”
    Shaking her head, she said, “Just Kit is all.”
    The door opened abruptly, and Simon appeared at the threshold, looking first concerned and then annoyed.
    “What are you doing out of bed?” he demanded of Sibylla.
    “Mercy, sir, I am still on it,” she said calmly. But she set aside the comb and stood to face him, feeling infinitely less vulnerable on her feet, bare or not. “I am a woman grown, sir,” she added then. “I’m fully capable of knowing my own mind.”
    “Nonsense,” he said. “No female ever knows her own mind.”
    She might have retorted, but his gaze had shifted. He was staring at the scarlet kirtle she wore, and she realized that without a shift beneath it, its fabric was too thin to conceal details of her body. The lack had not concerned her before, but with Simon staring so, she felt naked again. Heat flooded her cheeks.
    “Be this the young lady wha’s sick then, me laird?” a high-pitched, quavering voice inquired from behind him.
    His body had been blocking the entrance, but an old woman peeked around him. She wore a long black wool scarf draped over her unkempt, grizzled curls, and had tossed the long end across her meager chest and over the other shoulder of her faded gray tunic. In her visible hand, she carried a small black sack.
    Her voice had startled Simon, and Sibylla hid a smile as he stepped hastily aside to make way for her.
    “This is the lady Sibylla, Mistress Beaton,” he said. “She knocked her head hard against a tree branch. I want you to do what you can to ease her pain.”
    “Aye, sure, and so your lad said, me laird. I’ve brung a potion to give her.”
    “What manner of potion?” Sibylla asked. “ ’Tis naught but a headache, so a distillation of willow bark should suffice, or mayhap a mug of steeped yarrow.”
    The woman cocked her head. “D’ye ken summat o’ herbs, me lady?”
    “Some,” Sibylla said. “Willow and yarrow are both good for pain.”
    “Aye, sure, if such pain be from fever. But willow stays
all
fever, including the heat o’ lust in a man
or
woman. So, as ye’re young and bonny, ye’ll no want willow. Yarrow be good for most ailments, but me own potion o’ rectified wine wi’ camphor and spirit o’ sal ammoniac be gey better. I’ll give it a good shake and—”
    “Mercy, you do not expect me to drink such stuff, do you?”
    “Nay, me lady. I’ll just rub some on me hand and hold it hard on the injury till the potion dries.”
    “I can do that for myself,” Sibylla said, trying not to recoil at the thought of the old woman pressing hard on the knot the branch had left on her forehead.
    Looking at Simon, she said, “Prithee, sir . . .” Recalling that he believed he owed her punishment and was unlikely to be sympathetic, she paused there.
    To her surprise, he said, “Thank you, Mistress Beaton. You may leave that bottle with us. How often