Page 3 of The Trials of Alaric
“I try to be.” A confused gentleman, and one that was as weak as a kitten. “May I be permitted to know your name, my lady?”
She chuckled. “How rude of me. I am Beatrice Collister, daughter of the Earl of Claddach.”
“And I am Alaric Redhaven, second son of the Earl of Elsmouth. I am pleased to meet you, Lady Beatrice. I apologize for not standing, but I think I would fall over if I did.” His head was pounding. He must have hit it, though he remembered nothing after the decision to leap from the sinking ship.
Lady Beatrice smiled. “Stay where you are, Mr. Redhaven.” She stood. “I just popped in to see you on my way to retire. I am so pleased you have recovered consciousness, but I recommend you go back to sleep. Tomorrow will be soon enough for you to try to get up.” She gestured to someone behind her, and a footman stepped into Alaric’s field of vision. “If you need anything, ask Colyn here, or Gilno, who will be replacing him at midnight.”
“Thank you. And please thank your father for his hospitality,” Alaric said.
That fetched him another bewitching smile. “Vaaichis pleased to offer you refuge. Goodnight, Mr. Redhaven.” She left the room in a rustle of silk; it seemed emptier and far less hospitable in her absence, somehow.
“His lordship’d be surprised to be thanked, and so he would,” Colyn ventured, after Lady Beatrice had left. “I’d wager our lady hasna mentioned ye yet, sir. An earl’s son, is it? Well, perhaps our earl’ll be pleased to have ye here, at that. Now, sir, is there anything ye need for yer comfort afore ye sleep?” The accent had a lilt something like Irish. Or perhaps Scots. Halfway between would fit the geography Lady Beatrice had described.
Alaric tried to make sense of the footman’s words about his host, but all his attention was required to stay upright, with Colyn’s help, to—as the man put it—deal with his comfort. As soon as his head was back on the pillow, he sank back into sleep.
Chapter Two
When Alaric wokeagain, the room was lit by daylight rather than candles and the lamp. Reluctant daylight—the rain continued to pound the window—but bright enough for him to see the room in more detail.
A different footman was dozing in one of the chairs by the fire. Gilno, Alaric assumed. He jerked awake when Alaric struggled into a sitting position.
“Sir,” he said, standing and stepping toward the bed. “Good morning.” His accent was thicker than Colyn’s—hisdalmost at, and his vowels so different to what Alaric expected that he had to make a mental translation.
“Good morning,” he replied, after a moment.
“Be ye more yerself this day, sir?” the footman enquired. “It’s a good long sleep ye’ve been after havin’.”
“I am better, thank you.” Alaric’s reply was untrue. He ached everywhere, and was conscious of bruises on his head, his shoulder, and his thigh that formed the foreground pain against a background of generalized discomfort. Still, nothing felt broken or out of place, and bruises were always worse on the day after an injury.
“Doctor’ll be by to see ye, sir,” Gilno told him. “Milady, too. I’ll get ye cleaned up a bit, if y’feel up to’t.”
“Lady Beatrice,” Alaric said. Her visit last night felt like a dream, but he remembered the name.
“Aye, sir.”
Alaric managed to swing his legs out of the bed and over the side but was grateful for Gilno’s support when he dropped to the floor—the bed was higher than he expected and his knees were shaking. Various other parts of his anatomy were also complaining.
“Let me help ye to chamber pot,” Gilno suggested, “then sit ye down while the hot water comes for yer wash.”
With a great deal of help from Gilno, he washed, and dressed in a pair of loose pants, a shirt, and a man’s silk dressing robe, with a kerchief knotted at the neck. No slippers or house shoes, for which Gilno apologized and offered stockings as an alternative. “But Lady Bea will find something to fit you, sir,” he assured Alaric, who was beginning to acclimate to the accent and easily understood that he owed his current attire to the earl’s daughter.
By the time Alaric was done, fatigue was weighing him down, but he refused Gilno’s suggestion that he return to the bed. “I will sit in the chair by the fire,” he decided. He would feel more confident meeting the doctor, the young lady, and perhaps his host. He accepted the offered footstool. No point in being stupid about it.
Gilno brought him food and drink. A couple of slices of bread that Gilno toasted over the fire and—praise the merciful angels—a pot of hot, bitter coffee. Alaric managed one slice of the toast with some sort of conserve. He had a second cup of the coffee.
The doctor and Lady Beatrice arrived together, but the doctor sent the lady away while he examined Alaric. “I was right last night. Nothing broken,” he said at last, after prodding and poking Alaric in uncomfortable places, looking into Alaric’s eyes, examining the bruises, and removing various dressings and replacing them. “Rest for a few days, young man. You’re luckyto be alive, but you have come away with little more than a bad headache. I’ll order some willow bark tea for that.”
He repeated his diagnosis for Lady Beatrice when she rejoined them. “I shall send my bill to the house steward,” he declared, and Lady Beatrice thanked him.
“I have money,” Alaric offered, but no. He’d put his money pouch in his coat pocket before leaving his cabin, but he’d removed his coat before jumping into the water so it would not weigh him down. He shook his head and sighed. “I lost it in the wreck,” he admitted. “But if you send me an account, Doctor, I shall pay it as soon as I reach England. I do not mean to be a charge upon the castle.”
The look Lady Beatrice gave him was nothing short of patronizing. “Cashtal Vaaichis not an inn, Mr. Redhaven. We do not present our guests with a bill.”
Maybe so, but neither was Alaric a beggar, relying on the charity of others. Except at this moment, when he depended on theVaaichhousehold for food, clothing, the roof over his head, even his life. The knowledge pinched at his pride.
“You shall allow me to pay my own doctor’s bill, Lady Beatrice,” he said.
She looked at him, her head tipped to one side and with a thoughtful expression on her face. She was really very beautiful. He wondered why she was not wed, for she must be in her early twenties. But then, perhaps shewaswed. He really knew nothing about her. “The doctor’s bill,” she agreed, her tone haughty. “I shall authorize the steward to pay Dr. Bryant, and to give you an accounting. Will that be satisfactory, Mr. Redhaven?” She lifted an interrogatory eyebrow.
