Part 2 (1/2)
Close enough. ”Aye.”
She shook her head. ”Impossible. I can't be in England. I was in Freezing Bluff, Michigan, half an hour ago. I fell into a pond.” She was starting to wheeze. ”I couldn't have resurfaced in England. Things like this just don't happen!” Her voice was growing increasingly frantic.
”Perhaps the chill has bewildered you,” he offered.
”I'm not bewildered! I smell too bad to be bewildered!”
He had to agree, but he refrained from saying so.
”England! Geez! And backwoods England at that!”
”Backwoods?” he echoed.
”Backwoods,” she repeated. She looked at him accusingly. ”I bet you don't have running water, do you?”
Miles gestured apologetically toward the moat. ”I fear the water runs nowhere. Hence the less than pleasing smell-”
”Or a phone?”
”Phone?” he echoed.
”Oh, great!” she exclaimed. ”This is just great! No phone, no running water. I bet I'll have to haul my own water for a bath too, right?”
”Nay, lady. I will see to that for you.” Let her think he was being po-lite. In reality, he didn't want her moving overmuch inside. She was sop-ping wet and he didn't want moat water being dripped all over his hall, sty that it was. Having the cesspit emptied into the moat had seemed a fine deterrent to attackers at the time, but he wondered about the wisdom of it now.
”Look,” she said, planting her hands on her fluffy waist, ”I appreciate the hospitality, such as it is, but what I really need from you is a bath, some hot chocolate and a bed, pretty much in that order. Sir Sweetums will have to wait until tomorrow. Things will look brighter in the morning.”
19 She said the last as if she dared him to disagree with her.
So he nodded, as if he did agree with her.
”And then I'll figure out where the h.e.l.l I am.”
He nodded again. Whatever else she planned, she certainly needed a bath. Perhaps her wits would return with a bit of cleanliness.
”Garretts never have hysterics,” she said sternly, wagging her finger at him.
”Ah,” he said, wisely. ”Good to know.” The saints only knew what hysterics were, but he had the feeling he should be relieved the woman be-fore him never had them.
”You are a Garrett?” he surmised.
”Abigail Moira Garrett.”
”Abigail,” he repeated.
”Right. But don't call me that. Only my grandmother called me that, and only when I was doing something I shouldn't have been. Call me Abby.”
”I like Abigail better,” he stated.
She gave him a dark look. ”Well, we'll work on that later. Now, let's go get that bath, shall we?”
Miles watched her march off toward the stables. He smiled in spite of himself. The saints only knew from whence this creature had sprung, but that didn't trouble him. He'd seen many strange things in his travels. He liked her spirit. She made him smile with her bl.u.s.ter and babble.
”Miles?”
”Aye, Abigail?”
”I can't see where I'm going,” she said, sounding as if that were en-tirely his doing.
”That shouldn't matter, as the direction you've chosen is the wrong one. The great hall is this way.”
She appeared within the circle of his torchlight again. ”Great hall? What's so great about it? Do you have central heat? What, no phone but a great furnace?”
Miles didn't even attempt to understand her. He inclined his head to his right. ”This way, my lady. I'll see to a bath for you.”
20 .
He led her to the hall, ushered her inside and rehung the torch. He set the bar back across the door. That was when he heard her begin to wheeze again.
”Garretts do not faint. Garretts do not faint.”
”I'll be back for you when the tub is filled,” he said, giving her his most rea.s.suring smile. ”Things will look better after a bath.”
She nodded. ”Garretts do not faint,” she answered.
Miles laughed to himself as he crossed the hall to the entrance to the kitchens. If she continued to tell herself that, she just might believe it.
Chapter Three.
ABBY SAT IN a crude wooden washtub and contemplated life and its mys-teries. It gave her a headache, but she contemplated just the same. Gar-retts didn't shy away from the difficult.
No phone, no electricity, and no Mini Mart down the street. Things were looking grim. She looked around her and the grimness increased. Had she stumbled upon a pocket of backwoodsiness so undiscovered that it re-sembled something from the Middle Ages? The fire in the hearth gave enough light to illuminate a kitchen containing stone floors, rough-hewn tables and crude black kettles. Not exactly Better Homes and Gardens worthy.
Abby stood up and rinsed off with water of questionable cleanliness. She wasn't sure she felt much better. Even the soap Miles had given her was gross. She decided right then that she was a low fat person, especially when it came to soap. At least she thought she'd just washed with a glob of an-imal fat. She filed that away with half a dozen other things she would digest later. On the brighter side, though, at least she didn't smell so much like a sewer anymore. She'd splurge on a fancy bar of soap when she got home.
She dried off with a completely inadequate piece of cloth, then looked at what Miles had given her to wear: coa.r.s.e homespun tights and a coa.r.s.e linen tunic. Not exactly off-the-rack garments, but they would do. She put the clothes on, sans her dripping wet underthings, and found, not surpris-ingly, that Miles' hand-me-downs were much too large. They might have fit if she'd kept her oversized down coat on under them, but there was no
21.
22 LYNN KURLNAD.