‘Thank you.’ She turned to John. ‘You heard Jonas—be prepared to defend yourself, but I shall try to draw them away if I can.’
‘Take care yourself, Sister.’
Babette nodded. She hurried away from the hut, which was sheltered by thick bushes and thorns and not easy to find unless you knew where it was situated. She moved quickly until they had put some distance behind them, then began to fill her basket with herbs, berries and the leaves she wanted to make her fever mixture. Seeing the mushroom that Jonas had added she recognised it as poisonous and was about to remove it and throw it away when a party of horsemen entered the small clearing. She recognised them at once and her heart jumped with fright. Had Jonas not heard them in time they might have happened upon him and been suspicious of why he loitered in the woods.
‘Mistress Harvey.’ Captain Colby looked down at her, his forehead creased. ‘What do you here?’
‘I have been foraging,’ Babette told him, lifting her chin. His eyes were suspicious as they centred on her, sending a thrill of fear through her—though her fear was for her brother and Drew rather than herself. ‘I was not aware that I had to ask for your permission to look for herbs in these woods.’
Captain Colby dismounted, a flash of annoyance in his face. He looked at her in such a way that she felt he suspected her of an illicit meeting of some sort. Babette raised her head proudly, challenging him with her eyes.
‘What have you in your basket?’ he asked. He blocked her path as she tried to step away. His eyes bored into her, making her heart jump. She felt his anger as cold as ice as he moved closer. She held the basket forward for him to see, and his mouth thinned.
‘What is this?’ he asked, pointing at the poisonous fungi with his finger. Now the suspicion was in his face. ‘Do not say it was picked in error, for you would not be foraging at all if you were not aware of such dangers.’ His gaze narrowed as she hesitated, seeming to become colder than ever. ‘Were you hoping to feed it to me at supper somehow? You know that one small taste makes the stomach wrench with pain and enough of this is certain death to the eater.’
Babette looked at it as she sought for an answer, but Jonas came to her rescue. ‘I picked it, thinking it good to eat. My mistress did not see me place it in the basket.’
‘I was about to throw it away,’ Babette said. ‘Jonas picked the wrong fungi. I was busy picking herbs and did not realise.’
Captain Colby took the offending fungi in his gloved hand and threw it away, but the look he gave Babette told her that he doubted both her word and that of her servant. He truly suspected her of having picked it with the intent of doing him some harm. Her stomach clenched, for some men might have had her arrested and flogged—or imprisoned—on such a suspicion. She returned his cold look, tossing back her long hair, which glinted and took fire in a ray of sun reaching through the canopy.
‘Take care when picking your mushrooms in future, mistress,’ he said. ‘A mistake like that can cost the life of a dear one—and if it was intended for an enemy it would be a bad mistake. My friends would have avenged me, and your aunt and her family might have been blamed.’
‘It was meant for no one. Had you not come crashing through the trees it would already have been discarded. No harm was intended to anyone. Jonas made a simple mistake.’
‘Have you finished your foraging?’ he asked. ‘We shall escort you home, mistress, for there are reports of dangerous men in this wood—and I should not wish you to fall foul of them, even if you do consider me your enemy.’
‘We are of opposing beliefs, sir,’ Babette replied with dignity. If he escorted her home, his men would not stumble on the hut that harboured her brother and Drew Melbourne. ‘Yet I do not think you precisely an enemy, for I believe you an honourable man.’
‘Indeed?’ His gaze became slightly puzzled, as if he was not sure whether to trust her. She prayed that he would not realise she wanted him gone from the woods. Had he suspected her reason for speaking him fair, he might have searched harder and found the hut that sheltered her brother. ‘Then perhaps you will let me take you up on my horse. Your servant may take your basket back to the house.’
Babette felt trapped. If she refused him now, who knew what he might do? He already thought ill of her and was suspicious; if he decided to make a thorough search of the area he might stumble on the hut. She had no choice but to let him take her up, though the thought made her tremble inside. Hiding her trepidation, she turned to her servant.
‘Take this back to the kitchen. Do not pick any more fungi,’ she said. ‘I must teach you what is good to eat and what is deadly.’
‘Forgive me, mistress.’
Babette inclined her head. Hoping that her servant understood why she sounded harsh, she turned and waited for the Parliament captain to give her his hand to help her mount pillion behind him. Instead, he swept her up, his big hands one each side of her waist, lifting her to the front of the saddle with ease and mounting swiftly behind her so that his arms were about her when he caught the reins.
Her whole body trembled, unable to hide how much his nearness affected her. She was encased in a strong muscular embrace and could not have escaped had she wished. The masculine scent of him was as powerful as his physique, a mixture of horses, leather and fresh sweat and beneath it the smell of skin recently washed with a good soap. It was not the kind of soap her aunt might make at home, but had probably been made by a perfumery in France or perhaps some Eastern land, as it was infused with scents that were not familiar to her.
It was not the kind of scent often met with in the country, for the servants washed only when they changed their clothes and that might be any time between a week and two months. Aunt Minnie would not put up with slovenly dress in her servants and so those in the house were forced to wash both themselves and their clothes at least once a week, but many of the common folk seldom bathed. There were always the exceptions, of course, but many of them smelled unpleasant. Wealthy gentlemen often disguised their lack of cleanliness with strong perfumes imported from the East, but both Babette’s family and her uncle’s, were more conscious of the benefits of soap and water.
‘’Tis filth that breeds disease, if you ask me, and it be certain that it brings rats,’ Aunt Minnie was fond of saying. ‘I can’t have folk in my house that carry lice in their hair or fleas on their body. If I find they have them, it’s off with their things and into the lye bucket—and a scrubbing for them in the washtub.’
The cure seemed far the worst evil to her servants and most obliged their mistress by having a body wash once every week—and washing their hands and face each morning, and even before meals, if she were about to watch them.
This man had washed all over that day, for his scent was above all fresh. Babette found his smell comforting as well as pleasing. His hair was long, but it too had been freshly washed and was brushed back from his forehead and fell in soft waves to his shirt collar. Had it been cut short, she suspected it would curl tightly about his ears; the thought made her smile, for as a boy John had had ringlets, but when his hair was cut they were lost for ever and it now grew straight.
‘You are thoughtful, mistress. Have I prevented a meeting with your lover?’
Was that why he’d insisted on escorting her home? Had he thought he was saving her from sinful behaviour here in the woods? She’d thought him more of a soldier than a religious zealot, but was he also a Puritan in his thoughts? Yet that did not accord with his scented soap and his fine linens—many
