He tried not to let the surprise or delight enter his voice. “You watched the game?”
The crisp in her hand paused halfway to her mouth as she looked at him. “No.” She crunched down on the thin slice of fried potato. “Davie called after to invite me to a party.”
His vision blurred as heat shot through his body. Even after he’d warned the nit to stay away from his family, he’d still had the gall to call? Seth’s nostrils flared as he clenched the armrests of the chair, willing away every instinct that screamed for him to move. To do something. Protect his sister any way that he could.
He felt himself losing control.
Jesus.
As far as prayers went, the single word wasn’t much. Even a month after giving his life over to the Lord, he still wasn’t eloquent. But he found he didn’t need to be. He just needed say the name.
Like someone had turned on a switch, he found his temperature lowering. His pulse leveling out. The ringing in his ears quieted and he breathed in a deep breath. “Oh?” he asked, as if the news hadn’t just sent him into a Marvel Comics transformation. “You going?”
Kayla watched him, her eyes never leaving his face. “I haven’t decided. While your teammates are a bunch of egotistical narcissists, they know how to have fun.”
He made a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat. At least, he hoped that was how it sounded, because in reality, he choked on the words that wanted to spew from his mouth.
Her brow rose. “That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say?”
He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “What do you want me to say, Kayla?”
She swore under her breath. “A month ago you would be pacing this room like a caged bull. Ranting and raving about how Davie was nothing but a tosser and I deserved someone who wasn’t just going to use me to warm his bed. A month ago you would have threatened to force me to move back in with Mum so she could keep track of me and make sure I didn’t do anything stupid.” She rose from the sofa with grace fit for the royal family, disdain twisting her pretty face and hurt dulling her eyes. “A month ago you cared enough to say that, Seth. I swear, I thought I didn’t know you anymore. Now I know I don’t.”
When she turned her back on him and left the room, it felt like a door closing on their relationship.
Dear Lord, couldn’t he do anything right?
Chapter Four
Holy Roman Empire, 1527
Christyne slumped against the cold stone wall of the undercroft, perspiration running a line down the middle of her back. Only by a miracle from God had she been able to help the wounded stranger back to the castle without being seen. Even now she wondered at the events of the past hours. If she had not witnessed all, she would not believe the happenings true.
A moan escaped from the injured man’s chapped lips and echoed around the empty space. He had hobbled through the woods, using her as a crutch, his body burning against hers. How long had he sheltered under the brush? Long enough to catch a fever, though she prayed not a poisoning of blood. At present he lay prostrate on the floor, still as death.
And mayhap death would claim him yet.
She pressed a hand to her heart, offering up a prayer of praise and thanksgiving. And another for wisdom and guidance.
She had delivered the man to safety for the moment, but what should she do with him now?
A man chased by heretic hunters, and my father loyal to Pope Clement and the Church. If Prince Ernst were made aware of the recusant concealed within his own castle walls, he would hand the man over to the authorities himself.
Christyne rose to her knees and crawled the few paces to where the man had collapsed, all her strength drained from having supported most of his weight from the woods beyond. She pushed his hair, streaked with mud and sweat, from his brow. He had a wide forehead that bespoke intelligence, and she was struck again by the impression that this man had once graced the hallowed halls of academia as a scholar.
Was he a follower of that professor, Martin Luther? If so, his fate need not be so dire. Once his wound healed, he could escape and seek refuge within a state that had made Luther’s new religious beliefs the law of the land.
She firmed her lips, strength returning to limbs that had trembled under impossible weight and strain. As prayers and vigilance had their place, so did action.
She rose and dusted off the skirts of her borrowed clothing. Dark crimson stains had dried in spots, evidence of her harrowing morning. Hette would need her kirtle replaced, for Christyne feared the blood would stubbornly cling to this one.
“I shall return,” she assured the man, though she did not know if he heard her. His striking eyes had yet to flutter open since they had settled in the undercroft.
“Wait,” he croaked, and her feet stilled. “Wine. Honey, Indian saffron if you have it, or barley flour. Some probes.”
“Pardon?”
“Wine for cleaning the wound. Infection.” He winced. “Honey and Indian saffron to make a poultice. Expedite healing. And bindings. We will need bindings. Mayhap a knife.”
