Her Rags-To-Riches Christmas. Laura Martin

Чтение книги онлайн.

       Chapter Two

      ‘It doesn’t need to be anything fancy—just a shirt and trousers will do. Anything’s better than that shredded old dress.’ Alice listened to the voices outside the door for a moment before sinking fully under the water, revelling in the warmth and watching the bubbles rise to the surface in a neat little stream. It had been agony for the first few seconds in the bath, the open wounds on her back throbbing and stinging as the water came into contact with them, but she knew the importance of getting them clean. Open sores like that could fester. She’d seen more than one person’s wounds start swelling and weeping after a whipping on the transport ship on the way over to Australia and that could be fatal.

      Now though, after her body had got used to the sensation of the water against her open flesh, the bath was soothing and she silently gave thanks for having the opportunity to bathe before the journey ahead.

      Rising up to the surface, Alice could hear the argument still going on outside the door.

      ‘I’ll not dress a woman in a shirt and trousers. It’s not right. It’s not Christian.’

      ‘Whatever you can find,’ said the deep voice in reply. Her saviour. Mr Fitzgerald. A man with kind eyes, eyes that it would be all too easy to trust. Alice snorted—she wouldn’t be trusting him any time soon.

      With a sigh, she rose up out of the water, letting it drip from her body before she stepped out of the bath. She grabbed the towel from where it had been hung within easy reach and began to pat down her body, grimacing as she laid the soft material against her back. Six lashes, that was all she’d had, and the guard had made sure every single one would leave a scar. He’d ripped open her back with the first lash and continued the damage with the next five. It wasn’t the first time she’d been whipped, but it was the most painful.

      Alice heard the door click open and the landlady slipped in, brandishing a dress that was going to be much too large. Her own coarse grey sack of a dress lay shredded on the chair, stained with her blood and ripped past repair. However, looking at the garment the woman was holding in her hand, Alice wasn’t sure this would be much better.

      ‘It’s a little large, my dear,’ the woman said, her deep Yorkshire accent making Alice think of home. ‘But it’ll protect your modesty well enough. Now let’s have a look at that back of yours.’

      With a series of tuts and sighs the landlady helped her dress, leaving the material loose at the back so it wouldn’t stick to the open wounds. Alice peered in the steamed-up mirror, noting the wet strands of hair hanging around her face, the pink skin on her sunburned nose and the freckles that had appeared on her cheeks these last few months. The dress hung off her, inches too long at the bottom and sitting all wrong around her hips. She looked like a child playing dress-up in her mother’s clothing.

      ‘You’ll do, child,’ the landlady said, looking at her with her hands on her hips. ‘I’m sure Mr Fitzgerald will sort you out with something that fits once he gets you home.’

      Home. The very word sent a slither of dread into her core. This was exactly what she’d been avoiding for the nine months she’d been in Australia. Most of the other women she’d been transported with, and many who’d arrived after her, were settled with a man by now. Either the free-men, landowners, workers—any of the men who had the right to select a convict woman to be theirs, as a wife or something more lurid—or with other convicts, men who promised to look after them in this frightening new life.

      Alice had resisted both. Her life was little enough her own as it was, she didn’t want a man controlling what few choices she did have. She’d made that mistake in England, saddled herself with a man who’d promised her the world, slowly reduced her to a shadow of her former self, then led her into the situation that had resulted in her arrest and transportation.

      Now it would seem that she didn’t have a choice. Of course she was grateful to Mr Fitzgerald for stepping in when he did, but what would be the price?

      ‘Come, dear, he’s waiting for you. Eager to get back home, I would think.’

      Alice smiled weakly, allowing the landlady to usher her out of the room. Mr Fitzgerald had insisted she get cleaned up and a change of clothes before they headed for wherever it was he lived. Alice was grateful; she felt much more human now she’d washed the blood from her back and the dirt from her hands.

      As she descended the stairs she saw him sitting in the corner of the tavern, feet up on a stool and hands behind his head. There was no one else in the room, it being so early in the day, but even if there had been he would have commanded attention. He was a tall man, with broad shoulders and strong arms. Arms that hadn’t hesitated in defending her.

      She saw the moment he noticed her, watched the flicker of amusement in his eyes as he took in the dress made for a woman three times her size. Suddenly she felt self-conscious. She looked a state with her sunburned skin and her loose and tousled hair, but then she rallied. Perhaps he would be less inclined to force her into his bed if she continued to look quite so unattractive. For a moment Alice wondered if she was being uncharitable with her suspicions, but she couldn’t help it. Time and time again since her sentencing men had tried to take advantage of her—she couldn’t trust Mr Fitzgerald even if he had been kind to her.

      ‘Are you feeling fit enough to travel?’ he asked, standing. His movements were lithe and fluid, despite his size, and Alice was surprised to find him in front of her before she could blink.

      ‘Yes, sir,’ she said, looking at the ground. She was in a fix, there was no denying it. It would be foolish to run off here, with so many guards patrolling the city overseeing the work gangs of convicts. One shout from the man in front of her and she’d be dragged back to the whipping post. Still, the idea of leaving everything she’d known for the past nine months behind made her СКАЧАТЬ