Free The Bride Sale by Candice Hern Page A

make him better? He don’t got to die?”
    Verity must be careful not to give false hope. She was no magician. “I cannot promise anything, you understand,” she said. “It depends on how far along the sickness is. But I have always had good luck with my hyssop infusions and horehound syrups.”
    Now that she had committed herself, she was anxious to get on with it. Perhaps her departure from Pendurgan would be only briefly postponed. Gonetta helped her to dress quickly, and within a quarter hour, she was bending over the young freckle-faced Davey.
    He was tucked up in his mother’s bed in the servants’ quarters. With his hair as red as his sister’s, Verity had no trouble imagining him as a tiny hellion. But not at the moment. A lump formed in her throat as she examined him. Gonetta held a candle close to his mouth while Verity held open his jaw and peered down his throat. It was scarlet as a poppy, but she could see no white patches. Even so, the child was burning up with fever, his breathing raspy. She hoped it was not too late.
    The old woman in Lincolnshsire who’d taught Verity about herbs had often recommended other treatments as well for this type of disease. Verity instructed Mrs. Chenhalls, who was not only Davey’s mother but also Pendurgan’s cook, to bathe her son’s feet and legs with warm water, and then to wrap his throat in wool. This would keep the distraught woman occupied while Verity prepared the herbals.
    With Cook now unavailable, Verity enlisted the aid of Mrs. Tregelly. The housekeeper led the way into the ancient-looking, high-beamed kitchen. Ahuge open hearth dominated one wall, fitted with a swinging chimney crane and rows of adjustable pot hangers above the low, crackling fire.
    The two women rummaged through the larders and located jars of honey. Mrs. Tregelly grabbed several pots from the wall rack, sending the rest of the cook pots swinging and banging loudly against one another.
    Verity froze.
    Cold wind whipped across her face and her neck was jerked roughly by the auctioneer’s tug on the leather harness. The shouting from below was almost deafening. The crowd pressed in on her, pushing forward with each clang, clang, clang. Closer and closer until she could hardly breathe.
    â€œMrs. Osborne?”
    The housekeeper’s words broke the spell. Verity’s hand clutched at her throat, where the harness had cut into her neck. Disoriented, she gazed about the perfectly ordinary kitchen and into the concerned gray eyes of Mrs. Tregelly.
    â€œAre you all right, ma’am?”
    Verity took a deep, shuddery breath and shook off her lingering uneasiness. “Yes. Yes, I’m fine, Mrs. Tregelly.”
    Pots of water were set to boil on the modern close-fire range, oddly out of place in this centuries-old kitchen. Verity opened one of her muslin pouches and sniffed to confirm it was indeed hyssop. She added a small amount to one of the pots of boiling water to begin an infusion. In another pot, she added the horehound in preparation for a honey syrup. Forgood measure, she added a pinch of horehound to the infusion as well.
    She could have done all this almost mechanically, years of expertise driving her actions. Instead, Verity focused her attention on every simple detail of the well-known process: the crisp leaves crushed fine between her fingers, the precise balance of dried leaves to flower tops, the aroma as the herbs infused the water, indicating the proper proportions of horehound. The simple and blessedly familiar routine pushed the anxiety of delay from the forefront of her thoughts. Here, in this role, she was in control.
    â€œI do hope this helps the child,” Mrs. Tregelly said. “He be such a wee scamp, and always up to some kind of mischief, but he has a sweet nature, too. It would go hard with all of us to lose him.” She wrinkled her nose at the strong camphorlike odor that now permeated the