Free Scarlet From Gold (Book 3) by Jeffrey Quyle Page A

bread.
    Just then there was a timid knock at the door.  “Come in,” Marco called.
    The door opened, and the cook from the evening before opened the door and leaned in the room.  “You sent for me, my lord?” she asked cautiously as she examined the scene in the room.
    “No, I didn’t send for you,” Marco said apologetically.  It was clear from her tousled hair and the wrap she wore around her body that she had been called from her bed to come see him.  “I’m sorry to have awoken you.  I just asked if you were alright after everything that happened last night.”
    “Yes, my lord, thanks to you,” she answered.  “Do you need help with your bread and jam?” she asked, recognizing the predicament that Marco was in.
    Marco looked down at the arm in the sling.  “Yes,” he sighed, “if you don’t mind.”
    “The other nobles are most impressed to see you here, my lord,” the girl told him as she took a seat on a stool next to the bedside and picked up a slice of bread.  “They talked about you more than they talked about the robbery, I thought.”
    “Was anyone else hurt?” Marco asked.
    “Just one of the servants for the nobles.  He’s resting in another room, my lord,” the girl told him.
    “You don’t have to call me ‘my lord’,” Marco told her.  “My name is Marco.  What’s your name?”
    “Kaitelyn, my lord,” she dutifully answered as she spread jam on the slice of bread.
    “Well Kaitelyn, thank you for your help here – and last night,” he told her.  “Please tell your father I appreciate his hospitality, and I hope I’ll be able to leave the inn in a day or two,” he told her, assuming that the girl was the daughter of the innkeeper.
    The look of confusion on her face told him that he had said something wrong.
    “The innkeeper is not my father, my lord Marco,” she replied as she stood up.  “He is my master, and I’ll be sure to pass along your thanks to him, though I’m sure that it’s you he owes thanks to.”  And with that she fled the room.
    Marco sat in his bed, holding his uneaten bread in his hand, as he wondered what he had done or said wrong, and wondering how far from the truth his assumption had strayed.  Moments later there was another knock at the door, and a heavyset man came into the room, standing at the doorway.
    “What did that dratted girl do my lord?” he asked in a worried tone.  “I’ll whip her for a month if she’s done anything to upset you.  I saw her come out of here all pale and weepy, and I knew she was mucking up something, and with you being a hero and all, she shouldn’t deny you anything.
    “What can I do for you, my lord?” he asked.
    “Nothing, really.  The girl didn’t upset me.  I must have said something that upset her.  Is she close to her family?” Marco asked carefully.
    The man paused.  “Ah, is that what it was?  My lord, I’ll fetch the girl right now and have her speak properly to you,” the innkeeper said, and before Marco could protest or defend the girl, the man was gone, and his voice bellowing Kaitelyn’s name traveled down the hall behind him.
    Marco felt even more confused by the inexplicable reactions of the two inn staff members.  With a groan, he turned himself and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, throwing his covers off so that he could get up and get dressed and go discover what the mystery of the girl was.  Achingly he stood, and as he did, there was a sound at the door, and Kaitelyn burst into the room, crying.
    She saw Marco standing by his bed and screamed, as Marco hastily groped with his one available hand to find the bedcovers and hastily pull them in front of himself.
    ”Stop, stop, stop!” Marco shouted until Kaitelyn stopped her screaming and stared at him in wide-eyed astonishment.
    Marco sat back down on the bed. He closed his eyes, as the room subsided into silence, except for the sound of the girl’s heaving sobs.
    “What is your story?” Marco