Free Georgette Heyer by Royal Escape

cottage possessed. A sharp-featured woman was bending over the open fire. She turned, as the King entered, and dropped him a rather perfunctory curtsey, looking narrowly at him as she did so. A little girl with straight, fair hair gathered into a cap, peeped from behind her skirts, a finger in her mouth. The King smiled at her, saying to Richard: 'Is the little maiden yours?'
      'Ay, so please your honour,' replied Richard, grati fied. 'Make your curtsey, Nan! And this is my wife, who is as glad as I be to serve your honour.'
      A minatory note sounded in his voice. Mrs Penderel curtseyed again, but with her eyes cast down, and a forbidding look about her compressed lips.
      The kitchen was not furnished with chairs, but the King pulled up a joint-stool to the fire, and sat down to warm himself, casting his hat on the floor beside him. Moisture began to stream from his clothes; he held his long, beautiful hands to the blaze, an action which drew from Mrs Penderel a muttered remark that the sight of them would surely betray him.
      Richard told her sharply to hold her peace, and to bestir herself to provide supper for the visitor.
      'There's naught but bacon and some eggs in the
    house, as I told you an hour agone,' she said. She looked sullenly at Humphrey and George, and Francis Yates, and added: 'Do you look to me to get food for them hungry good-for-naughts as well? I wonder your sister Nell would let her man go begging to a poor woman's house for his supper!'
      'No!' Richard said, nipping her arm in his hand, and giving it a shake. 'For the King, woman!'
      She said under her breath: 'You will ruin us by this! I'll be bound there's them as would give you a fortune for news –'
      She stopped, growing rather white, for the look in Richard's eyes frightened her. He was breathing rather hard through his nose; she was afraid he would strike her, and said quickly: 'I will get supper for him.'
      She pulled her arm out of Richard's hold, and turned to find the King's heavy-lidded eyes fixed upon her. She coloured, and said defensively: 'I'm sure it's not me would be wishing harm to your honour, but we be poor folks, and if aught should befall my good-man I know not what must become of me and the innocent childer.'
      'Get supper!' Richard growled, and said apolo getically to the King: 'Never heed her, master! She is a poor, foolish creature. Your honour is safe in my house.'
      'I do not doubt it,' the King said. He bent to unfasten the latchets of his shoes. 'What can be done to make these shoes of yours less discomfortable to my stupid feet?'
      Seeing him fumbling unhandily at the latchets, Francis Yates ran forward, and knelt to help him. Nan Penderel's eyes widened to see her uncle drawing the shoes from the strange visitor's feet, and she uplifted her voice in a wondering question: 'Can that man not take his shoon off ?'
      A gleam shot into the King's eyes: he held out his hand to her invitingly. 'Nay, sweetheart, that is a home-question! I have been very ill-taught indeed.'
      She drew nearer. 'Who be you?' she asked. 'I don't know you.'
      'I am one Will Jones, a wood-cutter come in search of work in these parts,' responded the King, setting her upon his knee. 'Do you think any would hire me?'
      She shook her head, saying with a quaint air of wisdom: 'These be very sickly times. There's no work for honest men. Why do you wear my father's jump coat?'
      'Faith, because I have no other, Mistress Sharp Eyes!'
      'You must needs be a very poor man,' she said.
      'Yes, a very poor man,' he answered, sighing.
      She tucked her little hand into his. 'Don't be sad. My father will have a care to you,' she told him.
      'I never knew Nan so hang upon a stranger!' Richard said, a slow smile curving his mouth. 'But she must not tease your honour.'
      'Let us be; we are in a fair way to a comfortable under standing,' replied the King.
      Yates rose from his knees, saying: 'Nan will be