Free Blood Moon by Goldie McBride

Kale stood upon her
stoop.

Chapter Six
     
    Enid threw her a twinkling glance,
nodded at Kale and departed, leaving Aslyn staring uncomfortably at
her visitor.
    “I’d invite….”
    “Thank you,” Kale said. He handed her a
wheel of cheese and strode inside with something wrapped loosely in
a piece of thin leather.
    Aghast, Aslyn watched speechlessly as
he moved to the hearth with the air of one who belongs. He was
carrying, she saw, a haunch of meat, already skewered and ready,
apparently, for the fire. He arranged it on the spit before he
straightened and turned to face her, his expression
unreadable.
    He had invited himself to dine with her
and had brought the main course. Or, did he think she would be the
main course, Aslyn wondered uneasily.
    After a moment, she pushed the door
closed. By tomorrow, she would almost certainly be receiving the
looks reserved for women of easy virtue, but it was far too cold to
leave the door ajar for the sake of decorum. In any case, she
doubted her reputation would survive much longer whatever she did.
Kale and Lord Algar had blatantly marched her down the street
between them. No doubt the community had been titillated over that
and was even now snickering about the healer and her two
lovers.
    The townsfolk’s low opinion of her
would not wound her, nor need she concern herself about it as any
young, unwed, woman would need to in order to find acceptance. It
might well lead to a precipitate departure for her, however, if for
no other reason than that she would be avoided out of censure and
have no way of earning her keep.
    That might have its advantages. Not
that she liked the idea of being run out of town, but it would
certainly solve her dilemma over how she might leave without
arousing suspicion.
    On the other hand, it would also leave
her more vulnerable to Kale and Lord Algar, whatever their plans
for her.
    After studying him uneasily for several
moments, Aslyn moved away from the door. “I see you’ve brought…?”
She broke off, uncertain of what the bloody chunk of meat
was.
    “A haunch of venison.”
    She nodded and continued to the
washstand, pouring water into the basin so that he could wash up.
He crossed the room to stand behind her. She glanced up at him over
her shoulder, caught by his gaze for several heartbeats before she
shook herself and moved away with the realization that he was
merely waiting for her to move so that he could wash up.
    She watched him as he washed his hands,
mesmerized by the movements of his hands and the play of muscles on
his forearms, exposed when he’d rolled his sleeves to the elbows.
His hands were strong, his fingers long and tapering. Dark hair
sprinkled the backs of them as well his forearms. She was still
watching as he turned at last, drying his hands on the cloth she’d
left beside the bowl for him. He studied her a long moment and
finally turned to the bowl once more. Lifting it, he carried it
outside to empty the contents.
    More than a little dazed by the turn of
events—for despite Kale’s earlier threat/promise, she truly had not
expected him to show up--Aslyn surveyed her cottage when he’d gone
outside. She was fortunate to have the little that she did since
she had ‘inherited’ what Gershin had left. However, Gershin had
lived alone and had not enjoyed a great deal of prosperity. The
cottage contained one small table, one rickety chair, and a narrow
bed.
    Aslyn ignored the bed. There was no
sense in stimulating the man’s imagination by inviting him to sit
on it. There was far more dirt floor in the room than anything else
… and, to be sure, little enough of that considering the size of
the cottage. She would never before have even considered such a
thing for a moment, but a very little thought told that, unless she
was willing to use the bed as a seat—which she most certainly
wasn’t—she really had no choice but to entertain her guest on the
floor.
    Irritation surged through her briefly,
that she’d been