Jack Pike was sitting at a table, surrounded by men holding pints, his head thrown back. She watched him. Laughing. Talking. Drinking. The ale was flowing freely, and she saw men clapping Jack on the back and thanking him. Clearly, he was standing all of them to their pints today. No wonder the place was full. The blacksmith must be among these men somewhere.
Women were in the crowd, too, with some sitting at Jack’s long table. And there were serving girls who brought the mugs of ale to the table. Often a few of them clustered around the group, needlessly. All the women looked at Jack just as Helen imagined she looked at him: slightly awestruck, flushed with excitement, unable to take their eyes away. She got closer and could hear Jack was telling jokes and stories. The same stories he had told her at dinner in the castle.
And over and over again, he found a way to say something flattering to each woman who came near him. A remark on the woman’s fine eyes or her gay hair ribbon or her pink cheeks. Accompanied by a wicked grin or a wink or his eyes trailing over the woman’s body.
It was his way, wasn’t it? And it had some generosity to it because she could see it gave the women pleasure. And surely, he did not expect to bed all of them.
Or maybe he did.
Mmpf. She shrugged. She could probably get the horse back to the keep safely even with a missing shoe since the cart was empty and easy to pull. And she didn’t fancy a blacksmith drunk on free pints laying hands on her only horse and injuring its hoof with his carelessness.
“My lady.” Jack had seen her and gotten up from the table and made his way through the crowd to greet her.
“Jack Pike.”
“Come have a drink with me.”
“Nae, but thank ye. I must get back.”
“There are some meat pies coming.”
“I cannae.”
“A countess can’t eat and drink with an old sailor in a public house, eh?”
I cannae be the ugliest woman among many women at the table of Jack Pike. That would gut me.
She repeated herself. “I must get back.”
He leaned and spoke in her ear so as to be heard over the ongoing raucous laughter and shouts. “That’s a pretty dress, Helen. I wonder why you didn’t wear it when you came to dinner with me.”
Under her unbuttoned coat, she was wearing her blue dress with the square cut neck. And, yes, it hung loosely on her as all her clothing did. But the dress had been tight when her grandfather had died so it hung less loosely than the other three she owned.
Jack went on. “You look much better in blue than brown.”
It was the same as the fine eyes and the hair ribbon and the pink cheeks. There was no meaning to it. And he didn’t really want to hear that the dress was worn so thin and patched in so many places she was surprised he could tell it was blue. And that there were sweat stains under the arms. And that no matter how many times she washed it, it smelled of sheep and smoke from a peat fire.
“I suppose ’tis a good thing God made my eyes blue, Jack Pike.”
“Although I seem to remember you saying you had a fondness for a certain pair of brown eyes.”
He winked and his brown eyes were sparkling at her and he was smiling. For a moment, the clamor of the public house died away. Then it surged back again, as noisy as ever.
“Aye. Enjoy yer meat pies,” she mumbled and began to shove her way through the throng. She must escape.
She got out into the street, but Jack was behind her. Would the irksome man never leave her alone?
“I’ll go back with you.” He walked next to her.
“Ye shouldn’t. Ye should go eat yer meat pies.”
“Mrs. Mac stuffed me with rashers and eggs and scones this morning. I don’t need the pies.” He patted his flat stomach.
“But ye are in Cumdairessie. And ye have other appetites. ’Tis a good place to satisfy those, as I have already told ye.”
He stopped walking. She turned to look at him. He was staring at her.
“You’re telling me, Helen Boyd, that you would rather have me go back into that public house and eat my pies and drink my ale and bed a whore? Rather than have me escort the Countess of Kinmarloch back to her keep?”
