“They were starting to build those big enclosed markets then, but Tottenham were still just stalls and stands on either side of the lane, and that were us,” Beth said.
Etienne shifted slightly, and for a moment, Scotty was able to see Beth. The fire had taken her hair too, but her head was already healed, and her beautiful red hair had grown back a quarter inch or more. Oddly enough, she looked lovely even without the long, rich red locks. Unlike his, her face was healed, and she looked adorable and somehow innocent and sweet as if the fire had burned her sins away.
“I used to love the market. I worked hard, but had friends there too, and on warm beautiful summer days it was great fun. However—” She paused, and he saw her grimace and give a shudder before Etienne shifted again, blocking her from view once more as she continued, “Winter was a different story. It was something awful then. So cold ye were sure yer toes and fingers’d fall off, and ye hardly sold anything anyway on those days. Those penny pies could be fresh from the oven, but by the time we got them to market they were frozen solid.”
“So,” Rachel asked, “when you grew up did you bake penny pies and sell them at market too? Like your mother?”
There was a brief silence, and Scotty found himself clenching his fingers as he waited for her response, and then she finally said, “Nay. The cholera took me ma and Little Ruthie when I was ten. I don’t know why I didn’t get it,” she added. “I ate the same food as them, drank the same drinks and went all the same places. I even nursed them when they fell ill, but never got it.” She paused briefly and then continued, “Unfortunately, while I’d helped with making the filling ere that, Ma never got around to teaching me to make the pastry. When they passed, I tried to take over making the pies, but . . .”
Scotty heard her give a small laugh before she admitted, “I fear ye could have hammered nails with me pies. The pastry was that hard. Course, the first day everyone was expecting me ma’s usual fine fare so bought up all me pretty pies right quick. They’d missed them while me ma and Ruthie were sick and I was nursing ’em. The second day I took pies to market, they must have thought that first day’s offerings were just a one-time mistake, or mayhap they were bought up by people who hadn’t bought any of the ones the day before, but most of the second day’s offerings sold too. But by the third day, I hardly sold any at all. I guess I was not made to be me mother.”
Scotty waited tensely then, expecting Rachel to ask what she’d done then, but the question never came. Instead, Etienne’s wife said, “You’re looking a bit pale, Beth. I think we should give you some more blood and let you sleep.”
“So are you,” Magnus murmured at Scotty’s side. “Are you in pain? Are the nanos starting into healing again?”
Scotty hesitated, but then nodded grimly. The pain had started several minutes ago, but he’d wanted to hear about Beth’s childhood. It hadn’t been what he’d expected. While he wasn’t surprised at the kind of father she’d had, what she’d said about her mother had been a revelation. In truth, it sounded like she had a childhood similar to his own in some ways. Oh, certainly, there had been a lot of differences. He was raised a laird’s heir, while she’d been the child of poor parents, scratching out a living. But Scotty had had a good and kind father and a vicious, mean whore for a mother, while Beth had had a good, kind mother and a vicious, violent drunkard for a father. They’d each had one good parent and one bad.
Scotty didn’t protest when Magnus urged him back to his room. He went quietly, his thoughts in turmoil.
“Should I leave you to rest?” Magnus asked as he ushered him into his room. “Or are you well enough to talk about what to do about Beth?”
“What do you mean, do about her?” Scotty asked with a frown.
“To protect her,” he explained. “This latest attack proves the one in Vancouver was not a one-off. Someone is out to get her.”
“The fire at the barn was an attack on Beth?” Scotty paused at the side of the bed and turned to face him, alarm rushing through him and briefly displacing the pain that had begun to eat at him.
“Of course! You do not know,” Magnus said, sounding irritated with himself. “Sit down and I’ll tell you what happened.”
Scotty hesitated, but then dropped to sit on the bed and waited.
It seemed to Beth that she barely drifted off to sleep when arguing voices brought her back awake. Scowling, she opened her eyes and glanced around the dark room. No one appeared to be there with her. The voices were coming from the hallway.
“I agree. Someone needs to watch her. But not you,” she heard Magnus say. “You need to heal, Scotty. You are a bloody mess at the moment. You will scare the girl half to death if you go in there looking like that.”
Beth’s eyebrows rose and she wondered what he meant by it. Scotty was a mess? Why? Had he been hurt? No one had mentioned that when she’d woken up.
Frowning, Beth sat up and pushed the sheets and blankets aside to get out of bed. Much to her relief, the room didn’t spin around her and she didn’t sway on trembling legs. She was done healing for the most part, and Rachel said she just needed a good night’s rest as the nanos finished the work inside her and she’d be good as new. The fact that she was no longer suffering pain had made Beth think that the healing must be over. However, Rachel said her pallor and the continued need for extra blood suggested otherwise. The nanos were still working inside, just on things that apparently didn’t hurt. Perhaps even only on rebuilding their forces, but whatever the case, she should take the opportunity to rest to help them along, rather than slow their progress by giving them more work.
“Scotty, listen to me,” Magnus said now. “Donny, Etienne, Mortimer, and I will take turns sitting with Beth. We will keep her safe. What you need to do now is concentrate on healing.”
“I listened to ye the last time and look what happened,” Scotty shot back. “She’d be fine, ye insisted. She’d have Kira and her bodyguards there with her to keep her safe, ye assured me. Besides, whoever attacked her in Vancouver wasn’t likely to follow her back to Toronto, ye said. And now look! She barely escaped having her head cut off, and was damned near burned to death.”
“I know. I was wrong,” Magnus said soothingly. “I will not make the same mistake twice, though. Obviously whoever attacked her in Vancouver has followed her back here. We will keep an eye on her now and we will look into who it could be. I am just saying that you should concentrate on healing yourself. Just for the next twenty-four hours. The worst of your healing should be over by then and you can—”
“I can heal and watch her too,” Scotty growled, turning away from Magnus and toward her door just as she opened it.
They both froze. Beth noted that Scotty was scowling at her as if expecting her to try to send him away, but she was too busy taking in the ruin of his face and head to do so.
His hair, that long, beautiful hair she’d tangled her hands in and pulled as he loved her, was gone. In its place was a charred mess. It was how she imagined a scorched earth would look from space. But that wasn’t even the worst of it. His face too was charred, but the healing had started there so that strips of flaking black skin were interspersed with ribbons of raised, red, ridged scars.
“It’ll heal,” he growled and Beth shifted her eyes to his, blinking as she noted the solid silver staring back. The nanos were obviously hard at work there, repairing whatever damage the fire had done. At least, she assumed it was fire, although she had no idea how he’d been burned. She’d got out of the fire on her own. Beth remembered that much. Reaching out, she gently touched a section of his face that was already scarred and shouldn’t hurt and asked in a soft voice, “How?”
Scotty raised a hand to cover hers and she just managed not to flinch at the mess it was. Dear God, the pain he must be in, she thought weakly.
“He tackled you when you came running out of the barn on fire,” Magnus explained when Scotty remained silent. “He rolled on the ground with you, trying to put out the flames.”
That made Beth frown, and she glanced to the man and asked, “But why isn’t he healing?”