A Girl Called Eilinora Read Free Page B

all three of them at risk by wanting to bring Liam back too. By the look on his face, it was more than likely that he had the fever.
    Owen called out to one of the stable boys, who now came out to take the horses. ‘Run in and tell cook I have a half dead girl with me. She will need a mattress near the fire, a bath ready and soup. Here take her.’
    The boy hung back, looking terrified.
    ‘Don’t worry, she is only starved, she doesn’t have the fever. There is no heat in her. I will need at least two of you ready to ride back to Geesala and collect Liam Toohey. We have left him on the road. I don’t know if he will be alive or dead.’
    Owen let the girl slip from his saddle into the boy’s arms and watched as the boy ran in through the kitchen doors, shouting for the cook, as though the stables were on fire.
    Owen handed his horse over to one of the other boys and entered the castle through the main hall. Shevlin was just behind him.
    When the stable boy returned, he said, ‘Cook wants to know, do you want the girl to stay in the kitchen or shall she be cared for in one of the cottages?’
    ‘No,’ Owen almost shouted. ‘Keep her in the kitchen. She may be sickening, we don’t know for sure.’
    Shevlin snorted. ‘Oh, I see. So we all catch it and die, instead. You will catch the fever and die, it has no notion that you are the Lord of Ballyford. What happens to everyone in the cottages and farms then? Who provides for them? Your brother in London, who doesn’t know one end of a pig from the other?’
    The air was tense, and the men exchanged a long hard look before Owen answered. ‘She can stay in the kitchen. She can sleep in there too. If she does have the fever, we can contain the risk. Tell cook I will be down when I have washed and eaten, and send two of the lads back for Liam. Make sure they have bayonets and good fast horses. They know the roads and should be safer in the dark. Can you remember where we left him?’
    Shevlin nodded. ‘Aye, I can, by the second tumbled cottage, if he’s still there that is. If he’s dead, they will have hidden him in a field ditch.’
    Shevlin was astounded by what had happened since they rode out that morning. For a start, he could not remember ever seeing Lord Owen in the kitchen. In the hall the paintings on the gallery were staring down at him. The portraits of Lord Owen and his brother, Henry had newly arrived from London. In them both men were smiling. Shevlin sighed and the thought crossed his mind, It will be a long time before anyone around here smiles again.
    As promised, once he had bathed and changed and eaten his dinner in front of the roaring fire in the main hall, Owen went down to the kitchen to check on the girl. He had found his own food hard to swallow. Braised beef from the farm, carrots from Dublin, apples from England. The hardship he had seen during the day continued to haunt him. Even after washing, he still felt dirty, and the fire could not shift the cold dread that lingered in his bones.
    Pushing his plate to one side, he downed his wine in one gulp. He felt drawn beyond all reason to the girl. He couldn’t get her out of his mind, although he knew he was being irrational. But he needed to know that she was being treated kindly. That she was being fed good food and nursed by one of the kitchen maids.
    Now he was amazed at the change in her appearance. She was propped up on a straw pallet leaning against the wall, while Mary, one of the maids slowly spooned a vegetable broth into her mouth. Although she was taking minutes to swallow each spoonful, there was a new vitality about her. Owen instantly understood, it was life.
    He squatted down beside the mattress. She smelt better, although still ripe with the smell of peat smoke and ash. It was so acrid that it seemed to burn the inside of his nostrils and his eyes watered. He rubbed his eyes with his thumbs and the cook, Mrs Gibson, used to the smell of people who lived over a fire, took it as