Bound to Serve Read Free Page B

room at the left as she stood standing in the dark foyer. With a heavy sigh she looked around the house. Shafts of light splintered the darkness from around the edges of the heavy shutters. The house felt as closed as a crypt and less cheery, she thought as she picked up her traveling bag and walked to the kitchen.
    There was more light here coming through the lace curtains, and she was pleased to see room was well-appointed and cozy, with a stone fireplace upon which sat a spit and a stand for a kettle. An opening to the left held a flat board for baking bread and a large pine table and sideboard were generous enough in size to accommodate the preparation and serving of meals.
    Elspeth opened the back door and looked out. A picket fence surrounded a portion of the yard, where a few hens pecked jerkily outside a coop. A smokehouse stood off to the right and beside it a smaller building with stacks of wood leaning against it. Beyond that, a white carriage house now held the trap she’d just ridden in, and a ruddy-looking man was grooming the horse that had pulled it. She looked around and seeing no other people assumed this man was James.
    “Hello,” she said, and when he didn’t respond she repeated the word a bit louder. The man looked up and squinted, then smiled.
    “Ah, you’re here then!” His accent was similar to hers, but more of a lowland dialect. James jogged over. “Welcome lass.”
    “Thank you,” she said, pleased to see a kind face. “Mr. Harker told me to seek out a James.”
    “Humphrey James, aye,” he said. “That be me.”
    Elspeth felt a bit of guilt taking this man away from his duties to to tote water, but knew doing it herself would be exhausting. To her relief, her fellow servant was all too pleased to oblige, chatting with her as he filled pot after pot with water and then hauled the heated liquid up the stairs.
    They’d made small talk about home and her trip and the differences she could expect in weather and life in general now that she’d arrived to begin her service. But Elspeth detected a certain cautiousness in James that kept him from mentioning their master. And while she was curious about whether Harker was unpleasant all the time, she again followed her instincts and did not put this question to the older man.
    She was more than happy to disrobe and sink into the oak tub after folding her filthy traveling clothes, which she planned to wash later. The heat of the water seemed to permeate to her very core, and to her delight the soap had a soft, delicate scent. As she sunk beneath the water and reemerged to begin soaping her face, hair and arms she wondered if the soap had belonged to the late Mrs. Harker.
    She looked at the scented cake, musing. Had she rubbed it across her skin at the end of a long day caring for her husband and sons? Had she sat in this very tub, dreaming of the day when her lads would grow into strong men, never realizing she would not live to see that happen?
    The though made Elspeth sad, and a bit scared, too. What was to say her quest for a new life would not end in a pine box buried under a simple marker in the church cemetery she’d passed on the way here? Life was full of uncertainties. As a child playing on the moors her thoughts had never carried her beyond the distant hills. And now here she was in a land she never knew existed until a year ago.
    Elspeth stood, feeling the water slide from her body. She squeezed more from her long locks and reached for a rough cloth to dry herself. James had been kind enough to build a fire in the small room she no occupied. It was Spartan but sufficient for her needs – a bed stood by the wall and a small table across from it. A washbowl sat on top, a chamber pot underneath. A wardrobe stood against the opposite wall. Elspeth moved now to put her things in it and sighed when they didn’t even fill a quarter of the space. She’d brought all she had, but it wasn’t much. Hopefully she could find a way to beg or