Mystic Mountains

sat on it.
    "Here's some clean clothes. Good job Tiger didn't come home with someone built like a barge, or they wouldn't have fit, eh?" Thelma glanced over Isabella and chuckled as she lifted a curtain across a corner to reveal pegs knocked into the wall with garments hanging on them.
    Perhaps that 's why he picked me, Isabella thought, to fit into the clothes he already had waiting here. She could think of no other explanation. It certainly wasn't for her beauty. And once he'd had a taste of her sharp tongue it was a wonder he hadn't let her go with that Malloy. When she thought of how fate had stepped in she felt ill. Someone up there must be watching over her. Tiger Carstairs wasn't so bad, for an Englishman, even though his tongue matched her own in sharpness. This Thelma seemed to think he was some sort of paragon anyway.
    "What you got in your bundle then? Did you manage to bring any of your own things with y ou, girl?" she asked, eyeing Isabella's parcel.
    Isabella unwrapped her meager possessions. "I kept the dress I wore when I went up for trial. It's not much, but at least it's mine." Holding up the threadbare garment she bit her lip as she looked at the sorry rag. It was pathetically thin. The bloodstains had been washed out by one of the nuns.
    "They made us wear these." With disgust Isabella touched the skirt of the regulation garment that had been handed to her on boarding the ship. There wasn 't much difference between it and her own dress.
    "We 'll burn those smelly old things then, eh?" Thelma turned her nose up. "There's plenty of water. No need to heat it up, it'll be warm enough coming straight out of the barrel. Come on, I'll help you wash your hair and then fetch you a fresh jug so's you can wash the rest of the grime off. You can throw the dirty water out of the window. There's a bucket there. It'll do for the vegetables. Well, what d'you think?" Crossing her thin arms again she tapped her elbows.
    Isabella swallowed the great lump in her throat. "It 's just grand," she whispered, fighting to hold back tears. Through the long months at sea she'd feared what lay at journey's end. The worst nightmare was someone like Malloy using her body, then discarding her. The best dream had been of being taken into the Governor's residence as a housemaid, or even a scullery skivvy. Never in her wildest dreams did she expect to end up with a room to call her own, and a kindly woman like this to watch over her.
    She fought the tears, but they won.
    "Now then, stop that." Thelma put an arm about her shoulders and squeezed gently. "No doubt you think you've landed in a pit of hell, but soon you'll come to know that you've fallen on your feet. Tiger's the finest master any of us could have. Was the best day of our lives when he brought me an' Gillie here. Picked us up at the wharf same as you, he did."
    "He did? You mean . . . you're a con?" Isabella sniffed back the tears and wiped a fist across her eyes.
    "Ex, deary. Anyway, time to talk later. Get yourself spruced up. Come on, we 'll get them rags off, and get you scrubbed."
    Isabella smiled. It wasn 't exactly the tub she'd dreamed of, but the promised fresh water, and as much of it as she needed, sounded like heaven to her.

 
     
     
    Chapter Four
     
    Tiger followed the line of the fence. Ye gods, he'd gone into town to fetch back kitchen help for Thelma and come back with a wench who promised to be more strife than she was worth, and a shepherd who doubtless didn't have a clue where sheep were concerned. Ah well, time would tell if either of them proved worth the trouble.
    "Hop down, lad. This is the stable," Tiger said when the gelding stopped beside the outbuilding sharing the roofline of the house. " Gillie and Thelma's room is alongside there." He pointed to the window in the back wall of the house. "One of your jobs will be to look after this one." Tiger smoothed a palm over the gelding's neck.
    The lad eagerly jumped down and together they went inside the stable. Tiger loved its smell of straw, warm horseflesh and leather. A couple of small birds flew over their heads with a flurry of wings, and out the door.
    "Old Satan here is my saddle horse; you'll take care of him too." Tiger went over to the bay whinnying from one of the two stalls, and fondled its nose. "Do you know anything about horses, Dougal?"
    "Well, I used to help the rag and bone man." There was something pitiable about the lad 's eagerness. "I was about five when me Da took us to