A Ranger's Temptation

Chapter Three

 

Aragorn waited only a moment in the darkened hallway after knocking before he started to turn away, thinking better of questioning the whore after all. As he started down the hall, he heard the door creak open.

"Sir?"

He cursed silently under his breath, and turned back to Meredith, who was standing in the doorway. The candlelight behind her cast her shapely body in silhouette beneath her diaphanous white dressing gown; her auburn braid snaked darkly over her shoulder and between her breasts. He felt his face grow hot with renewed shame, and was inwardly thankful that the hallway was cast in shadow.

He cleared his throat. "Yes...Meredith. I need to speak with you."

She smiled--radiant, shy--not at all the coy smile of a tavern whore, he thought. "Of course, Sir. Come in."

Aragorn crossed the threshold quickly, and took in the sights of her tiny chamber in one glance. Washtub, bed--and little else. He saw the water freshly puddled on the wooden floor near the tub. It was more than obvious that she'd been bathing, which did not surprise him, really. He knew that, in her place, he would have wanted to wash after lying with someone as travel-worn as he. And likely, this was a common tub, and she was the last at it. He realized then he may have interrupted the only peace this busy woman had gotten in this day. "I have not disturbed you?"

"No, Sir." Again, the smile. And she looked at the floor first, and then up at him slyly, her green eyes shining. "I have been somewhat expecting you, Sir."

*Was she so certain that I would fall again?* Aragorn thought angrily. Had she thought that, simply because she had offered, he would come sniffing after her like a stray mongrel after the butcher at day's end? He scowled as he turned that thought over in his mind, and then unearthed another: or, had she heard him weeping in his shame over Arwen? She was searching his eyes, the smile still upon her lips, but somehow more lascivious now than it had seemed a moment before. *No,* he decided silently, *She was expecting me only because she was paid for--nothing more.*

Determined to show her that he had come for no such reason, he wasted no time in coming to the point. He looked directly into the emerald pools of her eyes and said, "I have come to ask what it is you really want of me, and why you sought me out tonight."

Her cheeks reddened and she dropped her gaze. "Is it...is it not enough that you seemed lonely, Sir Strider? And that I have need of money?"

He was silent. Perhaps he was being unreasonable after all. Perhaps the rumors of unrest in Mordor had set him on edge so that he saw spies behind every tree...and in every barmaid who sought the coin of a man in obvious need of a tussle. He started to speak to her again, but found that she was still staring intently at his feet. He reached down and took her chin gently in his calloused hand, bringing her face up again so that he could meet her gaze.

"Most women who seek the company of strange men for money are more than eager to leave when their services have been rendered," he said simply, quietly--not, he hoped, admonishing or interrogating her, but clearly questioning her earlier behavior. If she had another motive for wishing to linger in his company, perhaps she'd share it now.

Her lip quivered then, and her lovely green eyes filled with tears. "I am sorry, sir," she blurted out. "I do not know you, Sir...and am sure you wish to know no more of the likes of me than is necessary. But, you...you have a trustworthy demeanor...an honest face. I cannot lie to you. I was...directed to watch for news of strangers, especially hobbits...and I was told you might know something, being a friend of that wizard...." She stepped back, pulling her chin out of his hand, and looked away again.

"Who told you to do this?" Aragorn asked urgently. She made no reply. He took her by the shoulders and gave her a little shake. "*Who is your master*?"

"He'll...kill me!" she sobbed, obviously miserable.

Aragorn reached back and closed the door to her chamber, still firmly grasping her arm with one calloused hand. He then searched her face, scanning for signs of a whore's deception, but saw nothing in those liquid green eyes except fear--fear of being harmed by her as-yet-unnamed employer. And then, a more immediate fear of the Ranger himself.

"I will not let that happen," he said, trying to calm her though his own calmness, which he retained in spite of this new and disturbing revelation. "Who?"

"B-Bill Ferny," she blubbered.

Bill Ferny...Aragorn searched his memory and eventually called up an image of a wiry man with a sly, narrow face. He had an idea that the man ran a stable or some such thing at the edge of town. It seemed that this Bill Ferny would bear investigating. But first he must find a way to help this girl--and a girl was what she seemed now, for she looked very young and very frightened.

"No man of the likes of Bill Ferny will harm you, of that I give you my word," he said. He released her arm.

"But...if he finds I've not done...my duty--how will I live?" A tendril of her dark red hair had slipped from the braid and was sticking to her wet cheek. "I have almost no money."

"Have you no family you can run to?" the Ranger asked, pushing the slip of hair behind her ear.

"None, Sir. I am Meredith only, now, as my family stripped my surname from me when they put me out." She stood so close as to almost be leaning against him, but it was not the same sort of leaning she had done earlier in the evening, and he bent his arm to her to offer her the support she seemed to need.

She relaxed gratefully and rested her head against his shoulder for a moment. He could feel the dampness of her shoulders through her thin nightshift, and breathed in a scent of roses even stronger than he had smelled earlier in the evening. To feel her in his arms, trusting him, made a constraint snap in his heart, releasing an emotion which he usually kept carefully hidden away, reserved only for...only for Arwen.

But then she stepped away from him, turned and rummaged underneath the thin mattress on her bed. She drew out a coin--perhaps the same one he had given to her earlier in the evening--and held it out to him. "Please--I beg you--take this back. I have not earned it."

He closed her fingers over the coin and shook his head. "No," he said softly, trying to hide his dissatisfaction with himself. Still, in his ears, his distaste sounded plain. "You gave me what I paid for."

She blushed at that, but straightened her back proudly and held out the coin again. "I would not feel right in keeping it, Sir. I was deceiving you. This way I can tell Bill Ferny that you did not hire me."

"That will not do. I think everyone in the taproom knows that I did hire you." *And that was not very discreet on my part, either*, he added silently to himself, realizing the danger into which he had placed both Meredith and himself.

He looked around then and spied the tub in the corner. An idea came into his mind.

"An exchange, then?" he continued, gesturing to the tub. "You can keep the coin as payment--for use of your tub." He grinned, running his hand through hair that had gone stringy and tangled from lack of a washing. "Elbereth knows, I certainly could use it!"

"It's not my tub, Sir. And I'm the last of us who live here to use it this evening. The water's not...the cleanest it could be."

Aragorn couldn't help but smile at that. "Neither am I," he chuckled. "I think any water would improve the state I'm in now, don't you?"

She giggled a little--a good sign, he thought. "By all means, Sir Strider," she said with a low bow, her arm outstretched to the basin.

He chuckled again. When she was not plying her trade or nervous with fear, she harbored a decent sense of humor. "You need not call me 'Sir'--just 'Strider' will do fine. That is what everyone else calls me, here."

He leaned against the wall to pull off his boots, then began to loosen his trousers for the second time that evening. Realizing what he was about to do, Meredith hurriedly turned her back. Strider's lips twitched at her sudden modesty--she had shown no such reluctance to see him naked an hour ago. He reactions continued to puzzle and delight him as the evening progressed. He pulled off his remaining clothing and settled into the still-warm bathwater.



 

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