Lady Jenna sat on a low stool, close to a small bed where the stranger, whose head was wrapped with a white cloth to stop the bleeding, now lay.
With more candles lit in the room, she was now able to see his face and features clearly.
The stranger was a young man with golden tanned skin. From his looks, he was in his mid or late twenties, but with his rough features, he looked older than that. He had a rugged but handsome face, with a sharp, striking jawline tracing down to his sturdy muscular neck.
A stallion! That was the perfect description.
The young man looked very healthy, and it made Lady Jenna wonder how someone this healthy would get seriously injured by a mere carriage.
Jenna's eyes slowly scanned the man's body. Though he was covered with a cloth, she could still see how his legs were hanging out at the end. He was taller than the bed itself, and even his body was way bigger- he had to squeeze in to fit.
Jenna's experience with men with this body, well, not men. Her experience with her ex-husband had made her afraid of men that were very big in size. Just by looking at the man, she was already afraid that he might bring harm to her.
A young caregiver entered the room, dressed in a faded white gown and a grey apron, with her hair tied with a white scarf. She dropped the small bowl she held on the table and walked towards the man's bed.
"Did you say your carriage hit him?" the young woman asked, with her arms crossed over her chest and her eyes judging Jenna.
Lady Jenna nodded, squeezing her hands tightly. She moved her eyes away from the stranger and settled them on the physician.
"My coachman couldn't see clearly because it was dark, and we had passed through the forest. I thought that path would be safer since people had already retired to sleep. I didn't know..." Her voice trailed off.
"Mhmm," the physician nodded, following her story as she listened attentively. "I'm just trying to understand something- does your carriage have weapons all around it, or..."
Jenna frowned, then shook her head slightly. "No, my carriage is just an ordinary business carriage. I do not even walk around with weapons inside it. Why do you ask?"
"I don't know how to put it," the physician sighed. Seeing the confused look on the noblewoman's face, she continued, "He has three stab wounds on his stomach, the cut on his head and also, while tending to him, I found other old scars. This man... he must be in a dangerous line of work."
Lady Jenna stood up immediately, backing away from the young man. Though she felt pity for him and wanted to help him out, she had already had her fair share of danger in her life, and it had taken her courage to walk away.
She couldn't get herself entangled with another. Someone with stab wounds and cuts all over... What if he wakes up angry and starts to hit her.
Jenna's blood turned cold at the thought of it.
At that moment, she felt her heart squeeze. She was beginning to panic, just like she always did whenever she had the thought of her husband coming to get her. Moving her feet on the ground, she bounced them nervously- something she did to calm herself down.
"...Lady, are you okay?" the physician snapped her fingers in front of Lady Jenna's face.
Lady Jenna returned to reality when she heard the woman's muffled voice. For a moment there, she felt like she had been trapped underwater.
"I'm fine... Sorry, what were you saying?" Lady Jenna muttered, still hitting her feet on the ground. When she saw the physician looking at her weirdly, she slowly calmed her legs and stopped moving.
"You just blacked out... I was saying, do you know where he works or who he is? The man you brought," the physician asked, now staring at the young woman suspiciously. She moved over to the table where she had dropped her equipment earlier.
Lady Jenna turned to look at the young man. "I don't know him... but I can pay for you to look after him until he's awake and better."
"Hm... well, you might have to wait for the village magistrate to come. You brought a stabbed man here without knowing who he is. Who's to say you didn't stab him?" The physician now took out a small bell from her pocket and started ringing it, calling for attention.
Lady Jenna gasped. She waved her hands, trying to stop the woman from being so dramatic. "No... no! I mean... I'm a merchant. I found this man on my way to one of the ports. I didn't stab him."
"Then let's wait for him to wake up and find out the truth," the physician suggested but didn't stop ringing the bell.
Lady Jenna held her hands over her ears. She didn't like the fear the bell sounds instilled in her. Most of all, she didn't like that she was being blamed for something she didn't do.
"Please, just stop ringing the bell. I'll wait until he wakes up, and I'll answer to the magistrate. My conscience is clear," Lady Jenna tried to reason with the woman, but obviously, it wasn't working.
If only she had continued with her journey as Percy had suggested, but Jenna wasn't known to leave people in need of her help. Now it was causing an issue for her.
"Okay... If you don't trust me, which kingdom is this?" Lady Jenna asked, looking around the room.
The physician chuckled. "And you call yourself a merchant? You don't even know where you are. I'm sure you stabbed this man. Who is he? Your husband? He caught you having an affair, right?"
"What is wrong with you?" Lady Jenna surprised even herself when she heard her raised voice. But it was inevitable because this physician kept annoying her and not letting her explain.
"I'm asking because I want to know if it's Morado or Avon. I have good friends that can attest to my innocence," Jenna finally lowered her voice.
The physician rolled her eyes, not buying one bit of Lady Jenna's words. "Liar! You think because you're a noblewoman, you can get away with stabbing a man."
"I swear on my life! I have never stabbed anyone before." Not even when her husband had beaten her to a pulp had she thought of it. Lady Jenna completed in her mind, hoping that the physician would believe her.
She looked behind the physician, wondering where her servants were and what they were doing. At this point, Lady Jenna was already frustrated and tired, almost at the brink of tears.
The physician scowled, pulling up her lips judgmentally. "You stabbed the man."
"Piece of filth, she said she didn't," a masculine voice was heard in the room.
The physician widened her eyes. "What did you just call me?"
"No... no... it wasn't me! I didn't say those words to you—" Lady Jenna tried to explain, but it was like pouring water on a rock.
The physician clenched her fists angrily. "You whore! You dare regard me as fil—"
"Stupid, dirty mongrel... with no brain to think."
This time, Lady Jenna and the physician turned, now staring at the patient, who was sitting up with his hand on his head and his face looking down.
"What? You there, what did you just call me?" The physician pointed at the young man.
Lady Jenna had her focus on the man, but she moved back slowly just in case he started being violent. She waited for the man to repeat what he had just said.
The stranger raised his face slowly. Jenna was quick to see the slight annoyance, and she waited for the next curse words to escape the man's lips. But the next thing she heard made her blink twice.
"Master," the stranger called softly. "Have you come to take me?" he said, with his eyes looking at Jenna.
The deep male voice they had heard earlier had now turned to something soft and calm, shocking both Jenna and the physician.