Roselyn scrambled away from Thornton, accidentally kicking over the bowl of stew. She pressed her back against the wall and stared wildly at him, waiting for him to awaken and remind her of all the sins she’d committed.
She suddenly had a vivid recollection of the eve of her wedding, remembered his face looking her over with a casual cynicism and then looking away in disinterest. Her guilt for her own part in that disaster was swallowed by a sudden flaring of outraged anger at him, at her parents, for what they’d all forced her to do. Remembering it made her stomach clench.
Just when she thought her life was proceeding at an even pace—she had a place to live, a way to earn her livelihood, and a few friends who cared about her—she had to face a ghost out of her past.
Not a ghost, she told herself, but a man who’d wronged her—a man she, too, had wronged, she forced herself to admit.
And he was no common sailor.
Roselyn thought again of the foreign words he’d mumbled. His mother was Spanish; naturally he knew the language. Yet what was he doing with the fleet—and which fleet was he with? Did he hold alliances with Spain that she knew nothing about?
Sliding down against the wall, she buried her face in her hands and shuddered. Why was this happening to her? She had tried to escape Thornton—and ended up shackled to Philip, a man no better, who wanted her only for the same reasons Thornton did: money and power.
Just when she’d come to terms with living her life alone, Thornton reappeared. She remembered the words he’d mumbled, Do you live on my land? Could he have bought property near Shanklin?
That night Roselyn couldn’t sleep. Questions and fears raced through her mind, but she didn’t want to confront them. She rose and dressed by firelight, then went out into the night with only the moon to guide her. She wanted to walk in peace, to feel the breeze on her face, to inhale the soothing smell of flowers and the sea.
Yet when she found herself near the shed where Thornton lay, she was not surprised. Everything she wanted to escape had to do with him. With a heavy sigh, she opened the door.
A shaft of moonlight cut across the pile of drying grass—but Thornton wasn’t lying upon it. The blanket she had covered him with lay in a heap on the ground.
For a moment she remained frozen with shock, then came back to herself and quickly searched the shed. He was gone.
Had someone discovered him and taken him away? Surely Francis Heywood would have been notified, and the sound of men’s voices as they trudged to the shed would have alerted her.
Could Thornton have left on his own? He was weak from his injuries, and he wouldn’t be able to stand with a broken leg.
But he’d also been delirious with fever.
Roselyn searched the moonlit ground outside the shed, and found dark stains in the grass. She touched them with her fingers and felt wetness, then lifted her hand to her face and smelled fresh blood.
She straightened and looked out across the estate. For a moment she was torn with indecision; should she let him go?
But she couldn’t allow him to bleed to death in the grass, or fall off the cliff onto the rocky beach. She wouldn’t be able to live with the sin of her cowardice.
So she followed the trail of crushed grass made by Thornton’s body. Every moment she expected to catch sight of him, but he’d crawled farther than she would have imagined. Her nervous fears increased, and the darkness seemed to wrap around her, with the wind picking up to tug at her unbound hair. She thought she heard the sound of voices, but it faded so abruptly she knew she must be imagining it.
Where was he?
Just as she began to wonder if she’d followed the wrong trail, she saw a glimmer of something parting the grass before her. She knelt down and found Thornton, whose bare chest gleamed by moonlight between the bandages. He wore only Philip’s old breeches. He lay on his side, trying to struggle up onto his knees.
Though she didn’t want to touch him, she forced herself to place her hand on his arm. She felt the fire of his fever as he suddenly grasped her wrist and yanked her to the ground. She twisted onto her back, but before she could move he was upon her, his forearm against her throat. She tried to yell, but her voice came out as a muffled gasp.
Kicking her heels into the ground and thrashing, she caught his arm and managed to pull it enough to breathe. His eyes were narrowed; his teeth were bared in a grimace above her.
“Thornton!” she rasped. “I’m not your enemy!”
She rolled and tried to push him off her, and in their struggles his free hand caught her waist. He immediately went still. All she could hear was his breath rattling in his chest. Slowly, his hand skimmed up her rib cage.
“Yes, I am a woman!” she said in outrage, before his touch could become too intimate. She slid out from beneath him, and he allowed her escape, collapsing forward onto his elbows.
“Mr. Thornton,” she whispered regretfully, “you must come back with me.”
He got one knee beneath him and tried to crawl away from her, but ended up sinking down into the grass with a moan. He was muttering, and when she leaned closer, she realized that he was using Spanish again.
Suddenly Roselyn felt a whisper of goose-flesh rise across her arms, and she stilled. Again, she heard voices, and realized with dawning horror that there were men out on the cliffs. She collapsed onto her stomach at Thornton’s side, her breath coming rapidly.
She stared at his flushed face and his fluttering eyelids as the men came closer. What were they doing out in the middle of the night?
Slowly she lifted up until she could just see over the swaying grass. A group of men hovered like dark shadows near the cliffs, moonlight glittering off them.
She realized they were wearing swords. Could it be the militia from nearby Shanklin?
Or the Spanish, ready to invade England?
Roselyn dropped down again, only to find Thornton’s eyes open as he stared at her in exhausted bewilderment. What was she to do? If she crept away, they might find him and take him off her hands. He’d wake up soon and be able to explain everything. He might not even remember her.
But if those were Spaniards out there…
Thornton suddenly gripped her arm and pulled her closer. She smothered a gasp as she stared into his wild, dark eyes and felt the heat of him burn her. His lips moved, and she heard his hoarse mutterings—again, in Spanish.
What should she do? If the militia saw him like this, with his black hair, olive skin, and foreign words, they would surely take him for a Spaniard.
And if the soldiers were Spanish, then everyone on the island was doomed.
Roselyn had no choice but to wrap her arms about him and try to keep him quiet. The patrol was closer now, and a gruff laugh carried on the wind—and the sound of the Queen’s English. She shuddered with relief as one fear faded.
“Shh,” she whispered, holding Thornton’s face to her neck, praying he would stop struggling. He stiffened, and she worried that his strength would yet prove too much for her.
Then with a sigh, his whole body relaxed, going heavy against her. She felt his arms tighten about her waist, and a new fear rose in her mind as he slid his knee between hers.
Everything in her wanted to rebel, to slap him and push him away. Instead she lay against him seething with anger, feeling his mouth move on her throat, then lower to her collarbone. She shivered. Every rumor she’d heard of him over the last year blazed starkly in her mind: his affairs, his mistresses, the scandals he caused wherever he went. Only wild, foolish women would fall for the seductive words of a man like him.
She bit her lip and squeezed her eyes tightly shut as his lips nibbled the high neckline of her gown. She tried to insinuate her fingers against his mouth—anything to distract him—but immediately pulled away when he tried to kiss them. Kiss her fingers, by the saints! She pressed his head even harder against her, almost wishing she could smother him into unconsciousness.
She was caught in her own scheme, for if they were found together…
A cold dread chilled her.
Spencer felt that he existed only in his dreams, and they were hot, feverish nightmares of battle: choking smoke, burning sails hanging from the yardarms, cannonballs screaming overhead. He felt again the slice of the sword at his side, and the pain of it awakened him.
The sun in his eyes seemed out of place, and he squinted as it lanced through his head. But he couldn’t lift a hand to shield his face; he could do nothing but lie still.
There was something he had to do, some urgent mission that eluded him.
“Would you like some water?”
He tensed. It was the voice he’d been hearing in his dreams—a voice speaking English.
He opened his eyes to see a small barn with windows opened to the daylight. He turned his aching neck slowly and saw cobweb-strung beams dwindling into the darkness of the roof, then the hazy shape of a woman, silhouetted against the bright window.
She leaned over him, small, delicate, concerned, but with perhaps a touch of fear in her eyes. She wore a white apron over a country gown of black homespun. Her light brown hair was pulled back severely from her face and tucked beneath a plain white cap. She wore no face paint, no elaborate headdresses or jewelry to distract a man from the absolute perfection of her smooth skin. Her small nose held a smattering of freckles, and above it she had wintry gray eyes.
“Would you like some water?” she asked again, a soft, deeper voice than he would have imagined coming from such a delicate throat.
And then Spencer realized that his mouth was parched. In growing dismay, he wondered how her face had made him forget his discomfort. He tried to speak, but managed only a nod.
The woman put her arm beneath his head and held a drinking horn to his mouth. His cheek brushed her breast, and she smelled of wildflowers and baking bread, images that soothed him, comforted him.
Then the cool water touched his tongue and he swallowed it frantically.
“Slowly,” she murmured, and he felt the vibration in her chest.
“What’s…your name?” His voice was gravelly and hoarse.
The woman sat back on her heels and clasped her hands together in her lap. “Rose Grant,” she said softly, with a refined accent that did not match her garments. “Who are you?”
For a moment he almost said the name he’d been living under for a year and a half, but remembered in time. “Spencer Thornton.” His real name sounded foreign, forbidden. “I owe you my gratitude for saving my life.”
Rose Grant nodded, then propped his head against a cushion and fed him like a babe. It had been so long since he’d had a hot stew that he actually didn’t mind.
She set the bowl aside too soon, and as he looked at it longingly, he saw her first uneasy smile. It softened her features into a shy prettiness.
“You can have more later,” she murmured. “First let me examine your wounds. You were bleeding again last night after your little adventure.”
“My adventure?”
“You were determined to leave.” She hesitated. “Have you no memory of it?”
“None,” he whispered, his eyes feeling heavy. “What…did I do?”
“Crawled away. I found you near the cliffs.”
“I guess I’m lucky to be alive.” He finally remembered the reason he was trying to escape: his battle with Rodney Shaw, his plunge overboard instead of death at the hands of traitors. And Shaw’s promise to find him. Spencer had to get to London.
But when Rose pulled off the bandages across his chest, he fought a sudden rushing wave of pain and sank into unconsciousness.
Roselyn sat back and exhaled a trembling breath. He was once again asleep, and she didn’t have to look into those dark, mysterious eyes for another moment. Her hand still rested on his chest, and though she had long since lost her pale London complexion, her skin stood out starkly against the olive hue of Thornton’s.
She snatched her hand back, remembering that she had misled him about her name.
She was a coward.
But then she remembered eluding the militia, and the terror of keeping him quiet, while his hot mouth moved intimately against her skin. It had taken bravery of a sort not to turn him over to the patrol and be done with him, especially since he’d tried to choke her to death!
And it had taken all of her endurance to drag and half carry him back to the shed as the gray of dawn rose at the edge of the island like mist from the sea. He had collapsed into a deep sleep, while she had slept only fitfully on her own pallet.
Still tired, she finished changing his bandages, then leaned back against the wall and studied him. They would have been married almost two years now, if she hadn’t run away.
Lady Roselyn Thornton would have been an entirely different person from Roselyn Grant.
She remembered her girlhood and cringed at her selfishness, at the impulsiveness that had made her throw away her family and her life because she thought she knew best.
Now she lived her days at peace, alone—but Thornton could ruin it all.
Whenever Francis came back from the mainland with the latest London scandals, she was always glad she hadn’t married Thornton. His name was often involved—in fact, she had heard a tale recently of how he had escaped a married woman’s husband by climbing over roofs. She frowned as she adjusted her patient’s blanket, feeling again his thin ribs. He did not seem as if he had recently been living the wild, dissipated life in London.
But it was none of her concern. She just hoped he didn’t remember her, since they’d only looked upon each other twice. Then she’d worn her finest, costliest garments woven with jewels, with a farthingale that widened her hips stylishly and a headdress that allowed her long hair to tumble free. And she’d been plumper from the easier life she used to lead.
Thornton could not possibly remember her. She would speak little, make him well, and turn him over to the militia when he was better able to defend himself against their questions. She was not made to seek out the truth about spies, or meddle in politics. She was just a village baker now, and she no longer wanted more.
The next time Spencer awoke, dusk was falling, drifting through the open windows like gray fog—the gray of Rose Grant’s eyes.
Now where had that come from?
He saw her then, sitting beneath the window, watching him. Again she wore a black gown, but this time with a kerchief around her shoulders. Was it even the same day? He expected her to lean over him, to fuss, but she sat still, her arms about her knees, watching him in a way that startled him.
For a moment he had the strangest sensation he’d seen those piercing eyes before. But she’d been caring for him for who knew how many days, so he must already be familiar with her face.
She fed him fish soup, never once complaining about his slow pace. When he was finished, Rose stood up to light the candle in the lantern. She reached for the tray of food and turned toward the door.
“Don’t go,” he found himself saying gruffly. “I don’t know how I got here—I don’t know where I am.”
Her shoulders seemed tense as she kept her back to him just a moment too long. Then she set the tray on a stool and turned to face him. She did not seem a tall woman; her shoulders were narrow, almost delicate. The lantern caught and glistened in tendrils of her hair where they escaped her cap. Her apron was cinched about her waist, making her appear fragile. How had she gotten him to this shed by herself?
“This is your fifth day on the Isle of Wight,” she said. “I found you on the beach, next to a wrecked boat.”
Spencer closed his eyes and remembered hard, wet sand beneath his cheek—and a woman rolling him over, her face as pale and lovely as the moon in the night sky.
“Did you see another boat?” He held his breath, knowing the importance of her answer.
“No.”
He dropped his head back onto the cushion, feeling a meager amount of relief.
“You said you needed my help,” she added, “that the Spanish might be coming for you.”
He narrowed his eyes, and the rehearsed words suddenly came easily to him. “I was aboard the Newcastle, and she took a lot of shot that last day. I remember her sinking…but that’s all.”
Rose continued to study him, and for a moment having to deceive this woman left a foul taste in his mouth. But he’d been lying for so long that a lie to protect someone seemed like redemption.
“What happened on the channel?” he asked. “Is there still fighting going on?”
“The fleets sailed away the second day you were here,” she said. “They fought, and we heard rumors that they would invade, but they never did.”
She hesitated, watching him with eyes that almost didn’t blink. “Should I send word to your captain?”
“I am useless to him now. I’ll rejoin when I’m able to serve.”
Did she believe him? The last was the truth, after all.
“Rose, I owe you my life. Why did you help me?”
She looked down and shrugged her shoulders. “I couldn’t leave you to die.”
“Others would have.”
“I have seen enough death,” she said, and he thought he heard a touch of fierceness in her voice.
Spencer’s curiosity was roused, but why should he ask a country maid about her life? He was frustrated by his weakness when he really needed to be in London. He rubbed his shaking hands over his face and felt each bruise begin to ache.
“Rose,” he said, surprised to find his voice faltering, “whose land are we on? Are there others who know I’m here?”
She repositioned the cushion under his head. In the meager light she looked as tired as he felt. Had taking care of him cost her so much?
Roselyn sat back on her heels, praying that Thornton would fall asleep before she had to answer. He looked paler by the moment, and she lifted the blanket, but saw no fresh blood on his bandages.
“Over half the people have left the island because of the Spanish, leaving the villages strangely quiet,” she said. “Besides myself, only the bailiff and his family are on this estate, but I have not told them of you.”
His eyes closed, his mouth relaxed, and then he was asleep.
With a shuddering sigh, she dropped her chin to her chest. How long could she keep this up, holding off his questions, revealing as little as possible? And why didn’t he want people to know about him?
She remembered the way his eyes had not quite held hers when he told her about serving on the Newcastle. That look had been burned into her the first time she’d met him two years ago. Her father had introduced her, and it was as if Thornton didn’t want to see her. She’d been overcome with anger and mortification. Even though she disliked having to deal with him again, she was also curious, because she sensed there were truths he held in reserve.
She pressed her eyes closed—and saw his eyes: dark, fringed with heavy lashes, hiding his thoughts yet penetrating enough to see through to hers.