Annalise fought through the fog of pain. She felt like she was swimming in it, drowning in a hot onslaught of agony. Her every nerve vibrated, the agony sharp and twisting. A keening moan spilled from her lips, pulled from somewhere deep inside her.
She shifted. Sudden, white-hot pain flared to life in her crippled leg. Her eyes shot open with a gasp. Her hand flailed, reaching for her thigh where the pain burned deep.
“Ssh. Easy there.”
A face filled her line of vision. Panic washed over her as she recalled everything that had happened to her. The duke had tried to kill her. Her husband!
And now there was this voice. This man. In the dim room, she could not make out much of his features. She only knew that it wasn’t Bloodsworth. This man’s voice was different. Deeper. Gravelly. The knowledge immediately quelled her panic. She squinted, struggling to peer at him through the gloom. Even in the weak lighting, she could make out that his hair was not as dark as the duke’s.
She swallowed against her parched mouth, struggling to form words. “My leg,” she rasped, her fingers stretching, reaching.
“It’s broken, but we’ve set and splint it. No fear. It will mend.”
Broken? Her head lolled to the side and a hot tear slid from the corner of her eye and vanished into the pillow. She’d broken her leg before. It had never healed properly. She doubted his assurances. Would she even be able to walk this time?
“What’s your name?” he asked.
She moistened her dry lips. “Anna—” She stopped herself from saying the rest. Her name wasn’t that common. There could be news of her drowning. Clumsy, crippled Annalise, the newly minted Duchess of Bloodsworth, fell off her wedding barge. Such a poor, hapless girl. She was certain the duke would present the image of grieving husband to perfection. She, better than anyone, knew how well he could act.
“Anna,” she repeated.
She pressed her lips as though her name might slip past against her will. She would guard her identity. Doing so might be the only thing to keep her alive. The last thing she wanted was her husband showing up to finish the deed. Her throat tightened as the image of his face filled her head. His words echoed inside her ears. Little cow, I’m thinking you’ll sink straight to the bottom.
A whimper rose to her lips. She swallowed it back, vowing that she would never be afraid again. He would never hurt her. No one would.
“Anna,” the stranger whispered. “Do you know what happened?”
“I don’t remember,” she lied. She shook her head, shifting on the bed. Pain lanced her leg and traveled up though her hip. She gasped.
“Here.” He pressed a cup to her lips. “Drink.” She swallowed, coughing against the bitter liquid. Clearly not the water she first thought he was offering her.
“What is that rot?” she choked.
“Water laced with some herbs to ease your discomfort. Mirela has been giving it to you to help with the pain.”
“Who is Mirela?”
“A Gypsy. I found you and brought you here. She’s been caring for you.” He fell silent, and she heard his slight movements as he took her cup and set it down somewhere close. “Do you know how you ended up on that riverbank?”
A reasonable question. He would want to alert her family that she was alive and well—return her to their care.
She shook her head, grateful for the dim lighting that he could not see her face. No doubt she looked as panicked as she felt. “Sorry. I don’t know what happened.”
He sighed softly and contrary to her earlier wish, she would have liked to see his face, to ascertain whether he believed her. Madame Brouchard’s other apprentices had always called her a horrible liar. They knew, of course, because they loved to tease her and ask her terribly awkward questions that she wouldn’t dare answer truthfully.
Have you ever been kissed, Annalise?
Annalise, tell us, do you not find Mr. Newman the most handsome fellow . . . I’m sure you wouldn’t mind a kiss stolen from him.
She winced at the memory. How those girls would laugh now to see her broken and rejected in the worst way imaginable by her own husband.
Shaking off such thoughts, she moistened her dry, cracked lips. “Who are you?”
He did not immediately answer her. She sensed his body shift, as if moving farther away from her.
“My name is Owen. Owen Crawford.”
Owen. A nice, strong name. The type of name that belonged to a man who rescued young ladies from near-death.
“How long have I been here?” She glanced around the shadowed space, sensing it was small. And where is here? She bit back the question. One at a time. She already felt tired again, her lids heavy over her eyes.
“Almost a week.”
A week!
At her sharp inhalation, he explained quickly in that deep voice that was coming to soothe her. “You were feverish. We didn’t know if you were going to survive.”
Her mind raced. Were they even looking for her? Everyone must assume her dead by now. That realization actually made her breathe easier. The tension ebbed from her body. If Bloodsworth thought she was dead, why correct the misapprehension? Her family would not miss her. She had known them for only a short while. Jack had ignored her for the entirety of her life until recently, when he decided he wanted a blue blood for a son-in-law. She’d not put her trust in him again. She’d trust no one but herself ever again.
“Th-Thank you.” It was impossible to keep her eyes open. The pull of sleep was too much. “Still . . . tired.”
“Get some rest. We can talk more later.”
She managed a nod before her eyelids drifted shut again, the deep rumble of his voice a faraway echo through her head.
Her lips moved. Words fell without deliberation, “Will you . . . stay . . .”
Another long pause. In the hazy fog of her thoughts, she began to wonder if he was even beside her anymore.
At last his voice came, as distant as thunder on a sweeping Yorkshire plain. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be here when you wake.”
She awake?”
Owen turned to where Mirela stood in the doorway. Afternoon light flooded around her small frame, suffusing the interior of the wagon. The caravan had stopped briefly for lunch. They should be arriving in Pedmont, a village outside London later today. Apparently it was Pedmont’s annual fair. Mirela and her kinsmen supported themselves by traveling from fair to fair and offering up their talents.
He nodded. “For a moment, yes.”
“She spoke?”
He nodded, his gaze returning to Anna’s face, the features soft and relaxed in sleep.
“Good. Tomorrow we will have her move about some.”
“Her name is Anna,” he volunteered.
Mirela nodded, hardly seeming to process this as she moved back out the door.
“Thank you,” he called after her, well aware that the girl—Anna—would probably have died if not for Mirela’s care. For all her gruff ways, Mirela had been ever attentive, nursing her through her fever, tending to her leg and barking commands at him.
Standing, he ducked his head to avoid hitting the ceiling, he watched Mirela as she waved a hand in dismissal, moving to rejoin her family lunching beneath a tree outside. He usually stayed in the wagon with Anna or rode his mount behind the wagons when the tight space became too oppressive for him. Luca eyed him resentfully from beside his mother.
A reminder that this was only temporary. He was an outsider, tolerated but not accepted. Which was well and fine with him. He didn’t want to belong here. He didn’t belong anywhere.
Once Anna could move, they would leave.
They.
Dragging a hand through his hair, he turned to stare back down at the girl. It wouldn’t be they for long. Once she was awake and could communicate at any length, she would tell him where her people were and he would safely deliver her into their care.
Then it would be just him again. As it should be.
Less pain greeted her the second time she awoke. She sat up cautiously, her hand brushing the thin fabric of her nightgown. Well, not her nightgown. Someone else’s nightgown.
The tight space was even darker than the last time, but she knew she hadn’t changed location. The same musty, herbed aroma permeated the air.
She listened to the silence for a moment, reassuring herself that she was all alone. She felt herself, her hands patting down her body carefully, testing for injuries. Her palms encountered her splinted leg. Dread filled her chest as she recalled the last time she broke her leg. In the beginning she thought the aching limp would go away. It never had. Again she wondered if she would even be able to walk this time.
The burn of tears prickled her eyes. Following her accident, self-pity had threatened to overwhelm her. There were so many times it took every ounce of her will to face the world. The day she had climbed that tree haunted her. At night, in the bed she had shared with her mother, she would close her eyes and play it over and over in her mind. Only in her wishful imaginings, she refused the dare issued by Mrs. Danvers’s obnoxious son, and never climbed that tree. She never fell.
Now she had broken it again. Regret swept through her. Tears stung her eyes. She squeezed them tight until the burn abated.
If only she hadn’t believed in Jack’s fairy-tale promises and married the duke.
If only she hadn’t allowed Bloodsworth to throw her into that river.
Inhaling sharply, her fingers clenched tightly around the wooden splints on her leg. She shook her head in the dark. No. No more pity. She wouldn’t pity herself ever again. Even if she couldn’t walk. She was finished letting things happen to her. She would make her own fate from now on.
“Anna?”
She jerked, swallowing back a scream.
“It’s me.”
And instantly she knew. She recognized the deep voice of her rescuer. She drew in a shuddery breath. He was somewhere to her left. Below her. Presumably on the floor. “Mr. Crawford?”
“Are you in pain?” he asked.
“No.” Her breath came out whisper-soft. “What are you doing?”
“Sleeping.”
Evidently not. Not if he had heard her slight movements. “On the . . . floor?” In the dark? In such proximity to her bed? Her skin shivered.
“I’ve slept on this pallet since we joined Mirela and her family.”
She realized she still had no clue where she was. She had just vowed to never be a victim again, but she wasn’t exactly in a position of strength. She was completely at the mercy of this man. An altogether untenable situation. One she would change as soon as possible.
“Where are we?”
There was a slight shifting, and she imagined he was scooting closer to her bed—this unknown, faceless man with his deep voice. Goose bumps broke out across her flesh.
“We’re outside a village. Pedmont. How are you feeling?”
“Sore,” she replied.
“You’re very lucky. Mirela is a healer. I don’t think a physician could have cared for you better.”
“Lucky.” The word escaped her like an epithet. Nothing about her life felt lucky. True, she could be dead, but her fate still hung in doubt. She couldn’t surface and reveal herself. The duke would finish what he started on their wedding barge.
“Yes. When I first found you, I did not expect you to live. You were barely breathing.”
She stared into the dark, in the direction of his voice, trying to see something of him, even just a hint of shadow. The outline of his shape would be reassuring. The last man she’d been alone with had attempted to smother her, after all. And although Owen Crawford wasn’t Bloodsworth—he had in fact rescued her—she didn’t feel entirely secure. Perhaps she never would again. Perhaps she would always be this—a wary creature of distrust, always on the verge of bolting.
Only she was bed-bound. She wasn’t bolting anywhere. Her fist knotted into the blanket at the unwelcome thought.
Although not for long, she quickly vowed to herself. Somehow, some way, she would regain her strength. She’d be stronger than ever before. Smarter. Her thoughts shied away from the fear that she was perhaps worse than before. That her leg was completely and irrevocably lame. She would not dwell on the possibility.
“Yes. I am.” She nodded with decisiveness, as though he could see her in the lightless space. “Lucky, indeed.” She was alive. She had escaped her murderer. She had another chance.
“Can I get you anything? Are you hungry?”
She pressed a hand to her belly, noting that it wasn’t quite as curved as usual. If she’d slept for an entire week, she didn’t imagine she’d eaten that much. Even now the notion of food made her stomach rebel. She wasn’t ready for that.
“I’m thirsty.”
There was a scuffling against the floor and a swift yellow flare. She squinted, holding a hand over her eyes, blinking, adjusting to the sudden lamplight.
He was there, offering her a cup. Her gaze moved over the long stretch of his arm, appreciating the taut and flexing tendons and muscle beneath his sun-kissed skin. Her breath escaped in a short, quick burst. He wore no shirt. No jacket. No vest or cravat. Her mouth dried. She couldn’t recall ever seeing so much of a man’s chest before. Did they all look like this? So broad and dense with muscle?
She tore her gaze away and looked up. Fixed her stare to his face. Only that was worse. He was handsome. Beautiful in a harsh, menacing sort of way. In an instant she knew this was a dangerous man. She had never thought such a thing by looking at Bloodsworth, but looking at this man, she knew.
His deep-set eyes were a piercing dark blue. They drilled into her, watching her keenly. “Go ahead. Drink.” He nodded at the cup. The movement dipped his dark blond hair lower over his forehead.
She resisted the impulse to hide from his scrutiny—where could she go, after all?
She took the cup from him, careful not to touch his fingers with her own. She meant to only sip, but the moment the water touched her tongue she was gulping it down. She handed the cup back to him. “More, please.”
He moved back to a small tray on a scuffed, ancient-looking sideboard and poured water from a pitcher. “Just a little more. Don’t want you getting sick.”
She took the cup and drank greedily again, eyeing him above the rim. He watched her in turn, not looking away.
Lowering the cup, she wiped the water from her mouth with the back of her hand, not caring how unladylike she must appear. She’d been the perfect lady before—or tried to be, at any rate—exemplifying only the best manners, aping her betters, and look where that had gotten her.
“I suppose I owe you a thank-you.” The moment the words escaped she realized they sounding grudging.
He held her stare for a long moment with his deep-eyes gaze, not responding. Taking the cup, he finally turned from her. “You owe me nothing. I found you. Was I to leave you there to die?” His words were terse and she was struck with the suspicion that this was not a man accustomed to making polite conversation.
“Not everyone would have bothered with me.” Indeed not. Her faith in mankind was dismally low at the moment. Inhaling a deep breath, she repeated, “Thank you.” This time she sounded sincere.
He shrugged one well-formed shoulder and his lean, muscled torso once again became a point of fascination. She had never seen a man built like him before. She forced her gaze from the ridged plane of his stomach and examined the room. After a moment she frowned. It was not like any room she’d ever seen. It was all wood, crammed with cupboards and chests.
“What is this place?”
“We’re in Mirela’s wagon. You’ll meet her in the morning when she comes to poke and prod at you again. Sadly, you’ll be awake for it this time.”
Like a magnet, he drew her gaze again. She watched as he effortlessly sank down onto the pallet beside her bed, one arm propped over his knee.
“They’ve given us use of this wagon? That’s very kind of them.”
“Oh, they’re not entirely altruistic.”
“What do you mean?”
Those dark blue eyes stared steadily at her. “Nothing is free in this world. Everything has its price.” Truer words had never been said. Hadn’t Jack, in effect, bought a duke for her?
“You’re paying them?”
“They need to survive, too.”
She considered this before replying. “People do what they have to.” Just like she would. She would do what she must to make sure she never became that girl again. The one cast into the river. She wouldn’t be naive and stupid again.
His head tipped to the side. As though he didn’t expect her to say that.
She continued gazing at him evenly. “And what shall be your price for helping me, then?”
He stared until she grew uncomfortable. She resisted the urge to fidget.
“You said nothing is free in this world. I simply wondered what manner of recompense you expected.”
He spoke at last. “I did not mean myself.”
“Oh.” She stared at him, wondering about this man. He held himself tensely, clearly uneasy with their exchange, and she began to suspect that it wasn’t just her but conversation, people in general, that discomfited him.
He looked away, the flesh along his jaw tensing in a way that hinted at his lack of comfort.
She moistened her lips. “Where does Mirela sleep?” she asked, changing the subject.
“Outside with the others. I’m sure you’ll meet them, too. They’ve been curious about you.”
“Curious?”
“Yes. You’ve only shared your name with us, after all.”
“I only know your name,” she rejoined.
He stared at her for a long moment, his vaguely menacing features measuring her in silence. “If I didn’t know any better,” he began slowly, “I would think you’re being evasive with me on purpose.”
“Not at all.” She absently brushed her fingers against her temple. He was practically accusing her of hiding something—which would be accurate.
“You still can’t remember how you got into the river?” he pressed.
She lowered her fingers from her temple and held his stare a moment before shaking her head. “No. I don’t remember . . .” Her voice faded as an idea seized her.
It was so simple. An escape from admitting the shameful truth that her own husband would rather kill her than keep her as his wife. And there was the very real concern that if Owen Crawford knew her identity he would turn her over to her husband. What did she know of him? He rescued her, true, but he might not believe her husband did this to her. A murderous duke—it was far-fetched even to her ears. Bloodsworth was a powerful man, seventh in line for the throne. He might think she belonged with her husband and insist on returning her to his clutches. Fear clawed at her throat at that prospect. No, she could not risk telling anyone who she was.
“Anything? Your family? Friends?”
She grimaced, wondering how plausible he found her lie. “I . . . no, nothing. It’s all nothing. Just blank.”
After a long moment in which he studied her, he sighed softly. “I’m sure it will come back to you. In time.”
She wished she couldn’t, in fact, remember. How wonderful would it be to have no memory of that night?
“Get some sleep for now. Mirela says you need rest the most.”
Nodding, she let her head fall back down on the pillow. Rest wasn’t all she needed, but for now she would settle for that. She would rest, heal, regain her strength.
And then she would figure out what came next.