You there, Englishman. Come. Help us carry these.” Nadia nodded to one of the chests laden with colorful shawls, scarves, and blankets, all wares to be sold at the fair.
He glanced back at the wagon, feeling that inexorable pull—no matter how he tried to deny it. Fortunately for him, Anna had been asleep when he left just before dawn.
He was being unreasonable, he supposed, refusing her request for a bit of fresh air. There was just something about her. She made him uncomfortable. Those velvet eyes . . . they seemed to drink him up. The notion of being in close proximity to her, carrying her against his chest—he couldn’t bring himself to agree to such a thing.
The village was already abuzz with activity. Nadia and three other women led him through the growing press of people to their area of the fair. The men were already there, practicing their dagger throwing skills with enthusiasm. Everyone was garbed flamboyantly in vibrant colors. If their dark coloring didn’t alert the world of their Romani roots, then their wardrobe did.
“You can set that down there,” one of the women said, directing him beneath the striped tent they had erected.
A crowd of children had gathered around the tent, watching in loud approval. He smiled as one of the young Gypsy boys tossed daggers back in forth with his younger brother, a lad of no more than nine years. It was a wonder he didn’t slice off a finger.
Shaking his head, his gaze scanned the rest of the fair. Somewhere nearby a hawker loudly offered roasted chestnuts. The aroma of hot sticky buns filled the air, making his stomach growl. A faint smile brushed his lips as he recalled he and his brothers stuffing themselves sick with sticky buns at their own village fair. Well, it was mostly Brand and himself. Jamie had been too dignified for that.
Paget had been there, too. Eating more than her share. Too much for a girl of her slight frame. He had no idea where she put it, but she matched him bite for bite. She’d always been there. A permanent fixture of his boyhood. Now she belonged to Jamie.
A wave of longing swept through him. Not because he wanted Paget for himself. God, no. He’d released the thought of them, together, from his mind long ago. His first year in India ruined him for any respectable woman. He was glad she and Jamie had found each other. He simply wished for carefree days again.
Days like the ones he spent at his mother’s home in London, quiet evenings reading alongside her in the library or helping her in the garden. His grandfather had spent his final years there. Owen could still recall his large, callused hand rumpling the hair on his head as he played with his toy soldiers before the fireplace. If he closed his eyes, he could still hear the old Scot’s brogue. That’s my fine lad.
Shaking off the nostalgic thoughts, he continued to scan the merrymaking, feeling more isolated than ever. He didn’t belong here any more than he had in India. His mouth flattened in a grim line. Perhaps he was more at home among battle cries, wielding a pistol or a rifle or plunging his blade into an enemy than here. A sad testament to the man he had become.
Although he knew he could never recapture the innocence from his youth again, he longed to return to his mother’s town house in London and find the peace and contentment he had once known there.
Suddenly, something caught his eye. A brown-haired head bobbing amid the fairgoers. The afternoon sunlight cast the hair into burnished mahogany. His gut twisted in annoyance. He knew that hair. A contrast to the other occasions he’d viewed it—a sopping wet mess or cloaked in the dim confines of a wagon. But he knew it. Anna.
What was she doing out of bed? Bewildered, he tracked her in the crowd. Even dressed in a deep red gown with a single blue ribbon pulling back the top half of her hair from her face, she looked fresh and clean. And in Luca’s arms.
He scowled. Before he could consider his actions, he was moving across the fair, elbowing past hawkers dangling their wares before him.
He trained his gaze on her, eyeing with disapproval the way she laughed at something Luca said as he pointed into a pen full of pigs waiting to be auctioned.
He stopped beside the ramshackle pen. “Anna,” he greeted tersely.
She turned her head at the sound of his voice.
“Oh, hello, Mr. Crawford. Fine day for a fair, is it not?”
He ground his teeth, certain he heard snideness in her comment. “What are you doing up and about from bed?”
“Mirela said it was perfectly safe as long as I was carried. Luca here graciously offered to let me see some of the fair and get a bit of fresh air.”
Owen eyed the brute’s hands on her. One of his large paws cupped her beneath the legs, holding her carefully at her splinted leg. The other was wrapped around her back.
“If you insist on leaving your bed—”
“Mirela said it would be fine.” Her bright brown eyes sparked defiantly.
He ignored her interruption. “You should be in a cart and not carried about. You could still jostle your leg.”
“I’m in good hands with Luca.” She smiled at Owen as if he were a child and she the tolerant parent. The little minx. She knew he was annoyed, and she was enjoying it.
Luca adjusted her in his arms, and his hands moved a little too much against her back for Owen’s liking. His own hands opened and closed at his sides.
Anna stared at him patiently, those amazing eyes of hers blinking with innocence.
Luca looked bored. “Come. The pie eating contest is about to start.”
Owen watched as they strolled away, Anna’s head bobbing among the villagers as she was carried.
“The sunlight will do her some good.” Once again, Mirela appeared at his side with no warning. He looked down at her, a surge of resentment flaring inside him.
“That’s what I hear.”
A mocking smile curved her wrinkled lips. “Should have taken her about the fair yourself.”
He crossed his arms, losing sight of Luca and Anna as they became lost in the throng of people waiting for the pie eating spectacle.
“I have no wish to carry her around the fair.”
Mirela gave a low, cackling laugh and walked away, leaving him standing by himself.
Annalise laughed with delight as a scrawny boy of no more than ten years was declared the winner of the contest and presented a ribbon. His mother appeared, wiping pie from his face fondly with her apron, looking every bit as proud as the boy himself.
Luca’s voice rumbled beside her ear. “What would you like to see next, Anna?”
She glanced around, eyeing the happy chaos, in the guise of deciding where to go next, but it was just a ruse. She was really looking for Owen. He’d looked decidedly unhappy to see her up and about, which only puzzled her. Why should he care if someone else was kind enough to escort her around the fair? It was no imposition on him.
Then she saw him, pushing a cart in her direction, a decidedly resolute look in his eyes, his handsome features implacable.
He stopped the cart before them. Releasing the handles, he rounded the cart and walked toward her. “In you go.”
Annalise blinked and looked from the cart to Owen.
At her hesitation, he sighed and gestured at it. “This is far safer for your leg than being carried about.”
She opened her mouth to insist she was fine, but before she had the chance, Luca was lowering her to the blanket-lined cart. She pressed her lips shut, feeling very much like a child. An invalid. A bitter taste filled her mouth. Granted, a broken leg inhibited her and made asserting her independence somewhat of a challenge, but this . . . being deposited in a cart with no thought to her wishes, no care for what she wanted, it rankled.
Crossing her arms, she glared up at Owen. “I’m not going back to the wagon if that’s what you’re thinking.” She looked at Luca again, ready to suggest they move along to admire the display of horseflesh up for auction.
Suddenly the cart was moving. She was being rolled away and leaving Luca behind.
She heard Owen’s voice call out above her, “I’ll take her from here, thank you.”
Annalise tossed a glance over her shoulder. Luca was already walking away, shrugging his shoulders.
The colors of the fair whirled past her as she was rolled over the grounds. It appeared as though they were leaving. She bit her lip to stop an angry retort.
With every second that passed, her face grew hotter. Arms crossed over her chest, she hugged herself tightly.
A young girl stepped in front of the cart, myriad ribbons woven in her lovely hair. “Would the lady like her hair plaited?” She motioned to a trio of young girls working deft fingers through the hair of bright-cheeked women.
She huffed, certain Owen was scoffing at the offer above her.
His deep voice floated down to her. “Would you?”
Startled, she looked up and found herself ensnared in the blue of his eyes. Did he mean it? She nodded hastily, fearful that he would change his mind and take her back to the wagon.
“Follow me,” the young girl trilled enthusiastically before Annalise could form a response.
Owen obeyed. Grabbing a fistful of ribbons, the young girl faced Annalise and hesitated, unsure how to attack her hair from her position in the cart.
“Come, this way.” Owen moved around so the girl could stand at the end of the cart. He stood awkwardly beside it, surrounded by women in the process of having their hair plaited. Annalise suppressed a smile and lowered her gaze as the girl’s fingers worked quickly, weaving a coronet of plaits around her head with various colored ribbons. The vibrant ends dangled in her face until the girl finished and gathered them up.
Moving to the front of the cart, the girl admired her work. “There. Beautiful, is she not?” Annalise looked at Owen for assent, her cheerful smile slipping when she caught sight of his brooding expression.
With a muttered, indecipherable reply, he fished a coin from inside his jacket pocket and paid the girl. A moment later he was pushing her along again, moving quickly through the fair. She frowned and crossed her arms, guessing that now he would return her to the wagon where she could resume her examination of the ceiling.
“Are you hungry?” he asked, his voice rising to be heard over a nearby orchestra.
She craned her neck around to look at him, wondering if she had misunderstood him.
He stared straight ahead, his gaze not dipping to look at her.
She moistened her lips. “I could eat . . .”
He finally glanced down, his lips unsmiling, his expression unreadable. Everything about him seemed to indicate that he was only tolerating her. He stopped before a hawker selling meat pasties. Another hawker quickly appeared, proffering lemonade. Owen set the meat pasties in the cart and handed her the carafe of lemonade to hold.
She settled the carafe carefully on her lap as he pushed them from the center of the village toward the outskirts of the community—but not, she noticed, in the direction of the Gypsy camp. Her shoulders eased. That’s all that really mattered to her at the moment. He wasn’t taking her back to that dreadful wagon. For whatever reason, he was granting her more time out of doors. Even if it was to be spent in his stilted company. She would take her delights where she found them. Perhaps that’s what nearly dying did to a soul—made you appreciate the small pleasures.
As he pushed them through a small opening in a shallow stone wall, she tilted her face up to the sun, letting its warm rays brush over her skin. Even before she’d been forced into bed, the weather had been dismal. This sunlight was a refreshing change.
He steered the cart beneath a tree.
“This looks a fine spot,” she murmured, admiring the spray of delicate buds dotting the ground. “It will be spring soon and all this will be in bloom.”
He took one of the blankets from the cart and spread it out on the grass.
“You’ve come prepared,” she added, wondering how long she would have to carry the conversation alone.
He slid her a look beneath his lashes as he spread out the final corners. “You need to eat.”
She propped an elbow on the edge of the cart, her lips quirking. “Don’t fret, Mr. Crawford. I wasn’t accusing you of being thoughtful. I would not dream of making such a suggestion.”
He sent her a derisive look but didn’t respond as he reached for the food and carafe and settled them on the blanket.
“I mean I realize you’re thoughtful and generous enough to save my life, of course,” she hastily explained. “I would never be so remiss to forget such a fact, but you’re just not . . .” Her voice faded as she stared at his stoic profile rather helplessly. “You’re not the garrulous sort, are you? Certainly no—” Her voice cut off into a squeak as he leaned over the cart and slid his arms beneath her.
He carefully lifted her from the cart, bearing her with ease. His body was all lean lines against her, his chest a hard wall. Her gaze crawled back up to his face. She blinked in consternation at his ever aloof expression.
“Who can talk with you around?” he murmured.
She gasped as he set her down in the middle of the blanket, then arranged her skirts over her legs. She wore no shoe on the broken leg. A thick woolen stocking covered the foot, peeking out from beneath her hem.
“Are you saying I don’t give you the opportunity to speak?” She lifted her chin and crossed her arms. “Very well. I shall leave it to you to carry on the conversation. I will follow your lead, Mr. Crawford.”
Without comment, he unwrapped a meat pie and handed it to her. She watched as he did the same for himself. He took a large bite, indifferent that she watched him. Indifferent to the stretch of silence.
She took a nibbling bite, the quiet hovering between them. Even the sounds of the fair were too distant to hear anymore. She glanced from him to her meat pastie several times, waiting, expecting for him to say something. Nothing profound. Simply . . . something. She accepted the lemonade when he offered it, savoring the cool tartness on her tongue.
After several more minutes of silence, she dropped the pastie back into the wrapper. “This is just silly.”
He smiled slowly and something unfurled in her stomach at the sight of that smile. Triumphant as it was, there was a hint of the devil to it that made her pulse quicken.
“Oh, and now you think you’ve won?” Annoyance swam hotly through her blood—perhaps mostly at herself for breaking down and talking first.
His shrug only irritated her further.
“After we finish lunch, will you return me to the fair?”
His smile faded and she knew that had not been his intention.
“I was enjoying myself,” she added, as if that would somehow make a difference to him.
“This is the first time you’ve been out of bed since you woke,” he said. “You don’t want to overtax yourself.”
“I’ve either been carried or in a cart. I’m hardly overtaxing myself.” At the arch of his eyebrow, she snapped, “I don’t require your permission, you know.”
He nodded to the cart. “Unless you plan to snap your fingers and make the cart move, you actually do.”
“You’re not the only one capable of pushing a cart.”
“No one else is at the camp. Who will you prevail upon? I doubt Mirela and the others will return before evening.”
She beat a fist against her lap. “You are cruel. If you don’t want to escort me, I don’t know why you won’t permit Luca—”
“Has it occurred to you that you’re keeping him from work? They depend on their efforts at fairs like this to keep them clothed and fed. It’s rather inconsiderate to monopolize Luca.”
At this, her shoulders slumped with deflation. She hadn’t considered she was somehow taking advantage of Mirela’s hospitality. “I see. I did not realize . . .” She wrapped her pastie back up in the paper. “I’m ready.”
“You haven’t finished eating.”
“I’m quite full.”
“That can hardly be the case. You need to regain your strength.” His gaze skimmed her. “You’re wasting away.”
She stopped herself just short of throwing her wrapped-up pastie at him. “There you are again . . . lavishing me with your charm.” She motioned to herself. “I’m hardly wasting away. I had quite a bit of cushion on me before I fell in the river.”
“Did you?” His gaze sharpened on her, and she realized her error.
“I—yes, at least I feel that much is true.”
He leaned closer. “What else do you ‘feel’?”
She reached for her lemonade and took another long sip, looking anywhere but at him as her mind feverishly worked, desperate to come up with a viable response.
Lowering the lemonade, she lifted her gaze to him.
He stared back expectantly, his handsome face ever impassive—not a hint of emotion seeping through. “What else do you remember?”
“Nothing.” Beneath his probing gaze, she felt compelled to elaborate. “Nothing yet. I’m certain I will. I’m certain . . .” Once she could stand on her feet again and take herself away, she could claim a sudden full recovery of memory.
She couldn’t risk telling him her identity until then. Couldn’t risk him returning her to her husband. Annalise’s throat tightened at the prospect of coming face-to-face with Bloodsworth again. Especially in her weakened condition.
Squaring her shoulders, she held his gaze, commanding herself not to look away. That would be as good as admitting she was lying.
“I look forward to it,” he murmured. There was just enough of something in his voice—skepticism perhaps—that she arched an eyebrow at him as he took a final bite of his lunch.
She watched as he leaned back on his elbows and gazed up at the branches swaying above them. She followed his gaze, feeling some of her tension ease away as she enjoyed the afternoon. He must have believed her. He certainly wouldn’t relax beside her on a blanket if he believed her to be a liar.
“You know,” she began, “I don’t know anything about you, Mr. Crawford. Aside from the fact that you rescue drowned females. Where are you from?”
Where are you going? What life is it that I’m keeping you from? She resisted the urge to bombard him with these questions. He certainly wouldn’t be so forthcoming to tell her his entire history in one sitting. Not as brusque as he was.
“I grew up not far from here.” He exhaled. “A village called Winninghamshire. I just left there.”
“You don’t live there?”
“No. I was . . . visiting. My parents are gone, but I have a brother left there. And his wife.”
There was something in his voice. Something he was leaving out. Was it the loss of his parents? Grief for them?
“And where do you travel now?”
“I have a residence in London.”
She studied his profile. A residence in London, but no mention of a profession. He must be a gentleman. Somehow she suspected as much, although he possessed none of the haughty airs of the gentlemen of the ton she’d met over the last year. His clothing was of fine quality but not the height of fashion. His hair was in need of a good trim. The sun-streaked dark blond locks brushed the collar of his brown jacket. It was a pleasure to study him. She recalled that brief smile she had seen. In that moment he had truly been irresistible.
“Well, what have we here?”
Owen launched himself into a sitting position before she even fully turned her gaze to the pair of men approaching where they reclined.
She tensed at the sight of them. They looked like they hadn’t washed in the better part of a year. Their hair was scruffy, matted at the roots, shorn at the ends as if by a knife. The taller of the pair stood at the helm, adjusting his impossibly soiled neck cloth. “Looks like little lovebirds on a picnic.” His grin showed furry, rotting teeth. He looked from his friend back to Owen and Annalise.
Owen rose to his feet in one easy motion. “Move on your way.”
“Oh, this is a private affair? My apologies.” The man looked to his companion. “Freddy, I think we’re imposing.”
Freddy nodded with exaggerated movements.
And yet neither of the ruffians made a move to leave. Instead they continued to smile, seemingly harmless. Only there was an undercurrent of menace in the way they stood shoulder-to-shoulder, almost as though they were deliberately forming a wall.
“Oh. What did the young lady do to her leg?” Freddy inquired, noting the end of the splint peeking out from her hem. Her fingers slid there self-consciously, tugging on her hem as if she could hide the vulnerability from them.
Unease skated over her skin, reminiscent of another night not long ago when Bloodsworth had toyed with her moments before he slammed a pillow over her face. Anger followed on the heels of her unease . . . anger that the arrival of these two should bring her back to that place again and make her feel like the old Annalise.
Owen stepped around her, blocking her from their view. “None of your concern.”
Her hands moved over the blanket, seeking something, anything she could use to defend herself. Her fingers bumped the half-full carafe of lemonade. She circled the neck with her fingers and held it close.
“Oh, wants her to himself, does he, Peter?” Freddy elbowed his taller companion.
Peter stepped to the side, his eyes looking beyond Owen to Annalise with interest. She fidgeted beneath his gaze, her fingers flexing around the carafe. She’d never seen a man look at her in such a lascivious manner. She felt the urge to snatch the extra blanket and cover herself.
But that still wouldn’t hide her face. Suddenly she regretted the ribbons and artfully arranged hair. She felt like a silly girl . . . and that made her feel somehow more vulnerable.
“Can’t blame him. She is a picture.” Peter attempted to sidestep Owen.
Not only did Owen move to block him, but he set a hand to the ruffian’s shoulder.
Peter knocked it aside with a snarl. Freddy moved then. She gave a small squeak and scooted back as he tackled Owen to the blanket.
She dragged herself out of the way of their thrashing bodies. The carafe slipped, spilling lemonade. She fumbled for it as they fought—a tangled blur of limbs beside her. Dimly, she heard Peter shouting encouragement.
Crying for help, Annalise looked around wildly, seeing no one else in that stretch of countryside. Securing her grip on the glass carafe, she lifted it over her head, waiting for the opportunity to bring it down.
Then the two bodies went still. Locked, but utterly still.
She stopped shouting, stopped breathing. Her gaze fixed on Owen, one arm wrapped around Freddy’s throat. His free hand pressed the tip of a knife to his cheek, indenting the flesh.
She gawked. She had not known he even possessed a knife. Certainly she had not seen it anywhere on his person. His sun-streaked hair was wild about his head, brushing the sharp planes of his face, falling low over his brow. His dark blue eyes appeared even darker, glittering like a night sea, full of an emotion she had never observed in him before. Not that she ever saw emotion from him.
Peter sputtered obscenities. “Let him go, you bastard!”
“And why would I do that?” Owen spoke as calmly as he looked, easily holding Freddy in check. “Considering what you were planning for us?” The knife pressed closer, blood pooling around the tip and dripping down Freddy’s cheek. “That wouldn’t be very wise of me.”
Freddy’s face was purpling now, his lips fighting for words, arriving only at a squeaked “Please.”
“We weren’t going to do nothing. Promise.” Peter held his hands up as though to show how harmless he really was.
“Lying curs,” Owen said in that coldly even voice. “You were going to rob us and do whatever other sordid whim struck you. Why should I let you go to just do it again? To carry on and hurt others?”
Annalise couldn’t look away. She knew she should tell him to stop, to let them go, but she couldn’t. Owen’s words resonated deeply within her. What if the duke had been hurting others, innocents, for years? No one would have dared stop him—a powerful lord. She vaguely realized she was nodding, silently encouraging Owen to stop these two.
Then Owen was looking at her. Those dark blue eyes trained on her, all that carefully restrained emotion focused on her. Watching her. Seeing her.
And something changed in his face then. A subtle altering. Some of the hard-edged tension ebbed from his features. That fire in his eyes faded, like coals banked.
His eyes still on her, he said to Freddy, “I’m going to release you. If you or your friend make any sudden movements . . . if you come at either me or the girl, I will show you just how good I am with a knife. I’ve left a long line of corpses that can attest to just how excellent my aim is.”
“ ’Course, ’course, yes, thank you,” Freddy babbled in his arms.
“We understand,” Peter agreed.
After some moments Owen slid his gaze from her and released his captive. He moved to stand before her as the unsavory pair scurried off, resembling wild animals. They scampered away as fast as their legs could carry them, looking over their shoulders several times as though to assure themselves that Owen was indeed letting them retreat and not making good on his threat.
A beat of silence held before she found her voice again. She moistened her lips and stared up at him. He still watched the men flee, the long lines of his body rigid and tense, like a spring ready to snap. “That was impressive.”
He turned and looked down at her, his eyes once again an impenetrable blue.
She moistened her lips, realizing her pulse still raced in her neck even though they were out of danger.
And then it dawned on her that they had never been in danger. Not truly. Not with this man—this stranger who apparently knew how to fight and wield a knife with deadly skill. He had always been in control. She scanned him from head to foot, admiring him . . . this man who could handle himself in any situation. She doubted he’d ever been a victim . . . ever tasted the sharp, coppery flood of fear in his mouth.
He said nothing in response to her compliment, merely stared at her with that maddening impassivity.
“How did you—” She stopped, swallowing back words as sudden hope blossomed in her heart. It didn’t matter how he knew how to handle himself in dangerous situations, only that he did. Only that he could.