Late the next afternoon, Roselyn worked in her bake house preparing supper. She felt tired and uneasy, and told herself the cause could only be Thornton.
At the sound of footsteps outside the door she gasped and whirled, holding a knife, her heart pounding.
John Heywood stopped in the doorway, his smile fading. “Roselyn?”
The knife dropped from her shaking hands and barely missed her foot. She ran her hands over her face and gave John a tremulous smile. What had she been thinking? Was she so on edge that she imagined enemies following her about the island?
“John, you startled me,” she said lamely, picking up the knife. “I have felt…uneasy all day.”
“It is understandable with a war going on so near.”
He came toward her and she tried to relax, to remember how happy she usually was to see him. He was the eldest Heywood son, of average height and spare from hard work, and his hands could work miracles out of wood. More and more he had taken to visiting her, to dropping hints about marriage, even though he knew they could only be handfasted, not legally married in the church.
She felt comfortable with him, and she’d begun to think that that was as good as love could ever get.
But to see him now, when Thornton was so near, only made her nervous.
“We’ve been worried about you, Roselyn,” he said, taking the knife from her hand and setting it on the table. “We’ve missed your morning visits.”
“The bread,” she said, shaking her head. “I haven’t brought your order lately.”
“’Tis not the bread we miss. Mother and Charlotte have baked what we need.” He smiled and leaned down to press a quick kiss to her cheek. “We’ve barely seen you. It’s almost as if you’ve gone back into mourning. Twice now, Charlotte has come to practice her baking with you, but you’ve been gone.”
Charlotte was John’s fourteen-year-old sister, and her cheerful companionship had eased Roselyn’s loneliness when she’d first returned to the island. What if the girl had followed her to the shed?
“You must be working too hard,” John said with a smile. “I’ll have to keep a closer eye on you.”
She usually enjoyed their banter, but now his words made her worry. She could not risk the Heywoods finding Thornton, not if the man could be an enemy. How could she bring such danger on the family she loved?
After John left Roselyn approached the door to the shed, but she could see at once that Thornton wasn’t lying where she’d left him. She felt a moment of absolute panic, wondering if he’d truly killed himself this time.
She entered the doorway and gave a sharp cry as a hand grasped her upper arm and pulled her inside. The tray bobbled in her hands as she recognized Thornton, bare-chested and imposing.
He leaned against the wall, standing on one leg and bracing himself with the palm of his hand. His whole body trembled as he looked down at her. She realized how truly tall he was, how easily he could overpower her if he chose. In the growing evening darkness, perspiration glistened on his face.
“My leg is broken, isn’t it?” he whispered.
His big hand slid behind her head to tilt her face up to him, and Roselyn caught her breath on a gasp at the shock that went through her.
“I must leave here.” His whisper was almost a hiss. “It’s been five days! I’ve never been so incapacitated. I’m sorry…the word means—”
“I know what it means,” she said coldly.
He held her still, his fingers spread across her skull, his eyes delving into hers. “Yes…” he said softly, “I can see that you do. You’re not a typical country maid.”
“And six days have now passed.”
“Six days? I cannot even keep track of such a simple thing!” His mouth turned up in a grim laugh. “I don’t even know whose clothes I’m wearing, or how I got into them.”
“I helped you.”
His gaze focused on her again, and she felt herself tremble as it dipped to her mouth.
“You are quite the nursemaid,” he murmured.
For a moment Roselyn could only remember lying beneath him on the cliffs, his hand just below her breast. Suddenly she couldn’t bear to be near him, because it only made her remember that their fathers had tried to force this intimacy on them. “Please let me set the tray down.”
He released her at once, and she placed the tray on the ground.
“You need to lie down. You’re not strong enough to be about.”
Again he laughed with little humor. “But you’re strong, aren’t you? I must have been dead weight when you…disrobed me.”
She felt a blush steal across her features and thanked God the sun had set so Thornton couldn’t see. She could barely admit to herself that she’d studied his nakedness as if she’d never seen a man before.
“If you saw everything,” he continued, the quirk in his mouth dying, “was I wearing a pouch strapped to my chest?”
“No.”
She didn’t hesitate to withhold the truth, even though she saw the brief look of despair in his eyes. She had forgotten all about the pouch, and hoped it was still buried in the grass beneath him. She needed to examine it before she gave it back to him, to determine if he was a spy.
She put her arm around his back, and he half hopped, half dragged himself to the stool.
Thornton had already wandered away once—he had almost done so again. What if he told people she was caring for him? Her parents could discover where she was, and make her leave the only place she’d ever felt safe.
Roselyn took a deep breath. “This arrangement isn’t working out.”
“Arrangement?” His black eyebrows rose. “You sound as if I’m renting lodgings from you.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s getting too hard to keep running down here. I’m the village baker, and I have duties I can no longer neglect. You need to come home with me where I can better…care for you.” And she could retrieve the pouch.
But she felt heat suffuse her body at the thought of having him alone in her cottage. She vividly remembered the feel of his leg between hers. What was wrong with her?
“You should eat, regain your strength a bit, and then we’ll go.”
“Now?”
“We cannot go during the day; someone might see you.”
He questioned her no more, just looked thoughtful as he ate his meat pie. After lighting the lantern, she felt that watching him eat was suddenly too intimate, so she glanced out the window.
He took a last swallow of ale and handed her the tankard. “Are you ready, Rose? Forgive me, but I’ll have to lean on you.”
Now he treated her cordially, though she was but a stranger to him. When she was his betrothed, a frightened young girl, he’d been cruel. She would not forget.
“Very well, Mr. Thornton,” she said, remembering not to use his title, which simple Rose Grant wouldn’t know. She took his hands and placed them on her shoulders, trying not to notice the warmth of his callused palms. “Use me to stand.”
With a grunt of exertion he rose up on his good leg. Wincing at the pressure on her shoulders, she slid beneath his arm.
She reached for the lantern and blew out the candle, saying, “I can’t have the bailiff seeing us—unless you’d like to be taken in and nursed by his family.”
“You are doing a fine job,” he said—too quickly.
He obviously didn’t want anyone else to know where he was.
Together they set off across the estate, guided only by the moon and Roselyn’s sure knowledge of her home. In every shadow she thought she saw the villagers watching them, prepared to spread the word that she was housing a strange man. Perhaps John had been suspicious, and still lingered nearby. It was difficult to put her nervousness aside, especially when the hair on the back of her neck prickled with strange awareness. Was someone out there in the darkness?
A quarter hour had not passed before Thornton’s breath was rasping in his chest, and his perspiration soaked her clothing. Finally she saw the faint light in the window of her cottage, and she breathed a shuddering sigh of relief. She pushed open her door and almost dragged him inside.
Awkwardly holding him while leaning over, she pulled a bench away from the table. “Sit here, Mr. Thornton. Give me a moment to prepare a pallet for you.”
She brought her own goose-feather mattress from the loft and made his bed in the corner closest to the hearth. She could make herself another mattress on the morrow.
As she helped him to his feet, he staggered forward and slung both arms over her shoulders in the semblance of an intimate embrace. She felt herself blush as her face was pressed to his chest, and she had no choice but to grip his waist to keep him upright.
“Forgive me,” he murmured into her hair.
She remained silent, frozen, too aware of him.
“You smell wonderful.”
When she didn’t answer, his chest shook in a laugh. “I’ll wager I don’t.”
Roselyn couldn’t stop the smile that fleetingly crossed her face. Why did he have to be charming, even in sickness? She hadn’t suspected he had this side to him.
Together they managed to get him onto the pallet, where he collapsed back and closed his eyes as she covered him with a blanket.
“I must leave you for a few moments,” she said. “I have to return for the tray and the lantern.”
When she reached the shed, she began to dig in the pile of grass for his pouch. She found it quickly, then held it up in the meager light. It was still damp, and tightly tied at the neck. It took her endless minutes to loosen the leather laces.
She found herself opening the pouch slowly, not eager to know what was inside. She had nursed Thornton and held off death for him, and though she longed for him to be gone from her peaceful island, she didn’t want him arrested for treason.
And yet—that would be proof that she’d made the right decision in not marrying him.
Her hand shook as she pulled out several sheets of parchment, folded and sealed with an unfamiliar wax imprint. Only hesitating for a moment, she carefully lifted the wax and spread open the letter. Her stomach sank in immediate distress.
The words were in Spanish.
Roselyn stared at the unintelligible letter and gritted her teeth; anger raged through her as quickly as gossip at court. Would an English viscount actually betray his country for the sake of his mother’s people?
She told herself to remain calm, that this could be just a letter to Thornton’s mother. But would he have asked for such a simple thing the moment he had his wits about him?
She couldn’t give it back to him; she’d already lied and told him she didn’t have it. She couldn’t give it to the militia, either. If no one understood Spanish, they could very well arrest him as a precautionary measure—or God forbid, hang him as a spy on his appearance alone.
She couldn’t allow that to happen. She would have to be satisfied that he wouldn’t betray his country before she allowed him to leave her home. She would watch him, even make him feel comfortable around her. And she would listen to every word he said, in hopes of piecing together the puzzle that was Spencer Thornton.
She reburied the oilskin pouch and its questionable contents beneath the cut grass.
When Roselyn returned to her cottage, she stood above Thornton and looked down on him. He was deep in an exhausted sleep, with shadows darkening his eyes.
She dreaded bathing him again. It would be better to do as much of it as she could while he was asleep.
Spreading towels about him to catch the soapy water, she began to wash him. But removing his breeches this time was more embarrassing and intimate. She knew who he was now, what he could have been to her—husband. He was different from Philip, darker and larger, and part of her wanted to stare.
Instead she concentrated on removing his splint and washing his legs, pretending she didn’t feel overly warm and flustered. It was only as she moved up his body that she realized the effect her ministrations were having on him. He was becoming…aroused.
Her face shot with heat, and she didn’t know what to do, where to turn. She wasn’t through bathing him, yet she couldn’t keep looking at…it. She dropped the wet cloth over his groin, then gasped as he awakened with a start and came up on one elbow.
“What the—” Thornton began, then gaped at his barely concealed nudity.
“I needed to…bathe you,” she began, faltering with an embarrassment she wasn’t used to. “I thought it would be better if you were asleep.”
He pulled a towel over his hips. “Aren’t you a little young to bathe strange men? Surely your husband couldn’t approve.”
“My husband is dead. You’ve been wearing his garments.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said in a gruff voice.
There was something absurd about a naked, aroused man expressing his sympathies.
An awkward silence hovered between them, and she should have looked away—but couldn’t. They seemed caught, their gazes bound together, their bodies too close.
Thornton finally cleared his throat, and his eyes dropped down her body before he looked away. “Let me finish this…bath, if you don’t mind.”
“You’re still weak—”
“Then let me take care of…certain areas.”
Roselyn waited outside in the darkness, her back against the cottage, hugging herself against the night wind. The stars overhead seemed distant, cold, and she had the strangest feeling of exposure. She closed her eyes and tried to pretend that she didn’t feel watched.
When Thornton called for her, she stepped inside and closed the door quickly. He had a towel wrapped tightly about his hips.
After wringing out the cloth in the soapy water, she washed carefully about his bandages, holding his long arms while she soaped them. When she looked up into his face she realized with a start that he was again watching her.
He gave her a crooked grin. “I don’t suppose you’ll allow me to return the favor someday.”
A slow heat burned her face. How dare he tease her after he had rejected her? But he didn’t remember her—and she had rejected him in the end.
She managed to look coolly into his face while she worked soap into his short beard. “Shall I shave this for you?”
His smile fled, and his eyes narrowed, leaving her with a strange chill.
“Why would you ask such a thing?” he said in a low voice. “Do not most men of your acquaintance wear beards?”
She had seen him without one two years before, and merely made the error of thinking he still wore it that way. Why did he take offense?
“I did not know if you wore a beard. I was merely granting you the courtesy of asking.”
She didn’t break his gaze until he finally smiled and shook his head.
“Forgive me. I am not used to being so…coddled by a woman.”
“Have you no wife, Mr. Thornton?”
“No. The uncertainty of war delayed any thought of marriage.”
She longed to see some signs of guilt in his face, but he showed nothing. She placed towels about his head and proceeded to wash his hair, trying to quell her unease at this strange intimacy.