Spencer watched Rose Grant lose all the color in her face at the man’s shout.
What was going on? One moment he was relaxed, imagining the peace of being married to a woman like her—pretty, capable, easily satisfied. In the space of a heartbeat, his suspicions of Rose flared back to life. Why hadn’t Spencer brought the knife with him, even if it was only an eating knife?
“You must hide!” she said, her voice higher than normal.
“Where shall I go? Who is this man?”
“I—oh, just wait here,” she said, both hands raised as if by sheer will alone she could keep him where he didn’t want to be. “He mustn’t see you!”
He watched her unlatch the gate and flee the courtyard as if hell itself had opened up to summon her.
Before he could even try to stand, he heard their voices and froze.
“Francis,” Rose said, her tone bright and forced, “it is a fine day today. What can I help you with?”
“I wanted you to know that John and Thomas will be coming tomorrow to begin harvesting your fields, Lady Roselyn.”
Whatever else the man said was lost in the red haze of a long-buried rage that rose to engulf Spencer’s mind.
Lady Roselyn Harrington?
Lady Roselyn Harrington and Rose Grant were the same woman.
How could he have been so stupid not to see it? She had been hesitant, distant, almost afraid of him. He’d put it down to a reaction to his Spanish looks.
Instead, she’d been playing him for a fool. She had known his identity from the beginning, and she’d never said a word. What was her game? He had thought for the first time that he’d met a woman of compassion, when all along she’d had her own selfish reasons for helping him.
Maybe it was guilt for what she’d done to him, Spencer thought, wishing he could pace his frustration away. More than likely she’d enjoyed humiliating him further and was just waiting for the right moment to laugh in his face.
After all, she’d done that to him before, when every friend he’d had was there to watch her turn him into a laughingstock.
He had thought service to his country would help him and the rest of London society forget, but even that was denied him. By now the queen must think that Spencer was a traitor.
And he had just been imagining marriage to a woman like Rose. If she knew, she’d laugh in triumph.
There was no “Rose,” the feminine, sweet woman. There was only Roselyn, the lying bitch who’d succeeded in humiliating him a second time—the last time.
As Roselyn emerged alone from the side of the cottage, Spencer was unprepared for the shock of hatred that surged through him. It was as if all the anger and uncertainty and fear of the last few months suddenly had a focus.
Now that he knew her identity, he could see why he hadn’t recognized her. She was thinner than he remembered; she wore no face paint or jewel-studded garments, no corsets or farthingales—and her hair was always hidden.
She looked almost fragile, vulnerable in her widow’s black, but it was all an illusion, and he’d fallen for it. Had her lover died, or had he just deserted her when he’d found out what a fickle woman she really was?
She opened the gate and walked slowly toward him. “You don’t have to go inside. He’s gone now.”
It was a struggle not to snarl his anger at her. “Who was that?” he asked, surprised at how normal his voice sounded.
“Francis Heywood.”
“The bailiff of Wakesfield Manor.”
“Yes,” she answered uncertainly.
Spencer could tell that she wondered how he knew that. He continued to stare at her until she finally walked down a row of the kitchen garden and knelt in the dirt, to weed.
He should confront her now, but as he watched her on her hands and knees, it gave him a dark feeling of satisfaction. Was this her punishment, a lifetime of the meanest labor? Or was she biding her time, waiting for her father to rescue her?
He watched her for at least an hour as she toiled in the hot sun, her black gown clinging to her back. He thought he should feel victorious, but as she put aside the vegetables she meant to use for his meal, he suddenly wanted it all over with.
He rose up, bracing his hand against the apple tree, angered anew by how weak and trembling even his good leg was. “I’d like to go back inside,” he said, unable to use the name she’d called herself.
Roselyn sat back on her heels, wiping the perspiration from her forehead with her sleeve. “I have one last row—”
“I need to go in now,” he interrupted, watching as she flinched and her expression grew uncertain. If she had been born a boy, her acting could put her on the London stage.
She walked toward him, carrying the basket of vegetables. It sickened him that he would have to depend on her.
Spencer lifted his arm, and she stepped against his body. He wanted to feel revulsion, but instead, as she reached around his back, he felt the pressure of her breast against his ribs, smelled again the natural perfume of her garden and her kitchen.
The walk from the courtyard around the cottage seemed long as he looked down at her bent head and thought of all the things he wanted to say. He was angry at her, and angry at his body for reacting to her as a woman.
Hastily she opened the door, guided him inside, then shut it. When she turned toward him, Spencer used his body to push her back against the door. The basket of vegetables tumbled from her arm and spilled across the floor. She looked up at him with wide gray eyes as he braced his hands on either side of her and used all the menace his height allowed him.
“Mr. Thornton, what—”
“Be quiet, Lady Roselyn,” he said, his voice a soft, rumbling growl.
Terror widened her eyes, then she wiped all expression away.
“How did you know?” she asked in a cool voice.
Oh, she was good, he thought, leaning nearer. She shrank back against the door almost imperceptibly—but he saw.
“My bailiff gave you away, Lady Roselyn.”
She put her hands against his chest and pushed, but he didn’t move. “What do you mean, your bailiff? And move away from me. Now!”
“All in good time, Lady Roselyn. Have you been sleeping in my manor home? Is this cottage just to make me feel sorry for you?”
“You mean my parents’ home. I live in this cottage. Surely you remember they wouldn’t want me at Wakesfield—or anywhere near them.”
“Are you so foolish that you did not read the contract that binds us together?” he demanded. When would she tremble and cry and beg for his understanding?
“I broke our betrothal; nothing binds us now.”
“You don’t sound certain, my lady—and with good reason. Everything here is mine, by your father’s own command.”
This time she didn’t try to hide the flash of horror that stole across her features. “You are lying. I did not marry you, so you are not entitled to a dowry.”
“Believe me, I am more and more thankful that you didn’t marry me. But our contract is binding. You have made sure I can never legally marry—but I am damn well entitled by law to the lands and moneys promised me.”
She took in a harsh breath, and Spencer thought tears would be next. But she was so calm it was unnatural.
Roselyn vowed she would not scream, she would not give Spencer Thornton the satisfaction of knowing that once again he had hurt her. Her father would never give away her childhood home, her only sanctuary. His words could not be true.
But her parents hadn’t let her read the marriage contract.
With her back against the door, she stared up at Thornton. This was the man she remembered. He used his strength and size to intimidate her, just as long ago he’d driven her away with a casual, dismissive look. He was dark and foreign, and maybe even a Spanish spy. Would he try to hurt her now that he didn’t have to pretend anymore?
“Is that why you came to Wight?” she demanded, pushing again on his chest, feeling muscle as solid as any wall. “Do you want to disrupt my life with your lies just for revenge?”
“’Tis not a lie—this is my estate now.”
“You made it clear you didn’t want to marry me. I did both of us a favor by running away, so I owe you nothing, and certainly not my home.”
“A favor?” he said, giving a harsh laugh. “I knew my duty; I would have married you.”
“I didn’t want to be your duty! I knew nothing about you—I most certainly didn’t love you.”
“You are naive if you think love has anything to do with marriage. It was about our families taking what they could from each other, merging into a strength no one but the queen could touch. But your stupidity cost your father the dowry he’d promised for you. ’Tis mine now, and I’m here to take it. If you don’t believe me, go ask your father.”
“I don’t speak to my father after the way he treated me,” Roselyn answered, ducking beneath his arm to escape the prison he’d created for her.
“Don’t you have that in reverse?” Spencer said as he awkwardly turned around and rested his back against the door. He gave her a cold smile that made her want to shudder. “He won’t speak to you. He disowned you, didn’t he?”
The pain she’d caused herself and her family was too private to show anyone, especially this man. She clenched her jaw and spoke through gritted teeth. “You obviously know this already. Does it make you feel like a man to taunt me with it?”
He took a deep breath and didn’t answer immediately. She saw that the strain of standing was beginning to affect him, but she’d rather let him fall than offer him help now.
“I am not taunting you,” he said stiffly. “I am only trying to make you understand that you are an intruder on my land.”
“I refuse to believe you. And even if it were true, would you be so cruel as to make a widow leave her home?”
“Widow?” he said with a sneer. “You are not a widow. Your lover may have died, but that still only makes you his whore.”
Roselyn’s hard-fought calm vanished beneath an onslaught of wild, pent-up rage. She slapped him hard, using the weight of her body behind her arm. She heard his head hit the wooden door, watched with dawning uncertainty as he fell—luckily onto his own pallet.
She almost ran to help him—until his cruel words reverberated through her brain, closing up her throat with tears she refused to shed. He could help himself.
Thornton rolled onto his back and lifted himself up on his elbows. His cheek had darkened from the imprint of her hand. “Striking me won’t change the truth. You made sure I can never legally wed another, that I can never give my family an heir. I will at least take all the property owed me.”
She didn’t answer, just clenched her fists to keep from hitting him again.
“I’ll wager your father doesn’t even know you’re here. Is the bailiff in on your deception?”
“The Heywoods are good people—they run this estate better than anyone else my father could hire.”
“So they house you, and you bake their bread. Do they enjoy watching you serve them?”
He might as well have struck her, and she gasped. “They are my only family—if you dare to make trouble for them, you’ll answer to me.”
They stared at each other, both breathing heavily, the air between them thick with anger and mistrust. Roselyn finally turned away. Sobs pressed against her ribs, tears stung behind her eyelids, but she would not let Thornton know how terrified she was.
Why hadn’t she just left him on the beach, like any sensible woman?
She knelt down and began to pick up the scattered vegetables with hands that shook. She felt his mocking gaze on her, but she refused to look at him. She didn’t know what to do, had no one to turn to. Now that he knew who she was, there was nothing to stop him from hurting her, especially if he was a Spanish spy.
But what if he was only an angry, rejected bridegroom? Regardless of the cruel things he’d said, she had humiliated him before all of London society, which seemed to matter to him.
But that didn’t give him the right to force her to leave her family home. She would not believe that her father would part with Wakesfield, where she’d spent so much of her childhood.
Roselyn didn’t look at Thornton as she hung another cauldron of water over the fire. She kept her back to him as she chopped vegetables and checked on the salted mutton she’d left soaking in a bowl. With each repetitive stroke of her knife, she became even more numb to the despair she thought she’d long ago buried—
Until she turned around and saw him watching her with black, fathomless eyes. A knowing smirk turned up the corners of his mouth. She froze, barely keeping herself from flinging the vegetables at him.
But it would only make more work for her. She put the vegetables and mutton and seasonings in the cauldron, and tossed the bowl back on the table. Without looking at him, she calmly opened the door and went outside, where she took one step, then another, and another, until she started to run, as if she could outrun the coming darkness.
Roselyn didn’t stop until she fell to her knees in the tall grass overlooking the ocean, and finally let the sobs escape her aching chest.