She curtsied to him. “I think I’ll be quite safe, but I appreciate your concern.”
“But—”
She held his gaze. “I’ll be fine. It’s quite safe here, Marco, I assure you.”
He took a step back. “I suppose it is.”
Dotty piled the last of the dishes in the sink and wiped her hands on her apron. “Come on, Mr. Marco. I’ll show you where the axe and saw are kept.”
There had been no reply from Mr. Stultz waiting at the post office, but Amelia collected a letter for Aunt Betty and a parcel of narrow worked lace that she’d ordered through the milliner. As she walked back down the lane toward Dove Cottage, she glanced up at the sky where some rather black clouds were gathering out at sea and she quickened her pace.
The first drops of rain hit her as she unlatched the gate, and she went around the back of the house to avoid walking mud into the front parlor. She paused at the back door, aware of a rhythmic pounding coming from the rear of the garden. Leaving her basket against the back door, she set off down the path to find Marco chopping wood. He’d discarded his shirt and had his scarred back to her, the slight sheen of sweat now highlighted by the addition of the raindrops.
He chopped wood with the ease of a man used to accomplishing the task, his muscles moving smoothly through the motions. For a moment, Amelia allowed herself to enjoy the sight of his muscled body and the scent of warm man rising from his skin.
“Marco?”
He swung around so fast, the axe raised to strike that she instinctively threw up her hand to protect her face.
“Mrs. Smith!” He dropped the axe on the ground between them. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to alarm you. Are you all right?”
She took in a much-needed breath, her hands clutched to her chest. “I wanted to make sure you came inside before it started raining more heavily.”
He glanced up at the leaden skies and shivered. “I didn’t realize.”
“I’d hate it if you caught a chill.”
He nodded and retrieved the axe and saw. “I’ll just put these away and I’ll come in.”
She gestured at his naked chest. “You might wish to put your shirt on before Dotty sees you.”
“I took it off because I didn’t want to damage the fabric while I chopped the wood.” He rubbed one hand over his sternum. “I apologize if I offended you.”
“You don’t need to apologize to me, I have been married.” Amelia turned away before she gave into the temptation to touch him. “I think we’re in for a stormy afternoon so please don’t linger out here.”
“Yes, Mrs. Smith.”
She practically ran back along the path, tripping over her skirts in her haste to distance herself from a perfectly healthy half-dressed man—who couldn’t even remember his own name.
“I am a terrible woman,” she whispered to herself as she pushed open the back door and went into the kitchen where Cook and Dotty were preparing the midday meal.
“I beg your pardon, ma’am?” Dotty said cheerfully.
“Nothing.” Amelia put down her basket. “Mrs. Shaw had some jars of lemon curd, so I got one and gave her a jar of honey in return.”
“Then I can make some tarts.” Cook looked almost approving.
The back door creaked, and Amelia fled into the hallway and up the stairs to her bedroom, shutting and locking the door behind her. She caught sight of her reflection in the mirror on her dressing table and considered her wild-eyed appearance.
The problem of having once been married and having enjoyed all the privileges of a naked man in her bed made
not
having one hard to bear. She missed having a man’s skin to touch, his mouth to kiss, his… With a groan, she took off her bonnet and shawl and put them away.
She had washed every inch of Marco, tended to his wounds, held a basin for him when he’d retched, and yet seeing him standing there in her garden without his shirt on had stirred feelings within her that she had assumed had died with Matthew. And now she felt grubby
and
disloyal.
Had Marco guessed how she was feeling? She clapped her hands to her cheeks and realized they were hot. She prayed he hadn’t seen the blatant interest in her eyes. It would be mortifying if she’d made him feel ill at ease in her company. Amelia sank down on the side of her bed and took off her muddy boots.
After Matthew’s death, some of his colleagues had offered to bed her, explaining that it was a well-known fact that a young widow would be grateful for any man’s attention when her own man was dead. She’d calmly and politely declined all such invitations, disguising her inner horror at the thought of ever touching another man again. And yet here she was, lovingly recreating in her mind the image of Marco swinging the axe down through the wood…
“Enough of this, Amelia Smith!”
She jumped to her feet, washed her face in cold water and put on her slippers. She would not prove all those men right and become one of those women who was willing to do anything simply to have a man inside her again. She would
not.
Anyway, she was far too managing and plain to attract another man. Holding her head high, she unlocked the door and sailed down the stairs into the kitchen where Aunt Betty was investigating the contents of her basket.
“Oh there you are, my dear. Was there any post? Did you hear back from that tailor about Marco’s coat?”
Marco, who had put his shirt and coat back on, was sitting at the table. He looked up.
“What about my coat?”
Wishing her aunt to the devil, Amelia took the seat opposite him. “I found a tailor’s mark in the lining of your coat and a matching mark in your waistcoat. I thought to try and identify you through them.”
“Without consulting me?”
There was a distinct edge to his voice that made her sit up straight and lose all remnants of her earlier discomfort. “You weren’t well enough to consult and what harm can it do?”
Dotty poured them all some tea. “It was a Mr. Stultz’s mark, Mr. Marco, an ‘S’ and a ‘t’. Mrs. Smith found it sewn in the seam.”
“Stultz?” He was frowning now.
“Yes, on Clifford Street. Is that where your uniforms came from?’”
“I don’t know.”
“Then you can scarcely object if I attempt to find out,” Amelia interjected.
He scrubbed a hand over his unshaven chin. “I’m sorry. I’m sure you did what you thought was best.”
She met his gaze. “Do you not want to be found, Marco?”
“I’m…not sure.”
“Surely knowing who you are has to be better than not knowing?”
“It rather depends on what I’ve been doing for the last two or three years, doesn’t it?”
“As we’ve already discussed, sir, the war is over and you are free to return to the life you enjoyed before the conflict. I will do everything I can to help you achieve that.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I appreciate your concern. It cannot be easy for any of you having me here. If you wish me to leave…”
“I did not say that.” She was glaring at him now. “I am perfectly happy with you staying with us until you regain your memory.”
“As am I,” Aunty Betty added. “Now let’s eat the good food that Cook has prepared for us before it gets cold.”
Unfortunately for Marco’s peace of mind, during the afternoon the weather continued to deteriorate, leaving him unable to go outside and reduced to pacing his room like a caged animal. After supper, Aunt Betty invited him to join her in the parlor for a game of cards, but he’d already discovered that he couldn’t concentrate well enough to play even the simplest of games. And counting or remembering the sequence of the cards for games such as piquet were beyond him. Just reading a book brought back his headache.
Whatever Mrs. Smith said, he knew he was a burden to the ladies. They were feeding and clothing him, and, although they never complained, he felt like an intruder and a veritable parasite. He didn’t have to regain his memory to realize that he’d made Mrs. Smith uneasy earlier. He had a good enough understanding of women to know that seeing him with an axe in his hand inches from her face had frightened her. He shouldn’t be surprised. He’d killed for a living and wasn’t sure if he was fit to live amongst everyday people anymore.
Thunder rolled and rumbled along the coastline, echoing the uncertainty of his temper and the aching pressure in his skull. Echoes of battles long past and the moans and screams of the dying made him long for something to make him sleep without dreaming. It was that or smash his head against the wall until one pain canceled out the other.
At last, when the house was quiet, he crept down the stairs. He knew where Aunt Betty kept her medicines and that there was a bottle of laudanum amongst her more practical remedies. A sound in the kitchen had him reaching for a pistol he no longer owned until he realized it was just the house cat stretching out beside the glowing embers of the hearth fire.
He took a moment to crouch down beside the purring Tom and stroke his ginger head before tiptoeing through to the pantry. The bottle of laudanum was half-full. He didn’t think Aunt Betty would begrudge him a good night’s sleep. Measuring out a dose into one of the tea cups on the dresser, he found the jug of well water and added that to the mixture.
A flash of lightning followed by the boom of thunder rattled the windowpanes, and he looked outside at the trees, which were bending gracefully into the wind. It sounded like cannon fire, which made his headache worsen. The backdoor latch shook free, and Marco ran over to stop the door banging against the wall. He frowned as he looked down at the key. Why hadn’t Mrs. Smith locked the door as she or Aunt Betty did every night before they went to bed?
Was someone out there? Even as he had the thought, his gaze went to the window. A woman was silhouetted against the black sky, her hair hanging down her back as she walked down the path to the bottom of the garden.
Without further thought, Marcus went after her, cringing as the thunder boomed right over his head and the lightning illuminated her slender form.
“Mrs. Smith.” She didn’t appear to hear him, which wasn’t surprising given the noise of the thunder and the howl of the wind. “Mrs.
Smith!”
She half-turned toward him, her mouth open, one hand pressed to her breast.
“Go away, Marco.”
He took three steps closer. “You shouldn’t be out here. You could—”
“I know what could happen to me.” She shivered. “That’s why I have to face it.”
“You aren’t making sense. You have to come inside.” He barked the order at her.
“I’ll come when I’m ready.”
He reached her, grabbed her wrist and yanked her against him. Her nightgown was wet through, and she was instantly plastered to his chest, wet linen to wet linen, his warmth to her coldness.
“Don’t play games, Mrs. Smith.”
She wrapped her hand around his wrist and tugged at it uselessly. “You have no right to tell me what to do. If I want to stand out in a storm, you can’t stop me.”
“I can pick you up over my shoulder like a sack of coal if I have to and take you inside.”
She swallowed hard. “I’m afraid of storms.”
“Then why in God’s name are we out in this one arguing about it?”
She slumped against him. “Because I hate being afraid. I want to stop cowering under my covers when it’s like this.”
He cupped her chin. “Will you at least come inside and talk about this before we both drown?”
“You may go back inside whenever you want, sir.”
With a stifled curse, he bent down, scooped her up in his arms and walked back up the path to the kitchen. He didn’t pause, but kept going up the stairs until he kicked open her bedroom door and dumped her on the bed. She bared her teeth at him as he shut her door and leaned against it.
“You saved my life, Mrs. Smith. I cannot let you stay out there.”
“And I cannot agree with you, sir.”
She bit her trembling lower lip and crossed her arms over her bosom, but not before he’d noticed that her nipples were hard against the damp linen. He knew he should leave, but he couldn’t stop staring at the way her curved figure was revealed by the clinging fabric. He licked his lips. How would she taste? Her skin wet from the rain and the salt of the sea?
“Don’t…look at me like that.”
He leaned back against the door, aware that his clothes were equally revealing of his unexpected and inconvenient lust.
“Like what?”
“As if you can’t decide whether you want to strangle me or…” She suddenly stopped talking.
“Or bed you?” Marco asked.
She nodded.
“And what if I told you I can’t decide that either?”
She shivered violently, and he pushed away from the door and crouched by the fire. “You need to get warm.” He placed several more pieces of wood on the embers and added a few lumps of precious coal. “You also need to take off those wet clothes and get to bed.”
“So do you.”
He kept his back to her, desperately trying to shield the evidence of his arousal. “Can I find you another nightgown or something to wrap around yourself?”
There was silence behind him followed by soft rustling sounds. He closed his eyes to shut out the image of her taking off her clothing. What if she suggested he strip and wrap himself around her? God, he wanted to. Wanted to bury himself inside her warmth and stay there forever…
“Marco?”
He busied himself tidying up the ashes. “Yes?”
“I’m sorry.”
“It is of no matter.” He rose to his feet keeping his gaze on the fire. “We all have our battles to fight and our demons to vanquish.”
She’d taken off her wet nightgown and slipped between the covers leaving only her shoulders bare to the firelight and her hair flowing over one shoulder. She looked beautiful.
“One night in Portugal, I saw a man killed by a lightning strike right in front of me.” She shook her head. “It was…horrific. Ever since then I’ve been mortally afraid when there is a storm.”
“Then why not stay inside and be safe instead?” He risked another glance at her.
“Because that isn’t how I want to live any longer. Hiding away from everything I fear, hiding here in Dove Cottage.” She sighed. “I wanted to face the storm and beat it.”
“And I stopped you.”
She shrugged. “I was there long enough. I was about to come in, anyway, when you arrived.”