He knew his staff wondered at the lord of the house nursing the stranger—and in his room at that. But he owed them no explanations, if he could come up with one. Which he couldn’t and he’d tried.
Something about her pulled at him. Or maybe it was the fact she was left for dead. He’d been left for dead once. Jason shook off the thoughts.
It was now dark.
He still knew no more about the woman than he had earlier, except that she was the only survivor of the robbed stage. The coachman and guard were found dead, the coachman further up the road from the guard who lain on the roadside by a deceased colonel. Jason wondered if the attack was mere coincidence or something more. Why had it happened practically on his doorstep? Because of the storm, he’d missed the meeting he was supposed to garner information on and, with the finding the chit, he hadn’t had the time to worry over it. But now, he wondered…
She was indeed lucky. If he could only get her fever down.
Again she tossed her head on the pillow. “No. No. Please, don’t. Please…”
“
Shh
. You’re safe.”
The cold water in the basin chilled his hands, but still he dipped the cloth and ran it over her again. After hours of this, he knew her body as he did own. Well, almost. Her petite frame made him feel protective, or perhaps it was the scars, or the tears that leaked from beneath her closed eyes, at the pain of her feverish
rantings
, he knew not.
Her warm, flushed cheeks scared him. Normally, a woman in his bed with such a rosy complexion would make him smile in triumph, but not now. Now, he just wanted to get the damn fever down. He’d fought for years on the Continent, knew what fever could do to a grown man, hardened by war. From what he could see, this woman had suffered enough in her life without having this to add to her pain.
“You’ll be all right,” he whispered to her, brushing a damp strand of hair from her temple.
He wished he knew her name. Something to bring her out of this, to at least acknowledge her whereabouts. Then he’d find out who she was.
Her rest was fitful and scattered. Throughout the night he listened to the desperate whispers pleading for Mary, begging for Theodore to stop.
Who was Mary? Her child? He knew women’s bodies well enough, that he knew she’d born one. There were telltale silvery lines on her small breasts and two on her lower abdomen.
And Theodore?
He picked up her hand and wiped it with the cloth, her palm burning in his. He twirled the gold band on her finger. It was loose and he pulled it up just a bit. For a woman as pale as she was, there was still a faint white band on her finger from wearing the ring for some amount of time. So was it Theodore who had marked her so? Her husband? Or someone else?
The more Jason worked and prayed over her, the more he wondered about her. Who she was, what she was doing here, why fate had shoved her into his hands.
* * * * *
A moan jerked him awake. Jason blinked in the flickering candlelight as
Grims
wiped the woman’s brow, the counterpane tucked up under her chin.
“I think it might be coming down, my lord,”
Grims
whispered.
He shot his hand out and laid it on her forehead. Was it just hope or did she feel cooler?
“How long have I been asleep?” he asked.
One haughty gray brow rose. “We can’t have the master falling ill, even if he is unaccountably stubborn.”
Jason stretched and rolled his neck.
Again the woman moaned.
“Perhaps she is coming to?”
Jason hoped so.
“Madam? Madam? You need to wake up.” To
Grims
he said, “Where is that infused tea the doctor blathered about?”
“My lord?”
Jason pointed. “There, that bottle. Take it and infuse a pinch—however the hell much that is—in a cup of tea for the lady to drink.”
Grims
did as he was told.
The woman sighed and he put his hand to her good shoulder, reaching across her. “Madam. Wake up. Wake up.”
A voice filtered through the haze, tunneling and echoing off her ears. The mumbles, garbled in their sounds, finally slid into place.
“I need to know who you are.”
Who she was? Surely that made no sense.
“Come now, I know you can hear me.”
Hear him? Of course she could hear him. He was all but yelling.
She licked her dried lips and tried to open her itchy eyes. Finally, she cracked open one eye. The room was dark. Someone was leaning over her, a dark form, shadowed in the dim lights.
“There you are,” he said.
He. A man.
Theodore? She shook her head and gazed up at him, the old fear swimming in her stomach. He leaned closer and she tried to shift away.
Pain seared through her shoulder, down her arm and up her neck. Her head throbbed as she tried to take a deep breath.
“Easy.”
All she saw was his hand moving.
She closed her eyes and waited.
Silence.
A touch
featherlight
down her cheek.
He cleared his throat. “You are safe here, Madam. No one will harm you while you’re a guest in my home.”
The voice wasn’t Theodore’s. It was clipped, rough, yet soothing, and most definitely British. Nor was the touch Theodore’s. Then she remembered—Theodore was dead.
She was in England. Memories of the dock floated through her mind, the coach, Colonel Ludlow.
A shiver danced through her.
Gunshots. Death. Air. And the voices.
“Stupid wench.”
“Are you out of your mind?”
Emily opened her eyes and focused on the man hovering over her. She licked her lips again, felt the dry, cracked skin.
“Where,” she whispered.
“Where are you?”
She blinked and looked at the dark-headed stranger. His hair, black as a raven’s feather, complimented his dark eyes set beneath dark slashes of brows. A strong face, almost narrow, but not, chiseled cheekbones and
jawline
. His lips appeared firm, yet tilted a bit just at the corners. His nose, straight and Romanesque. Perfection marred by a large crescent scar curving from his hairline to his jaw on the left side of his face. Who was he?
“I’m Jason
Claymere
. You are at
Ravenscrest
Abbey, my estate in Kent. Do you remember what happened?”
His voice was soothing. The short, no-nonsense syllables different from what she was accustomed to hearing in Maryland. Not that she’d never heard an Englishman, but Colonials spoke slower or seemed to. Maybe not. She raised her right hand to her aching head. Must have addled her wits.
“Do you remember what happened?” he asked again, in that low voice. It reminded her of water over rocks, rain on leaves.
Definitely addled wits.
She cleared her throat and rubbed her forehead.
It was then she realized she was without clothing. Gasping again, her gaze flew to him.
One dark brow winged up. “You’ve had the fever.”
The fever. Oh.
“
Wh
-where are my clothes? My cloak?” The letters. Her money. She’d had letters in her cloak pocket, and enough coin to last her a bit, hadn’t she?
He shook his head. “Your clothing was quite ruined, Madam. As for your cloak it is drying on the back of that chair over there.”
“My letters? Money?”
His eyes narrowed on hers. “All in good time. As with you, your belongings are safe here.”
Where did he say here was?
“You’ve been unconscious for an entire day.”
“I hit something, a rock or tree.” She remembered rolling and rolling and slamming into something. Emily looked at this man perched on the edge of this bed. “I jumped from the carriage.”
A look that could only be shock crossed his features, both brows arched, wrinkling his forehead. “Jumped?”
She was tired. “Yes, jumped. I did not want to wait until the man got control of the horses. They’d kill me then.”
A knock sounded at the door. The man rose and strode across the room. She could hear him whispering, but it was too dark to see to whom he was speaking. The room was in shadows, but still she knew wealth when she saw it. The bed hangings of deep blue, looked to be silk, shot with golden threads. The feather mattress was so thick it all but swallowed her. Cool sheets, soft against her bare skin, cradled her.
In moments he was back, carrying a tray.
“There is tea here with medicine in it. The doctor left it, and you’re going to drink it all down. I want you well.” The order sounded stern, but lacked the hardened edge she was used to in being told what to do.
Chamomile wafted up from the teacup and mixed with another heady scent. He sat on the bed and lifted her head in the crook of his arm. Emily grasped the blanket to her naked chest and drank the brew in sips. She shook her head. “No more.”
He glanced in the cup. “I think that’s enough in any case.” He set it aside and looked back at her. He still held her and she tried to shift away. Carefully, he eased her down and brushed her hair back. “So, you jumped out of a moving carriage?”
Whether it was condescension or slight amusement, she couldn’t tell. “A runaway carriage. The shots spooked the horses.”
A grin flickered at the corner of his mouth. “My pardon. A runaway carriage.”
“Yes. Then…” The voices and the pain in her shoulder. She looked down, seeing and feeling the bandage against her skin.
“Then?”
“It was raining and the ground seemed to be moving. Someone said,
‘Stupid wench’
. And then the other voice asked the first man if he was out of his mind.” She yawned and shivered. “That’s all I remember.”
“That you remember anything is a blessing.” He looked down at her hand. “Were you traveling with your husband?”
Why did he want to know?
“I am a widow.”
“I thought as much.” He looked back at her and she realized his eyes were a deep dark blue framed with thick, spiky black lashes. “And where does this brave and impetuous widow hail from? I can’t quite place your accent.”
“Maryland,” she said, closing her eyes. The pain in her arm fired in a hot pulse through her body.
“The Colonies?” The shock in his voice made her open her eyes.
“America,” she corrected. “And regardless of what the colonel said, you are not going to win the war. It’s already…”
A shot rang out. The Colonel weaved and fell
. “The Colonel…he’s…is he?”
His eyes softened. “Dead? Yes, unfortunately.” He tilted his head, a grin at the edge of his mouth. “A Colonial.”
“Yes, as I was saying,” she cleared her throat, “the war’s over.”
“A Colonial,” he mumbled.
“American.”
“I thought you were all uncivilized tea dumpers.”
She glared at him. The man gave a new meaning to the word arrogance. It all but oozed out of him and his perfectly clipped words, and the way he sat on the side of the bed as though he had every right to do so with that slight amusement in his eye.
“Americans prefer coffee. And we did win the war. Apparently your sainted tea is a bit weak. Perhaps that’s why we didn’t like it. Perhaps if you’d been more concerned with winning than with tea time, things might be different.”
What was she doing? She knew better than to speak to a man thus. She stilled and looked away from him, focusing on a single candle flame in the silver candelabrum. She was in his home, wounded, ill and he could do anything he wanted to if he so chose.
Stupid, so very foolish. Had she learned nothing? The flame weaved, then stilled.
His laughter startled her, a deep rumble that faded as he softly said, “You need not fear.”
She wanted to yell at him that she wasn’t afraid, that she feared nothing. Never again would she fear anything, but the slight tremors and her own bruised spirit quaked at the thought, the truth whimpering.
She’d been afraid for so long, she hardly knew what else to be.
“I didn’t mean to be impertinent.”
Another chuckle. “But I like impertinence, it keeps one on one’s toes. Don’t you think?”
“I wouldn’t know.” She licked her lips, darting a quick look from the corner of her eye, and picked at the counterpane.
A long moment passed. “No, something tells me you wouldn’t.”
What did that mean?
He shifted off the bed. “Well, Madam Impertinence, I mean to see you well again.” The man sat down in a chair close to the bed. “And I’d rather address you by your name than just Madam, or some other inane title.”
The tea was making her sleepy. She yawned again, and snuggled deeper in bed, wincing at the now-dull ache in her shoulder. She should ask him for something to wear…
“A name, a name, what’s in a name…”
“Like Shakespeare do you? Is your name Elizabeth? Very Shakespearean. Or Ophelia? Desdemona. It cannot be Juliet, that would be too mediocre.”
She grinned. The man was a charmer, even if she didn’t trust him, but he hadn’t hurt her thus far. “No, that’s my mother’s name.”
“God’s bones. What a long one it is. Elizabeth Ophelia Desdemona. What did your father call her?”
Did he always talk as if he were about to laugh at some joke? And she wasn’t about to answer the last question.
“Her name is Elizabeth.”
“Ah.” He
steepled
his fingers and tapped the index ones against his mouth. “The mother’s name. Dare I hope to acquire the daughter’s?”
Sleep beckoned. “
Rebeckah
Emmaline
Merryweather
Smith.”
“Yet another long name.” She closed her eyes even as she heard him whisper, “I never thought of
Rebeckah
.”
The name slithered a tingle down her spine, black in its memories. Why had she told him that? She hated, hated
Rebeckah
. She could still hear the way Theodore said it.
She shook her head. “No,
Emmaline
. Though friends call me Emily.”
Anne had called her Emmy.
“
Emmaline
. Emily. Now that suits you, I think.”
Did it? To her Emily was the free girl in the fields, wild and impetuous, and maybe even brave.