Page 103 of The Pirate and the Pagan
“Good girl,” he encouraged. “What do you have to drink here?”
“Water … tea … port wine …”
“We’ll give him all three. We’ll start with water.”
Summer ran to fetch the water and Ruark flung open the window and pulled the covers off the bed. Spencer was burning hot, and when Ruark lifted him into a sitting position, he began to mumble and then to rave. Ruark took the water from Summer and held it to Spencer’s mouth. He almost knocked it from Ruark’s hand in his raving, but Ruark persisted until the boy took some of the water. The minute he tasted it, he drank greedily until it was finished, then began thrashing about again.
“More,” ordered Ruark, and Summer ran to do his bidding. With infinite patience Ruark fed him the water, and bade Summer make some tea. After he got some of the hot tea into him, Spencer began to sweat so heavily he drenched the sheet upon which he lay.
“We’ll bathe him, fetch some water.”
Summer picked up the empty bucket.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“The water pump’s in the yard,” she explained.
He strode toward her. “Never, ever let me see you haul water again.” His voice was like the crack of a whip and she gladly relinquished her hold on the handle and let him take over. They bathed him, fed him more tea, then bathed him again. They had no clean sheets and made do with the bare ticking of the mattress.
Ruark felt the swollen glands in his neck and examined his groin for the telltale plague boil. Spencer’s groin was only slightly swollen and Ruark took it as a bad sign. Anyone who had ever survived the plague had done so because the carbuncle came to a head quickly and burst, releasing the body’s poison. He said nothing to Summer save, “Let’s try him with some wine and water.”
He held the boy in one strong arm and fed him the watered port wine with his free hand. After three glasses, Spencer stopped thrashing about and his breathing became slightly more regular. “He’ll sleep for a while. I must go out and get you food, Summer. I know damned well you’ve had nothing all day.”
“I’m not hungry, Ruark, I’m too tired and worried to eat.”
“That is beside the point. I will get food and you will eat it,” he said as if speaking to a child of five.
She nodded. His strength and determination were too much for her. “There’s a curfew, the guard will stop you.”
“You mean he’ll try,” said Ruark.
It seemed that she just dozed off for a moment and Ruark was back. He brought a roasted capon and a bottle of cider, which brought memories of Cornwall flooding back to her. She smiled sadly as she nibbled on the crisp brown skin of the bird. “Once, when my brother and I were starving, we survived by stealing one of your prize cockerels.”
“At last! You can be yourself with me. I like you best when you are honest with me, Summer.”
She knew better. She knew being honest and having no secrets was just one of those things men paid lip service to. She knew that if he found out she had been intimate with his scoundrel brother, he was capable of killing them both.
As if he knew she was thinking of Rory, he said, “I asked Rory to take you to Salisbury, why did you deceive him?”
She wondered wildly if he knew Rory had lured her to Holland and France before delivering her to Southampton. She doubted it very much. She shrugged. “He’s easier to deceive than you.”
“I should have taken you myself, but I knew you’d listen to my suggestion and do exactly the opposite just on principle. We’ve been like gunpowder and match lately.”
“A dangerous combination,” she murmured, looking at the firm set of his mouth.
“You seemed to get along with Rory so comfortably, like old friends, I thought you’d be more amenable to his suggestions.”
Her heart screamed, We’re not friends, we’re lovers! Are you blind? She wanted to tell him not to trust Rory because his first loyalty was to himself and he made no bones about it. Brothers, kings, and countries were the last things he cared about.
“How did he get the wound which put the white streak in his hair?” she asked.
He was silent for a while, then almost reluctantly he recounted events from the past. “My father and I had quarreled as usual. He was such a fierce loyalist, he would have climbed the scaffold with King Charles I … except by the time that regicide took place he’d already sacrificed himself to the cause.” He was quiet for a minute or two, but she knew he wasn’t finished.
“We had agreed to mortgage all the Cornwall holdings to raise money for the Stuart cause. I had the gall to tell him that was enough, that he was too old to fight and he should leave that to us younger men. We almost came to blows that day and he never forgave me.” He stood and kicked a burning log to the back of the fireplace with his elegantly booted foot. “Cromwell’s army finally penetrated Cornwall. They set fire to our town of Helston then swarmed over Helford Hall. They drove my father and a few defenders into the raging waters of the Helford River. They fought valiantly, but of course they were outnumbered. Rory rode into the raging torrent to help Father and instantly received a sword slash which cleaved his scalp in two. They thought him dead, but he was washed out to sea and deposited unconscious on the beach below the house.”
“Our beach,” she said softly.
“Yes, our beach,” he said, his eyes licking over her like candle flame.
