Page 7 of His Betrothed
She stared at his flushed face and his fluttering eyelids as the men camecloser. What were they doing out in the middle of the night?
Slowly she lifted up until she could just see over the swaying grass. A group of men hovered like dark shadows near the cliffs, moonlight glittering off them.
She realized they were wearing swords. Could it be the militia from nearby Shanklin?
Or the Spanish, ready to invade England?
Roselyn dropped down again, only to find Thornton’seyes open as he stared at her in exhausted bewilderment. What was she to do? If she crept away, they might find him and take him off her hands. He’d wake up soon and be able to explain everything. He might not even remember her.
But if those were Spaniards out there…
Thornton suddenly gripped her arm and pulled her closer. She smothered a gasp as she stared into his wild, dark eyes and feltthe heat of him burn her. His lips moved, and she heard his hoarse mutterings—again, in Spanish.
What should she do? If the militia saw him like this, with his black hair, olive skin, and foreign words, they would surely take him for a Spaniard.
And if the soldiers were Spanish, then everyone on the island was doomed.
Roselyn had no choice but to wrap her arms about him and try to keep himquiet. The patrolwas closer now, and a gruff laugh carried on the wind—and the sound of the Queen’s English. She shuddered with relief as one fear faded.
“Shh,” she whispered, holding Thornton’s face to her neck, praying he would stop struggling. He stiffened, and she worried that his strength would yet prove too much for her.
Then with a sigh, his whole body relaxed, going heavy against her.She felt his arms tighten about her waist, and a new fear rose in her mind as he slid his knee between hers.
Everything in her wanted to rebel, to slap him and push him away. Instead she lay against him seething with anger, feeling his mouth move on her throat, then lower to her collarbone. She shivered. Every rumor she’d heard of him over the last year blazed starkly in her mind: his affairs,his mistresses, the scandals he caused wherever he went. Only wild, foolish women would fall for the seductive words of a man like him.
She bit her lip and squeezed her eyes tightly shut as his lips nibbled the high neckline of her gown. She tried to insinuate her fingers against his mouth—anything to distract him—but immediately pulled away when he tried to kiss them. Kiss her fingers, by thesaints! She pressed his head even harder against her, almost wishing she could smother him into unconsciousness.
She was caught in her own scheme, for if they were found together…
A cold dread chilled her.
Spencer felt that he existed only in his dreams, and they were hot, feverish nightmares of battle: choking smoke, burning sails hanging from the yardarms, cannonballs screaming overhead.He felt again the slice of the sword at his side, and the pain of it awakened him.
The sun in his eyes seemed out of place, and he squinted as it lanced through his head. But he couldn’t lift a hand to shield his face; he could do nothing but lie still.
There was something he had to do, some urgent mission that eluded him.
“Would you like some water?”
He tensed. It was the voice he’d beenhearing in his dreams—a voice speaking English.
He opened his eyes to see a small barn with windows opened to the daylight. He turned his aching neck slowly and saw cobweb-strung beams dwindling into the darkness of the roof, then the hazy shape of a woman, silhouetted against the bright window.
She leaned over him, small, delicate, concerned, but with perhaps a touch of fear in her eyes. Shewore a white apron over a country gown of black homespun. Her light brown hair was pulled back severely from her face andtucked beneath a plain white cap. She wore no face paint, no elaborate headdresses or jewelry to distract a man from the absolute perfection of her smooth skin. Her small nose held a smattering of freckles, and above it she had wintry gray eyes.
“Would you like some water?”she asked again, a soft, deeper voice than he would have imagined coming from such a delicate throat.
And then Spencer realized that his mouth was parched. In growing dismay, he wondered how her face had made him forget his discomfort. He tried to speak, but managed only a nod.
The woman put her arm beneath his head and held a drinking horn to his mouth. His cheek brushed her breast, and shesmelled of wildflowers and baking bread, images that soothed him, comforted him.
Then the cool water touched his tongue and he swallowed it frantically.
“Slowly,” she murmured, and he felt the vibration in her chest.
“What’s…your name?” His voice was gravelly and hoarse.
The woman sat back on her heels and clasped her hands together in her lap. “Rose Grant,” she said softly, with a refinedaccent that did not match her garments. “Who are you?”
