Page 47 of Almost a Bride
“No, I didn’t think you’d gone,” she said, “I just thought it might be too soon for you to walk very far with the cane. What if you fell and hurt yourself, and I had to drag you back to the cottage alone?”
By the saints, she was babbling like an idiot. Her dreams last night had been full of his face above hers, his mouth so near, his thigh between hers—it was a wonder she could even look at him.
Yet Thornton drew her eyes until she could no longer resist. He was gazing out over the ocean, his face bathed in warm sunlight, his expression pensive.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I was just remembering. It wasn’t too long ago that there were ships as far as one could see.”
Roselyn felt a little crackle of excitement at the perfect opening he’d given her. “Do you think the Spanish have tried to invade England by now? I heard that below London, they’d felt the need to stretch chains across the Thames to keep ships out.”
He shook his head. “No, that kind of news travels quickly. Your reliable Francis Heywood would have heard by now. No, I’m sure the Spanish are limping toward their own ports. From the few days my ship trailed their fleet, I could tell they didn’t approach this invasion very intelligently.”
The tone of his voice when he talked about the enemy was particularly mocking. “But your mother is Spanish,” she said.
The smile he gave her was not pleasant, but he remained silent.
“Does it…bother you?”
“What? To have Spanish blood which everyone hates?”
She was surprised at his open bitterness. Wouldn’t a Spanish spy pretend to be happy as an Englishman? “Surely that is only due to the war,” she said.
“There was no war during my childhood, but it seemed the same to me.”
“Did people treat you so differently?”
“Always. Didn’t you?”
She wanted to defend herself, to say that his mother’s nationality had nothing to do with his poor behavior as a groom. But their betrothal was not what she wanted to explore right now.
“Did you ever see my mother before the eve of our wedding?” he asked coldly.
“I cannot say I did, but then again, I didn’t see you, either.”
“It was understood from my earliest memory that my mother was not welcome where my father and brother and I were.”
“Oh no, surely you were just a sensitive child—”
“You think I am sensitive?” he said with angry disbelief.
“Well—”
“My mother came to England when Philip of Spain married Queen Mary. For a few years, my mother was a part of the court. Sometimes I think her life would have been much better had she just stayed in Spain.”
“She wouldn’t have met your father.”
“No.” His voice became low, tired. “And she wouldn’t have been alone either, whenever my father and Alex and I had to leave the estate.”
Roselyn didn’t know what to say. She had never thought that his childhood might be painful. She had only seen him as a scandalous nobleman who lived for pleasure and danger, little caring how it affected anyone else.
Yet wouldn’t such bitterness be cause for a man to turn against the country that had so shunned him?
“I’m going back,” Thornton said shortly, and turned away from her.
For a few moments, she watched him walk awkwardly with the cane. He maneuvered so slowly she knew he could not think to leave Wight yet. Deep inside she relaxed, telling herself she had more time to try to understand him.
She caught up and walked beside him. “I have to go to church today,” she said.
