Page 7 of Almost a Bride
She was caught in her own scheme, for if they were found together…
A cold dread chilled her.
~oOo~
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 been hearing 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. She wore a white apron over a country gown of black homespun. Her light brown hair was pulled back severely from her face and tucked 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 she smelled 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 refined accent that did not match her garments. “Who are you?”
For a moment he almost said the name he’d been living under for a year and a half, but remembered in time. “Spencer Thornton.” His real name sounded foreign, forbidden. “I owe you my gratitude for saving my life.”
Rose Grant nodded, then propped his head against a cushion and fed him like a babe. It had been so long since he’d had a hot stew that he actually didn’t mind her ministrations.
She set the bowl aside too soon, and as he looked at it longingly, he saw her first uneasy smile. It softened her features into a shy prettiness.
“You can have more later,” she murmured. “First let me examine your wounds. You were bleeding again last night after your little adventure.”
“My adventure?”
“You were determined to leave.” She hesitated. “Have you no memory of it?”
“None,” he whispered, his eyes feeling heavy. “What…did I do?”
“Crawled away. I found you near the cliffs.”
“I guess I’m lucky to be alive.” He finally remembered the reason he was trying to escape: his battle with Rodney Shaw, his plunge overboard instead of death at the hands of traitors. And Shaw’s promise to find him. Spencer had to get to London.
But when Rose pulled off the bandages across his chest, he fought a sudden rushing wave of pain and sank into unconsciousness.
Roselyn sat back and exhaled a trembling breath. He was once again asleep, and she didn’t have to look into those dark, mysterious eyes for another moment. Her hand still rested on his chest, and though she had long since lost her pale London complexion, her skin stood out starkly against the olive hue of Thornton’s.
She snatched her hand back, remembering that she had misled him about her name.
She was a coward.
