She glanced at him sharply. More precautions. “I can’t imagine I’ll have the desire to go anywhere until MacLean’s on the mend.”
“A walk in the garden every day will be a requirement, I think.” Mr. Throckmorton took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. “Since Mrs. Brown is not yet available, I’ll help you change the sheets.”
As they worked, sliding the dirty linens out from beneath MacLean, replacing them with clean ones, rolling MacLean from side to side with utmost care, the late afternoon sun shone in the window and slowly climbed the bed, at last reaching MacLean’s face and resting on the rugged features.
And with a long, rasping gasp, MacLean opened his eyes.
His distinctive, green-and-gold eyes.
Chapter 4
Each time MacLean awoke, he could see her, shining like a candle in the darkness. At first she hurt his eyes, glowing as she did with that inner radiance, but he looked as long as he could before sliding back into the void.
Later he heard a woman’s voice talking to him, and he knew it was her. She filled his mind with images of trees pink with blossom, of people gruff and joyous, of songs sung on a Saturday’s eve. Each image slipped away as soon as he tried to grasp it, and any effort brought pain. Pain in his leg, his chest, his face. He was tired of fighting the pain, so he sought refuge in the void.
Then she scolded him, called him, and the memory of that glowing face brought him back. Each time he opened his eyes, there she was.
Always she pounced on him, lifting him, filling him with fluid of every sort. Such activity vaguely troubled him. His body didn’t crave anything. But his mind demanded to see her, and if being fed was the price he had to pay, he would do it.
He always fulfilled his obligations.
Usually he came back in the sunshine, but once he heard the roar of thunder, and he opened his eyes to the night.
She was beautiful then, too, the brightest flame in a room full of candles. She moved with such grace, leaning over him, her ruffled pink wrapper loosely tied, her hair braided into an ebony ripple. Her very skin gleamed like fine pale velvet, with a shimmer of pink about the cheeks, a deeper rose dusting the full lower lip, a faint golden sheen on the vee of her chest. Each lightning flash illuminated more of her: the delicate shells of her ears, the divine compassion of her fingers.
That night, for the first time, he discovered he wanted to be raised up and given water, or broth, or anything she chose to stuff down him. For if she held him, his head against her bosom, her arms around him, he could die happy.
He frowned.
Die? He wasn’t going to die.
There was never a question of that.
“A beautiful morning, miss, after that storm last night.” Mrs. Brown bustled into the sunlit room, white apron smoothed over her brown cotton dress, Enid’s breakfast tray in her hands. “The old men in the clouds were playing hard at ninepins last night.”
Arms raised, Enid turned from the small mirror on the wall and faced the woman who had been her greatest support during the long, grim fortnight. “I was awake.” And she couldn’t wait to share her news—although not all her news. Some things were meant to be kept secret.
Mrs. Brown placed the breakfast tray on the table by the window and hurried to help Enid put up her hair. The dark, abundant fall, which extended past Enid’s hips, waved with a life of its own, but Mrs. Brown hadn’t raised nineteen children for nothing. The tall, sturdy woman twisted the tresses in her strong hands until Enid’s eyes slanted and she came up on her toes from the pain. She didn’t complain, though; the novelty and joy of receiving motherly care far exceeded her discomfort.
As Mrs. Brown arranged the snood and secured it with pins, she asked, “Did the storm disturb him, miss?” Her broad face was serious as she nodded toward MacLean, silent and unresponsive on the bed.
Enid grinned with excitement. “I woke at midnight, and his eyes were open.”
“Ah, is that the truth, then?”
Mrs. Brown acknowledged the report with her typical serenity, but Enid saw the satisfaction in her kind eyes. Mrs. Brown’s endless good sense and cheery attitude had kept Enid going when exhaustion and discouragement would otherwise have brought her to tears. Mrs. Brown looked after Enid, too, sending her on walks, directing the undermaids to fetch and carry, to carry the linens and laundry and iron Enid’s gowns.
“That’s good news.” Grasping Enid by the shoulders, Mrs. Brown steered her toward the breakfast tray. “He’s never come awake without ye talking at him before.”
“Very good news, I would think.” Enid glanced at his still form as she seated herself.
“Your letter is here,” Mrs. Brown said.
Enid snatched up the white sheet of paper and broke the seal. She scanned the first few lines. Lady Halifax claimed to be well, and, in fact, was well enough to make acerbic observations about her new nurse, the household and the state of the world in general. The weekly missives kept Enid’s conscience at bay and the old lady’s wit always made her laugh. She placed the letter on the table. “I’ll write her this afternoon.” Shaking out her napkin, she said, “I think MacLean is improving.”
He was improving, for when she had finished feeding him his broth and she’d leaned over to tuck him in, he’d slid his hand inside her wrapper and cupped her breast! Not tentatively, not with trepidation, but with the smooth confidence of an aficionado of women.
She had jumped back and gasped, and as if the effort had exhausted him, his hand had fallen to his side and his eyes had shut.
She’d stood well away from the bed, holding the edges of her wrapper and saying aloud in a shocked tone, “Sir! That is uncalled for.” As if he could hear her. As if he would care if he did.
And where had MacLean learned a move like that? His rampage through life had included a rampage in the marital bed, and he had usually left her behind in his frenzy and his rush.
“No doubt he is getting better, miss. He responds to ye. Yer voice.” Mrs. Brown pulled out the chair and removed the covers from the food. “Yer touch.”
“I believe you’re right.” An uprush of joy buoyed Enid. She had succeeded. MacLean had touched her. MacLean was definitely going to live.
“Eat yer breakfast. Esther sent along the season’s first peach just fer ye.”
Esther, the cook, sent the best produce and the finest cookery to Enid three times a day. Sometimes a plate of warm biscuits or a cool slice of pie arrived in between meals. Milford, the gardener, brought whatever herbs Enid required for her medicines, and every day the sickroom received a bouquet of flowers. Mr. Kinman appeared frequently to check on Enid, although he never stayed long enough to observe any sickroom rituals, and the three other gentlemen who guarded the cottage were deferential and kind.
But Enid concentrated on her patient. Even now, as she ate pork and potato pie and washed it down with apple cider, her gaze lingered on MacLean. He came to consciousness usually once a day, usually in the evening when sunshine touched his face. He stared fixedly at her but never spoke. He drank whatever water and broth she poured down him, but he never lifted a finger to help himself. It was as if his body demanded attention and he responded, but never did his mind surface to perform the functions necessary to his continued existence.
Mr. Throckmorton was frankly discouraged.
But MacLean was in there. Enid knew he was. She sensed a life in him, a spirit of strength and determination. She spoke to that spirit every day, telling him the story of her life, reading him the newspaper, commenting on the weather, giving her opinion on politics. At first Mrs. Brown had acted as if Enid were a little touched, then slowly the ample woman with the graying hair and the soft face had become convinced he did hear. When Enid would go for her daily walk, Mrs. Brown would converse with him about events on the estate and in the village. “But he likes to listen to ye best, miss,” Mrs. Brown said often. “I can just tell.”
Going now to the bed, Mrs. Brown laid her hand on his forehe
ad. “No fever.” She frowned down at him as she poured her palm full of oil. “My fingers itch to wash his hair, really wash it in a basin. ‘Tis so filthy I can scarcely tell the color.”
“It used to be a rather sandy blond.”
Mrs. Brown squinted down at it. “Underneath all that oil, it looks to me to be an auburn.”
“I suppose it’s darkened as he aged.” Memory brushed at her, and Enid chuckled. “He always thought he was losing his hair. He used to stare at the hairs in his brush and complain vociferously.”
“It appears he was wrong.”
“When he wakes and can move, we’ll give him a bath in a tub.” Enid brushed the rosy skin of the peach with her fingers and sniffed the ripe, sweet smell. “I imagine he’ll be happy about that.”
“Men are odd creatures. I had a son who went a month without changing his underwear, and protested when I burned them afterward.” Mrs. Brown spoke in a slow, measured tone, like a guide providing a tour of male peculiarity.
Enid wrinkled her nose at the thought. “MacLean will be so weak he won’t be able to fight us.”
“I imagine he’ll be so weak he’ll scarcely be able to lift his own head.” Picking up his arm, Mrs. Brown massaged the limp muscles. “We’ve got to get ye into shape,” she addressed him. “A big, strong man like ye alyin’ in bed for nigh on to two months. Ye must be bored to tears with yerself.” Her big hands moved up to the shoulder and across the scarring of his chest, then moved and stretched his arm. They exercised him twice a day to slow the inevitable atrophy of muscle.
Enid watched pensively. Even now, with the weeks of service, she still scarcely recognized him as her husband. The swelling in his face had subsided under the steady application of ice. The scars on his chest and his right shoulder had faded from red to pink, and occasionally a shard of glass worked its way to the surface. All his bruises had healed, and she moved his leg cautiously, but with more confidence every day.
But his features, mangled by the explosion, had changed almost beyond recognition. Only the curve of his cheek and the set of his ears, always too big and far too protuberant, were the same. And his eyes, of course. She could identify those eyes anywhere—as pale green as spring grass, shot through with rays of golden sunlight. It was his eyes that she’d first noticed nine years ago, and his eyes that she prayed, every day, would open and gaze on her again with cognition.
“Ye’d be happier, sir, if ye’d wake and eat, too.” Mrs. Brown gently hefted him onto his stomach and rubbed his back. “A man like ye wants potatoes and beef, not these tit-baby cups of broth we keep pouring down ye.”
“Mrs. Brown!” Enid choked on a bite of the peach. “He would not like being called a tit-baby, I can tell you.”
“Then he should wake up and tell me so.”
“Yes, he should.” Still eating the fragrant fruit, Enid wandered over to the bedside. His head was turned sideways on the pillow, his cheek crushed into the clean linen. “I think he could tell us a lot if he only would wake.” She waved the peach under his nose. “Smell that, MacLean. Doesn’t it smell like summer mornings in the orchard? Don’t you remember what it’s like to pick a bushel of peaches, and feel the fuzz float down your back and collect in the creases of your neck and itch? Don’t you wish you were out there, stretched in the grass, eating a peach fresh from the tree and watching the sun filter through the leaves while a faint breeze dusts your cheeks?”
Mrs. Brown’s hands moved slowly along his back as Enid talked.
Caught up in the picture she had created, Enid knelt beside the bed and spoke softly, insistently, into his ear. “It’s so beautiful outside. A summer like no other has been before, or will be again, and you’re wasting it in the sickroom.” She brushed his hair back from his face, wanting nothing so much as to see him open his eyes and hear him speak. She had worked too hard to return him to health to let him languish in this unconscious state. Beneath the surface his mind was stirring, and she longed to communicate with him, to discover if his aura of power and honor was a true representation of his being . . . or whether she had stitched it up from fragments of longing and threads of loneliness. She tried to lure him with voice and words and touch. “We could laugh together—lazy fools that we are—and tell stories about other summers more grand than this, but we would know we were lying, because this is the best time in the world. The sun is ours, the sky is blue, the scents are lush and full of fruit so ripe it hangs from the trees and flowers wild with bloom. Come back to me, MacLean, and I’ll take you there.”
Then he opened his eyes and said, “All right, you can take me there. But first, tell me—who are you?”
Chapter 5
The female stared at him, her startling blue eyes unblinking, her rosy lips slightly open as if she were surprised. She inhaled, long and slow, and in a measured tone repeated, “Who . . . am . . . I?”
If she were a man, he would have snapped her head off for such inanity, but he had a softness for women, all women, and this lass was a fetching piece. So fetching, in fact, he was surprised he didn’t remember her name. He’d seen her before, and he’d wanted nothing more than to touch her, but he’d contented himself with just looking because . . . because . . . why didn’t he remember her? He searched his memory. His excellent memory that had never failed him before. Why didn’t he remember her?
What had she done to him?
In a voice harsh with suspicion, he demanded, “Who are you? I remember you, glowing, your hair tumbling about your shoulders, but . . . I can’t recall . . . your name.”
“Praise be, he’s awake!” Another woman spoke from behind him.
He tried to fling himself around, to see who stood behind him at his unprotected back.
Pain struck at his joints, at his muscles, at his leg. With a vicious curse, he fell back on the bed.
The female kneeling beside the bed leaped to her feet and clutched his shoulders.
The other female grabbed at him. “Muscle cramps, sir, not surprising in yer condition,” she said.
The women, whoever they were, were all over him now, chirping, holding, easing him onto his back. His leg, the center of that lancinating pain, dragged until the second wench lifted it and placed it on a pillow. Then he fell backward, panting.
The other female was older, plump and sharp-eyed, to all appearances a proper English villager. No threat. Not now. He glanced about the room. Treetops waved outside the open windows, the ceiling had open rafters and sloped down . . . so they kept him in an attic room. For what purpose?
What was wrong with him? Where was he?
Who was he?
Panic rose in him. Panic, which he subdued at once, and fury, which he allowed to grow. For he didn’t know the answer to the most basic question of all. But he would get that answer, and now.
He looked again at the young woman. She watched him, eyes wide and shining. He knew her, damn it, but he couldn’t remember her name. He remembered hearing her gentle voice regaling him with tales of her day. He remembered seeing her heart-shaped face leaning over him when he woke. He remembered how her eyes lit up when she smiled, how her tender hands smoothed his covers, how her rich, dark hair tumbled about her shoulders and brushed his cheek. He remembered the delightful curve of her breast peeking forth from her wrapper.
But he didn’t remember tumbling her onto the mattress, and why else would he have seen her in such dishabille? What was happening? What did he remember?
Nothing. Nothing.
He struggled to raise up—why wouldn’t his body work?—and demanded, “Who the hell am I?”
The female exclaimed and slid an arm under his head.
Behind him, the other woman said, “Whoa, dear sir, ye’re in no shape fer wrestling,” and caught at his shoulders.
“I want to sit up.” His annoyance at his weakness could scarcely be expressed. This thought-blankness grew and grew until it filled his mind. No matter how he tried, no matter how he searched for memories, he found nothing.
>
He took command as he always did, giving orders in that clipped tone that got instant results.
But how did he know that?
“Women, you will tell me who I am and what I’m doing here right now.” He’d make their lives hell if they didn’t answer him, but how?
Who was he?
“Calmly. Move slowly.”
The sweet-faced woman, the one with those extraordinary blue eyes and the sprightly breasts, leaned over him as he maneuvered on the bed, trying to find a comfortable position.
“You’ve been very ill,” she said.
“I deduced that, you silly wench.”
With a small offended huff, the female straightened hastily.
But he had no taste for tact. “I’m in bed. It’s daylight. I don’t lie about unless I’m ill. I’ve got too much to do.”
But what did he do?
The other female, the gray one with the motherly face—he recognized her, too, but why?—leaned down close to him. She looked him in the eyes, and in a tone of voice she must have perfected through countless scoldings, she said, “Ye had the look of trouble about ye even when ye were unconscious. Now ye listen to me, my lad. I’m Mrs. Brown. I’m going to get the master. He’ll explain everything to ye, but in the meantime this young lady will care for ye. Don’t ye do anything stupid. Don’t try and get up, ye’re not capable. Ye listen to me, and ye do exactly what this kind lady tells ye.”
Like a sulky boy, he said, “Why should I?”
“Because she’s the one who pulled you back from the brink of death, and I’m the one who’s been wiping yer bare bottom.”
He stared at her.
She stared at him.
He knew he was a warrior, and a warrior acknowledged when he’d been defeated. He nodded grudgingly, and with a shuffle of leather soles, the older female left.
The younger female laughed, one hand over her eyes.
“What’s so funny?” he snapped. As if he didn’t know.
She lifted her head. “We were so worried you would never wake up, and now that you have, you’re more boorish than you ever were.”
Lost in Your Arms Page 4