by Sophia James
Young fool that he was, Fell believed every one of her sweet words.
It was only when she disappeared from Woodford without as much as a goodbye that he realised the depth of his mistake. Her father, a farmer usually humourless and grave, had laughed himself sick when Fell knocked at their cottage door and asked earnestly for her hand, promising to love her for the rest of his days if she would only be returned—but he was too late. She’d gone north to marry a distant cousin as she’d always intended, her father was happy to divulge, only passing time with handsome, low-born Fell until her betrothed could afford to take a wife. The farmer hadn’t approved of his daughter’s dalliance, of course, but she’d assured him there was nothing to it—how could there be when Fell was so far below her in every respect? The very notion that she might have entertained marrying such a creature was absurd and so Fell’s heart had crumbled to dust, his dreams for a lifetime of more than just derision and scorn scattered to the winds and his only chance of ever knowing tenderness from anybody but Ma carried away like dandelion seeds in a storm.
With an irritable grunt Fell turned his back on the memories that still pained him, threatening to make an already strange day worse. Dwelling on the past wouldn’t help him think what to do with allegedly-Marie, stretched out on his bed like a mermaid on a rock with her vibrant red hair tossed around her shoulders. She was too pretty by half, if truth be told—and Fell had no need of a pretty woman disrupting his quiet life. Since it had been driven home to him so cruelly that he could never hope to be worthy of a wife he had lived alone with only his dogs for company, Lash the offspring of his old bitch Queenie who had passed away the previous spring. Dogs didn’t care who his father was or whether his mother could speak a different tongue. Their loyalty was unshakable, ten times as kindly as the villagers who muttered as he passed. Lash and Ma were the only family Fell would ever have, the prospect of a wife and children torn to shreds the day Charity was ripped from him. A family of his own, with a loving wife and legitimate children to bear his name was all he’d ever wanted, the chance to finally anchor himself into a place he belonged, among his own people—but that would never happen for him now, instead condemned to continue life on the fringes with nowhere and no one to truly call home.
‘Mr Fell?’
The sweet voice from his bedchamber sent a flurry of something down the back of his neck, startling him with its timid civility. Usually it was his last name that hailed him, often barked or mumbled but never truly polite. Marie’s manners were oddly touching—yet more proof she was not who she claimed to be.
Fell strode back to his guest with the meagre tray of food balanced in one hand, the other clutching two cracked cups. Lash hadn’t moved from his position at Marie’s side, his eyes closed in delight as she tentatively stroked the shaggy fur of his neck as if not sure she was doing it right.
Fell lifted a brow in mild surprise, trying to ignore the fresh colour that had leapt into Marie’s cheeks at his return to the room. The bloom suited her, emphasising the peaches and cream of her complexion, so different to his own. ‘He likes you. He wouldn’t let most folk touch him like that.’
He set the tray and cups down on a little table beside the bed, almost missing the flicker of shy pleasure that flashed across her face. The next moment he wished he had missed it, as it was replaced by a small, uncertain smile that lifted the apples of her cheeks in a way too damn appealing for comfort.
‘Does he really? I always wished I might be allowed a dog of my own, but Mo—’
She broke off, eyes darting to meet his in swift apprehension. Evidently she had almost let something slip, as he saw a muscle move in her jaw as she clenched her teeth together to stop any more dangerous words slipping past dry lips.
They sat together in an awkward silence for a few heartbeats, until Fell unceremoniously deposited the plate in his blushing guest’s lap.
‘You need to eat something. It must be some time since your last meal.’
Marie nodded, taking the lump of bread with only a slight hesitation. She ate quietly and slowly although Fell could see in her face that she must have been ravenous, his humble bread and cheese probably as delicious in her hunger as the good food she was doubtless used to.
When every crumb had disappeared from the plate Fell poured her some tea, faintly amused by her concerned glance at his battered cups. Her pretence of being a servant was falling apart before his eyes, but she hadn’t seemed to realise and once again Fell wondered why she thought it necessary to play such a strange game.
‘What will you do now? Seems to me you’re in some difficulty, stranded with no luggage or anywhere real to go to.’
Marie paused in sipping her tea, the cup absurdly large and unwieldy in her small hand. She glanced from Fell to Lash as if the latter could tell her how to respond, but the dog’s silence gave nothing away and she dipped her head to fix on the patched bedspread beneath her.
‘I confess I don’t yet know.’ Her voice held such fresh worry and fear that it touched some forgotten part of Fell’s insides, covered in dust since Charity’s betrayal. Marie was like her in a curious way, the fragility they both shared shining through to make him shift uncomfortably in his seat. She was frightened, injured and all alone, with evidently no desire to return from where she had come.
And now she’s in my cottage—which makes her my problem.
A stab of conscience pierced Fell’s breastbone like a lance. Ma had been only a few years younger than Marie was now when Rector Frost had found her in the forest, terrified and all alone with her birth pains coming stronger with every moment that passed. If not for his kindness to a mysterious woman running from an equally mysterious past, who knew where Ma would have ended up, the old man’s compassion exactly what Essea had needed at her most vulnerable. Now in an uncanny twist of fate Fell was the one to come across a young woman in need of help, a situation that mirrored the events of thirty-one years before in a way starkly astounding.
Fell tapped his fingers on the leather front of his apron, reluctantly following the thread of his thoughts to their inevitable conclusion.
You’ll never be half the man the rector was, but you should at least attempt to follow in his footsteps. You know what you ought to do—but will you attempt it?
The words came out more gruffly than Fell would have liked, but his misgivings had apparently turned his throat to sandpaper. ‘You can stay here while your leg heals, if you’d like. Not that you’ve much choice the state it’s in at present.’
For a moment he thought she hadn’t heard him, her head still downturned and face hidden by that copper wave, although when she spoke there was something in her voice he couldn’t place.
‘Stay here? With you?’
‘Until you’re able to carry on your travels.’
She looked up at him then, and his heart gave an unpleasant lurch at the quiet pain in her eyes. It was unhappiness mixed with mistrust, the sorrowful acceptance of a dog used to a kick in place of a caress. ‘Ah. You’re mocking me, of course.’
He frowned, taking in her resignation as if she expected nothing else. ‘Of course I’m not. What reason would I have? I’m in earnest.’
Marie regarded him warily, suspicion and genuine bewilderment mixing in innocent wonder. ‘Why? Why would you help me?’
‘Why wouldn’t I, if I’m in a position to?’
The question only seemed to increase her puzzlement. She brought a hand up to gather her hair over one shoulder, casting Fell a sideways look that quite unconsciously enhanced the pretty shape of her profile in a way most unsettling.
‘But…how? How would that be possible?’
Fell swallowed, the unease already lapping at him increasing beneath her disbelieving gaze. She truly was the most beautiful woman he’d had in his cottage in almost ten years, the knowledge unwanted yet just as undeniable. It wasn’t a realisation he desire
d, nothing of any use coming from his appreciation for the soft glow of her flushed cheeks.
She’s clearly too high-born for the likes of you, even if you weren’t a bastard of questionable parentage. Which you are—and won’t ever forget.
Shouldering the thought aside, Fell gave the most nonchalant shrug he could manage.
‘Quite easily. I’m outside in the forge most of the day so I’ll not be under your feet. A bit of help with the cottage is all I’d ask in return, being as there’d be an extra body in it, but I’m not a man who wants looking after. You can sleep in here and I’ll go in the forge, save your blushes.’
He watched as several expressions chased each other across Marie’s smooth face, one after the other in a vivid stream of unconscious animation she couldn’t control. She seemed so eager to agree, so movingly hopeful he had provided her with a way out, yet still something in her held her back.
‘I couldn’t ask you to do that. It would be too much of an intrusion, surely.’
Her words were polite, restrained, although Fell sensed the desperation behind them as tangibly as a brick wall. ‘You didn’t ask. And there’s far worse places to sleep than a forge—it’s warm and, with a blanket, I’ll be more comfortable in there than you will in here.’
‘I’m still not sure… I would never expect you to go to such lengths for someone like me.’
‘Do you have somewhere else to go? A better plan in mind? I don’t believe you do.’
She blinked, eyes suddenly dropping to her hands—but not before Fell caught a glimpse of the pure relief in her face and his chest gave another wrench at her vulnerability.
‘I don’t know how to thank you. Your kindness… I’ve never known anything like it. I just don’t know what to say aside from thank you.’
Fell nodded briskly, determined at least one of them would maintain some stoicism. Marie’s shock at his concern was both touching and pitiful in equal measure—and revealed far more than she had intended. If she was so unused to the most basic civility she must be more accustomed to suffering—a notion that stirred worryingly close to the bone.
‘Someone like me’? What might she mean by that? I wonder.
‘Nothing to say. Couldn’t call myself much of a man if I wouldn’t help a lady in trouble.’
She gave another of those small smiles that sent a flicker through him, although she shook her head in earnest appeal. ‘I’m not a lady, though. I’m only a maid.’
He inclined his head, stubbornly ignoring the warning bells chiming in his ears. There was no going back now, even if he had just made the error in judgement that flicker of something long forgotten made him suddenly fear.
‘Of course you are, Marie. My mistake.’
CHAPTER THREE
Laying his hammer down, Fell wiped the sweat from his brow with one forearm. The fires of the forge were fierce enough without the July sun beating down to heat the very air itself, not even a trace of a breeze to relieve the feeling of wading through hot soup. It was growing hard to remember the last time there had been any respite from the unrelenting sunshine turning grass to straw and cracking the dried mud of his path—certainly not during the five days since Marie had taken up her unexpected residence in his home, a turn of events he was still yet to fully understand.
His shirt lay plastered to his back and he plucked at it with a grimace, holding the damp fabric away from his body to let in some air. The leather apron fastened round his chest hardly helped in keeping him cool, either, and he untied the strings with an irritable tug to toss it across his anvil.
What I’d really like is to be in the cottage, out of the heat and possibly sipping some cold ale—neither of which I can do at present, thanks to my heroics.
It had seemed such an obvious thing to offer Marie a place to stay, Fell grunted to himself as he pushed open the forge’s door and scowled at the blinding sunlight that greeted him. She’d been friendless and alone, clearly scared out of her wits and running from something she didn’t want to share: all a mirror image of Ma’s situation when Rector Frost had stepped in as her salvation, prompting Fell to likewise sally forth. There were two key differences, however, that had escaped his notice five days before, and now they were getting more and more difficult to ignore.
The good, kindly rector had been past sixty when Ma appeared out of nowhere, a happily married man with a compassionate wife and a house more than big enough to take on a terrified eighteen-year-old and her newborn son. Fell’s cottage was tiny by comparison, already snug when only his large frame and a scrawny lurcher dog occupied it—and in his case there was no forty-year difference in age to make his appreciation of Marie firmly paternal. She was in her early twenties by the looks of it, only a handful of winters younger than himself and, despite his best efforts, he couldn’t manage to remain as frankly oblivious to her charms as Rector Frost had been to Ma’s.
Damnation. Why couldn’t I be an old man—or, better yet, why couldn’t she?
Fresh sweat prickled on his forehead and at the back of his neck, an aggravating tickle that did nothing to ease the tension in his shoulders. At least out here in the blistering yard or cloistered in the hellish heat of the forge he was safe from his unsettling guest. Her leg prevented her from moving much, instead confining her to the cool shadows of the cottage and out of his sight for much of the day. It was only at mealtimes he saw her really, when she would present him with a plate of bread and cheese and a mug of ale, but never anything more elaborate than that…hardly surprising if she didn’t have the first idea of how to cook, being either the most useless maid that ever lived or the lady Fell suspected. She would have had somebody to do all those tedious chores for her, never needing to learn how to take care of herself or anybody else if the unblemished skin of her hands was anything to go by.
And I’m still no closer to understanding what she meant by ‘someone like me’. As far as I can tell she’s got nothing to be ashamed of—the reverse is true and there lies the trouble.
Fell ran a finger around the collar of his shirt, feeling the unpleasant wetness of his nape. He caught sight of the pump standing in one corner of the yard, the sudden urge to place his head beneath the spout gripping him as tangibly as a fist, the longing to feel cold water drenching his soot-dusted hair now all he could think of. It would be a blessed relief after the roar of the fire and the buzz of too many thoughts that currently spun in his mind, the presence of Marie in his home an unfortunate reminder of everything he would never have for real. A woman in his cottage was something he had wanted for years, a wife to love and children a product of the union that would cement his place in the world—but Charity’s cruelty had taught him the folly of that dream, something a half-Roma born with the taint of bastardy should never set his sights so high as to wish for. Even now, almost ten years after her laughing escape, the sting of her harsh lesson left a bitter taste on his tongue and he couldn’t think of her without a wrench of his insides. If even a farmer’s daughter considered herself too good for him a woman such as Marie must be in another world entirely, beautiful and untouchable and more proof of the necessity for Fell to turn his face away from the pursuit of love. There was absolutely nothing to gain from noticing the different hues of copper and gold that shone among her hair, or the way her green eyes darted away from his so he might not catch her watching him with an expression he couldn’t quite read. She wasn’t for him and he wasn’t for her, or anybody else for that matter, his background something no power could change. Charity had laid that fact out quite clearly and the memory of her pretty, lying face made him flush anew with the pain of regret.
He was at the pump without really knowing he had walked towards it, unfastening the top few buttons on his shirt with practised fingers. He had to bend almost double to fit his head beneath the spout, but the sensation of the first drops of cold water falling on to his hair and neck was a relief for which he would have g
ladly concertinaed himself ten times. It ran over him in soothing rivulets, drenching the clammy material at his shoulders and running in a crystal stream down his chest to cool where bitterness had threatened to seize his lungs in a punishing grip. There was no fighting the way of the world, he thought as he scooped a handful of water to rub over his heated face. Things were as they were and he had little choice but to accept the cards he had been dealt.
A sudden squeak from the direction of the cottage prised open his eyes, stinging from the mix of sweat and water he wiped from them. It sounded a little like a startled mouse—although when he saw where it actually came from he couldn’t help but allow his lips to curve.
Marie dithered halfway down the cracked path leading from the back door, leaning heavily on a stout stick and her face the colour of a poppy field—simultaneously scarlet, yet green about the gills. Directly behind her Lash proudly offered up the unfortunate rabbit he held in his jaws, blocking her retreat from the evidently unexpected, mortifying sight of Fell’s damp, unbuttoned shirt and chest scattered with drops of water that glittered in the sun. Each awkward, ungainly step she hopped away from Lash’s macabre gift brought her closer to where Fell stood, watching their dance with growing amusement, the dog following eagerly, although politely confused by her lack of delight. Trapped between a rock and a hard place, poor Marie looked as though she didn’t know which way to turn and in the comical absurdity of it Fell couldn’t resist.