Anne Gracie - [Merridew Sister 03]

by The Perfect Stranger

  She heaved a big sigh.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Oh, nothing. Just that I must thank you for this…this…”

  Oh God, here it comes, Nick thought. The declaration.

  “This whole notion of living in the moment, looking neither forward nor back,” she said. “You cannot imagine what a difference it has made to me.”

  Nick felt his tension subside. With relief, he decided. “What sort of a difference?” he asked cautiously.

  “Look at those stars. Have you ever seen so many stars, and sparkling so bright. A night so velvet and peaceful? Just to be here, safe and warm and well-fed—it’s enough for the moment, isn’t it? Enough for a moment of perfect happiness.” She sighed again. “In fact, a whole string of perfectly happy moments.”

  Nick didn’t reply; he couldn’t. There was a lump in his throat. She never failed to surprise him, this wife of his. Not many gently bred young ladies would slide happily into a makeshift bed on the hard ground, let alone with a smile of pure delight. And then lie on the cold, lumpy ground and rapturize about how perfect it was.

  She went on, “I used to worry so much, before you.” She half turned her head and nuzzled his bristly jaw with unconscious sensuality. “Before you taught me about living in the moment, I mean. I used to brood about the past and plan exhaustively for the future. I used to dwell in that imaginary future.” She paused for a moment, thinking. “That was why I fell so easily for Felix, I think…”

  He waited. He wanted to know what appeal the bastard had. For a moment it seemed as though she wouldn’t continue, so he squeezed her gently and said, “Go on.”

  “My twin and I dreamed of our future husbands and future lives, and they were filled with music and laughter and sunshine and love and happiness—all the things we’d never had as children.”

  She grimaced. “You have no idea how I yearned for that future. It was the summit of all my dreams, to find a love like Mama and Papa had, like my sisters Prudence and Charity have. Even my twin, Hope, found love with such an unexpected man…I’ve never seen her so happy.” She was silent a moment. Nick thought there were probably tears in her eyes.

  Nick didn’t know much about dreams these days. He knew how easily dreams could be crushed. He wished things could be different for her, but he had a terrible conviction that his interference was only going to make it worse for her in the end. He should have sent her back to England at the start. His arms tightened around her. He would send her back, only not just yet.

  He’d thought he could face this trip alone. He was used to being alone, managing alone…but now…since Faith came into his life…He buried his face in her hair.

  “And when Felix came along, he was the most brilliant musician I’d ever heard, and so very handsome and, well, I never really looked past that. I simply imagined him into the role. I didn’t know the difference between reality and dreams.”

  She leaned back against him and sighed again. “And now I know. This is reality…”

  Nick felt bleak. He wished he could give her that life—what had she said?—filled with music and laughter and sunshine and love and happiness. But it was not possible. Not for them. She had no part in what lay ahead for him, and Nick vowed to keep it that way.

  “And reality is studded with small, perfect moments, if you let yourself see them.” She turned in his arms and gazed into his eyes. “It’s a priceless gift you’ve given me, Nicholas Blacklock, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thanks to you, I know that whatever the future brings, my life need never be as cheerless and unhappy again.”

  Nick couldn’t speak. Nor could he bear to meet the tender honesty of her gaze. He pulled her against him and kissed her, seeking oblivion from the turmoil her words had caused in him.

  Nick woke at sunrise to find the gypsy girl standing over him, hands on hips.

  “It is you!” she accused him in a belligerent voice.

  Nick sat up. “Well, who else would it be?” he said irritably.

  “You are The One!”

  “What one?” He scratched his head. The woman made no sense. He wished she would go away. Beside him, Faith was stirring, sleepy and beautiful.

  “The one who come to take the life of The Old One.”

  “What old one?”

  “The Old One—my great-grandmother.”

  Nick stared at her. “You think I’ve come to kill your great-grandmother? What a load of rubbish!”

  “It is true. I know it here!” And she thumped a fist between her breasts, over her heart.

  Nick snapped, “Look, you foolish chit, I’ve never harmed a woman in my life, and if you think I’m going to start now—and on an old lady—well, all I can say is, you’ve got rats in your attic!”

  “Rats in…?” Puzzled, she turned to Mac for enlightenment. He tapped his temple, and she turned back furiously to Nick. “I not crazy. You are The One. I think it last night when I see your eyes cold and gray as stone, but last night I dream all again, just as it was foretold.”

  “Foretold by whom?”

  “By The Old One. ‘Three foreigners will come; the first, his blood in the earth at my feet, the second a man of fire, blood of my blood, and the third with eyes of ice, whose blood will take my life,’ she say.” She glanced significantly at Stevens, at Mac, and at Nick. Three foreigners, and one, a man of fire. She nodded at Mac’s red hair and beard.

  “What nonsense!” Nick declared. “Prophesies before breakfast! Enough to give anyone indigestion. Look, you foolish girl, I’m not going to hurt your old granny, and you can see for yourself Mac is not made of fire—though I admit, with that red beard of his, he could be confused with a burning bush!”

  Estrellita said in a low, throbbing voice, “I warn you now, Capitaine, I not let you kill The Old One.”

  Nick rolled his eyes. “Take her away, Mac, before I lose my temper.”

  Mac took Estrellita by the arm and marched her away, still muttering and casting malevolent glances toward Nick.

  Nick lay back and groaned. Just the traveling companion they needed, a demented gypsy girl. As if he didn’t have complications enough on this trip.

  He glanced at his sleepy complication, planted a light kiss on her nape, and rolled out of bed. He gathered a few things and headed for the stream. A swim was what he needed to shake the irritability out of his system.

  Chapter Twelve

  But at my back I always hear

  Time’s winged chariot hurrying near.

  ANDREW MARVELL

  THE COFFEE WAS BREWING BY THE TIME NICHOLAS RETURNED from the stream. Seeing him return, barefoot and only half-dressed, Faith regretted not following him to the stream. He wore just his breeches and shirt, which was still unbuttoned, and both clung to every muscle, as if he’d pulled them on over a damp body. His hair was wet, and his chin was scraped clean of whiskers. She had a vision of him standing naked in the stream, shaving. Her own personal Greek god.

  She hurried to greet him, her “wifely duty” to perform.

  “Good morning, Mr. Blacklock.” She rose on tiptoe, put her arms around his neck, and kissed his firm lips. He wrapped his one free arm around her waist and kissed her back. His skin was cold from the stream, and he smelled of soap and Nicholas.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Blacklock, I hope you slept well on the ground last night.”

  She gave him a sunny smile. “I always sleep well with your arms around me, even on the ground.” And it was true, Faith thought with wonder, and not just about the ground. She hadn’t had a nightmare or a bad dream of any sort since her marriage to Nicholas. “Marriage to you agrees with me, Mr. Blacklock.”

  His smile faded, and he released her abruptly. “Have you broken your fast?” he asked curtly.

  “Not yet. I was waiting for you.”

  “I’m not hungry. Make haste. I’d rather we got on the road as soon as possible.” He strode off, leaving Faith staring after him, dismayed and wondering what she’d said.
>
  And then she noticed it. A trail of blood where he had walked. Nicholas was bleeding.

  “Nicholas, wait!” She ran after him. “Did you cut yourself? Where does it hurt?”

  He stared at her as if she was talking nonsense. “What are you talking about?”

  “You’re bleeding.” She pointed to the blood on the ground and crouched down in front of him. “I think you’ve cut your foot.” She examined his feet as she spoke, and sure enough, one of them was cut and bleeding.

  “It’s nothing,” he said. “I can’t even feel it.” He made to keep walking, but she held on to him.

  “You’re not moving, Nicholas, so don’t argue with me! Now sit down and let me look at it. At the very least, let me clean all this dirt off it so I may see how badly—or not—it is cut.”

  She made him sit down and called to Stevens to bring some hot water and a cloth. Stevens came, and Estrellita followed, watching curiously from a short distance.

  When she had washed the dirt from his foot, she saw it was quite a deep cut. It was bleeding profusely. “You must have cut it on a sharp rock or some broken glass. How could you not have noticed?”

  He shrugged indifferently. “I suppose the cold water numbed my foot. Clap a bandage on it, and let’s get on.”

  Stevens bent over Faith’s shoulder and peered at it. “I think it mebbe ought to be stitched, Capt’n. It’s pretty deep.”

  Nicholas shrugged again. “Then do it. I don’t want to sit around here all day.”

  “I’ll fetch the necessaries.” Stevens stomped off to get them.

  Faith felt a bit ill at the idea of stitching up her husband’s flesh. To cover it, she said, “You’re being very brave about it. I’m sure I would be crying at such a deep cut.”

  He shook his head, but there was a pucker between his brows. Obviously it hurt him more than he was letting on.

  Stevens returned with the needle and thread, the pot of salve, and a bottle of brandy. He handed it to Nicholas, who waved it away impatiently.

  “No, I don’t need it.”

  Stevens frowned but said nothing. He nudged Faith aside. “I’ll do this, miss.”

  Faith nerved herself to say it. “I—I thought perhaps I ought to do it. It’s one of the duties of a soldier’s wife, isn’t it?” To her chagrin, her voice trembled a little.

  Stevens gave her a shrewd look, but all he said was, “Be quicker and less painful for the capt’n if I do it, miss. You watch and see how it’s done, and then next time he needs sewing up, you’ll know what to do.”

  “Very well.” Relieved, Faith moved aside and braced herself to watch.

  Stevens splashed the cut with brandy. Nicholas didn’t even flinch. His frown, however, grew. Stevens glanced at him and frowned also. He opened his mouth to ask a question, but—“Get on with it,” Nicholas growled.

  Stevens got on with it.

  He was obviously used to this task; his hands moved quickly and deftly as he sewed and knotted, sewed and knotted. Faith felt ill each time the needle pierced Nicholas’s skin. By the third stitch, she felt clammy and faint.

  Nicholas noticed. He took her hands in his and said in a low, almost savage voice, “Don’t watch if it makes you ill. I’m really quite all right. Go and have your breakfast, Faith. That’s an order.”

  But Faith shook her head. She was determined to stick it out. If he could endure it, she could watch. She was determined to prove to him that she could fit in to his rough-and-ready life.

  He wanted to wrap her in cotton wool and send her back to lonely comfort in England. She had to make him see that she relished this life with him, even the hard parts. Despite the discomforts, she had been happier on this journey with Nicholas than in any other time of her life, and she was not going to jeopardize her future with him by getting missish and fainting at the sight of a needle entering flesh!

  She clutched his hands, battling waves of nausea, and watched as Stevens’s needle pierced the ugly gash in her husband’s skin. She tried not to wince as he tugged the thread tight, pulling the two pieces of flesh together to make a neat seam. Every now and then he dashed some more brandy on it, to wash away any blood and, he said, to keep the wound clean.

  All through the procedure, Nicholas neither flinched nor made a sound. Soldiers were different, she thought. It had to be hurting him terribly, but he sat there in silence, apparently unmoved, apart from a black frown.

  His hands held hers as if she were the one who needed comfort, his thumbs stroking her. He watched her; she could feel the touch of his gaze like a warm caress, willing her to look at him, not his wound. But Faith would not be distracted. She would not lift her gaze from the stitching taking place. She was determined to show him she could manage whatever this trip threw at her. She was totally resolute: she would travel on with him after Bilbao, facing whatever he had to face, side by side.

  His big thumbs rubbed back and forth across her skin, soothing, rhythmic, and immensely comforting.

  “Miss, do you know what plantain looks like?”

  Faith blinked in surprise at Stevens’s question. Botany seemed rather irrelevant at the moment. “It’s a weed, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but a very useful one. Would you recognize it if you saw it?”

  Faith frowned, trying to remember. “I don’t know all that much about herbs, only the ones Cook used to use when we were sick. Is plantain the one with purplish green flowers, not particularly pretty?”

  “That’s right, miss. Low growing with broad green leaves. In the army we used to call it soldiers’ herb, and if you could find some, it would do Capt’n Nick’s cut a power of good. A real healer it is.”

  “Is it? Then I could go and look for some immediately. I’m sure there will be some growing around nearby. It grows nearly everywhere, doesn’t it?” Faith looked at Nicholas. “Will you be all right by yourself if I go and look for this herb?”

  “Yes,” he said gravely.

  She dropped his hands and scrambled to her feet, albeit a little shakily. She felt better having something active to do.

  “I help you find it,” Estrellita said from behind her. Faith jumped. She had forgotten the gypsy girl.

  “You want plant for stop blood, yes?” Estrellita confirmed with Stevens.

  “That’s right. You fetch us some, and we’ll use it to help the capt’n here.”

  Estrellita snorted. “I not do it for him, I go with her so she not lose her way.”

  Nicholas watched the two young women hurry off toward the woods. They were a strange pair; the gypsy girl despised and mistrusted him but seemed to have adopted Faith.

  “Hope you don’t mind, Capt’n, but I thought it best to get Miss Faith out of the way. Turning green she was.”

  “I know.”

  “Determined to see you through it, she was.”

  “I know.”

  “She’s a good ’un, Mr. Nick. A real good ’un.”

  “I know.”

  Stevens frowned and seemed about to say something more, then changed his mind. He bent over the cut foot again. “That gypsy girl will keep an eye on her, make sure she don’t get lost in the forest. No flies on that one. Interesting how Mac treats her, don’t you think?”

  “Interesting how she treats Mac, too,” Nick responded.

  Stevens worked in silence for a few minutes. Then he carefully tugged the final stitch tight and knotted it. “Is it my imagination, or can you not really feel what I’m doing to you?”

  Nick gave him a level glance. “It’s not your imagination.”

  Stevens grunted and cut the thread with his knife. “Not good, that.”

  “Depends on how you look at it. Some would say it’s a blessing,” Nick said wryly.

  Stevens grunted, unimpressed, and began to bandage the foot. Nick didn’t want to think about it.

  They had not gone far when Estrellita caught Faith’s arm in both hands and forced her to stop. “I not come to help you find the soldiers’ herb,” she said
in a low, intense voice.

  Faith’s curiosity was roused. “Then why did you come?”

  Estrellita glanced around her in a furtive manner. “I come to beg for The Old One’s life.”

  “What? You mean your great-grandmother? But none of us would dream of harming her, Estrellita. Why ever would you think so?”

  The girl obviously didn’t believe her. “Your husband—I watch you with him. He listen to you. He care for what you think.” She clutched Faith’s arm tighter. “Please, lady, tell him not to hurt her. Tell him not to come near her.”

  Faith found the girl’s anxiety distressing. She, better than anyone, knew how protective Nicholas was toward women. She took Estrellita’s hands in hers, squeezing them comfortingly. “Nicholas will not hurt her, I promise you. He might look fierce—and he can be—but with women, he is the gentlest creature. I should know.”

  The girl shook her head. “No! You his wife. He not hurt you because he love you. But The Old One he not know, not love. But you, lady, he will listen to. So tell him not hurt her.”

  “No, it’s not simply because I am his wife. He rescued me—just as he rescued you—when I was a complete stranger to him, an unknown girl running from terrible men.”

  But Estrellita wasn’t convinced. “You beautiful. Of course he help you. The Old One, she old and wrinkled and no man call her beautiful—but every mark and wrinkle on her face beautiful to me.” Her eyes filled with tears. “She is last of my family. All dead now, except her and me.”

  “Looks would make no difference to Nicholas. When he saved me, it was dark, and he couldn’t even see my face, but that’s not important. If Nicholas was the sort of man who could hurt an old woman, why was he unable to hurt any of those women who were attacking you in that village? He wanted to rescue you, but even though those women were hitting and scratching him, he didn’t hurt any of them, just fended them off and lifted them aside. Does that sound like a man who would hurt any old lady, let alone your great-grandmother?”