The Accidental Wedding

by Anne Gracie

  His eyes opened briefly and his gaze roamed the room, taking in the clothes hanging on the nails at the end of the bed, the faded red bed curtains, the window and the garden beyond. He frowned over each item, as if puzzled, then sighed and his eyelids fluttered and closed, as if it was all too much to work out.

  “Can you tell me your name?” she asked. “Or where you were going? I can send a message to your loved ones.”

  He murmured something unintelligible and moved his head restlessly against her shoulder.

  “It’s all right,” she soothed, stroking his hair. It was obviously too much for him to speak just yet.

  He muttered something again and his hand brushed across her breast.

  She jumped. He was half asleep, she was sure, and probably had no idea what he’d done. She settled back into the soothing motion of running her fingers through his hair. She wasn’t sure who it soothed most, her or him.

  “Mmm, nice,” he mumbled and cupped her breast, stroking the nipple with a long, strong thumb. It sent a jolt of lightning through her body.

  She jumped off the bed. “Stop that!” Half asleep or not, he shouldn’t be doing such things.

  She thought of the way she’d responded in bed this morning and flushed. It wasn’t the same. He’d deliberately touched her.

  And this morning she’d deliberately pressed back.

  He’d fallen back, half buried in the pillows when she’d jumped off the bed. One intensely blue eye opened slowly. “Come back to bed.”

  “Absolutely not.” Rev. Matheson was right; the man was a rake, after all. She felt oddly . . . disappointed.

  He eyed her. “Wha’s . . . wrong?”

  Perhaps a rake needed to have it explained. “I don’t like you touching me like that.”

  His eye lowered. “You liked it.” The eye gleamed, then closed.

  She folded her arms across her chest with its traitorous nipples and glared at the apparently sleeping rogue.

  They hadn’t even been introduced!

  “Well, then, since you’re awake enough for—um.” She tried again, trying to sound calmer and more ladylike instead of someone who’d just been groped like a maidservant and wanted to hit him for the . . . the impersonality of it.

  Not that anyone should treat a maidservant disrespectfully. But some men did. Rakes. “While you are awake, let us take the opportunity to make you decent.”

  The blue eye opened. “Not . . . beyond redemption, then?”

  “I meant decently clad. I have the vicar’s nightshirt here. Seeing you traveled with none of your own, he kindly donated some of his.”

  There was a faint muffled snort from the bed. “Been blessed, has it?” Even with his eyes closed and his face tight with pain, a faint half smile lurked on that wicked, beautiful mouth. Devilry shining through the pain. Irresistible. Devious.

  She couldn’t leave him naked under the bedclothes an instant longer. Dressed, he would be easier to manage.

  Swaddled would be even better. Tightly, with his arms firmly bound to his sides.

  Fallen angel? Devil, more like.

  She hoped the vicar’s nightshirt had been blessed!

  She shook out the nightshirt and helped him into it. Into half of it, at any rate. It wasn’t too much trouble to get his long powerful arms into it and carefully ease it over his bandaged head. She dragged it down to cover his broad shoulders and firm, flat chest, trying not to notice the small, flat masculine nipples as she did so.

  Hers were hard and throbbing, which made it difficult not to compare.

  She tugged the thick folds of white flannel down as far as his waist. He, of course, gave her no help whatsoever. She reached down to tug the garment farther and from the corner of her eye caught the gleam of white teeth.

  “You might help,” she told him

  “Why? You’re doing so well.” How could he laugh when he was obviously in pain?

  She left the nightshirt bunched at his waist. If he wanted to smooth it down over his hips and legs and . . . and other parts, he could do it himself. She briskly rearranged his pillows and straightened the bedclothes.

  “What’s your name?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Where were you headed? Is there anyone I can notify? A wife? Your family must be worried.”

  He gave her a strange look. His forehead furrowed, then slowly his eyes closed. His skin was ashen and the lines of pain around his eyes and mouth had deepened again. He really was exhausted.

  She felt a little guilty at forcing him into the nightshirt, but she felt so much better knowing he was dressed, more or less. She couldn’t leave him naked in her bed all day. Not with children in the house.

  She wasn’t cross with him, not really. He was what he was. It was her own fault she was feeling so disappointed and upset. She was the fool who’d let herself start to care, who’d begun to build fantasies around an unconscious man. Thinking morning dreams could come true.

  Maddy didn’t just need him decently clothed. She needed him out of her bed and out of her life as soon as possible.

  He wasn’t sure how long it was before he woke again. He examined his surroundings with care, searching for some clue to where he was, apart from in a bed built into an alcove. He wriggled and the bed rustled. A straw mattress?

  Half a dozen nails were set into a wall. Women’s clothing hung from them: a couple of dresses, a pelisse, a faded green cloak. Only one nail with men’s clothing: a coat, well-cut, doeskin breeches, and a fine linen shirt.

  Nothing looked familiar.

  He parted the curtains and found himself in a small, cramped cottage. The walls were rough-cast plaster, simply whitewashed, the floor made of uneven stone flags. The ceiling was low and blackened with smoke. The door was ancient and rough hewn, with a wooden latch to fasten it. Above the latch a heavy bolt gleamed new minted against the weathered wood. There was a fireplace with a fire burning and a kettle and a pot suspended over it.

  His stomach rumbled. Something smelt good. Everything smelt good. Beneath the aroma of the food, there was a faint, all-pervasive scent of beeswax. Even the bedding smelt clean, of hay and sunshine and lavender.

  Outside, children shouted at play. Whose children?

  A woman moved into sight and he knew at once that this was she. She was familiar, yet not, slender, with a quick, graceful way of moving. Her dark auburn hair was coiled high on the crown of her head and he could see her pale, tender nape, kissed by a few fire-dark tendrils.

  He knew what that skin smelt like, tasted like, felt like.

  But he could not remember her name.

  Her back was toward him. He admired the elegant line of her spine, the narrow waist and gentle swell of her hips accented by the strings of an apron. He liked the way her hips and her buttocks swayed when she moved around the cottage.

  She returned to the table, this time facing him, and began chopping vegetables. She hadn’t noticed him yet.

  She frowned as she chopped, deep in thought. She was lovely. Not conventionally beautiful, but definitely appealing.

  Her face was heart shaped, with creamy-silk skin, her broad forehead tapering to a small, decided chin. Her nose was tip-tilted and opinionated, her mouth was soft with full, pink lips that were, at the moment, pursed.

  He couldn’t tell from here what color her eyes were, and dammit, he couldn’t remember. A man should at least remember that.

  And her name. Dammit, what was her name?

  Her chopping slowed, and slowly, as if she knew he was watching her, she raised her eyes.

  “You’re awake!” She dropped the knife and hurried across to him. “How do you feel this time?”

  This time? He grimaced and touched the bandage gingerly. “My head . . .” The slightest movement set the hammers pounding at his skull, like blacksmiths around an anvil.

  “Yes, you hit it when you fell.”

  “Fell?” That would explain the various aches and pains.

  “Off your horse.�
��

  His brow furrowed more deeply. “I fell off a horse?” He might not be able to recall when he last fell off a horse, but he was certain it wasn’t a common occurrence. He was offended by the very notion.

  “Actually your horse slipped on an unexpected patch of very slippery mud and threw you. Don’t you remember?”

  He stared at her. Don’t you remember? He started to shake his head, but stilled as the blacksmiths started hammering on his skull again. He tried to sit up, but his head swirled horribly and for a moment he feared he would throw up.

  The nausea faded.

  “You gave me a terrible fright, I can tell you. There was blood everywhere.” She smiled. “But you’ve come through it now, and you’re looking so much better than you have the past few days.”

  “Days?”

  She nodded. “The accident happened two days ago.”

  Two days? He closed his eyes, willing the thumping on his skull to quiet. Nothing made sense.

  “So if you will just tell me your name and your intended destination, or even your home address, I will send a message to your family. They will be very worried about you by now.”

  His family? He stared into her heart-shaped face with its sweetly troubled expression. Her eyes were deep golden brown, the color of brandy.

  “My horse, was he badly hurt?”

  She looked surprised. “No, it scrambled to its feet and trotted off—don’t worry, the boys caught it. But—”

  “And he’s all right? Not injured at all?”

  “He’s perfectly hale and hearty,” she assured him. “We stabled him at the vicar’s, about a mile from here. We don’t have anything big enough.”

  He nodded slowly and closed his eyes.

  Maddy straightened the bedclothes, puzzled. He seemed more worried about his horse than he was about his relatives who would be worrying. Maybe he had no relatives? Maybe he was an orphan like herself and the children.

  Or perhaps he didn’t want her to know his name. He might be a wanted man. He didn’t look like one, though.

  “The vicar doesn’t mind—he’s the kindest man. And the boys are horse mad, so it’s a treat for them, really. They’d look after it even if it wasn’t their responsibility. They tell me it’s a beautiful animal. What’s its name?”

  “Name?” he repeated blankly.

  “Yes, the boys have been wondering. The girls, too, for that matter.” They’d all wondered about the stranger’s name, too, but since he seemed reluctant to trust her with that . . .

  “Girls, too,” he repeated, bemused. “How many?”

  “Three girls, and Lucy is only four, but she does like to name animals. They all do. It’s a nuisance because it makes it very difficult to kill any of the chickens even if they don’t lay anything, because you cannot sit down to a fricassee of Mabel or a meal of roast Dorothy, can you?”

  She was talking too much, running on about nothing, but his silence was unsettling. That, and his frown and the way he was staring at her with those blue, blue eyes.

  And the thought of what had passed between them earlier.

  “Can I get you anything?” she asked him. “Are you thirsty? Hungry?”

  “A jar?”

  She brought it.

  “Is he awake?” John glanced at the bed as he set down a pail of cool well water. His shadow, Henry, followed him in.

  “He was,” she said, “but he’s fallen asleep again.”

  “Maybe his eyes are just closed. Can I look? He’ll want to know about his horse.”

  “I told him his horse was all right.”

  “He asked about it?”

  “He did,” she assured him.

  John and Henry exchanged looks and John gave a satisfied nod. The stranger was, it seemed, worthy of his mount.

  “What’s his name?” Henry asked.

  “He didn’t tell me.” She forestalled the next question. “Neither his name, nor his horse’s name.”

  The boys tiptoed over to the bed.

  “Don’t disturb him,” Maddy warned them.

  As she spoke, the man opened his eyes. He stared at the two boys, then subsided with a groan.

  “He’s in pain,” she told them.

  The girls had followed their brothers inside and joined them by the bed, staring at the stranger. “I can’t see,” Lucy whispered hoarsely.

  Maddy brought the water. She slipped her arm under the man’s head and raised him so he could drink. He drank the whole cup thirstily without opening his eyes. She held the cup out to Jane to refill.

  After the second cup he sighed and opened his eyes again. He examined each small face lined up beside the bed. “Four children? Four?”

  “Five,” said Lucy, who’d fetched a stool to stand on.

  “I told you there were five,” Maddy said.

  He stared. “Their resemblance to each other is extraordinary.”

  “Not me. Everyone says I look like Maddy,” Lucy told him.

  “Yes, but I didn’t see you before,” he told the little girl apologetically.

  “I didn’t see you, either. But I got a stool,” she told him. “I’m standing on it now.”

  “An excellent strategy,” he said. Lucy beamed with pride at the compliment.

  “Do the others look like me?”

  “Why would they look like you?” Maddy said blankly.

  He gave her a thoughtful look but didn’t respond.

  “Are you hungry?” Maddy asked. “I made soup. You need to build up your strength.”

  “Is that what I can smell?” he asked. “It does smell good.”

  Taking that as a yes, she shooed the children back outside, sending John and Henry to take a message to the doctor that the stranger had woken and was in his senses.

  She ladled some soup into a bowl, tucked a cloth around his neck, and sat on the edge of the bed to feed him.

  “I can feed myself,” he told her, reaching for the bowl, but it shook so badly in his hands she took it back.

  “You’ve been badly injured. It’s no weakness to accept help.”

  “I don’t mind help from you,” he told her, with a look that made her cheeks warm.

  She concentrated on spooning soup into him, avoiding the blue gaze that watched her so intently. She wished he would close his eyes, but then she wouldn’t have been able to feed him.

  The trouble was she had to focus on his mouth, his beautiful, masculine, perfectly chiseled mouth and all that did was to stir up other thoughts . . . feelings . . . from the morning.

  “You never did tell me your horse’s name,” she said as she fed him. “The children will want to know.”

  He swallowed the soup thoughtfully. “It’s very good soup,” he said after a moment. “What’s in it?”

  He was still avoiding the question. Why?

  “Nettles.” His eyes widened and she chuckled. “They don’t sting in soup and they’re very good for you. The hardest part is picking them—you have to use gloves.”

  He allowed her to feed him another spoonful, making a show of tasting it properly this time. “Nettles taste like this?” It was a compliment.

  “Not only nettles. There are other ingredients.”

  “What?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Oh, just the usual, you know, eye of newt and toe of frog.”

  He smiled and she really wished he wouldn’t. He was too charming for his own good. For her own good. “Well, that’s me, done for. No, really, I’m interested.”

  He was, too, she saw. “Nothing dreadful, I assure you. Mainly potatoes, butter, cream, watercress, and a little parsley.” In other words it was like most of their meals: made from ingredients she could grow, make, pick wild, or barter. Thank God Lizzie was a dairymaid.

  “I could have sworn it tasted of chicken.”

  “The basic stock is made from a chicken carcass—”

  “Not Mabel or Dorothy?” he asked in faux horror.

  She laughed. “No, this one was Tommy, and Tommy
, though very sweet as a fluffy chick, turned into a nasty aggressive cockerel who picked fights and even attacked the children. He thoroughly deserved his fate.”

  “Tommy has atoned for his sins. This is delicious.” As she fed him, his color slowly returned. His gaze passed over her like a touch, caressingly. He was a stranger. She didn’t even know his name.

  She’d slept with him naked. Twice.

  She’d saved his life, held him like a child.

  He’d held her, not at all like a child.

  “Please tell me your name,” she said softly.

  He gave her an enigmatic look, shook his head, then looked away.

  She brought him a second bowl of soup but made no effort to speak as she fed him. His refusal to answer her question angered her. Who was he to withhold his name? A criminal of some sort? A wanted man as well as a rake?

  He was thoughtful, distant, drinking the soup she fed him almost as if she weren’t there.

  She was very aware of him, his proximity, the lean masculinity of his body, the dark hair on his arms, the long-fingered, well-tended gentleman’s hands. Those hands didn’t belong here. She needed to send him on his way. Someone could send a coach for him.

  “I am going to notify somebody,” she told him as he wiped his mouth and handed her the cloth. “So, who should it be?”

  “Notify?”

  “Your family, or whoever you were on your way to visit when you had the accident. They’ll be worried.”

  He sighed, but said nothing.

  She stood and said in the kind of voice she used on the children when she was trying to exert her authority, “If you don’t tell me, I’ll have no choice but to inform the authorities. So who are you?”

  There was a long silence before he said reluctantly, “I don’t know.”

  Five

  “What do you mean you don’t—” She broke off. “You mean you don’t remember who you are?” Was this another ploy to avoid telling her his name?

  “No.”

  “You truly have no idea?”

  “None at all. It’s all a blank.” His brow furrowed. “Are you saying you don’t know me, either?”