Chapter 4
Spencer told himself he should feel uneasy having Rose bathe him as if they were longtime lovers instead of strangers. But her hands rubbing his scalp were strangely soothing, washing away months of sea life.
He focused his gaze on her determined face as she finished drying his hair and began patting his arms with a towel. He guessed she’d not been married long, though there was a weariness about her that seemed to indicate she lived a hard life.
She slid the towel down his torso, and he willed his body not to react or the towel at his hips would become recognizably snug again.
“Allow me to help you dress,” she said.
Her deep, mellow voice suddenly seemed…intimate. If this were any other time or place, he would be welcoming her help and turning it to his advantage. It had been well over a year since he’d shared any intimacy with a woman.
They compromised. She slid clean breeches onto his lower legs, then turned her back while he struggled to pull them up.
“I was wondering if you’d like me to send word to your family that you’re alive,” she said suddenly.
Thatdoused his lustful thoughts.
“No. You can turn around now.”
She stood uncertainly in the center of the room. “But won’t your parents wonder if you’re hurt?”
“My mother will only worry more if she hears of my injuries,” he said softly, still studying her. And then he said something unplanned, foolish. “My father died last year.”
“My condolences to you,” she murmured.
Why had he felt the need to say something so personal to this woman he barely knew?
“Maybe it was for the best,” Spencer said, looking up into her wide, gray eyes. “I don’t want him to know—I don’t want him to see—” What—his shame? The humiliation he’d soon suffer in London? “I would be a disappointment to him,” he finished lamely.
“I’m sure that is not true.”
He seldom allowed himself to think of all the ways he’d disappointed his parents. As a child he could do nothing to help his mother, a Spanish noblewoman. Whenever his father took him and Alex to London, his mother usually stayed home alone. He still could see their heads together as they spoke in low voices in the great hall of their Cumberland estate, the loving way they held hands, the wistfulness on her face as she kissed her family good-bye. She was not as welcome everywhere as her husband was—Spencer and his brother had paid the same price.
His father didn’t see it—didn’t want to see it. But Spencer and Alex knew what it was to walk into a room and have gazes slide away from them, to hear whispers, to know that every smile was false. He was used to feeling like a foreigner in England, ashamed of his heritage, hurt and angry when he and his brother were ignored. But it hadn’t taken long for either of them to realize that people were forced to notice them if they caused a scandal.
Rose helped him finish dressing, then said a quiet goodnight and carried a candleholder as she climbed a rope ladder up into the loft. The candle threw crazy shadows across the beams and roof as she undressed. When she blew it out, he listened for her breathing, then cursed himself for a fool.
He tried to distract himself by examining her home, looking for clues to the mystery of Rose. Drying herbs and baskets hung from the beams supporting the thatched roof. Though the timber-framed cottage had only one room, it boasted a fireplace and chimney, and glass in the windows.
She seemed to live alone, but how did she support herself? The only people he’d ever met who were this generous to strangers were his parents, but they had money to support their good deeds.
Remembering his parents unfortunately made him think of his wedding day. He had warned his parents that proper young ladies would have nothing to do with him. But he hadn’t been prepared for the tears in his mother’s eyes, and how badly he’d felt to disappoint her once again.
With a groan, he imagined her reaction when Rodney Shaw claimed her son was a traitor. The pouch had been all that stood between him and a hanging, but it was gone now. Shaw would beat him to London and whisper whatever lies he wanted to the queen, blaming Spencer for his own crimes. Perhaps Shaw would even create convincing proof—or bring along a “witness.”
Hehadto get to London. He propped himself up on his hands and swung his broken leg to the floor, but pain and weakness could not be overcome by will alone. He had barely been able to walk with Rose’s help. He dropped back on the pallet and punched the wall.
~oOo~
At dawn Roselyn was in the tiny bake house behind her cottage, with eight loaves of bread in the large courtyard oven. Though she had sold most of her baked goods in Shanklin before the Spanish threat had driven away the villagers, she had steady customers at Wakesfield Manor—another reason to bless the Heywoods.
It was past time to deliver bread to the manor, as John’s visit had reminded her, so she couldn’t avoid them any longer. She returned to her cottage, set bread and cider beside the slumbering Thornton, picked up her baskets, and left.
The manor house, more windows than walls, glittered like a jewel amid the rolling green fields and trimmed hedges. She followed the gravel path to the rear of the manor.
When she entered the kitchen, the Heywood family had already gathered around the trestle table used by the servants. Without her parents in residence, only Francis and his family lived at the manor.
Francis’s long, bushy mustache tickled when he kissed her cheek, and he took the basket of bread from her hand. His wife, Margaret, plump and white-haired as a mother should be, patted the bench beside her, and Roselyn sat down. She thought of her own mother, her hair dyed yellow, her mouth always too painted to give her children kisses.
