Could Thornton have left on his own? He was weak from his injuries, and he wouldn’t be able to stand with a broken leg.
But he’d also been delirious with fever.
Roselyn searched the moonlit ground outside the shed and found dark stains in the grass. She touched them with her fingers and felt wetness, then lifted her hand to her face and smelled fresh blood.
She straightened and looked out across the estate. For a moment she was torn with indecision; should she let him go?
But she couldn’t allow him to bleed to death in the grass, or fall off the cliff onto the rocky beach. She wouldn’t be able to live with the sin of her cowardice.
So she followed the trail of crushed grass made by Thornton’s body. Every moment she expected to catch sight of him, but he’d crawled farther than she would have imagined. Her nervous fears increased, and the darkness seemed to wrap around her, with the wind picking up to tug at her unbound hair. She thought she heard the sound of voices, but it faded so abruptly she knew she must be imagining it.
Where was he?
Just as she began to wonder if she’d followed the wrong trail, she saw a glimmer of something parting the grass before her. She knelt down and found Thornton, whose bare chest gleamed by moonlight between the bandages. He wore only Philip’s old breeches. He lay on his side, trying to struggle up onto his knees.
Though she didn’t want to touch him, she forced herself to place her hand on his arm. She felt the fire of his fever as he suddenly grasped her wrist and yanked her to the ground. She twisted onto her back, but before she could move he was upon her, his forearm against her throat. She tried to yell, but her voice came out as a muffled gasp.
Kicking her heels into the ground and thrashing, she caught his arm and managed to pull it enough to breathe. His eyes were narrowed; his teeth were bared in a grimace above her.
“Thornton!” she rasped. “I’m not your enemy!”
She rolled and tried to push him off her, and in their struggles his free hand caught her waist. He immediately went still. All she could hear was his breath rattling in his chest. Slowly, his hand skimmed up her rib cage.
“Yes, I am a woman!” she said in outrage, before his touch could become too intimate. She slid out from beneath him, and he allowed her escape, collapsing forward onto his elbows.
“Mr. Thornton,” she whispered regretfully, “you must come back with me.”
He got one knee beneath him and tried to crawl away from her, but ended up sinking down into the grass with a moan. He was muttering, and when she leaned closer, she realized that he was using Spanish again.
Suddenly Roselyn felt a whisper of gooseflesh rise across her arms, and she stilled. Again, she heard voices, and realized with dawning horror that there were men out on the cliffs. She collapsed onto her stomach at Thornton’s side, her breath coming rapidly.
She stared at his flushed face and his fluttering eyelids as the men came closer. What were they doing out in the middle of the night?
Slowly she lifted up until she could just see over the swaying grass. A group of men hovered like dark shadows near the cliffs, moonlight glittering off them.
She realized they were wearing swords. Could it be the militia from nearby Shanklin?
Or the Spanish, ready to invade England?
Roselyn dropped down again, only to find Thornton’s eyes open as he stared at her in exhausted bewilderment. What was she to do? If she crept away, they might find him and take him off her hands. He’d wake up soon and be able to explain everything. He might not even remember her.
But if those were Spaniards out there…
Thornton suddenly gripped her arm and pulled her closer. She smothered a gasp as she stared into his wild, dark eyes and felt the heat of him burn her. His lips moved, and she heard his hoarse mutterings—again, in Spanish.
What should she do? If the militia saw him like this, with his black hair, olive skin, and foreign words, they would surely take him for a Spaniard.
And if the soldiers were Spanish, then everyone on the island was doomed.
Roselyn had no choice but to wrap her arms about him and try to keep him quiet. The patrol was closer now, and a gruff laugh carried on the wind—and the sound of the Queen’s English. She shuddered with relief as one fear faded.
“Shh,” she whispered, holding Thornton’s face to her neck, praying he would stop struggling. He stiffened, and she worried that his strength would yet prove too much for her.
Then with a sigh, his whole body relaxed, going heavy against her. She felt his arms tighten about her waist, and a new fear rose in her mind as he slid his knee between hers.
Everything in her wanted to rebel, to slap him and push him away. Instead she lay against him seething with anger, feeling his mouth move on her throat, then lower to her collarbone. She shivered. Every rumor she’d heard of him over the last year blazed starkly in her mind: his affairs, his mistresses, the scandals he caused wherever he went. Only wild, foolish women would fall for the seductive words of a man like him.
She bit her lip and squeezed her eyes tightly shut as his lips nibbled the high neckline of her gown. She tried to insinuate her fingers against his mouth—anything to distract him—but immediately pulled away when he tried to kiss them. Kiss her fingers, by the saints! She pressed his head even harder against her, almost wishing she could smother him into unconsciousness.
