“Your overcoat.” She dashed back to where she’d laid it out by the fireplace, then held it open for me as if she were a butler. I put one arm in quickly, but pulled away before she could help with the other. Even if I hadn’t managed to undress myself last night, I would certainly be able to dress myself this morning. I buttoned the coat and strode away from that scent of hers. My coat smelled of wood smoke and Scout. It was a relief.
When I reached the door, I turned around. “I am very grateful to you. I’ve seen and experienced enough of the ague to know that you’ve had a very unpleasant night.” Her eyes roamed over me one last time, looking, I assumed, for any signof sickness or weakness. She seemed hesitant to let me go, even when she should have been all but pushing me out of the door. “Will you be all right?” I asked.
“Me?” She lifted her chin then tipped her head toward the pistol. “Of course I will.”
I had half a mind to ask her if she knew how to use that pistol of hers, but her comfort and confidence with it answered that question for me. She knew how to use it. And she would take care of herself.
Still, I struggled to make my feet move forward. She would be alone. She was capable, certainly, but alone. I hated to leave anyone without support, but the pull of her scent and that blasted brushstroke along her collar bone had left me feeling almost as unsteady as my fever. I needed to leave. I wasn’t free to think of such things about any woman other than Harriet, and I’d been too long gone from her to remember her scent. “Shall we agree to part as strangers and forget all about last night?” I asked.
She was still, and I forced myself to hold her gaze, even though it was more comfortable to look elsewhere. That disloyal part of me wanted to do the exact opposite of what I’d just suggested. She still seemed like an apparition, a specter I wasn’t certain I believed in. I wanted to study her and find out if she was real, even now, after having spent the last fifteen minutes conversing with her.
She, on the other hand, had no qualms about taking my measure. Her eyes inspected each and every part of me and I willed my legs to stand firm. I would not shake or faint or give this woman any cause to keep me here when both of us needed me to leave.
“Of course,” she finally said, after I’d proven I wasn’t about to tip over. Her face looked calm. She clenched a fistful of herdressing gown in her right hand. “You have forgotten it already, and I will try to do the same.”
Perfect. Brilliant. The best of outcomes. Even if that meant I never knew exactly what had happened between us. I broke our gaze and strode away from her.
Scout was tied to a fence post, his saddle stuffed into a small, dilapidated half structure nearby. I pressed my head into his neck. “Thank you for getting me here, old boy. Let’s go see if Mrs. Yates has some oats for you. You deserve them. ”
I turned for his saddle, only for a flash of green to catch my eye.Shewas heading my way.
At least she’d put on her dressing gown.
Without saying a word, she strode past me, hefted Scout’s saddle into her arms and then swung it onto Scout’s back.
She spun and glared at me. Had I done something wrong? Other than, well, everything? “I assume you have the strength to fasten the saddle and hoist yourself up? You won’t kill yourself after I’ve spent a sleepless night keeping you alive?”
I nodded wordlessly.
“Good,” she said, and then she was gone. Back in the shepherd’s croft to await her family.
That feeling of wrongness settled deep inside my chest, a call of duty pulling me back to her, but I ignored it. She had no interest in me as a man and I had a duty that superseded one night in a shepherd’s croft.
It was best if I didn’t know her name and I never saw her again.
Still, I questioned our decision the rest of the way to Applewood.
6
EVELYN BLACKWELL
We arrived safelyat Blackwell Manor only a day later than planned. I’d walked back to the carriage soon after my sick stranger left and Mama had still been so concerned over Papa’s leg I hadn’t even had to lie about my night. Everyone assumed it was uneventful, and I allowed them to.
It made my stomach twist to once again keep a secret of major proportions from them. The last time I’d done such a thing, it had ended with disaster—Matilda running off with a groomsman and everyone questioning how she’d been able to keep such a thing hidden. But this was different. I would never see that man again, and telling them about it would only worry them. When Papa’s leg was completely healed and Hattie safely engaged to an upstanding young man, I might mention it to them, but for now, there was no reason to add any more scandals to our family affairs.
Now, almost a week later, Papa’s leg only bothered him while he was going up and down the stairs, and he claimed himself not only well enough to greet our guests, but well enough to hide it from them altogether. What was wrong with men? Always playing as if they were well when they were not.
That soldier had been the same. Not even accepting my help buttoning his coat when he’d been in the throes of a raging fever only hours before. He’d managed, but he’d looked as if he might fall over at least twice while doing so.
Where was he now? Had he finally met with his May? What would he tell her of that night? Or would he keep it from her like I was keeping it from my family?
I shook my head. I needed to stop worrying about him. I didn’t even know his name.
He was simply a man taken care of and then kissed when I’d thought he was dying…and married.
In truth, he’d been the one to kiss me. There had been almost nothing I could have done to stop it. I’d been ambushed. And the truth was, in the days since, the fact that he wasn’t married had softened my guilt of that kiss into a fairytale-like memory. I’d shared a kiss with a stranger in the middle of a terrible storm. It was like a scene out of an Anne Radcliff novel—one I’d relived perhaps a few too many times since it had happened. Even now it was distracting me, and our first guest had just walked in through the door.
Papa shook the hand of Sir Philip, while Mama embraced his wife, Lady Howard. I hadn’t seen their son, Mr. Vincent Howard, since I was thirteen, nearly ten years ago. He raised his eyebrows and then gave me a devil-may-care smirk over the heads of our embracing parents. What was he about? He’d been a grown man, albeit a very young one, last I saw him. He was kind enough then, but never gave me a look like that.
