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“I think he’s here to murder us all in our beds,” Teresa speculated. “I slept with a kitchen knife under my pillow, just in case.”
Sabrina flung back the covers. Gulped in a chilly breath of air just as Jane shot back, “You would.”
She was right. Teresa thought every outsider held sinister intentions.
“Have you seen him?” Jane plopped on the end of Sabrina’s bed with a friendly bounce. Already dressed, she talked while shoving her hair up under her prim white kerchief. A crime. Sabrina’s own brown tangle was only improved by concealment, but Jane’s floating mass of auburn waves deserved to be admired.
Surrendering to Jane’s buoyant cheerfulness, Sabrina stretched. Two hours of sleep would have to do. “I have. And spoken with him.”
No need to reveal her schoolgirl flight. Even now she writhed with mortification. What had frightened her into running away in such a ridiculous fashion? Teresa, yes. She was barely seventeen. Wet behind the ears and still in that giggly, graceless stage. But Sabrina had left that awkward childhood self-consciousness behind long ago. Hadn’t she?
“Is he handsome as they say?” Jane leaned forward eagerly.
“Who says?” Teresa chimed in.
Thankfully, Jane’s attention drifted back to Teresa, relieving Sabrina of the need to explain the man’s primal, yet sensual appeal. Not that she could. Even to herself.
“Two of the sisters. They said he was delicious as sin and wished they could—”
“Jane!”
She sniffed. “I’m only relating the comments of others.”
People would be surprised at the earthiness found within the confines of an all-female community. With no men to hinder tongues or curb actions, normally taboo subjects could be openly discussed, joked about, or explained in depth. Sabrina only wished this particular discussion would end before the heat flooding her cheeks was noticed.
“So is he?” Jane prodded Sabrina. “Handsome, I mean.”
A prickly tingle cruised her skin like static. “You could call him that,” she murmured.
Somewhere a bell was ringing. Or was that the roaring of blood in her ears?
A pillow caught her square in the face.
“Blast! We’re late! There’s last call.” Jane and Teresa dashed from the room, leaving Sabrina alone and wishing for a good dousing of Sister Brigh’s ice water.
He tried not to squirm beneath the unblinking stare of the old woman, but it was difficult in his present position—flat on his back and naked—a few thin blankets the only shield between him and the hefty mountain towering over him.
“Sister Ainnir says you have no recollection of how you came to be washed up on our beach with enough seawater in you to float an armada.”
“No, mistress. I remember nothing before waking in this chamber yesterday.”
A flicker of her eyes. A slight shifting in her pose. But what she reacted to, he couldn’t tell. Something he’d said? Hadn’t said? Did she know who he was? Did they all know, but chose not to tell him?
“Not even your name?” she asked.
Anger flared along nerves like a lit fuse.
“I told you. Nothing.”
Again came the infinitesimal glimmer of knowledge in the woman’s eyes, causing his hands to fist at his sides as he struggled to quell a mounting rage he didn’t comprehend.
“And that brand on your forearm?” she continued, smooth and cool as glass. “It’s an unusual symbol.”
His hand rose to touch the brand burned into his left forearm, a broken arrow and crescent.
“Can you recall what it signifies?” she prodded. “Why you would mark yourself in such a grisly fashion?”
Did she think he lied? That he was feigning memory loss for some hidden purpose? He only wished it were that simple. His anger swelled, twitching muscles. Bringing him to an edgy awareness of his surroundings—the inches separating them, the rain hissing against the window, the thick, humid air. His awareness expanded to the blood moving through arteries and veins, the quickening beat of his heart, the breath filling his lungs. And something more. Something that was and wasn’t a part of him. A sliding, slithering presence lurking in the hidden recesses of his mind. Seeking access. Seeking control.
