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omething she could not mend. Not even with all her Other gifts.
Her thoughts brought her back to his door. Or rightly the door to one of the stillrooms. Out of the way of the aged sisters. Separate from the few patients recovering in the main hospital.
She pressed her ear to the heavy wood, but no sound emanated from the room beyond. Did he sleep quietly? Or did he lie tossing and wakeful, fighting his fragile brain’s betrayal? Undoing all her good work by worrying when he should be resting?
Turning the key, she cracked open the door.
A sliver of gray light from the high window bathed his cot. Created stark contrast in the rawboned angles of his face and the hollows of his eyes. Glinted blue amid his black hair, and silvered the crisscross slash of innumerable scars.
Old and new. Ancient, faded lines and angry, puckered blemishes. It was as if someone had acted out every cruel and vicious impulse upon his body. His chest had borne the worst of it—a web of violence marring the broad, hard-packed muscles—but no part of him had been spared.
Once upon a time he had been a target of a brutal killing intent. So why hadn’t he died? Surely that many injuries should have proved fatal. One more question she could ask, but he couldn’t answer.
He shifted, his hand coming up as if warding off a blow. His face grimaced in pain, his jaw hardening, his chest rising and falling as he gasped for breath. “Mae gormod ohonynt. Tynnwch nol. Gwarchoda Tywysog Hywel. Amddiffyna’r tywysog.”
Odd. Not English. Nor Gaelic. A language unknown to her. She inched closer, unable to leave. Relock the door. Pretend she hadn’t let curiosity draw her to his bedside. If she stayed, she might hear more. Hints of his past. Perhaps in sleep, he would remember. And she could relate all she learned in the morning. Jar a single memory loose, allowing the rest to spill forth. As a healer she’d been taught that all creatures deserved assistance. She would only be fulfilling her calling.
Not even Sister Brigh could quibble with that.
Fully justified, she sat down. Clasped her hands. Patience personified.
She was good at being silent. Waiting. Becoming invisible. It had always been thus, even when she was a child. As the baby of the family, she’d used that talent to her advantage. Her brothers would forget her presence in their private games or personal conversations. Her parents would forget she hadn’t been sent to bed, but remained curled in a hidden corner with a book. Nurse would forget she even existed, too taken up with the nursery maid’s gossip to worry overmuch about a silent child who demanded little attention. Especially in comparison to her harum-scarum older brothers.
He rolled over, arm over his face, neck taut and working. “Dwi’n dy garu di.”
She mentally snapped her fingers. Welsh. She recognized the word for “love.” She’d had a governess who’d come from Cardiff. Eres Jones-Abercrombie had been a sour stick of a woman with a sharp tongue and a quick hand. Sabrina had never been happier than when the woman had departed Belfoyle for a posting with Lord Markham’s household.
So he was Welsh. And he loved someone. Somewhere out there someone missed him. Grieved for him. All the more reason to stay and learn as much as she could.
He jerked, his hand fisting on air. Deep lines biting into his cheeks. The muscles of his arms strained against an invisible foe. “The diary. Now.”
English this time. Clipped in speech, almost a growl, but with a lilt held over from the Welsh of earlier. Authority rested in that uncompromising demand. This was a man who expected people to obey him. A ship’s captain washed overboard? A victim of military mutiny? But a diary? A spy after enemy secrets? A wronged husband? That might fit with the word for love. Perhaps he had suffered a betrayal. The evidence written in his wife’s diary.
Her imagination spun scenarios. Each one more lurid. More exiting. She wished for a pen and her journal before the varied conjectures escaped her.
“As you will.” Sorrow edged those words, spoken so softly she barely heard them except she’d inched closer and had almost bent her ear to his mouth.
She held her breath. Waited, but nothing more.
Suddenly, he flailed, catching her chin with the back of his hand. Sent stars reeling across her vision. Came awake with eyes bleary and distracted. “Don’t leave. Come back.” His voice held such longing she wished with all her heart she were this woman he wanted so desperately.
“It’s all right,” she answered, wiggling her jaw, “you’re safe now. Just a dream.”
He focused, coming more awake. Sat up with a grimace. “I thought . . . but . . .”
“You called to someone. A lover? A wife?” she urged, thinking she’d jolt him into a recollection while his mind still held the ghost of her memory.
He shook his head as if trying to clear it. “But it’s you. Yours is the face I dreamt.”
“But I’m not. I’m—”
“Sabrina.” His black eyes devoured her. “You are called Sabrina. I remember you.”
This time the longing prickled along her own skin, and—healer’s oath be damned—she caught up her skirts and fled.
“Rise and shine, slugabed. The sisters are calling us to breakfast.”
Sabrina cracked open her eyes on a dawn filtered through a misty drizzle that added dampness to an already miserable, chilly morning.
