A Kiss to Remember (5 page)

There could be no mistaking the pleading expression in his eyes. His fingers bit into her arm, demanding an answer she could not provide.

Even though she knew she was about to commit the most damning sin of her life, Laura could not stop the tender smile from spreading across her face. “You’re mine.”

Over the years
Laura had entertained more than one fantasy of her betrothed arriving at Arden Manor to claim her hand. Sometimes he rode a glossy black steed with a white star emblazoned on its forehead; other times he emerged from a handsome carriage decorated with the ancient coat of arms of a renowned and noble family. But never once had she pictured him draped facedown over the back of a donkey led by an ill-tempered Cockney who had been blistering her ears with curses ever since she’d dragged him away from his flocks. Fortunately, even after nearly forty years in the country, the last twenty of which had been spent serving as Lady Eleanor’s devoted man-of-all-work, Dower’s accent was still so thick Laura couldn’t make out most of them.

As the donkey plodded into the yard, Cookie came running out of the kitchen door to greet her husband, wringing her apron in her hands. “Oh, my heavens! What on earth happened to the poor lad?”

“Poor lad indeed!” Dower snorted. “’E’s probably some fugitive just escaped from the London gallows. ’E’ll murder us all in our beds tonight, see if he don’t.”

“He’s not a fugitive,” Laura attempted to explain for the tenth time. “He’s a gentleman.”

Dower nodded sagely. “I knew just such a gent once— Gentleman ’Arry, they called ’im. Charmed all the fine folk with ’is pretty manners an’ sweet talk—till they woke up with their nostrils slit an’ their purses gone.”

Looking doubtful, Cookie grabbed a handful of the stranger’s sun-streaked hair and twisted his head to the side. “He has an honest enough face, I s’pose. For a gent.”

The man groaned, no doubt protesting the indignities he was being forced to endure. Laura gently wrested his hair from Cookie’s grip and smoothed it back down around his collar. “If we don’t get him inside and tend to that lump on his head, I doubt he’ll live long enough to slit anyone’s nostrils.”

She wanted to groan herself when Lottie and George came running out of the barn, trailed by a wobbling line of kittens. She had hoped to prepare them for the new arrival before they could fire a barrage of questions at her.

“Who’s that?”

“What’s his name?”

“Did he fall off a horse?”

“Did he tumble out of a tree?”

“Was he set upon by robbers?”

“Has he fainted?”

“Is he dead?” Lottie asked, gingerly poking at one buckskin-clad hip.

“You’re not going to be able to tell from that angle,”

George pointed out, fingering the fine kerseymere of the man’s riding coat.

“He’s a gent,” Cookie announced with no small amount of proprietary pride.

Dower shook his head. “ ’E’s a fugitive from the law, ’e is. Goin’ to murder us all in our beds soon as we close our eyes tonight.”

Lottie’s round blue eyes brightened. “A murderer, you say? How delicious!”

Laura gritted her teeth, wondering what the good Lord hoped to teach her by cursing her with a family of Bedlamites. “He’s not a fugitive or a murderer. He’s simply an unfortunate traveler in need of some Christian charity.” She snatched the hem of the man’s jacket out of George’s hand, her voice rising. “And I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. We’re going to give it to him. And we’re going to do it, by God, before he expires from neglect!”

They all stared at her, their mouths hanging open. Even Dower, who spoke profanity more fluently than he spoke the King’s English, looked taken aback.

Recovering her aplomb, Laura gave her hair a prim pat. “Now I’d appreciate it very much, Dower, if you would remove our guest to the house without further delay.”

Still grumbling beneath his breath about escapees from the gallows and having his nostrils slit while he slept, Dower obeyed, heaving the stranger over his shoulder. Although the old man was bandy-legged and his face was as grizzled and brown as a strip of dried beef, his shoulders, chest, and arms were thick with muscle earned from years of wrestling with Hertfordshire sheep even more cantankerous than he was.

The nearer Dower drew to the manor door, the bolder his tongue became. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, missie. Mark me words, this divil’ll be the ruin of us all, ’e will.”

All Laura could do was trail behind them and pray the old man was wrong.

Moonlight bathed the stranger’s face.

Laura sat in a chair beside the bed, wondering if he was ever going to wake up again. Although he seemed to be in no distress, he had barely stirred since Dower had dumped him on top of the chintz coverlet over seven hours ago. She checked the warm poultice Cookie had applied to the nasty lump at the crown of his head, then touched his brow, searching for any sign of fever. She was beginning to fear that whatever trial he had suffered had damaged more of his faculties than just his memory.

She had shocked everyone by insisting he be taken to Lady Eleanor’s chamber. Although Cookie kept the room dusted and the linens aired, neither Laura nor the children had dared to breach its sanctuary since Lady Eleanor had died. There were simply too many memories of her last days with them hanging in the orange blossom-scented air—both bitter and sweet.

But the graceful half-tester was the most comfortable bed in the house and Laura was determined that their guest should have it.

She owed him at least that much.

At first Cookie had refused to leave her alone with him, claiming that “ ’tweren’t seemly” for an unmarried girl to tend to a gentleman in his bedchamber. Only
when Laura had agreed to let Dower sleep in a chair outside the door, an ancient musket laid across his lap, had Cookie relented, although she had
tsked
beneath her breath all the way back to the kitchen. The old man’s snores were already rattling the closed door.

The stranger lay sprawled across the coverlet, the feather quilt from Laura’s own bed drawn up to his waist. Although Dower had removed the man’s jacket at Laura’s command, it had fallen to her to untie his cravat and loosen his collar. With his sun-gilded hair tousled on the pillow and lashes a shade darker resting flush against his cheeks, he looked to be more boy than man. But the haze of gold that was just beginning to lay claim to his jaw warned her that his innocent mien was only an illusion.

Laura desperately searched his face for any sign of animation. Had his flesh not been so warm beneath her hand, she would have sworn he was fashioned of marble—an effigy on the tomb of a hero who had died too young. She had yet to breathe a word of her plan to the children or the servants. If he never woke up, they would never have to know what a foolish dream she had dared to entertain. Now that she could no longer blame the wood’s enchantment for her madness, practical considerations had begun to crowd in. How was she to convince him that he was betrothed to her? And how could she prove to herself that he wasn’t already bound to another woman?

She leaned forward. His breathing was deep and even, his lips parted ever so slightly.

Her kiss had roused him once. Did she dare? …

He looked vulnerable in the way that only a very strong man can look when at the mercy of a woman.

He might very well have died in the oak wood if she hadn’t found him, yet she felt as guilty as if she’d been the one to strike him this terrible blow.

Drawing the quilt to his chest, she leaned over and pressed a tender kiss to his brow.

He must be dreaming.

How else to explain the scent of orange blossoms, the gentle brush of a woman’s lips against his brow? Something stirred deep within him, some hazy ghost woven from a mist of memories and dreams. But before he could grasp it, it drifted out of his reach, calling out what he thought might be his name in a voice that was too faint and far off for him to recognize.

He longed to pursue it, but there was a tremendous weight pressing down on his heart. He opened his eyes to find a fat yellow tabby cat sitting on his chest, peering at him with wise golden eyes.

“Nellie,” he whispered, thinking how peculiar it was that he could remember her name but not his own.

He reached to touch her, expecting her to melt into the mist along with that other elusive shade. But her fur felt soft and clean beneath his trembling hand. As he stroked her, her purr rumbled through him, producing an echoing wave of contentment. His eyes drifted shut.

If he was dreaming, he never wanted to wake up.

Cookie bustled into Lady Eleanor’s chamber the next morning with a washbasin loaded with rags tucked under her arm and a cheery whistle on her lips. As her gaze fell on the bed, the whistle died on an off-key note.

“Well, I’ll be …” she whispered, shaking her head.

Sometime during the night, Laura had relaxed her vigil long enough to slump forward in the chair and rest her head on the stranger’s chest. She slept the sleep of the utterly exhausted, her back curved at an awkward angle and one arm hanging limp off the side of the bed. The lad still slept as well, but with a hand cupping Laura’s head, his fingers tangled possessively in what was left of her once neat topknot.

Cookie scowled. If the rascal had dared to compromise her young mistress in any way, Cookie wouldn’t hesitate to bash him over the head with the washbasin and send him to sleep for good.

But as she crept nearer, her fears subsided. With their eyes closed and their mouths open, the two of them looked as innocent as a pair of toothless babes.

Cookie gave Laura’s shoulder a gentle shake. The girl sat straight up, an unruly lock of hair flopping over one eye. “Oh, Lord, I shouldn’t have gone to sleep. He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“Don’t be silly. Of course he ain’t dead! Why, your nursin’ has even put a spot of color in the lad’s cheeks.”

Laura stole a look at her patient. Cookie had spoken the truth. His breathing was smooth and even, and his cheeks had lost their haunted pallor.

Cookie nodded knowingly. “All the lad needs now is a good scrubbin’.”

“I’ll do it,” Laura said automatically, reaching for the basin.

Cookie held it out of her reach, her expression scandalized. “I think not, girl. It’s bad enough I let you tend to him durin’ the night. If I was to let you bathe him, Lady Eleanor would roll right out of her grave.” She
stabbed a finger at the bed. “I been married to that randy old goat of mine for nearly forty years now and I can promise you this young buck ain’t got nothin’ an old woman like me ain’t seen a hundred times before.”

As if to prove her point, she lifted the quilt, blocking Laura’s view, and peered beneath it. Since he was still wearing those flank-hugging buckskin trousers, Laura couldn’t imagine what made the maid’s crinkled cheeks turn bright pink.

Cookie dropped the quilt, swallowing hard. “Old Cookie might have spoken in haste, but never you mind, child.” Catching Laura by the arm, she steered her toward the door, sloshing water out of the basin with each step. “I’ve drawn a hot bath for you in the kitchen. You just go and get yourself all tidied up while I tend to your gent.”

Before Laura’s bleary brain could even form a protest, Cookie had closed the door, gently but firmly, in her face.

He must be dead.

How else to explain the brisk, impersonal feel of female hands against his body? He might not remember his name, but he did remember that female hands were designed to provide only pleasure: to trail across his skin with tantalizing grace; to envelop his engorged flesh in a vise of delight; to dig their flawlessly painted fingernails into his back as the expert rhythm of his hips drove the woman beneath him into a frenzy of ecstasy.

He had been touched in innumerably inventive ways by countless women during the course of his lifetime, but never with such perfunctory disregard. As these
hands stripped and bathed him, they were neither rough nor gentle. They were simply intent upon the job they had set out to do.

He was left to draw only one conclusion. They must be preparing him for burial.

He longed to cry out, but his tongue had turned to stone along with his limbs. The final humiliation came when those indifferent hands peeled down his trousers and their owner let out an admiring whistle more suited to a cattle drover.

“Me mum always told me the rich was blessed, but I thought she was talkin’ about gold.” She leaned over to cackle in his ear, then actually patted him on the head as if he was some slavering lapdog. “You might have escaped the gallows, lad, but you was already well hung.”

Several interminable minutes later, the bathing was finished and something soft and warm was drawn over him. He shuddered inwardly, believing it to be a shroud. His tormentor whistled a tuneless dirge as she bustled about the bed, gathering her supplies. A door clicked shut. The whistle faded.

For what seemed like an eternity, he was alone.

Until the door creaked open again, ever so slowly, sending an icy chill down his spine.