Page 238

“You’re at St. Sefin’s Priory,” she said, and at his look of complete bafflement, continued. “In Newport. Wales. Do you remember that much?”

“How am I in bloody Wales, the back end of Britain?”

He’d called it that before. Yet he had a Welsh name for a title and a Welsh estate he’d apparently never seen. Gwen’s heart hardened to his distress.

“I’m hoping you might explain that, eventually.

We found you in a boat this morning, floated up to shore like you were Arthur of Avalon.

” No, he was far from an Arthur, that great king of Welsh legend.

King Arthur was a leader of men who had fought to keep invaders from overtaking his country.

Penrydd was a spoiled bully who summoned his servants with a bell.

“My head hurts.” He put a hand there, probing the lump on his skull. “God, there was so much blood. I thought I was being ripped apart.”

“Try not to think about it,” Gwen said. “Think of something pleasing.”

His eyes rested on her face, traced down her cheek to her throat, her collarbone, the swell of her bosom beneath her gown. “Who are you?”

“I told you.” It was one thing for him to forget her after several days and a blow to the head. It was quite another thing that he couldn’t recall her from hours before.

“My name is Gwenllian. I—run this place, I suppose you could say.”

“You own it?” He sipped his tea, his hand steady. Which was fortunate, for she jerked as she sat back.

“I am hoping to purchase it,” she said, choosing her words carefully. Should they have this conversation now? Without Dovey, or Evans, or anyone else who had a vested interest in the place?

“Hmm.” He swept his eyes down her body, tracing the curve of her hip, her legs. She’d sat on the cot to lean over him, and now she felt heat reaching from his body through the bedclothes to her skin.

His lips curved in a slow, sensual smile. The heat swirled through her middle, upsetting her sense of balance.

“I wager you’d be a pleasant distraction, Gwenllian. What would convince you to stay with me this evening?”

Sign the deed to St. Sefin’s over to me, clear and free , she almost said.

Could she do that—barter her body to secure her future? Could she be that vulnerable again to a man?

He was vulnerable too; lost, alone, hurt, and reaching out to the closest source of aid. His was the act of a drowning man. Not anything to do with her, or even attraction to her, but casting about for relief. Negotiating for help with the only coin he had.

He wouldn’t keep a bargain wrung from him in such a state, not when he came to his senses and realized what she’d done. And she didn’t like that he thought he had to pay for simple human care. She slid off the cot.

“The next time you spoil my sleep, I’ll put a pillow over your face to stop your nightmares.”

“Stay and I won’t have nightmares.” He put a hand to his shoulder. His writhing had worked his sling and the bandages about his ribs loose.

“Here, now, you’ve undone all my good work. I’ll have to take off your shirt to redo these.”

“Go ahead, have your way with me,” he answered, but without the sultry teasing. Instead, he set his teeth as if in pain as she pulled off the shirt and rewrapped the bindings around his ribs and arm.

“I am sorry to hurt you,” she said as he sucked in air.

Her face felt hot from his nearness and the heat of his skin singed her fingertips.

She was touching a nearly naked man, a man who had offered to— don’t think about it, twymffat.

She tried to focus on his injuries, not the broad expanses of heated male skin, the soft brown hair dusting the planes and swells of muscle.

She tucked in the last strip of cloth comprising his sling and opened the small cupboard beside his bed to look for another shirt.

His old one was drenched in sweat, warm and spicy.

She’d never been so unsettled by any man she nursed.

He’s an ass , she reminded herself. And it had been a long time since she touched a man, put her arms around a bare chest, ran her fingers over skin.

Hers was purely the physical response of woman to man.

No more. She would not be drawn again to a man who hid a dreadful character behind a handsome face.

“You’re his, then?” Pen’s eyes drifted closed as she draped the fresh shirt over his head, then helped him settle against the pillows. “The fellow with the lank sleeve.”

“Evans?” She frowned. “I am no one’s.”

“A woman needs a keeper.” His hand covered hers, anchoring her palm over his heart as she tucked the blanket over his chest. “Especially a beautiful one.”

She pulled in a breath, but she couldn’t rail at him.

He was already drifting back to sleep. His hand lay warm and heavy on hers and she left her hand in place for a moment, for far too long, and not simply to assure herself his heartbeat fell into a regular rhythm.

With a secret greed she soaked up the compliment and the gentle touch.

It had been so long since a man had granted her either.

Dangerous to accept these things from him, and low of her to steal warmth from his sleeping body.

She snatched back her hand and stood so quickly that the flame of the candle fluttered in her wake.

A woman who turned herself inside out for the flattery of a man was a fool.

And a woman who gave herself away for a promise would end up like Mathry, weeping over her belly.

She’d not believe the word of a man until the contract was signed and her future was there on paper.

Like the deed to a property ? said the devil on her shoulder.

But not won this way, when he was completely at their mercy. Safety won in this manner would prove no safety at all.

A cock crowed in the distance as she left the infirmary, announcing the dawn.

There was no point returning to bed. Penrydd had set every nerve alight, made her skin hum with awareness.

She snuck to her chamber and pulled a robe of printed cotton over her shift, slipped on her work shoes, and tied her hair up under a cap.

She would let the morning air cool her head.

The early dawn was crisp and clear, orange and red ribbons piled across the hills to the east, veiled by mist from the river.

Ifor had separated the mother goat and her kid for the night, so Gwen quickly milked the nanny and left them both hay, then stirred up the fire in the kitchen.

She found the lump of old dough from the last batch of bread and mixed the yeasty mass with the warm milk, adding flour, eggs, and a pinch of salt.

A few tweaks made the dough soft and ropy, and then she turned it into wooden bowls to rise.

It was a task she’d performed a hundred times, and yet she was intensely self-aware of every moment, and aware, too, of the lack of sound from the infirmary.

Pen was sleeping, the cad, after robbing her of rest with his troubled dreams and male warmth and jocular invitation to join him. She wouldn’t. Of course not.

But if he still meant to leave this morning, where would he go? How would he fare, with no coin and no name to buy his way out of trouble? And when his memory returned, as it soon must, what kind of reckoning would fall on her head?

She pulled out the griddle and mixed oat cakes for breakfast, pressing the rounds of batter flat with more force than was necessary.

“Survived the night, did he?”

She jumped into the air at Dovey’s voice. Dovey’s apron was starched and white, a lace cap pinned jauntily to her curls, her gown neatly pressed and her shoes black with polish. In comparison Gwen felt frizzled and mussed, rough at the edges.

“I checked on him a few hours ago and he was sleeping.” A version of the truth. “Perhaps you can take his breakfast tray, and Evans can help him dress. I see Widow Jones managed to scrub the blood out of his shirt.”

Dovey shrugged and left. The rest of the household rose to the daily round of chores, and the refectory filled for breakfast. Cerys strolled in yawning, her hair tangled, her apron tied awry.

Tomos reached for a cake while it was still on the griddle and burned his hand, then sobbed as Gwen applied salve to the burn.

Mother Morris had a griping stomach, Ifor woke with a putrid throat, and Mathry drifted uselessly about the kitchen, moving things to the wrong places, wafting into the stillrooms or cellars and coming out with empty hands.

Gwen heated water from the well and was pouring it over tea leaves that had already been used twice when Mathry’s soft indrawn breath made her look up.

A scalding droplet splashed onto her wrist.

Pen stood staring at her from the buttery door. Evans had rebound the sling over his shirt and coat, but despite the injury and his restless night he looked awake, alert, and accusing. Mended, and altogether dangerous.

“Oatcakes, Mr. Pen?” Mathry fluttered her lashes. “Or some fresh bread we made?” She indicated the golden-brown loaves, warm from the oven.

“I know what bakers add to their bread,” he said. “Alum. Plaster. Chalk.”

Where did he think he was, a poor man’s tavern? “I would never,” Gwen snapped. She put a wrist to her mouth and sucked off the drop of boiling water.

Pen’s eyes moved to her mouth, and she dropped her hands. Her nerves jumped like fleas on the goats. And not purely from guilt.

“You came to my room last night.” His voice turned silky.

Oh, St. Beuno’s bald spot, he was not sporting with her again. Gwen straightened her back as Mathry shot her a narrow look. “Stepping out, are you?”

“I told you I refuse to stay.”

Her hopes plummeted. He hadn’t given them the ghost of a chance. They’d never had one. She pointed her spatula toward the kitchen door and the short hall leading outside. “ Hwyl fawr ! Godspeed.”

He scowled. “I have no reason to stay here.”

“That you don’t.” Gwen turned to the griddle.

“You can’t keep me a hostage.”

“Nor should we wish to.”

“But to go out on your own like that, sir? We’ll take care of you,” Mathry cooed.

Gwen looked up in time to see Pen’s flat expression change to interest. “Just what are you offering?”

“Mathry,” Gwen said, “serve the tea. Here’s turmeric for Mother Morris’s gripe.”

“ Saes! ” Mother Morris shouted from the refectory, leaning forward to peer through the servery door. “ Twll din pob Saes !”

“What is she saying?” Pen demanded to know.

Mathry giggled. “All English are ass?—”

“Cerys!” Gwen barked. “Take the bread—the loaves are hot, mind—and help Mathry pour the tea.”

Mathry pouted but headed for the next room, skirts swishing. Penrydd’s eyes didn’t follow her. Instead his gaze settled on Gwen.

“I’ve met you before,” he said.

Her breath hitched and she returned to the griddle. If he was starting to recognize her from their earlier meeting, he was a mere step away from remembering everything. And knowing the hold he had over her, over all of them.

“Where you to?”

“Anywhere. Someone has to know who I am. Surely there are people out there looking for me.” He spoke with the solid assurance that he mattered. That he would be acknowledged, welcomed, and obeyed. What a difference it was to be a man in this world.

“Come with me,” he said.

She nearly dropped the sizzling cakes as she scooped them from the griddle onto a wooden platter. “Why for?”

He gave her that slow smile again. Sensual. Wicked. “To keep me from bad dreams.”

She stood rooted to the old stone floor. A wild part of her wanted to go with him. Take up her shawl and her favorite hat and dash off into the unknown.

Leaving everyone who depended on her, those who had nothing and no one. She needed to settle this with him now, before he left. Before he realized they’d known who he was and hadn’t told him.

“I—I must see to something.” She needed to find Dovey. She couldn’t bargain with him without Dovey there.

But Dovey wasn’t in the dining hall, and when Gwen returned to the kitchen, Penrydd was gone, too.

She fought to breathe through the crushing sense of panic, of loss.

She’d failed. He was gone. Someone about Newport might piece together that he was Penrydd, and what would her gamble cost them?

She could only pray it would take him a while to find out.

Pray they had a few hours to plan what to do.

How to barricade their door if he came back bearing a pitchfork, or worse, Barlow the solicitor.

Stupid of her to feel it a slight that he’d not found her intriguing enough to stay.

This wasn’t about her, until he realized she’d tricked him, withheld his identity.

Then he would rain down the wrath of the outraged aristocrat, and she had no excuse, no defense.

And no one to turn to. These people she cared for would lose everything, and it was all her fault.