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He paused, and Pen refused to meet his inquiring gaze.

Was the vicar hinting that Pen had an opportunity to rebuild his life?

What foolishness. He didn’t need to reinvent anything.

He needed to find who he was, because of a certain, he was someone important.

Maybe rich. That would be nice, to return to a life of luxury and never have to empty his own chamber pot, or eat gruel, or play nursemaid to a simpleton again.

It stung, though, that the people of St. Stiffin’s thought he was the simpleton.

That night Tomos was welcomed warmly for dinner and invited to talk about his experiences.

Pen got a bowl plunked in front of him full of something they called onion cake, which looked to him like sliced potatoes covered in cheese.

Apparently everyone else thought this a treat.

He ate it, and wasn’t about to admit there was anything tasty about it.

In his real life, his rich life, he had five course meals and footmen to place each dish before him. Or would have, someday.

The thought that his real life was elsewhere, and he would return to it soon, kept him going through the next hideous days.

The old crone, Mother Morris, made him mop the floors—stone floors!

With cracks everywhere! A nightmare!—and then laughed and jabbered at him in Welsh when he upset the bucket of filthy water and suds over the scullery floor he’d just mopped.

She repeated the story at dinner, in English this time, and everyone laughed, even the simpleton.

The Widow Jones thought his horror and revulsion hilarious when she asked Pen to take the laundry out of the soaking bucket and, when he held his nose at the strong scent of ammonia, informed him that the “chamber lye” was made up of the contents of chamber pots.

“Just the liquid portion, mind you. It’s called lant, and it’s wondrous at lifting stains. Makes the fabric workable.”

He was so desperate to wash his hands that he grabbed the nearest pot of water and poured it over his palms, scalding his fingers.

The widow clucked and scolded as she fussed over him, but she didn’t let him leave his post. Instead, she set him to poking the laundry with a stick while she poured the rest of the hot water into a bowl, scraped a few shavings from a bar of soap into it, and whipped it into a sudsy froth.

The wet fabrics were heavy to stir and wring, then rinse and wring again, then spread over the lawn and every available surface to bleach.

His sheets alone weighed a stone. His muscles hurt by the end of the afternoon, and the scents of ash and lye burned his nose.

By God, he’d never do a lick of manual labor when he went back to his life, Pen swore.

But that was all the others did. Dovey was always in the garden or whisking about the house.

Her daughter was ever underfoot, running errands and singing snatches of song as she went.

Evans never seemed to sit still except in the evening, after their light supper, when the group sat together on the front porch when the weather was fine.

If the weather was less fine, they gathered in a room they called the chapter house, which was built like a large parlor full of uncomfortable benches and chairs.

Once in a while they lit a fire in the hearth and sat around chatting, telling stories and playing games.

Some nights Gwen sang and played on a small traveling harp of hers, and those were the only moments when Pen could bear the place.

These weren’t his people. He was quite sure he was accustomed to being around men with their plain speech and rough ways; in his real life, he didn’t waste his time making idle, polite speech with women.

But when Gwen played the harp, it was like a heavenly spirit came among them.

The room warmed; the angry chatter in his head subsided.

Even his ribs and shoulder hurt less when he listened to her voice.

She was an uncommon gem and she was buried here, in this hinterland. How could she bear it?

Those were his times of peace: the rare evenings when Gwen sang, and the nights he woke in the solid dark to the scent of bluebells and honey and her soft, soothing voice rousing him from a nightmare.

They were becoming more frequent and violent, the dreams. As if some urgent message from his past was trying to break through the fog in his mind.

One morning, remarkably, he woke with the sense that he had slept.

He felt refreshed in a way he hadn’t felt since—well, he couldn’t remember.

The small casement high in the wall of his room let in light telling him the sun had climbed Stow Hill, and motes swirled in the air like a smattering of pixie dust. He started as his fingers brushed something soft and warm, and looked down to find that his hand rested on the back of a woman.

Gwen’s rear end was seated on a small stool beside his cot but she had slumped forward in sleep, her head pillowed upon arms crossed upon the side of his bed.

A wrapper and shawl covered her shoulders, and her half-loose braid spilled thick ashy brown hair over his hip.

Her face was turned toward him, and an ache spread through his belly at her relaxed features, achingly lovely.

Her dark lashes and brows stood out against her lightly tanned skin.

The shape of her face was so elegant, brow and nose and chin almost stern in their clarity, but her lips, red and full, betrayed her soft heart.

He stroked her hair, feeling he touched a holy relic, one too pure for his handling. Her lips curved in a smile and her eyes opened, that soft grey-green of a deep forest where a man could wander, enchanted, and become lost forever.

“What is that awful racket outside?” he whispered as a clatter of noise poured in the window, which flickered with the shadow of passing wings.

She said a stream of words in Welsh, then translated. “We have a pair of choughs nesting above the chapter house. That’s the cry you heard—there. The others—” She paused, listening. “Chaffinch. Thrush. That little peep—that’s the nuthatch. Tomos loves them particularly.”

He stared at her as the noise became music. He’d never cared to listen to the natural world before. He’d never had someone to translate it for him.

He’d never woken with a woman in his bed and wanted to stay there with her.

She was only halfway on his bed, having fallen asleep at her bedside vigil.

He felt guilty for robbing her of rest at the same time he relished having her all to himself.

Her hair beneath his palm was a river of silk, the skin beneath her light wrapper firm and warm.

He wondered what she would do if he pulled her into bed and fit the delicious length of her against him.

He knew his ribs were not quite healed, but his lower body was very interested in the image.

“You stayed with me all night?”

“You didn’t want me to leave. Your nightmares are getting worse,” she said softly. He nodded, his throat stuck. “And I feared you might throw off your blankets and develop a chill, you were sweating so.”

She laid a hand on his brow and he clasped his other hand over hers. He ought to be burning up with embarrassment that a woman should see him so weak and vulnerable, pursued in his sleep by memories he couldn’t summon in the light of day. But she was calm, unaccusing.

“I’m not sure I want to remember everything,” he said.

The corners of her eyes tightened and her lashes fluttered as she looked away. He didn’t want her to withdraw but she did, taking away her hand and straightening on the stool.

“Perhaps the dreams would cease to be a torment if your memory returned.”

With a haunted look, she stood and left, departing toward the stair that led to the kitchens. Her lost warmth left a hollow space in his blankets. In his chest. He was a fool, pulling on his clothes in haphazard haste to follow her, but she drew him like a siren lured doomed sailors to the shore.

The kitchen was empty, a surprise. Perhaps everyone else was already at their tasks.

He saw a crust of bread wrapped in cloth and a hunk of cheese on the table, he guessed left out for him.

If he took it to Gwen, would she eat with him?

She’d woken with her guard down, for the first time not wary or distant or short with him. He wanted more of that Gwen.

But then she came into the kitchen in her day gown and customary red woolen shawl, tying a kerchief over her hair, and he feared the golden moment was lost.

“ Bore da ,” she said. “Good morning.”

No, no, no, she couldn’t retreat. That moment when she looked in his eyes and smiled had woken something in him. If she turned away now that raw, aching thing in him would still be there.

“What are you doing?” He tied, or attempted to tie, his neckcloth as she put a copper kettle on the stove, then went to the scullery and emerged with an earthenware bucket. “What’s that?”

“Soap lye infused with oil. It’s time I made a new batch of soap.” She sent him a wry half-smile as his eyes flared. “It’s not chamber lye, ’tis pot ash and quick lime, with a bit of goat’s milk. Your delicate sensibilities won’t be offended.”

“I’m not the least bit delicate,” Pen said, stepping closer.

She snorted. “All right. Then you can go to the King’s Head today with Evans and help shovel out Mr. Trett’s stable.

You ran up a tab the other day when you were drinking with Gossett, before you let him knock you senseless in the stable yard.

I promised Mr. Trett you would pay your debt.

” She built up the fire and took up a stick to stir her concoction.

“Aren’t you worried I’ll be beaten again? They still haven’t found who fell upon that Jewish man.” Perhaps preying on her nurturing instincts would get him somewhere.