Page 2 of Undoubtedly Reckless (Rebel by Night #2)

Hornsea

“Please wait a moment,”

Sabina interrupted, gently pushing a piece of buttered bread into Roland’s mouth. Had his mouth not been full of bread, he would have grinned. “Your crewmates mutinied against you, their captain. Then they bashed your head in and threw you overboard. Do I have that correct?”

She had a lovely speaking voice. He would be content if she read dinner recipes to him, to hear the cadence of her speech.

“You have the correct sequence of events, yes,”

Roland said. He lounged comfortably in the best chair in the house. Perhaps tomorrow he would feed himself. As Sabina spooned something delicious into his mouth, he thought possibly his convalescence could wait.

“You’re a terrible pirate,”

Sabina commented.

“Privateer,”

Roland corrected.

“I will believe that when you show me your letters of marque,”

she said. He cocked an eyebrow at her, and she gazed steadily back at him.

The long night of sleep had done him a world of good. Roland still hurt but he had no fever. He had always been freakishly healthy which had served him well during his years at sea. He lurched into the chair at her invitation but had needed her aid to wash and don the clothes she provided.

The shirt was old but clean and the trousers were a bit tight but Roland was grateful. Sabina had yet to share her story with him but he suspected she had dressed him with her father’s clothing. From the looks of the books on the shelves, her father had been a schoolteacher and she had followed in his footsteps.

“What am I eating?”

Roland asked.

“Chowder,”

Sabina retorted, and shoved another spoon into his mouth. He closed his eyes to savor the buttery soup, redolent with potatoes and chunks of fish.

Roland discreetly assessed his grim angel as she paused to sip her tea.

Sabina was too thin. For such a wonderful cook, she seemed to not be eating much of her own fare. With a pang, Roland realized he was eating better than what a village schoolmistress would usually eat.

Her dresses were several years out of fashion, and neatly mended. Roland could see where the cloth had been turned and sewn. Her clothes had not been made for her and were on the verge of being threadbare. She had good, elegant bones and lovely proportions. With better meals, she would have ravishing curves fit to tempt a priest, but as such, she had the demure figure appropriate for a schoolmistress.

Sabina had no business rescuing an unconscious man from exposure, Roland thought with a pang. Had he been anyone else, she could have been endangered, or worse. She lived alone with no one to protect her. The scandal of her good deed, for which he was grateful, was not lost to him. Roland needed to stay hidden to preserve her reputation and livelihood.

“I owe you a debt of gratitude, Miss Elden,”

Roland said. “You saved my life. I will repay you.”

Sabina harumphed softly and fed him the last spoon of chowder.

“Put your mind to healing. I wait still for a fever to begin,”

Sabina said.

“I don’t easily fall ill. Please believe me, I will repay your kindness.”

“Ah yes, and I’ll have a strand of pearls and an array of ices whilst you are in such an appreciative mood.”

Sabina patted his mouth with a napkin and gave him a sip of milky tea. “I’ll also take windows that aren’t drafty, a woodshed that doesn’t leak, and a new bookshelf would not be amiss.”

Roland chuckled, nearly coughing on his tea.

She stared at his prone form pointedly and went to the kitchen, leaving him feeling bereft. Roland watched her move about the humble space with the brisk efficiency of one well used to performing domestic chores.

Roland needed at least a week to regain his strength. He had contacts in York who would help him reach Liverpool, where he could get to his bank accounts. Better if no one knew he yet lived. Oliver would not prevail. Roland would know why his friend had betrayed him. And he wanted his ship returned, damn it. And then he would repay his nursemaid in full the worth of saving his life.

Until then, Roland could fix Sabina’s drafty window and leaky woodshed. He would not be in debt to any person, much less a humble schoolmistress living in genteel poverty. A week would do.

****

Two weeks later, Sabina stopped on her way back from the hen house to listen as Roland patched a drafty windowsill.

He was singing a very bawdy sea chanty and she took a moment to enjoy it.

Possessing no prodigious musical talent herself, she naturally adored music.

Listening to Roland’s velvet baritone tell a tale of a saucy mermaid was going to be the best part of her day.

In Sabina’s experience, faith in the goodness of others was rarely rewarded and this exception was bewildering.

After two weeks of regaining his strength and hiding in her cottage, Roland very comfortably fit into her simple life.

Roland’s days were spent recovering his strength and doing projects which could be accomplished inside, such as repairing almost everything in her cottage, from table legs to the iron fixtures of the hearth.

Uncle Galfrid had sworn for years that he was going to fix the wobbly table and Sabina was still surprised the table did not dip when she set plates on it.

Roland spent his nights working outside, informing her that years on a ship with little torchlight had honed his night vision.

Her woodshed no longer leaked and the chicken coop was repaired, with a clever chicken run which somehow resulted in more eggs.

It was a lucky thing, that, for her houseguest inhaled food to an alarming degree.

Last night he had gone to Hornsea Mere with the excuse of testing his constitution but Sabina spotted one of the buckets next to the kitchen steps.

“What have you for our supper?”

Sabina asked. She laughed at the two silvery carp sitting indignantly in the water.

“I caught them in the Mere last night,”

Roland said, finishing the daubing under the windowsill. “I can walk there and back without wheezing like an old man. My constitution improves under your care, Sabina fair.”

Sabina quieted contemplatively. Roland was nearly healed. He would be ready to leave soon.

“I’ll fetch some almonds from the market today. It’ll make a lovely crust for the fish,”

Sabina said.

“You should come with me tonight.”

Roland put away his tools and washed in a rain bucket outside the cottage before following her in. “You can catch your own supper.”

“I don’t know how to fish,”

Sabina said and laughed, hefting the egg basket against her hip.

“Then you must learn. A person should never have to pay for carp. It’s unconscionable.”

Roland gripped the back of a chair, suddenly breathless. Sabina did not stare. She knew it would only embarrass him.

“Sit down,”

Sabina ordered, “before you fall down.”

Roland sat heavily, rather proud that he made his controlled collapse seem like deliberation.

Sabina was thrilled and not proud of herself. Her guest was going to stay some time yet and she could pretend she was not alone.

“How were the chickens this morning, Miss Elden?”

Roland asked politely.

“Nobbut middlin’,”

Sabina answered absently as she tossed a bit of chicken fat into the pan.

“How do you do also.”

Roland chuckled. Sabina blinked at him and realized what she said. She had lived ten years in Yorkshire, he was lucky she chose to speak a dialect he could understand

“You British and your obsession with long vowels.”

Sabina shook her head. Roland looked at her curiously.

“That’s a fine sentiment coming from a schoolteacher in Yorkshire,”

he scoffed. He must have seen the sudden fear in her face for he changed the subject quickly. “I thought I might clean out the hearth today while you’re at market.”

“Oh, would you?”

Sabina responded, more breathily than she intended. She needed to be careful. Anyone else might not have overlooked her slip. “It’s been months since it’s had a good cleaning.”

Sabina set a steaming earthenware mug in front of him. He breathed in the scent of fresh coffee and made her laugh at his ecstatic groan.

“There’s milk in the larder,”

Sabina said as she cracked eggs into the pan.

“No, it would be a sin to adulterate this coffee. It’s perfect the way it is.”

Roland sipped appreciatively.

“Dark and bitter?”

Sabina asked, plating the beans.

“As my very soul, Sabina fair,”

Roland said floridly.

“It’s Sabrina fair. How dare you think I don’t know my Milton.”

“I can’t proclaim your beauty with the wrong name, and your darling John Milton is centuries gone. He won’t mind, I’m sure,”

Roland said. Oh, the irony. No one has spoken her real name in years, since they escaped from Amsterdam.

“So dramatic. I prefer chocolate in the morning but we must be thankful for what we have.”

Sabina set a plate of eggs and beans in front of him, then proceeded to generously butter a slice of bread. She would buy more butter at the market, now that he had saved her the cost of fish.

“My lady has quite fine tastes,”

Roland said and waited for Sabina to take the first bite. Sabina could barely get her buttered bread down. She had slipped again. Yorkshire schoolteachers did not take chocolate with their breakfast.

“My lady does indeed,”

Sabina replied blithely. “You must have noticed my fine silk skirts. One must keep in the first stare of fashion, mind you.”

“What need has my lady of silk skirts when she has such fine eyes and can read Chaucer better than any scholar at Oxford?”

Roland said. His words flattered Sabina. Alas, she had known many a liar in her time. His words were quite nice to hear, though.

“Ah yes, quite a useful skill, I’ll have you know. You can read to me tonight. Christine de Pizan perhaps,”

she said and laughed at his groan.

“Not that dry dust, have mercy on a poor sailor, madame,”

Roland complained and thanked her when she refilled his coffee mug.

“You are right, much too enlightened. I’ll have ‘The Song of Roland’ from you tonight then,”

Sabina said as she sipped her coffee, smiling demurely when he laughed.

“I had wondered when we would come to that,”

he remarked.

“Whoever named you must have been well-read,”

Sabina said. Roland nodded.

“My mother adored epic romances, especially the French ones. My father preferred Greek classics so my sisters are named after Greek heroines. I wish my father had named the boys in my family instead of the girls,”

Roland said idly. Sabina didn’t look at him but quietly mulled the new detail he let slip. He had siblings. “I never liked my name.”

“You never liked the perfect ideal of chivalry?”

Sabina asked. She would hoard these moments like gold. No one else in Hornsea could or would hold these discussions with her.

“He was a stupid git. Anyone with two eyes could see his stepfather was going to betray him. Stepfathers are always evil in stories.”

“I’ll concede that point because my stepfather was certainly evil. But Roland knew King Marsile was going to betray Charlemagne, that must count for something,”

Sabina argued.

“It does not signify, because Roland is still betrayed himself. Let us not forget that he also refused to blow the horn to recall Charlemagne’s army until everyone was massacred,”

Roland pointed with his fork.

“But they managed to kill so many of the knights of Saragossa as well.”

“Twenty thousand knights, all dead. And he killed himself blowing the oliphant, all in the service of a Pyrrhic victory. All in all, I would not call Roland a hero at all. He’s an idiot. Your namesake, my lady, was not an idiot.”

“She wasn’t exactly illustrious either,”

Sabina said dryly. “Sabina was known for being the wife of Emperor Hadrian, nothing else.”

“The only reason Hadrian had a claim to the imperial throne was through Sabina. Her importance was paramount to the Imperial Empire. She chose the next Roman Emperor.”

“Ah yes, because a woman’s power is through marriage, as always,”

Sabina said, with some bitterness. “It can never be about only me, can it? Roland has his own epic which will live forever and Sabina barely has an epitaph. Time makes fools of us all.”

Roland didn’t answer for a long-thought minute. Sabina cursed herself. Venting did not count as breakfast conversation.

“You know what the bloody issue is?”

Roland said in all seriousness. “Roland was a virgin. That killed him.”

It took all of Sabina’s hard-won self-control not to laugh in his very solemn face.

“I can say with absolute certainty that virginity is not a fatal condition,”

Sabina said slowly.

“Oh, but it is.”

Roland nodded vigorously.

Sabina laughed heartily. They sipped their coffee in amiable silence. She saw his face grow more thoughtful.

“I will tell you something completely ironic, my lady. My best mate on my ship, his name was Oliver. He was first mate,”

Roland said, not looking up from his coffee. Oliver was the name of Roland’s closest friend in the French epic.

“I thought you said your first mate led the mutiny,”

Sabina asked carefully.

“He did,”

Roland said shortly. He wiped his mouth and took his plate to the sink. He turned and bowed to Sabina, a move that seemed second nature to him. “I should see to that hearth.”

“I’ll get agate then,”

Sabina said, slipping into Yorkshire-speak because she was a little nonplussed at being dismissed from her own kitchen. “There’s bread and cheese for you, apples as well.”

“I’ll clean the fish for our supper tonight,”

Roland said. “Perhaps I’ll cook it as well?”

“I’ll cook the fish.”

Sabina wrapped her aunt’s brown shawl around her shoulders. With a pang, Sabina realized the shawl still smelled like Idonia, though the red pattern had faded into the background. “Pirate or no, you are a guest in my home.”

“Privateer,”

Roland corrected gently as he handed her the shopping basket.

****

Hornsea was a charming town, with long, cobbled streets and timbered roofs. Wealthy folk sometimes stayed for the sea air.

It was a quiet and safe place to live. Galfrid had inherited the cottage from his uncle, who had been a teacher for the town, and Galfrid had continued his uncle’s work, educating children who were destined to be fishermen and farmers. It was good, honest work and Uncle Galfrid had taken to it because he believed everyone should have an education.

Sabina believed the same and continued the Elden tradition. Her old life sometimes seemed like a fading dream. She had lived in Hornsea so long, she could easily pretend she was born here. It was a brisk fifteen-minute walk from her own cottage. The market was bustling and Sabina made haste to avoid being left with the worst of the bacon. If anyone noticed Sabina was buying larger quantities than normal, they said nothing. Either they did not notice or they did not care.

Sabina had only the butter left to buy when her path was blocked by a very large man. George Templeton stood in her way, his flat face intent on her person. He was a raw-boned man, loud and humorless.

Years ago, Sabina had noticed that the mill owner sometimes stared at her. He never bothered to hide his attention, which she was sure must distress his wife. Since Sabina’s guardians had died, he had made a point to speak to her more often. Not a single person misunderstood the attention, and Sabina hated the notice it drew her. She cared nothing for the lot of it and went to lengths to avoid him.

“Good morning, Mr. Templeton,”

Sabina said distantly. She tried to move around him and he stepped in front of her.

“Miss Elden. I would like to visit later. I have a chair that my wife has tired of, I thought you might make use of it,”

he said floridly. Sabina tried not to vomit on his shoes. The impropriety of it all was not what bothered her most, but the very notion that he thought her so cheaply bought. A chair indeed.

“Thank you so kindly for thinking of me, but I am not feeling well. I believe I will be indisposed later. If you’ll excuse me,”

Sabina said and managed to dart around him with a sort of dodge and leap.

She hurried off to purchase the butter and milk. The greengrocer had some lovely berries. She may not be able to hold off George Templeton much longer, but surely she could have another day of peace before she was forced to make decisions. Her father’s signet ring hung heavy under her bodice.

Sabina did not want to disappear again.