Page 15 of The Ladies Least Likely
“No new injuries down here,” Dovey said, unfolding a blanket to pull over their patient’s legs. “But Gwen, look at his scars.”
A thick raised line, still an angry pink, ran from his left thigh to mid-calf. Gwen’s tongue swelled in her mouth, blocking words. In reply she pointed to his bare chest, rising and falling with shallow breaths. His left chest and shoulder were one enormous bruise, and beneath the purpling skin ran a networkof raised lines, red and pink and white. His arms and chest were muscular, virile; he was surprisingly fit for a posh lord. But the left side of his body from the neck down was pocked with small craters, a cluster of tiny pink divots that looked like the surface of the moon.
“That’s canister shot,” Evans said, pointing to the scar on Penrydd’s leg. “But that’s grapeshot.” He indicated the web of scars over his chest. “Someone came at him long and close range, from the looks of it, and he didn’t have a scrap of defense.” He shook his head. “Poor sod. I wonder where he saw action?”
“Tenerife,” Gwen blurted. The sight of his abused body, new injuries upon old, made her stomach feel tangled and sore. He’d been so strong and commanding with her at the tavern, playing the arrogant lord to the hilt, and underneath he was hiding these wounds. Beneath the offensive manner was a young man who had endured incredible suffering.
“This is Lord Penrydd. I met him at the Green Man.”
At their shocked faces, she rushed on. “He said he would come turn us out if I didn’t agree to his terms. He must have been traveling to Newport, and was attacked or in some sort of accident, and—I couldn’t leave him like this.”
“The Viscount Penrydd? The one we’ve been writing to? The one you went to see!” Dovey stepped back, watching the man on the bed as if he were a coiled viper ready to strike.
“What terms did he offer?” Evans asked.
“We couldn’t agree,” Gwen answered. “And now I brought him here. I’m so sorry.”
All three of them stared at the still form on the bed. He was less pale now, his skin not so clammy. His breath seemed calm and even. Gwen picked several long strips of cloth from the bandage basket. In the face of a larger problem she didn’t know how to resolve, she liked to focus on the small tasks.
“Help me bind his ribs. I expect the bruising means he cracked or perhaps broke a few. I think we ought to make a sling for his shoulder as well.”
“He’s here,” Dovey said. “At our mercy. We simply don’t let him leave until he agrees to sell. On terms wecanaccept.”
“And then we’re taken up on charges and transported to the colonies for kidnapping a lord,” Gwen said.
Dovey shrugged and lifted Penrydd’s right side so Gwen could wrap the bandage around him. It was altogether unnerving to touch him. Leaning over him like this, she felt his heat, and it carried his scent—not foul, not any longer. He smelled like something spicy she couldn’t identify, and a trace of the honey she used in their soap.
“I heard a bit about Tenerife,” Evans said. He leaned on his cane and watched them. “He must have been one of the first Nelson ordered onto the beach. The Spanish guns mowed them down like wheat.”
“St. Brychan’s tartan,” Gwen whispered. She’d heard Tenerife spoken of as a curse, one of Admiral Nelson’s few failures. Hundreds of British men lost to a handful of Spanish soldiers, ships with their captains destroyed. Nelson himself lost his arm in that battle.
Penrydd had all his limbs yet, but he had not been left unscathed.
“Was that why he left the navy?” Gwen asked. She didn’t know why she kept her voice low, since they were alone in the room and Penrydd was still unconscious.
“I heard he was out of action for a while, but I gather he sold out when his brother died and he gained the title,” Evans said. “Mind, this is all what the vicar told me, since he keeps tabs on the great families hereabout.”
“Should we call Mr. Stanley? In case—last rites are needed?”
“No,” Dovey said. “We don’t tell anyone he’s here. Not until we’ve struck a bargain.”
“You’re a hard woman, Mrs. Van der Welle,” Evans said.
“And you’re a fool, Mr. Evans, if you don’t think we ought to take advantage of him while we can. He’ll be recovering under our roof, wearing our clothes, eating our food. We have every right to press our case with him.”
“It’s his roof, under British law,” Gwen said. At Dovey’s dark glare, she raised her hands in the air. “Don’t eat me! I agree with you.”
Dovey’s gaze lingered on her, wary and guarded, and Gwen stiffened. Dovey knew what Penrydd had offered her. Gwen could give up their fraught life in a moment and go on her merry way, the kept mistress of a rich English lord, leaving the rest of them to starve if Penrydd chose to turn them out. After all they had been through, it hurt that Dovey would doubt her for a moment, but Gwen understood why. She had a child to protect.
“He doesn’t leave until we’ve made a bargain,” Gwen promised.
Dovey gave her a quick, decisive nod and left to see about dinner, their main meal of the day. Gwen’s stomach bit at her insides. She must be hungry. And nervous about the man in the bed, an intimidating presence even if he appeared to be sleeping. He would be the devil to deal with when he woke, sore from his injuries, outraged at the wrong done him.
Taking care not to disturb his dressings, she tucked Penrydd into an old linen shirt, then rearranged the blanket over his chest. His body felt properly warm again, his color improving, his pulse steady. Her hand lingered, fingers lying against the column of his throat as she studied his face. He was a well-made man, in his proportions as close to the ideal as was possible for a man to be, a splendid specimen even with his scars. Many a woman, she imagined, would leap at the chance to earn herkeep through intimacies with a man not repulsive in his person, though she couldn’t say as much for his character. It would be pleasant to have one’s own rooms, jewels and fine gowns and a carriage, all the things she had once thought would be hers, but for a lighter price. Wives had to rear the children and run the household. Mistresses need merely amuse and provide appropriate bed sport.
No. She wouldn’t do it, not even to save St. Sefin’s for Dovey. She had vowed long ago that no man would have that power over her again. Struggling to keep body and soul together at least had some honor to it. She would be allowed to keep her soul.
Dovey brought her dinner, steamed cockles and sauteed mallow leaves with laver sauce poured over all, and a large slice ofbara brith, their native bread. She handed Gwen her knitting and they kept watch, talking as if it were any given evening and they sat before the fire in the chapter house with the rest of their community gathered. They discussed whether they could buy a side of beef from the butcher. If the Morgans would summer at Tredegar House this year, and host parties where they might invite Gwen to harp. Where next to apprentice Tomos, if anyone would take him, and what to do about Mathry, who wandered about blank-faced and prone to bursts of weeping.
