Page 55 of The Ladies Least Likely
Dovey nodded and wiped the corner of one eye. “I know.”
Gwen turned toward the door, and Pen leapt for the stairs to his room so he could pretend he’d been there all this time. He was wrestling with his waistcoat when Gwen rapped at the doorframe and walked in.
“A compress of comfrey for your face,” she said. “Helps with swelling. Here, let me.”
She handed him the small bundle of linen and he held it to his cheek. The warmth soothed, though his vision in that eye was already clouding.
“At least he clobbered me on the right side. Balancing things out, so to speak.”
He willed his heart to calm as Gwen worked the buttons of his waistcoat and peeled it off him, then hung it next to his coat. He sat on the bed and kicked off his boots, but it hurt too much to bend over and take off his stockings. She knelt and dealt with them, making a pile of laundry that someone else would tend to, probably Widow Jones.
They might have been keeping his identity from him, but they’d tended to his basic needs. He’d remember that when the time of reckoning came. But his heart didn’t slow with that realization. If anything, with Gwen’s scent surrounding him, her soft hands on his face as she checked the compress, it beat all the faster.
“I’ll take your shirt and work out the stains.”
“Blood?” Pen said, holding out his arms as she lifted the shirt over his head.
“Not yours.” She smiled. “You trounced him, Pen, and he was three stone heavier than you.”
“Do you think he’s the one who beat me before?”
Cool air tingled over his feverish skin, and he sat nearly naked before her. They were alone here in this narrow stone room, with the last light leaving the sky. It felt like they were wrapped in a secret, a world known only to them. Like the field of bluebells, save here was a bed he could draw her down upon. Like that intoxicating dream of a dance, but with a door they could lock against the outside.
“We’ll find out.” She sat beside him, her eyes roaming his bare skin, looking for injuries. She lifted a finger and tracedthe scars webbing his left shoulder, chest, and ribs. “You seem better.”
“I don’t feel the pain from before.” Somehow he knew that. Like she’d said, the connections were forming in his mind, deep, too slow for his patience, but all would be clear in time.
She lifted troubled eyes to his. He drank her in. “I’ll make it right, Pen.”
“You’ll stay with me, then?” Because that would make everything right. He didn’t even care if she would choose, even now, to use her body against him, as a forfeit or a trade, a distraction, or defense from all he might accuse her of. He didn’t care how she came into his arms, only that she arrived there.
“Comfort?” Her voice was low, a note of sadness in it that didn’t bode well for his chances of success. Her lashes feathered across her cheeks as she watched him rub, without conscious thought, his left thigh and the old wound there.
“Or reward,” he suggested. “For my defending you so gallantly against those villains.”
“I owe you much.” She stood, and the air turned cold against his skin. “More than you know.”
A confession? But of what? He waited, watching her face. Her throat worked as if she struggled to say something, but then she turned away, touching a hand to her brow as if in pain. “Rest,” she said. “Call if you need me. I?—”
But she didn’t finish that thought, merely took his clothes and left him with the compress, his throbbing face, his other aches. His hollowness that couldn’t be filled with anything other than her.
He threw himself back on the bed, deflated. He’d been this low before, he told himself, and had come out of it. If only he could remember how. He cast his mind back to the castle, the painting, the house. If only he could remember the house.
He remembered the beach.
Admiral Jervis and his fleet had been savaged in their attack on Cádiz, so Jervis moved his attention to the harbor of Santa Cruz at Tenerife. If the British could capture the Spanish ships ferrying gold and treasure from the Americas, they could cut off Spanish aid to the French, Britain’s enemies. This was the gist of their orders. The Canary Islands were plums ripe for the picking. It would be almost as much fun as sacking Spanish frigates in the West Indies.
The assembled force had been magnificent: Nelson leading with his flagshipTheseus,Troubridge withCullodenand Hood sailing theZealous,flanked by half a dozen frigates, hired cutters, and mortar boats. Pen had been assigned to his old friend Bowen on theTerpsichore.They were guaranteed success, and Spanish gold to divide between them.
The first attack was a disaster. They failed to take Valleseco, couldn’t raise the guns high enough to fire on the Spanish fort. Nelson called back the gunboats and moved them down the coast. Pride was at stake, now that the Spanish had been warned.
They’d said the guns at San Cristóbal wouldn’t reach that far. Or Troubridge and Hood, leading the land assault, would take the fort before they landed. They covered the oars in cloth and approached by night. It didn’t help. They had no covering fire; he learned later the British gunpowder had been ruined with damp. Mortar fire from the fort lit up the sky, falling on the boats at the shore in brilliant rockets of flame. As the men poured onto the beach, the guns turned on them.
And hell exploded. With the dazzling bursts of flame and spark it was hard to see what was happening, but Pen heard screams as men were hit, ripped apart. It was like the fireworks at Vauxhall, he’d thought stupidly, watching the mortars cartwheel through the sky and rain down on them. Bodies fell about him as they rushed up the beach. These were his men,his friends, his comrades. Blood, bone, and gore erupted around him like carnival confetti. The air reeked of iron and powder and smoke.
He felt the thud in his leg and kept running. Bowen’s men had been ordered to rush the battery and spike the guns. How had the Spanish known they were coming? Someone shouted that they were firing from the town, grapeshot pouring from houses and windows as the citizens took up their guns. Pen dropped his weapon as a huge claw sank into his chest and shoulder. A second claw followed, digging deep into his ribs, spinning him as he fell. The sand was cold and damp against his cheek. Wet. He knew it was his blood.
He couldn’t cry out. The battle rage was upon him and he wanted to run, to fight, to move. But something heavy lay across his lower body, and his legs wouldn’t work. His arms were useless. His mouth filled with the iron taste of blood. He lay on the beach and watched the fireworks wheel through the night sky as he grew weaker, lighter, and the sounds faded into the distance. He closed his eyes and waited for what came next.
