Page 23 of The Ladies Least Likely
Mr. Stanley shook his head, and Gwen let out half the breath she’d been holding. Mr. Stanley, who hailed from an English parish, had interested himself in the great families of the area. He might not have met Penrydd, but he could place who he was given enough clues. There was also the possibility that someone who did know him, like Calvin Vaughn, could come strolling down High Street and end the charade in a moment.
Tell him nothing,Dovey warned in her head. Gwen focused on the task of keeping him upright and not on his hand gripping her side, terribly close to her breast.
“Not from around here, am I?” Pen said. “None at the wharf knew me. Said I floated to shore like a selkie.” He frowned. “Some kind of Welsh monster?”
Gwen laughed at his expression. “Selkies are water-folk. They’re born on land but choose to live in the sea. They’re mythical,” she added, in case Penrydd’s sodden brain had not grasped this.
“But the women are excessively beautiful and have exquisite voices.” Mr. Stanley nodded a greeting to the carter driving his mule and wagon up the street. “If you steal the pelt of a selkie, she has to stay on land as your bride. But she’ll always long forthe sea, and if she ever takes her skin back, she will don it and leave you forever.”
Pen scoffed. “Merfolk.”
“No, themôr-forwynis different,” Gwen said, wondering how she had been drawn into this ridiculous conversation. Pen drunk had a whimsy about him that she much preferred to the glowering, sober Pen. Or the feckless cad who teased women for sexual favors. He grunted and squeezed her as his foot turned on a stone, and she braced him, ignoring the awakening sensation in her breasts. A primitive instinct, nothing more.
“The mermaid is half-fish, and born in the sea,” she said, her voice strangely breathless. She was quite strong; she shouldn’t feel his weight so keenly. “And they like to lure men to their doom. There’ve been many tales of fisherman and sailors sighting them along the coastline, or there used to be, before the canal brought more sailing traffic to ferry the iron and coal. The ships scare the merfolk away.”
Pen nodded. “A man on my ship swore he sighted one once on watch among the islands.” His brow creased. “Am I a sailor? What islands?”
Gwen’s breath swirled in her chest, and she barely eked out a smile for the mistress of the pie shop, who stared at Pen as they passed. “Is your memory returning?”
“Shreds and pieces, like glimpses in a mirror. And never connected to something I can use.” He swiveled his head and dipped his chin so his nose was practically in her hair. Gwen startled, alarm and awareness shooting through her.
“You, for instance. I know you. I know your scent—bluebells.” He inhaled deeply. Gwen closed her eyes, feeling faint. “So why do names mean nothing? I can’t even remember my own.”
“I’m sure it will all come back in time,” Gwen said weakly.
He’d remembered Arwen, the woman he loved. He’d remember more soon. She must work quickly to soften him, persuade him to take a generous view of St. Sefin’s and their life here. He was quiet and docile as she returned him to the infirmary. She warmed water and witch hazel and set to cleaning the blood off his face, once again stripping off his soiled clothing and wrapping his ribs.
“I will only take you in twice, you know,” she said as she cleaned the scrape on his head, hidden beneath his thick thatch of brown hair, but still noticeably swollen. “The third time you go off and get clawed by ruffians, I’ll leave you in the ditch where you lie.”
His hazelnut eyes held a strange, steady warmth as he regarded her. That slant at the corners of his eyes made him look puckish, up to mischief.
“He was so friendly,” he said, sighing as she laid a cloth soaked in witch hazel over the new bruises on his chest. “That Gossett chap. Thought mayhap he knew me, could tell me something. But he beat me hollow and left me all a-mort. Would have filed my pockets if I had any blunt.”
“Speak English,” Gwen murmured.
He closed his eyes and leaned into her hand as she placed it on his forehead, checking for fever. “My clothes are a gentleman’s,” he said. “I speak like I’ve been to Oxford. But I like grog, and flip—have you had it? Small beer and brandy with sugar and lemon. Served it at the pub. I think I’m a sailor, but I fell off a boat. And apparently I’m not very handy with my fives, though the brute said I throw a punch like Jackson.” He turned his head against her palm, rubbing like a cat. “Whoever that is.”
“Bare-knuckle champion of boxing,” Gwen said. “He’s held the title since 1795. Even I know that.” She kept her hand in place, though the heat coursing through her arm told her touching him like this was unadvisable.
He opened his eyes and held her gaze. “You’d do better to turn me into the street.”
Thatwas the advisable thing. Cast him loose and let him come to his senses on his own time. Let someone else take him on charity.
But who? Newport was a small town, barely a thousand souls. Barring Cardiff, the rest of Welsh towns were smaller. It was a risk to travel unknown through these lands, asking for the kindness of strangers. She knew that.
She had built St. Sefin’s as a house of refuge. Penrydd, in his current state, was just the flotsam she’d vowed to shelter, with no one else to care for him, no way to provide for himself, injured as he was.
But she could end it in a moment. Tell him who he was, what he owned, what was due him as a peer of the realm. With a word she could restore him to the security, the income, the precedence that was his by birthright and custom and the British laws of primogeniture.
Shame knotted her throat, hot and choking. She was the one denying what was owed him. She was his cruelest tormentor of all.
“Rest,” she said hoarsely, returning her cloth to the washbowl and turning away. “I’ll see if there’s anything left from supper.”
“Shame about that poor lad,” said Mr. Stanley over fish stew and the last of the bread Gwen had made that morning. He sat at the large kitchen table, chatting with Dovey as she dried and put away dishes. “What do you suppose we should do about him?”
“Wait and let him come to his senses.” Dovey fixed Gwen with a firm stare, as though she could see Gwen cracking. “Everything will come right if we just wait.”
“For how long?” Gwen muttered as she slipped past her friend to fetch a wooden bowl down from the shelf.
