Chapter 1 #2
Millie wasn’t really hard-hearted, just ill-tempered about this disorganized journey, about them being on the road at night instead of tucked up in a cozy inn somewhere. She leaned over to peer. “Looks strong and healthy enough to me, milady. Happen he’ll live, unless he gets a lung fever.”
Rosamunde held him closer. He was a stranger and probably a wastrel, but she had found him and she would see him safe.
She had to be able to do something right.
It seemed an age before the coach swayed into the lane leading to the dower house.
Rosamunde was sure the man’s pulse was weaker.
She eased from under him, and as soon as the coach halted, leaped down and ran over to thunder the knocker.
There were no lights, but she knew the caretakers would be there in their own quarters.
The door was opened by gaunt Mrs. Yockenthwait, peering suspiciously into the gloom. “Why, Lady Overton!”
“I’ve an injured man in the coach. Can Mr. Yockenthwait help bring him in?”
In moments, the blanket-wrapped man was being carried through the door.
“The kitchen,” said the housekeeper brusquely. “Can’t have all that dirty water on the good floors.”
Tom and wiry Mr. Yockenthwait carried the bundle down a corridor and into the stone-flagged kitchen, warm with the heat from the big hearth. The men then hurried off to help Garforth with the horses.
“You’ll be staying the night, milady,” said Mrs. Yockenthwait, and it wasn’t a question. “It’s late to be traveling.”
“We’ve come from Harrogate, and the rains turned the roads into mire. Then we stopped to pick up this man. He was just lying there!” Rosamunde heard her own weak panic and made herself take a breath. “We have to get him out of his wet clothes.”
“No doubt of that,” said the woman, rolling up her sleeves. “Come on, Millie.”
Millie had settled her bulk into a chair, but she prepared to heave herself out of it.
“Rest, Millie,” said Rosamunde. “I’ll help.”
Mrs. Yockenthwait gave her a disapproving frown, probably for pampering Millie Igby, though it might be because she was about to handle a naked man.
“I’m a married woman, Mrs. Yockenthwait,” Rosamunde said firmly, hoping no one guessed that in eight years of marriage, she’d never seen a man’s body.
“Anyway, don’t you have a maid to help you now your daughters are married? ”
“Jessie goes to bed with the sun, milady. I insist on it, for she’s to be up with the sun, too. We’re about ready for our beds ourselves.”
And God-fearing folk, it was clear, did not travel after sunset.
Rosamunde ignored the woman’s bark, which had never been matched with a bite, and stripped off her gloves, hat, and cloak.
As an afterthought, since there were no strangers here—or no conscious ones—she shed the lacy cap with the frills and lappets that hid the sides of her face.
She traced her major scar, however, up to the corner of her right eye.
What would happen if he regained consciousness and saw her looming over him?
She gave herself a little shake, and knelt to help the older woman unwind the blankets. Being stronger, Mrs. Yockenthwait lifted him, while Rosamunde struggled to peel the sodden clothes from his upper body—jacket, waistcoat, neckcloth, and shirt.
When it was done, she was hot and winded, but he was still clammy with cold. She helped Mrs. Yockenthwait rub him briskly with warm, rough cloths, and felt rewarded when he began to shiver, even if his teeth did chatter alarmingly.
“That’s good, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Aye, but we need to really warm him. I’ll fetch dry blankets and some wrapped bricks.”
Soon his upper half was swathed, and the teeth chattering stopped. Rosamunde grabbed a towel and dried his brown hair.
Then they started on his lower half.
It was terribly difficult to get his boots off.
Rosamunde was afraid that they’d twist or even break his ankles, but it had to be done, and when they tossed them aside to leak onto the tiled floor, his stockinged feet didn’t seem to be out of shape.
It took very little time then to rid him of the rest of his clothes.
Though Rosamunde tried not to look at his private parts, she couldn’t help getting a glimpse.
The hard thing that always seemed to hurt was rather endearing, lying soft against his hairy thigh….
She hastily looked away, hoping Mrs. Yockenthwait took her red cheeks for exertion.
She again helped with the brisk drying, deliberately taking the feet and calves, conscious of a strange, illicit pleasure in his well-made body.
She’d never considered that a man’s body could be so artistic, though she supposed she should have when it was so often portrayed in art.
When they turned him to dry his back, she decided that he could act as model for the sort of painting that hung in Arradale House.
They had no such art at home. Digby preferred horses, landscapes, and family portraits.
He’d commissioned a traveling artist to paint them as a couple—she from the good side of course.
Wrapping the warm blanket around the man’s legs, she sighed at her hurt over that. Had she wanted her blemishes recorded for posterity? No, but in some strange way she had wanted to be recorded as she really was.
She pushed away her idiotic thoughts and helped turn him on his back. “He’s shivering less,” she said, “but I think that’s because he’s warmer now.”
“Aye, but he’d benefit from a hot drink.” Mrs. Yockenthwait tried to feed him some tea, but most of it dribbled away.
Rosamunde hovered anxiously. She’d heard of someone lying naked with a chilled person to warm them. She could imagine Mrs. Yockenthwait’s reaction to that suggestion!
Suppressing a smile, she brushed hair off his forehead.
In the heat from the fire it was drying into curls of a pleasant russet brown.
His clean face was every bit as handsome as she’d imagined, even with bruise and stubble.
She couldn’t possibly let him die. If necessary, she would strip naked and wrap herself up in the blankets with him.
Sliding her fingers down to his neck, she found it reassuringly warmer, his pulse stronger.
While Rosamunde’s touch was tentative, the housekeeper pushed her work-worn hand under the blankets, right onto his chest. “Better,” she said after a moment. “Sometimes drink seems to preserve them. Now,” she said, pushing to her feet, “let me get you some tea, milady.”
Rosamunde stood, too. By country time, it was late. Millie was already snoring.
As she accepted the tea, she said, “Millie and I will use our usual beds, but I suppose we’ll need one for him, too.” She looked at the long bundle near the fire. “How long do you think he could stay unconscious?”
“He could sleep the night away, milady. You want to put him in a bedroom?”
Rosamunde started, realizing it was extraordinary to provide such comfort for a vagrant.
She looked at him again, a man with no hint of his status other than good looks.
He could be the roughest, foulest kind of person.
Something about him, however, suggested otherwise, and it was more than a face shaped for smiling.
She suddenly realized it was his hands. They were tucked away now, but as she remembered, they were not at all rough and the nails were neatly trimmed and tended to.
And he’d been clean. Oh, he’d been mired up from his misadventure, but when he’d started out on his journey, he’d been as clean and well-groomed as any decent man.
“A bedroom,” she repeated firmly. “Millie and I can take care of him. I don’t want to give you extra work.”
“Her?” Mrs. Yockenthwait said with a scathing look at the snoring maid.
“It’s not her fault. She gets tired. And cold, even bundled in shawls.”
“Aye, her mother were the same. But she can’t be much use to you.”
“She has to work for someone, and I have little need of fancy care.”
The woman shrugged. “Leave him down here, milady. He’ll do well enough on the floor, and it’s warm by the fire.”
“When there are beds upstairs? That seems uncharitable.”
Rosamunde knew her insistence must seem strange, but she was coming to understand her own reasons.
He was of respectable origins, she was sure, and not out of place above stairs.
More than that, he was hers. Her cause. Her living parable.
Down here, he’d be out of her orbit, firmly consigned to the servant ranks.
Upstairs, he would be hers to care for, just for a little while.
“Happen he’s not used to a fine bed,” the woman said with Yorkshire stubbornness.
Rosamunde was a Yorkshire woman, too. “Then it’ll feel all the better to him, won’t it?”
Mrs. Yockenthwait shook her head. “You always did have too kind a heart, Rosie Ellington.” But she said it with a hint of a smile, and her use of the familiar, childhood name was warming.
They’d run wild over this part of the North Riding, she and Diana, tumbling into trouble more often than not. The people here were used to picking them up and dusting them off, and sometimes, if they’d put themselves in danger, sending them home to be punished.
Dinah and Rosie in trouble again. Except that Dinah was in Harrogate, doubtless washing her hands of her cowardly cousin.
The men came in, and Mrs. Yockenthwait served them tea and cold pie. Rosamunde shared the simple fare. Once the meal was underway, however, Mrs. Yockenthwait took down the long warming pan from the wall. “I’ll just see to the beds, then.”
Rosamunde leaped up. “I’ll do that, Mrs. Yockenthwait. Millie will help.” She shook her maid until she spluttered awake.
“Did I doze off, milady?”
“Only for a moment. But you must come help me prepare our beds for the night. Mrs. Yockenthwait has her own work to do.”
“Good of you, dear,” said the woman, arching to ease her back. “And I’ll make up more hot bricks, too.”
Millie insisted on carrying the heavy warming pan up the stairs.
Rosamunde followed to be sure she didn’t tip it.
They went first to the front bedroom Rosamunde and Diana always shared.
She tried to let Millie do the work, but the slow, almost snaillike pace broke her in the end and she seized the handle.
“Why don’t you get Tom to bring up our bags, and make everything ready. I’ll finish the beds.”
Millie nodded and lumbered off.
Rosamunde ran the warming pan around the bed in the spare room, glad it was summer so there’d not be too much damp and chill. With a few bricks to help, it should keep him cozy.
Then she also ran it around Millie’s bed in the smallest room. The poor woman had such trouble keeping warm in the night, even though she slept in layers of clothes.
Leaving the warming pan in the bed the man would use, she hurried downstairs wondering whether she should send word to Wenscote to let Digby know where she was. She’d planned to stay in Harrogate for a fortnight, however, so he wouldn’t be expecting her. And it was late for a message.
She paused at the bottom of the stairs, accepting that she didn’t want to send a message. If she did, Digby would send servants to help. They’d take him off her hands….
She shook her head. She was thinking of him as more than a drunk by the wayside. They said that clothes maketh the man, but once her parable had been stripped of his ordinary clothes, he’d seemed more rather than less.
Romantic folly! She was busily translating his russet curls and splendid physique into a combination of Hercules, Horatio, and Roland! A noble knight errant—
At that, she froze.
Knight errant?
She’d sought someone like that at the masquerade.
Why wait for another masquerade?
It was such a wicked notion, she hardly dared look straight at it, but it swirled around her, taking shape like steam hitting a winter window and turning to lacy patterns of solid ice.
After all, she had to do something. Doctor Wallace warned that Digby could drop dead at any minute. She’d known it anyway, with his red face and breathlessness.
At any minute.
And then Wenscote would belong to Edward and the New Commonwealth.
On her recent journey, she and Diana had visited an estate that had already been taken over by the sect. They’d found that the tales were true. If anything, the truth was worse than she’d thought.
Members of George Cotter’s New Commonwealth had to give up life’s pleasures in favor of work and prayer, and any infractions were punished.
She’d heard that if parents didn’t punish their children harshly enough—punish them for things like a girl taking off her cap, or a boy his collar—then the Cotterite “saints” did it for them, and the blood ran.
Rosamunde had seen some Cotterite children, tight inside concealing, restrictive clothes even on a hot day, looking as if they were afraid to breathe for fear of earning punishment.
The only escape for the poor, trapped people was to move, to leave the land their families had lived on for generations, for centuries.
She couldn’t let this happen to Wenscote, especially as she was in no personal danger.
With her widow’s portion, she would be free to leave, while the servants, and especially the tenants, would be trapped.
She had the means to keep everyone safe, and had failed. Now she had been given a second chance.
A man. A stranger, who’d soon be on his way.
She had to at least try! She’d never be able to live with herself if she didn’t.
So. Though she was already trembling inside at the thought, she stuck the intent in her mind as a fact. She would do it. The only questions were about practicalities.
Such as how to get him to cooperate.
According to common wisdom and warnings, most men, especially young men, were desperate to get between a woman’s legs.
In fact, it seemed they often had to be fought off, and some would resort to trickery and even abduction to have their rakish way.
Every young woman knew that being alone with a man was sure to lead to wickedness and a swelling waist.
Which was exactly what she wanted. It should be as easy as picking ripe berries. And yet, she couldn’t help doubting….
“Milady? Are you all right?”
At the housekeeper’s question, Rosamunde started, realizing that she’d stood in the hall long enough to have found sheets and made the beds, never mind warm them.
Sure that her wicked plan flickered around her like hell-flames, she walked briskly into the kitchen and asked the men to carry her knight, her savior, her potential partner in sin, up to his bed.