Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

He dreamt of a giant serpent. A thick rope of ominous power, sliding down the narrow alleys of London. Twining through gardens and thickets in Kent. Last, snaking over the low, rolling hills of Sussex . . . tracing the scent of salt all the way to the ocean. It had followed him here, to this ancient castle, where it slithered in through the turret’s smoke vent and dropped to the bed. It wound its length again and again about his arm.

It squeezed.

Devil take me.

The pressure was so intense, Thorne sensed his very bones pulverizing. Then, as if inflicting that flesh-grinding pain wasn’t enough, the dream snake settled on his chest. Each breath felt like a struggle to lift a hundredweight with his ribs.

Thorne wrestled the scaly beast for untold hours, thrashing and grappling with the pain. Finally, mercifully, it faded into blackness.

Sometime later he woke with a start.

All was dark, save for firelight. He couldn’t move. Repeated efforts to draw up his legs or rise to a sitting position came to naught. His limbs wouldn’t obey his commands.

He stared up at the ceiling, panting for breath. A bead of sweat trickled from his brow to his ear. The room was thick with the scents of herbs and tallow.

How much time had passed? Hours? Days?

He heard someone rustling over by the hearth.

“Katie?” he croaked.

She didn’t hear him. As she went about stirring the fire, she hummed a little tune.

He closed his eyes and went back to that very first day. He’d entered the Bull and Blossom and there she’d been. Singing.

He hadn’t recognized her, not at first. How could he? She was a woman now, near twenty years older than when he’d seen her last. And her profile was to him—the unmarked side. To his battle-weary eyes, she was just a fresh-faced girl in white.

To his ears, she was some sort of angel.

She hit this note—a soft, plaintive trill—and that was it. He was done for.

That note found the vulnerable slot between his plates of armor, wriggled in deep and sank in teeth. Her voice was the sweetest venom. It was in his blood, his heart, pumping all through his body before he could muster any defense. All sorts of impulses swelled in response: affinity, desire, protectiveness. An intense, sudden hunger for her approval.

Naturally, a well-bred lady of accomplishment would not look at a man like him. Nor should she. He’d formed no plans or expectations. But simply to know he could feel such things was a source of true wonder. He’d been numb for so long.

She’d struck the last chord, and the music eased into a full, vibrating silence. He would not have noticed a powder blast in the lane.

Then she’d risen from the pianoforte to take her seat. He saw the mark at her temple, and the truth detonated.

Good Lord. It was her. Katie.

Waifish, sweet-faced Katie, all grown up. Now it all made sense. There was a reason he felt a strong sense of recognition—because he did know her. He felt protective toward her because she’d once been in his keeping. And that hunger for her approval . . . it too had its roots in a time long past, when she’d looked up to him with something akin to worship in her eyes.

All these impulses inside him . . . they were echoes of something he’d lost long ago. Some memory of the humanity that had long since been beaten, starved, and flogged out of him.

She didn’t know him, of course. She couldn’t have remembered—she’d been too young, and now they were too different. They’d started in the same low trough of their youth but climbed opposites sides of the valley. Now there was a chasm between them, and even if she shaded her brow and peered hard, she’d probably never recognize him across it. But what mattered was that she had survived. She’d forged a new life well apart from that squalid misery they once shared. And he’d vowed to himself then and there—no matter how alluring he found her, he would never do anything to jeopardize her happiness.

A year of mostly successful avoidance. And then he made the idiot mistake of letting her hold his dog. A lurcher pup bred too well for his own good, cornering the first snake he happened to meet.

Badger lay curled at the foot of the bed. Thorne glowered at the sleeping ball of fur. This is all your fault, I hope you know.

“You’re awake.” Soft footfalls crossed to the bedside. A cool hand pressed to his brow. “I’m here.”

“How long have I been insensible?”

“Since yesterday afternoon. It’s a few hours yet before dawn, I think.” She stroked the hair back from his brow. “Thank God your fever’s broken. And the swelling’s much improved.”

He let his head fall to one side and surveyed his condition. Most of his body was draped with a clean white linen sheet, save for his injured right arm, which lay atop the bedclothes. The tourniquet was gone. A fragrant plaster covered his wound, held in place with strips of flannel. His entire arm had been washed clean, and the swelling had abated. The discoloration remained, however—red streaks and purple-black bruises covered his skin. It looked as though his arm had been caught in a clothespress.

He’d lived through worse. His arm scarcely hurt anymore. Instead, it felt numb. He flexed his muscles, attempting to make a fist. His fingers gave a feeble twitch.

Then he tried once more to draw up his legs. Nothing. That worried him.

“Drink this.”

She brought a cup of tea to his lips. He bent his head and sipped. The infusion had an herbal, faintly familiar taste. He thought he recalled her spooning it through his cracked lips sometime during the night.

“You stayed by me,” he said. “All night.”

She nodded. “I could not have done otherwise.”

“I’m in your debt.”

“I’ll think of ways you can repay me.” She gave him a wry, cryptic smile.

He glanced down at his uncooperative limbs and hesitated. “I . . . I can’t move. I can’t move my body below the neck.”

She didn’t show quite the concern or dismay he might have expected. “Oh, I know you can’t.”

He frowned with confusion.

She reached for the edge of the linen and lifted it, so he might peer beneath. Several lengths of bedsheet and neckcloth were tied about his torso and left arm, lashing him to the bed.

Bindings. Now that he understood they were there, he could feel similar restraints on his legs. All the knots were well out of reach.

“Why would you do that?”

“At first, because you were thrashing so much.”

Damn it. If he’d lashed out at her while he was insensible, he’d never forgive himself.

“Did I—” The words stuck. He cleared his throat with a harsh, desperate cough. “Did I hurt you?”

“No.”

Thank God.

“But you were delirious, and I worried you’d do yourself more harm. So I bound you. And then I left the bindings on because”—she replaced the linen sheet, brought a chair to the bedside and fixed him with a challenging look—”you have some explaining to do.”

His heart began to pound. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Don’t you? When you fell ill yesterday, you did a great deal of talking. About you and me.”

“Must have been delirious.” He eyed the cup in her hand. “I’ll take some more of that tea, if you will.”

“Not just yet.” She balanced the pewter mug between her hands and twisted it back and forth. “You seemed to think we knew each other.”

“We do know each other.”

“In the past,” she said. “As children.”

A knot formed in his throat. He struggled harder against his bindings. “You must be confused. I don’t recall saying any such thing.”

“I thought that might be the case.” She set the mug aside and reached for a sheet of paper. “Fortunately, I wrote it all down.”

Damn it.

She smoothed flat the creases in the paper.

He strove to look bored.

She made her voice comically deep and gruff. In an imitation of him, he supposed. “ ‘You’ve done so well for yourself, Katie. If she could see you, she’d be so proud.’ ” She lowered the paper. “Who were you speaking of? Who would be proud?”

He shook his head. “You need to release me from these bindings so I can see you home. You’re overtired. You’re imagining things.”

She waved the paper at him. “I’m not imagining this!”

At her loud protest, the pup came awake.

“There was something about how you’d worried I might place you, remember you,” she went on. “You also mentioned that you could see down my bodice, and you told me I smelled like paradise.”

“Miss Taylor—”

“So now we’re back to ‘Miss Taylor.’ What happened to ‘Katie’?” She peered at him. “That’s another odd thing, you know. My name is Katherine. My friends call me Kate. No one calls me Katie. At least, no one has since I was a very small child.”

“Release me.” He mustered his voice of command. “I’ll see you home. It’s not proper for you to be here with me. Most certainly not alone, at this hour.”

“I’m not going anywhere until you give me some answers.”

“Then you’ll be here a very long time.”

She could keep him here a month, and his resolve wouldn’t crumble. He’d endured much harsher prisons, with much less comely captors. He could hold out for years.

“How does your arm feel?” she asked, changing the subject.

“How does it feel? It feels like wood.”

“I did some more reading while you were asleep. You can expect it to be numb for a few days, at least.” Her skirts rustled as she swept to the other side of the bed. She produced a vial of oil and pulled out the stopper. Tilting the bottle, she poured a shilling-sized pool of liquid into her palm. “This will help with the stiffness, the book said. It’s only plain oil from your cooking stores. I’ll fetch something aromatic from Summerfield later.”

She set aside the vial and rubbed her hands together, spreading the oil over both palms. Then she laid her hands to his bare skin and began to massage his deadened flesh. Her deft fingers kneaded him, chasing away the stiffness in his forearm.

Unfortunately, the stiffness wasn’t leaving his body altogether. No, it was merely relocating—to his groin. Beneath the bedsheet a familiar heaviness gathered and swelled.

He groaned. “Stop that.”

“Is it too painful?”

No. It feels too good.

“Will it help if I sing to you?” she asked coyly. “The way you begged me to sing to you last night?” She hummed a lilting melody, then sang the words that he already knew. “ ‘See the garden of blossoms so fair . . .’ ”

He sighed and closed his eyes. God, he hated that song.

“ ‘Roses in bloom,’ ” she sweetly sang on, “ ‘orchids so rare.’ ”

“Stop,” he growled at her. “Enough.”

Her massaging hands swept down the length of his arm, all the way to the bandage at his wrist. She turned his arm palm side up and simply laid her fingers across his hand.

“I’ve been staring at you all night. Searching what few memories I have from my earliest years. The more I look at you, the more I feel like there’s a puzzle I should be solving. But the pieces just won’t come together in my mind. And if you won’t volunteer any information . . .”

He sucked in his breath.

“ . . . then I have no choice but to bring out my most ruthless means of extorting it.”

“You’re threatening me with ruthlessness,” he scoffed.

“Don’t you think I have it in me?”

She caught the hemmed edge of the bedsheet and whisked it all the way down to his waist. His bare chest was exposed to the firelight. Every mark, every tattoo, every ridge of scar tissue. He burned with the sensation of exposure. She didn’t appear shocked, however. Only curious, in a markedly sensual way. No doubt she’d had a good view of him earlier. He hated that tending his physical infirmity had robbed her of yet more innocence.

But the way she unconsciously wet her lips as she regarded him . . .

He didn’t have it in him to hate that.

She uncorked the vial again and held it over his chest, tilting it by slow degrees until a trickle of oil poured forth. She drizzled the slick liquid in a lazy line down the center of his chest. Bisecting his chest and abdominal muscles, skipping over the linen binding him to the bed, tracing the furrow of dark hair that arrowed straight for his groin.

Holy God.The image was perversely sensual. Just what mischief did she intend? If she dragged her soft hands down his bared, oiled chest, he would not have to worry about forced confessions. He’d combust on the spot, leaving behind nothing more blameworthy than ash.

“I have a way of getting you to talk.” Her mouth quirked in a cold smile. “Prepare yourself for my secret weapon.”

Thorne steeled his loins.

“Here he is.”

Christ.

She caught the pup in both hands, lifting him to a position directly above Thorne’s glistening abdomen. That twitching dog nose hovered just an inch above his oil-filled navel.

Thorne’s abdominal muscles flinched. So this was her grand, malevolent plan. She was going to tickle the truth from him. With the dog.

“Little Badger has been here all night with us. With nothing to eat save an old rind of cheese he sniffed out in your cupboard.” She screwed up her face and spoke to the dog. “You’re very, very hungry, aren’t you, dear?”

“You wouldn’t,” said Thorne.

“Oh, just watch me.”

“Katie, don’t you dare.”

Her eyebrows soared. “Ah. Now we’re back to Katie? My tactic is working already.”

He firmed his jaw and glared at her. “If you had any idea the torments I’ve endured in my life, you would know—I will not be done in by a puppy.”

“Let’s just try it and see.”

Thorne inwardly cursed. He could not be done in by a puppy, but this woman . . . she was a true danger.

She made eye contact with him, direct and honest. “My whole life, I’ve searched for answers about my past. My whole life, Thorne. I will not rest until you tell me the truth.”

“I can’t.”

She lowered the pup another half inch.

A quiver pulsed through Thorne’s belly.

“Badger, no,” he commanded, even though he knew the futility of warning a dog off such behavior.

The dog was a dog. He barked. He chewed. He chased.

God have mercy.

He licked.

Kate kept her first bout of torture brief. She lowered Badger for just a few seconds of enthusiastic tickling.

Thorne growled like an animal. An enraged animal. His nostrils flared. The muscles of his abdomen tensed in staggered rows, hard as cobblestones beneath his skin. Tendons stood out on his neck, and his good arm was solid flexed muscle, embossed with thickly pulsing veins.

Heavens.

Kate’s own breathing quickened. He was massive and strong and furious and utterly at her mercy. A beast, but a beautiful one.

Near giddy with power, she momentarily restrained the pup. “Had enough?”

His breathing was heavy, his voice a hoarse rasp. “Stop this. Stop this now.”

“Beg me for mercy.”

“The devil I will.”

She lowered the pup again. This time he strained and arched beneath the ropes so hard, he had the bed frame rocking to and fro. The entire bed scooted several inches across the floor. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead.

She gave him another brief reprieve. “How about now?”

“Devious woman. You’re going to regret this.”

“I doubt that.” She lowered the dog once again, letting him lick Thorne’s side now, just beneath his lowest rib. He seized and gasped.

“Very well,” he finally growled. “Very well. You win. Just get him off me.”

“You’ll tell me everything?”

“Yes.”

Victory surged in Kate’s breast. “I knew you’d surrender.”

“I’m not asking mercy for me,” he panted, staring up at the ceiling. “Just for the dog. With all that oil, you’ll make him sick.”

She smiled to herself, knowing she’d found his Achilles’ heel. “I knew you cared about him.”

She brought Badger close to her chest and praised him extravagantly before setting him on the floor. Then she gave Thorne her full attention. Oh, the look on his face was murderous.

She said, “I’m listening.”

“Release me from these bindings first.”

“When you’re fuming at me so darkly? I may be brave, but I’m not stupid.” She reached for the tea. “But I will offer you some of this.”

She moved close to the head of the bed and raised the mug to his lips, putting one hand behind his head to help him drink. As he lowered his head to the pillow, she swept her fingers through his bed-mussed hair, taming it. “Go on.”

He sighed. “Yes, I knew you as a child. You were just a little thing when we saw each other last. Four years old, perhaps. I was older. Ten or eleven. Our mothers—”

At the word “mothers,” a lump rose in her throat.

“Our mothers?” She clasped his good hand. “You must tell me everything. Everything, Thorne.”

He sighed reluctantly. “I’ll tell you more. I swear it. But release me first. The tale warrants a bit of dignity.”

She considered. “All right.”

From the table, she retrieved the knife. With careful sawing motions, she cut loose each of the bands of linen holding him to the bed. Some of the bindings she’d wrapped over his breeches-clad legs. Others cinched against the bare skin of his chest and abdomen. To lift and cut them, she had to run her hands along his warm, oiled skin. She tried to maintain a businesslike demeanor, but it was difficult.

When she had the last binding cut, he propped his good elbow under him and slowly curled to a sitting position. A sleeping giant coming awake.

His boots hit the floor with twin thuds. She’d never bothered to try removing them.

He rubbed his squared, unshaven jaw, then pushed a hand through his hair. His gaze dropped to his bare, oil-coated chest. “Have you a sponge or damp cloth?”

She handed him a moistened towel from the bedside table.

He accepted it with his left hand and dragged the square of fabric over his throat and then around to his nape. As he tilted his head to either side, Kate stared at his sculpted shoulders, transfixed by the limber stretch of his tendons and the defined contours between each muscle. There was nothing soft on him, anywhere.

And then there were those intriguing tattoos.

When he dropped his hand and began to swab his chest, Kate’s mouth went dry. She looked away, suddenly conscious that she’d been staring.

A shirt. She really ought to find him a shirt. A narrow cupboard near the turret’s entry seemed to serve as his closet. It was where she’d hung his red officer’s coat last night, once the danger had passed. She went to it now and found him a freshly laundered shirt of soft linen.

He discarded the damp towel, and she averted her eyes as she handed him the shirt. After a few moments she looked back. He’d managed to get his head through the wide, open collar and his good arm into the left sleeve. But she could tell he was struggling with his wounded side.

She went to him. “Let me help.”

He flinched away. “I’ll manage.”

Chastened, she let him be. “Well. I’m glad to see you survived the ordeal with your stubborn pride intact. I’ll take Badger out for a few minutes.”

The morning was chill and wet with dew, and she hurried Badger about his business, not wanting to risk an encounter with another snake.

When she returned, she found Thorne seated at the table with an open flask. His hair was damp and combed. He’d put on a coat.

“Would’ve shaved and donned a neckcloth, but . . .” He nodded at his right arm, dangling limp and useless at his side.

“Don’t be silly.” She sat with him and propped an elbow on the table. “There’s no need. I can’t imagine how I look at the moment.”

“Lovely.” He spoke the word without equivocation. His intense gaze caught hers. “You are lovely, always.” He reached out to catch a stray lock of her hair. “Her hair curled like this, but it wasn’t so dark.”

“Where was this?” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Where did we live?”

“Southwark, as I’ve told you. Near the prison. The neighborhood was rough and very dangerous.”

“And you called me Katie then.”

He nodded. “Everyone did.”

“What did I call you?”

His chest rose and fell slowly. “You called me Samuel.”

Samuel.

The name struck a chime inside her. Memories heeded the summons, crowding the periphery of her mind. If she tried to look straight at them, they vanished. But she could sense that they were there, waiting—misty and dark.

“Our mothers took rooms in the same house,” he said.

“But you told me your mother turned whore.”

His mouth set in a hard line. “She did.”

Oh no.Kate’s breath caught painfully. The implications were too horrible to contemplate. “Is my . . . Could she still be living?”

Solemnly, he shook his head. “No. She died. That’s when you went to the school.”

Kate blinked, staring unfocused at a groove on the tabletop. Rage built within her, swift and sudden. She wanted to scold, scream, cry, pound something with her fists. She had never known this sort of raw, helpless anger, and she didn’t know just what it might cause her to do.

“I’m sorry, Katie. The truth isn’t pleasant.”

“No, it’s not. It’s not pleasant. But it’s my truth.” She pushed back from the table and punched to her feet. “My life. I can’t believe you kept this from me.”

He rubbed his face with one hand.

“Let me be certain I understand this,” she went on. “When you arrived in Spindle Cove last summer, are you telling me that you recognized me at once?”

“Yes.”

“By this.” She touched her birthmark.

“Yes.”

“So you immediately knew me as an acquaintance from your childhood. And in the present, you found me . . .” She churned the air with her hand. “ ‘Fetching enough’ was how you once phrased it.”

“More than fetching.”

“How much more?” She stood and flung her arms wide, taunting him. “Pretty? Beautiful? Rapturously stunning beyond all words and comprehension?”

“The third,” he shot back. “Something like that third. When you’re not flapping like an outraged chicken, I sometimes think you’re the most beautiful woman in the world.”

She let her arms drop.

After an awkward pause, she said, “I’m not, you realize. I’m not even the most beautiful woman in Spindle Cove.”

He held up a hand. “Let’s just go back to desirable. I found you very desirable.”

“Fine. So you recognized me and found me desirable.”

“Very.”

“Yet rather than speak to me about any of this, you decided to intimidate and avoid me for an entire year. When you knew I thought myself to be an abandoned orphan. When you must have understood how desperate I was for any connection to my past. How could you do that to me?”

“Because it was best. Your dim memories are a blessing. We lived in a place most would wish to forget. I didn’t want to inflict that unpleasantness on you now.”

“That was not your choice to make!” She gestured angrily toward the unseen ocean beyond the castle walls. “I can’t believe this. You would have left for America, having never said a word. Leaving me to wonder forever.”

As he looked on, she paced back and forth. Badger chased the flounce of her skirt from one end of the room to the other.

“If the Gramercys hadn’t found that painting and come looking for—” A horrid thought struck her. “Oh, God. Were they looking for me? Did my mother look like the portrait? Did she wear a pendant of deep blue stone?”

“I can’t say. My memories of her aren’t a great deal more reliable than yours. When I saw her, she was usually made up with rouge and kohl. Later on, pale with illness. Ellie Rose was—”

“Ellie Rose.” Kate took a pouncing step in his direction. “My mother’s name was Ellie Rose?”

“That’s what she went by. I don’t think it was her real name.”

Ellie Rose. Could she have been the same woman as Elinor Marie, or was she some other unfortunate soul?

Oh, Lord.

Who was Kate? The daughter of a marquess? The child of a whore?

Both?

She crumpled to the floor, numb everywhere. Badger pounced in her lap, as though he’d won whatever game they were playing. She ignored him. Not even puppy kisses could make this moment better.

Out of habit, her fingers went to the mark at her temple. A child of shame, Miss Paringham had called her. A child of shame who ought to live ashamed.

Be brave, my Katie.

At her loneliest, most despairing moments, that voice had given her hope. She couldn’t abandon that hope now. Someone, somewhere had loved her. Even if that someone had been a fallen woman, and that somewhere had been a seedy brothel—it didn’t change the essence of love.

Thorne said, “Do you see? This is why I tried to protect you from the truth. Leave the past forgotten, Katie. Look at your life now. All you’ve accomplished, all the friendships you’ve made. You’ve found a family to accept you.”

The Gramercys.

“Oh God,” she breathed. “I have to tell them.”

“No.” Thorne tapped the table with his good fist. “You can’t tell them anything of this.”

“But I must! Can’t you see? This could be the link. If Ellie Rose was Elinor . . . then they would know for certain I’m Simon’s daughter.”

“Aye, and they’d know for certain that you spent your first four years in a bawdy house. They’d cast you out. They’d want nothing to do with you then.”

Kate shook her head. “The Gramercys would never do that. Family above everything. That’s what they always say. They’ve weathered many a scandal.”

“There’s high-class scandal, and then there’s this. It’s not the same.”

She knew he was right. It wasn’t the same. If her mother had been an elite courtesan, then maybe the scandal wouldn’t be too much. But coming from a low-class Southwark brothel?

Nevertheless . . .

“I owe the Gramercys the truth. I can’t let them accept me into their family if there’s a chance it’s all a mistake.”

A new thought struck her. She caught and seized it.

She rose to her feet. “Maybe you’re mistaken, Thorne. Have you thought of that? So you knew a little girl with a birthmark once. But that was twenty years ago. You can’t be sure it was me.”

“What about the song, Katie?”

She crossed her arms and lifted her chin. “The song is just a silly little song. What of it?”

Never mind that in all her years at Margate, all her years of music instruction, she’d never met another soul who knew it.

For a moment he looked as though he’d argue the same point. But then he seemed to reconsider.

“Fine,” he said, lifting his good shoulder in resignation. “You’re right. I must be mistaken. I never knew you as a child. You were never the daughter of a whore. All the more reason why you shouldn’t tell the Gramercys anything about this.”

“But I have to,” she whispered. “I must. They deserve to know. They’ve been so kind to me, offered me so much faith. I have to tell them. Today.”

He struggled to his feet. “Then I’ll go with you.”

“No.” She sniffed. “I don’t want you there. I don’t want you anywhere near me.” She jabbed a finger to her breastbone. “I tried to see the best in you, despite all your surliness. I defended you in my heart, even in the face of your callous rejections, and yesterday . . . I was ready to marry you, you heartless man. I foolishly thought I was coming to love you.”

Her voice broke. “And you were lying to me. All along, from the very moment you walked into this village and saw me singing in that borrowed India shawl. You lied to me. You forced me into this joke of a betrothal. You made me a fool in front of all my friends, as well as the people I hoped to call family. All this, when you knew—you knew how much it meant to me. I can’t keep letting you hurt me, Thorne. You were right, that day in the churchyard. I need someone capable of sympathy and caring. I need a better man.”

“Katie—”

“Don’t call me that. Don’t ever call me that again.”

He caught her by the arm. “Katie, I can’t let you walk away. Not like this.”

“Why not?”

“Because I—”

Her racing pulse stumbled. If he told her he loved her, right here and now, she wouldn’t be able to leave. Even after all he’d done, she wouldn’t have it in her to walk away. He had to know that.

Go on, she silently urged. Just say three words and I’m yours.

“Because you’ve spent the night here,” he said.

She narrowed her eyes. Coward.

“You spent the night alone in my quarters,” he said. “If anyone notices that, you’ll be ruined. Completely.”

“I’ll take my chances. I’d rather be ruined than be with you.” She wrested out of his grip and went to the door. “Our engagement is over.”

“You’re right, it is over,” he said. “We’ll be married today.”