“The maid,” Miss Gresham explained, as if she’d heard his thought. “She did not expect to find you staring that way. Rather lucid like, you know. But then again, the poor old thing is terribly excitable.”
Grogginess weighted his eyelids. He strained to keep them open. “Where …” He slid his tongue over his cracked lips. “Where … am I?”
“Sharottewood Manor. Have you forgotten then?”
Had he?
“Well, if you do not remember, I dare not remind you. You must think only of pleasant things. You have been four days here, and you are quite safe. Nothing else need matter.”
Safe.He latched on to the word, but he wasn’t sure he believed it. He hadn’t been safe in a long time.Edward.His father. Sharottewood. No, he shouldn’t be here—
He raised his head and pushed up on his elbows, but a piercing pain struck his side. He collapsed back against the pillows, guided by Miss Gresham’s hands.
Her smile stayed in place, a lifeline in a sea of so much agony and dread. “Stay still, Mr. Kensley. You must not move. You must not do anything but regain your strength.”
Had he any left, he would have. His eyes shut against his will, but not before he saw a flash of tears in her eyes. Did she cry for him?
Four days later, Isabella entered Mr. Kensley’s chamber yet again and walked to the window. She pulled back the green draperies.
The sound must have awakened him, for when she turned back around, he was looking at her. These last few days had quite improved upon him. The scratches and cuts were less severe, already fading back into his pleasant, tanned complexion. His lips had regained color, and his eyes, though often still muddled with laudanum, lacked the dreadful redness of fever. “I hope you have not brought up that dashed chess game again, for I shall have none of it.”
“Hardly so.” She presented a book from behind her back. “Do you like to read?”
“Not usually.” He scooted himself up, wincing. “But I am willing to try most anything. Here, let me see.”
She handed it over. “The Sorrows of Young Werther.I thought perhaps the agonies of someone else might help divert you.”
“A novel then?”
“I presume.”
“Have you not read it?”
“No, of course not. I have much greater ways to occupy my mind than novel reading.”
“Such as?”
A sudden heat crept to her cheeks. How silly it sounded to say riding the seashore, or walking the beach, or searching for flotsam and jetsam. “Oh, you know.” She grinned. “Netting purses, practicing the piano-forte, writing letters, and painting fire screens.”
A laugh rumbled out of him. “You are a terrible liar.”
“One should never call out a lady on a lie. It is improper.” She bent over him and adjusted the pillow behind his back. “There. Better?”
“Whatdoyou do with your time, Miss Gresham? I must know now.” “You must promise not to laugh.”
“Never.”
“Or scold me.”
“I would not think of it.” His look of interest, along with his amused expression, made it easy to sit on the edge of the bed and divulge her faults to him.
“Father and Mrs. Morrey, our housekeeper, find it degradable, as I should be doing things all accomplished ladies do. But my true enjoyment is riding my horse, Camilla, out to the beach. Ever since I was a child, I have delighted in going there. I search the caves, or sit on the rocks, or look for any trinkets washed ashore from a ship.” She bit the edge of her lip. Why had she told him such things?
She had never shared such secrets with any other acquaintance. Not even Lilias.
But he didn’t condemn, or laugh, or seem at all as if he thought her ridiculous. “Perhaps, if I am ever strong enough to make it out of this dashed bed, I shall have to see the seashore for myself.”
“What fun we would have! Riding from one end of the cliffside to the other and—”
