The Black Sheep's Return (3 page)

‘If you can endure Atlas snoring all night long on the rug next to it, I think you’d best take the box-bed in the corner. My son and daughter will bounce out of their own beds on to mine before the sun is hardly risen tomorrow and I don’t think your ankle would like two wild animals stamping about on it if I lend you mine for the night and sleep here instead.’

‘After today it seems almost beyond wonderful to borrow such a cosy bed for the night.
I defy any thief or rogue who found this place by an unlucky accident to get to me before he got to them, so I’m very happy that your dog will bear me company,’ his waif said cheerfully and clearly found his simple life an intriguing novelty.

After a few days his mundane existence would pall on a princess in hiding and he hoped he would be rid of her long before then, before they recklessly explored the daring female under all those rigidly correct manners of hers and complicated this inconvenient business even further.

‘I’ll make you a posset to take away the worst of the pain and while it’s brewing I can make up the bed for you,’ he said, in what he hoped was the detached tone of a dutiful host.

‘Thank you, Orlando, you’re treating me like royalty,’ she said politely and he told himself it was a good thing the laughing rogue of a few moments ago was back in hiding.

He preferred her withdrawn and coolly polite, he assured himself. He preferred any youthful and even remotely attractive young woman to stay at a distance nowadays. Indeed, he had felt no more than a soon-dismissed masculine reaction to any other woman since he first laid eyes on his darling Anna. It felt
like a betrayal of his own beloved that a feral part of him wanted to know far more about Perdita than the colour of her eyes. After the unmatchable joy of making love to his wife, the rest of her sex had faded into friends, or lusty females to be avoided. He told himself feeling even a hint of hunger for this intriguing female was an insult to Anna’s memory.

‘Are you a wise man?’ she asked curiously as he went about the task of adding a pinch of this herb and a dot of that spice with a sweetening of honey to the pot over the fire until he had the right mix to bring her relief from pain, but not leave her drugged and lost in wild dreams.

‘Do you think I would be living miles away from my fellow creatures if I had an iota of sense, Perdita?’ he asked unwarily and saw reawakened curiosity light her fine eyes.

‘You might, if you had reason enough,’ she said shrewdly.

He distrusted the speculative glint in her eyes and set about finding what linens he had to spare for the box-bed that a previous owner of the cottage had built so well it was too much trouble to dismantle when they moved in. It had been all that
was
left, apart from most of the roof, the walls and part of the chimney,
when he and Anna had found this place and claimed it for their own, since nobody else wanted it.

‘Maybe I don’t like company,’ he let himself mutter loudly enough for her to hear and felt a pang of guilt at the long Seaborne tradition of hospitality he was betraying.

‘Next time I run away from a pack of desperate and dangerous rogues, I’ll be sure to bolt in the opposite direction,’ she said with a cool social lightness that set him at a distance and he was contrary enough to dislike it.

‘Were they really so desperate?’

‘Of course they were—why else would I have run so far and so fast I got completely lost to avoid them?’

‘I’m sorry,’ he had the grace to admit, ‘you have been through an appalling ordeal and all that matters is that you recover from your hurts and we somehow manage to reunite you with your friends and family as soon as we can. They must be desperately worried about you by now, so I could make sure a letter is delivered to inform them you’re safe and reasonably unharmed, if you would care to write one.’

She was silent for a long moment and he began to wonder if she had fallen asleep by
the fire. He reluctantly turned to look at her in time to see her shake her head regretfully and look a little mournful and sorry for herself for the first time.

‘There is no one,’ she said bleakly. ‘It was a hired coach and the relatives I left behind will not miss me. I thank you, sir, but I will not put you to so much trouble on my behalf.’

‘You were travelling alone?’ he heard himself ask disapprovingly and wondered when he’d begun to care what rich and overindulged young ladies did to put themselves in danger nowadays.

‘I’m of age, why should I not?’ she asked as if a young lady hiring a carriage and travelling without either companion or protector was perfectly normal.

‘For the very good reason it turned out to be such a disaster, I should think. You would have done better to travel post and enjoy the protection of an armed guard and the King’s mails.’

‘There’s no post road to my destination.’

‘Which is?’

‘None of your business.’

‘Do you expect me to set you on your way to the nearest village in the morning so you can blithely limp off into more ill-advised and plainly ridiculous escapades? How can I turn
my back on a disaster in petticoats like you and leave you to wander about the country with no more idea how to go on than my three-year-old daughter?’

‘I know how to conduct myself,’ she informed him in her best mistress-of-all-she-surveyed voice.

‘So well you just informed a complete stranger nobody will notice if you disappear for good, so I could make a quick getaway after foully doing away with you or having my wicked way with you, whatever you have to say about it? I begin to think my Sally has more sense in her currently very little finger than you have in your whole head, Princess Perdita.’

F
or a moment the girl looked disconcerted by the realisation he was right and she’d put herself totally in his power. She rapidly rebuilt her innate assurance she was right and the rest of the world wrong and drew herself up to give him a disdainful look worthy of his grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Dettingham, in her most formidable glory. Wondering if this aristocrat had ever met the one lady who would be able to stare her down and stand none of her nonsense, Rich tried not to admire the stony dignity she was facing him with. For some reason he liked his granddam a lot more than the rest of the family did and found his unwanted visitor’s steely poise unexpectedly endearing.

‘I trust you,’ she finally admitted very quietly. He felt another burden settle on his shoulders and suppressed a gusty sigh.

‘You can,’ he promised easily enough. ‘I’m no killer and can imagine nothing more repulsive than forcing myself on a woman against her will.’

‘Clearly my judgement isn’t as bad as you think, then,’ she argued gallantly, but he could see the blue shadows under her lioness’s eyes and the stark pallor of her face and knew it was only her steadfast spirit that held her upright in her chair right now.

‘Whether it is or not, mine currently tells me you’re very near the end of your tether, Perdita,’ he told her in much the same tone he used on his stubborn little daughter when she was about to fall asleep on her feet after a long day of mischief and mayhem.

For a moment she raised her chin and looked ready to swear she was fresh as a daisy and ready for her next set of misadventures, then she literally drooped, as if a great wave of exhaustion was about to claim her, much as it did his Sally, who had been known to fall asleep in her dinner only a second after insisting she wasn’t a bit tired. Afraid she might tumble headlong into dreamland in a similar manner,
he scooped her out of the chair and up into his arms once more.

‘Quiet,’ he ordered when her eyes seemed about to cross with absolute weariness.

She glared at him instead and he admitted she had a very effective glare by nodding ruefully at the ceiling to remind her they weren’t the only people in the house who needed their sleep tonight. Feeling her relax against him for the short journey from his hearth to the box-bed, he felt that peculiar stir of interest in her as a very desirable young woman once more and sternly ordered his inner satyr back into retirement.

‘I’d best unwrap you and bandage that ankle properly for the night, or you’ll spend a very uncomfortable night in a damp bed,’ he said as he set her down on the side of the bed and knelt at her narrow, but sore and scratched feet once more to do so. ‘Keziah has an evil-smelling salve that will do wonders for these blisters. I’ll get some from her in the morning so it won’t be so painful for you to walk on them once your ankle has healed enough for you to hobble about on it.’

‘Who’s Keziah?’ she asked and he thought her words were saved from slurring into each other only by her stubborn determination to
fight the waves of shock and exhaustion finally catching up with her.

‘Keep still,’ he demanded grimly as he realised he was going to have to unlace her gown and strip her, since she was beyond doing anything but pretending she wasn’t half-asleep. ‘Lift up,’ he ordered as if she really was Sally, and perhaps by believing that he could fool himself there wasn’t a mature and very desirable woman under his questing fingers and control his inner beast long enough to get her safely into bed and asleep.

Freya huffed and told herself it was like being back in her nursery, but she managed to raise herself from the feather mattress long enough to feel pain in her ankle and blisters on her feet and flinched when he undid her sash and the side-lacing of her gown, then stripped her once-fine sprigged-muslin gown off in one neat and practised swish that reminded her he had a little girl upstairs he evidently tended himself.

‘Have you other wounds you didn’t tell me about?’ he asked as she slumped back on the temptingly comfortable bed.

‘No,’ she said and had to stop herself tumbling back and falling asleep in front of him.

‘Then stand up as best you can and I’ll pull back the covers so you can finally lie down and rest,’ he ordered abruptly.

‘Yes, Papa,’ she murmured defiantly, but did as he said, trying not to notice that a hot shiver threatened to streak through her as he reached round her scantily clad person to do so.

‘Believe me, I don’t feel in the least bit fatherly towards you at the moment, Perdita,’ he warned gruffly.

Without visible effort he lifted her on to the clean cotton sheet covering the mattress before drawing the bedclothes over her and tucking her in as if it was far safer to have her covered up and neatly pinned into her bed for the night. Sighing with bliss at the feel of clean sheets and a comfortable bed, she opened her eyes long enough to mutter a thank you before tumbling headlong into unconsciousness between one word and the next.

‘You’re welcome, my lady,’ Rich whispered as he watched the strain leave her face and sleep smooth her features into someone softer and younger than she tried to pretend she was when awake.

Shaking his head at the contrariness of fate in bringing her to his door in such a state he couldn’t turn her away, he gestured to Atlas to
come outside once more and relieve himself before they both settled down for the night. Reassured that his guest would hardly wake if a battalion of Boney’s soldiers began manoeuvres in his vegetable garden, he waited for Atlas in the cool of the late spring evening and tried to forget he had just put a very adult woman to bed in the corner of his living room and he couldn’t fairly be rid of her until she was strong enough to walk away.

If tonight was anything to go by, he would be raving mad by the end of the week that ankle probably needed for her to be able to put it to the ground for long without pain. He felt raw with unwanted longings, bewildered by the animal need he felt for a female he probably wouldn’t even have liked if he’d met her as humble woodsman to her regal lady of high birth and position. The beast in any man could sometimes shock him, but his seemed to have taken on a life of its own tonight, even though he’d thought his Annabelle had tamed it and spoilt him for any other woman while she was about it.

Urges were there to be controlled, he assured himself, and his high-born waif had been through far too much to suffer from his, even if he wanted her to. He would offer her
shelter, food and warmth until she was well, then he would set her back on her way with a huge sigh of relief. A week with a woman he wanted but couldn’t have seemed like a lifetime at the moment, but Rich sighed morosely, whistled Atlas back inside and stole upstairs as quietly as a thief in the night. Closing the door of his narrow bedroom on the world and trying to sleep after a long day working hard, caring for his children and rescuing grumpy young ladies from their own folly, he tossed and turned until exhaustion finally overtook him and all the occupants of the isolated cottage deep in Longborough Forest finally slept.

‘Is she going to sleep for a hundred years like the princess in the forest?’ a shrill little whisper sounded so close to Freya’s ear that she felt as if she was swimming from fathoms’ depth of sleep to meet it coming the other way.

‘Of course not, silly, that’s a fairytale,’ a slightly less shrill, but still very young voice replied scornfully. ‘She’s probably dead.’

She wondered if the second child might be right for a fleeting second as she tried to make sense of an unfamiliar bed and a world she’d forgotten to be terrified of while lost in slumber. The throbbing pain in her ankle,
half-a-dozen lesser ones and the stiffness of her aching limbs made her feel half a century older than she was, but informed her she was alive and suffering for all the things she’d done yesterday to stay that way.

‘Is not so, she just blinked.’

Freya felt the second child’s breath on her cheek as he, for somehow she thought he sounded like a boy, stood on tiptoe to peer at her inquisitively, as if he rather hoped she might be his first real dead body and his sister was imagining that movement. Forcing open eyes heavy with sleep, she met the boy’s brilliantly blue eyes at very close range and wondered if she might be in heaven after all. At first glance he could have sat for a cherub on an altarpiece; a second look showed the mischief and verve in his bright blue eyes and told her a very human boy was gazing at her as if he’d never seen anyone quite so odd.

‘Move,’ the tot at his side ordered and swatted him with the carved dog in her hand with such vigour Freya winced on his behalf. ‘I can’t see,’ the little girl explained as if it justified anything she must do to change that sad state of affairs.

‘I’ll put Pod in the bonfire next time we have one and burn him to cinders,’ the boy
said as he rubbed his bruises and tried to grab her weapon.

‘No, you won’t, you won’t, you won’t,’ the furious little girl ordered at the top of her voice and seemed about to bellow herself into a storm of tears at the very idea.

‘I thought I told you two limbs of Satan to let the lady sleep,’ Freya’s rescuer of the night before interrupted what might well be an inexhaustible tantrum, given the way the tot had screwed up her face and seemed about to settle into a fine dramatic performance.

‘We did, Dada, we did,’ the little girl said with such a purposefully winsome smile Freya felt her heart melt at the sheer brass-faced audacity of her.

‘I dare say you did, for a whole minute after I took my eyes off you so I could take that thorn out of Atlas’s foot you said you were so upset about. Next time I shall have to leave it in, if that is what you get up to as soon as my back is turned.’

‘Oh, no, Papa,’ she begged and real emotion in her clear green eyes revealed what a fine little actress she was the rest of the time.

‘No, for I wouldn’t let a kind and decent animal like Atlas suffer for the misdeeds of a
naughty little girl and her big brother, both of whom are old enough to know better.’

‘We wanted to see if she was dead or not,’ her brother said earnestly.

‘As you woke her up to find out, you now know otherwise and may say your best hello, then beg the lady’s pardon,’ the now clean-shaven and disturbingly attractive Orlando said as coldly as he could with two pairs of wide and innocent eyes gazing at him as if their owners never had a wicked thought in their lives. ‘I’m your father, don’t forget. I know you two imps were sent from Hades to plague the rest of us, so there’s no point pretending to be little angels with me. Make your curtsy, Sally, and you, young man, can give the lady your best bow for waking her when a big boy of more than five ought to do as he’s told by now.’

‘We’re very sorry for disturbing your rest, lady,’ the boy said with a quaint courtly bow that instantly enslaved Freya.

‘Sally?’ the tough little girl’s father prompted and it looked for a moment as if he might have a revolution on his hands.

‘We’re thorry,’ she said, as if expecting them to fall for the lisped sweetness of her false words so hard they would forget the rest.

‘And?’ her father prompted ruthlessly.

Sally sighed, a long-suffering gust that said
Do I really have to?
A quick nod from her father told her she wasn’t going to get away without one, so she attempted a wobbly curtsy before plumping down on the floor with an annoyed huff.

‘I can’t do it,’ she informed them crossly and sat there with her arms folded over her chest and a furious frown on her face as if it must be someone else’s fault.

‘You’ll learn, if we both live long enough,’ her unsympathetic father said and plucked her up, set her on her feet, then ignored her mutinous expression as he frowned at Freya.

‘Go back to sleep,’ he ordered brusquely before leaving the house with his children firmly in tow.

‘Well, really,’ Freya huffed at Atlas, who decided he preferred peace and quiet to being with his master this morning and settled on his rug with a relieved sigh.

Reluctantly amused by him, his master and the determined son and daughter of the house, Freya lay back and almost did as she was told. Deciding after five minutes she was now fully awake, she fought her many aches and pains to sit up in bed and wondered if the room would
spin round or not if she tried to get up. When it stayed obligingly as it was, she risked pushing back the covers and, examining the grubby hem of her shift, she marvelled at herself for sleeping in all her dirt even after such a demanding day as she had had yesterday.

Wrinkling her nose at the idea of somehow getting herself clean, then having to put the mired and torn gown of yesterday back on, she carefully slid her good foot to the floor and stood on one leg. Her body felt stiff and sore and her ankle throbbed sickeningly, but she was whole and alive and the rumble in her stomach reminded her she was also desperately hungry. First she needed soap and water and a comb—oh, and a privy, her body reminded her as normal everyday needs collided with brisk reality. The expectation that all those necessities would be provided for Lady Freya Buckle without question made her feel alien and suddenly very alone and forsaken in this cramped cottage in the woods. She looked about for inspiration and saw only that the place was neat as a pin and surprisingly free of dust and dirt.

Hopping to the door ‘Orlando’ had opened last night to fetch cold water and binding for her foot, she opened it and found a spartan
lean-to scullery with a cold and empty copper and two large buckets of water standing on a scrubbed deal table. There was an empty bowl and a metal cup on a long handle that she supposed must be used to scoop up water without the risk of spilling most of it by tipping the heavy bucket. Her nose wrinkled as she wondered how it would feel to wash in freezing cold water and she shrugged and looked about her for some soap and anything to use as a towel because even that was preferable to staying dirty for another minute. Cursing her absent host for being so remorselessly tidy, she ran a half-used washing ball that smelt of lavender and summer to earth in a box on the windowsill, then wondered if she could hop back to her bed and draw the curtains while she washed, or simply do so here when that would mean spilling most of the contents of the bowl on her way.