The Perfect Stranger (25 page)

She didn’t want to leave him to suffer alone. She smoothed his forehead with featherlight touches. She fancied the tight muscles relaxed minutely, but she could not be sure. She wondered whether stroking his head might add to the pain. She took his hand in hers, but it was clenched with pain into a hard fist, so she held that instead and stroked the inside of his wrist.

Such a big, strong hand. Protective and powerful, clenched so tight and hard against his current weakness. He so obviously hated to be vulnerable, hated these headaches. They were the only chink in his armor.

She sat there, cradling his fist against her breast, willing his pain away, watching his face, his dear face. White lines of pain bracketed his mouth. His eyes were closed and shuttered. Shuttered against the pain. Shuttered against Faith.

She ached for him to love her.

When she was a young girl dreaming of love, it had seemed so simple. She was wrong.

She’d been dazzled by Felix, but she saw now that she hadn’t loved him. She looked at Nicholas, at his tanned, narrow face grooved with pain and hard experience, his beautiful mouth tight with pain, and she ached with love for him.

Love he didn’t want.

Why didn’t he want her love?

He wanted her body, and that was wonderful, but it was as if a starving child had been given a taste of a feast and was then shut outside to watch through the window. Because for Faith, desire was just a part of the love she felt for him.

Was she desirable but not lovable? She was flawed—she knew that—Grandpapa had told her, told all of them, over and over that they were ugly inside, that they were flawed, misbegotten creatures.

Faith shivered. The old man’s hatred could reach out to touch her, even here, even now. She wished her sisters were here; they could banish Grandpapa’s poison. It only struck when she was at her lowest.

So why was she so low now? It didn’t make sense, she told herself in a silent, bracing voice. Her skin still tingled with salt from her afternoon swim. She’d swum in the sea. She’d even made love in the sea and felt closer to Nicholas than ever. It had been glorious, utterly glorious.

A perfect afternoon, and if she felt a little low, well, that was understandable, with Nicholas in so much pain and she unable to relieve him of it. She would not give in to Grandpapa’s poison. She should not wish for the moon when what she had was perfectly satisfying…

Only…She looked at his strong, sleeping face. She yearned so much for him to love her, it was like a physical pain.

Behind her, Clothilde murmured, “He will sleep now.”

Faith carefully replaced his fist, smoothed his brow one last time, and stood up.

“You love him very much, your man, don’t you,
p’tite
?”

“Oh, yes.” She did. She loved Nicholas Blacklock. Very much. And at that soft admission of her love to the first living soul she’d confided in, she felt her face crumple. The tears she’d been holding off spilled down her cheeks.

Clothilde bustled forward and took her in a comforting embrace. “There, there,
p’tite
. There is no need to cry about it. Oh, but I was the same after my marriage, all tears one moment and laughter the next.”

The tears continued to flow, and as she ushered Faith out the door and shut it behind them, Clothilde asked, “You are not crying about
la migraine
, are you? It is something more serious, his illness, no?”

Faith shook her head and mopped her eyes with a handkerchief. “No. I’m sorry, madame. I don’t know what came over me. No, it’s just a migraine. My little sister used to get them, too, though not as often as Nicholas does. She grew out of it…or it might have been caused by living with Grandpapa. We aren’t sure. They stopped after our oldest sister Prudence was married.” And Grace no longer feared being taken back to Grandpapa’s…

She frowned as a thought came to her. If excessive worry had caused Grace’s headaches…

“You have many sisters?”

“There are five of us.”

Clothilde threw up her hands in horror. “No boys?”

“None. But I am a twin,” she offered wryly. It was always the same. People seemed to think it remiss to have so many girls in a family and no boys, as if it were something people chose.

“A twin?” Clothilde was interested. “My daughter has twin girls.”

“Really? How old are they?”

“Just six months old. Beautiful they are, but oh, what a handful!”

“I would love to see them,” exclaimed Faith. “My sister and I are what they call mirror twins; I am right-handed, she is left-handed; I have a mole here, and she has it in the exact same place on the opposite side. And we share everything. It is wonderful to be a twin.”

Clothilde beamed at her, her ruddy face lighting with pleasure. “Maybe you will see my granddaughters, then. Now, I must get on,
p’tite
. Work on a farm never stops.”

After she’d left, Faith wondered about Nicholas. Could his headaches be caused by anxiety and fear, also, as Grace’s were? And if so, what was he worried about?

This
thing
, whatever it was, that he had to do or face after Bilbao. She couldn’t imagine what it was. The war was long over, and Napoleon was incarcerated on Saint Helena. In any case, she couldn’t really believe he’d fret over some military mission. He didn’t seem afraid of anything or anyone.

But there were times when something seemed to weigh dreadfully on his mind.

What was so important about this trip into Spain and Portugal? Mac seemed to know all about it, but she was the last person he would confide in. Perhaps Stevens…

But when she stepped outside, Stevens was nowhere to be seen. There was only Mr. McTavish standing on his own, staring out over the rolling hills of farmland. That reminded Faith. She marched up to him.

“Mr. McTavish, I have a bone to pick with you.” She was utterly determined to have it out with the contentious Scot once and for all.

McTavish turned slowly. “Oh ye have, have ye?” His bushy red brows were raised in a sardonic manner, his attitude intimidating.

Faith stiffened her spine. “Why are you so hostile toward me?

He gave a snort. “Ye dinna ken what hostile is.”

“I do, too. I was reared in an atmosphere of hostility, and it was completely horrid. So I take leave to inform you, Mr. McTavish, I will not have any more of it. Do you hear me?”

“Ye’ll not have any more of it, eh?”

Faith refused to be intimidated. “No. Which brings us to that bone: you will explain to me, if you please, what injury I have done you, so that I may apologize and we can be done with this unpleasantness.”

Her question took him so much by surprise his red brows almost disappeared into his hair. “What injury ye’ve done me?”

“Yes. Obviously I have done something—wittingly or unwittingly—to earn your enmity. The others seem to believe it is not me, that you are motivated to be horrid to me because of some Spanish girl who treated you abominably, but I believe that’s nonsense. A man such as yourself could not possibly be so petty and mean spirited. Nor so completely unjust. The Scots are known for their passion for justice, are they not?”

He was too dumbfounded to respond, so Faith swept on. “So it must be something I did when first we met. So, what was it?”

His brow knotted. He looked at her, perplexed.

“Do not be shy, Mr. McTavish. Anyone who lived with my grandfather is accustomed to being called the most vile epithets. You need not hesitate to spare my feelings.”

He glowered at her.

Faith gave him a smile. “I can see you are bent on being gentlemanly, but truly, I wish to know.” She peered at him hopefully a moment, then continued, well satisfied with her tactics. “I have been giving that incident at the beach some thought. About my being a hussy—”

“No! No, I didna—”

She ignored the strangled outburst. “I did not, at that point, understand. I assumed that since you were stark naked in public that you had no sense of modesty, and when you called
me
a hussy—well, I lost my temper, which I am very sorry for. But my husband has assured me that you are in fact terribly shy and modest—”

McTavish dashed sweat from his brow and muttered something Scottish and inaudible.

Faith suddenly realized he was a lot younger than she’d assumed. “I failed to take into account your very delicate sensibilities, which were shocked—quite understandably—at seeing a lady in her underwear. All I could think of was that I was so hot, and the water was cool. I realize now I must have ridden roughshod over your delicate sensibilities—”

“Och, will ye stop going on aboot ma delicate sensibilities—”

“And I apologize for offending your modesty. And for the crabs.” She held out her hand to him.

He made a strangled noise in his throat, but after a moment’s hesitation, he took her hand in a big paw and shook it.

Faith continued in a bright tone, “Now, you have been hostile toward me since the beginning, and whilst I can appreciate your protectiveness toward the best interests of my husband, you must surely see by now that I mean him no harm. On the contrary, my sole desire is to make him happy.”

“Aye.” He didn’t sound as if he meant to agree.

She frowned. “And what is wrong with that, pray? It seems to me as though Nicholas has had a very hard life, one without a great deal of happiness in it. He deserves better.”

“Mebbe, but that’s no’ the point.”

“Not the point? The whole purpose of life is to be happy and to bring happiness to others. That is what love is all abou—”

“Love?” He stared at her.

“Love? Did I say love? I’m sure I didn’t. I said…er, er, life—yes, that’s it. That’s what life is all about.”

“Ye said love.”

“I deny it. I did not mean for any such word to slip out. And if you so much as—as hint to Mr. Blacklock that I said so, I will—I will strangle you, McTavish! Understand?” She poked him in the chest with her finger to emphasize her words. “I do not—most emphatically not—love Nicholas Blacklock, and I am not attached to him in the least! Is that clear?”

He gave her an enigmatic look. “Aye, it’s clear.” His expression was not very convincing.

“You will not say a word?”

His response was a Scottish look and a heavy silence.

“McTavish?”

“Verra well. I’ll no’ tell the cap’n ye love him.”

“Good.”

He shook his head gloomily. “Ye’re stirring up muddy waters, woman.”

Faith wrinkled her brow. “In what way?”

But he just shook his head and refused to explain.

“If I am hurting him in any way, I wish to know it.”

He gave a lugubrious sigh, then said, “I fear ye’re making things a great deal harder for him, lass.”

“What do you mean? You mean harder for him to do this job, whatever it is?”

“Aye.”

“But I haven’t held your journey up—well, not by much. And I do my share, don’t I? And I don’t complain.”

“Aye, ye’re no’ a bad traveling companion.”

The grudging praise lifted her spirits a little. “Then how am I making his life harder?”

“He’s no’ on a pleasure trip, lass. When he gets to the end, he’s got to do something, face things; things that wouldna be easy for any man. You’ll not be making it easy for him to do what he has to do.”

His tone worried her. “What does he have to do?”

McTavish just shook his head and clammed up. She wouldn’t get any secrets out of him.

“Very well. I understand that you cannot confide in me, but will you at least advise me how I can make it easier for him to do what he must?”

He gave her a long, grim look. “Leave now.”

“That is not an option,” she said firmly. “As it is, I only have a short time with him until Bilbao, and I will not give that up.”

He shrugged.

It must be very terrible, whatever it was that Nicholas had to do; she could tell by the look on McTavish’s face. “That is what weighs on his mind so heavily at times, isn’t it?” she asked quietly. “The thing that makes him quiet and withdrawn.” The only thing that seemed to draw him out of that mood was music. And sometimes, Faith. Sometimes, she was sure, she did help.

“Aye.”

“Is it so terrible to contemplate?”

“Aye.”

“But there must be something I can do to help.”

“There isna.”

Faith bit her lip. It wasn’t in her nature to give up. “McTavish, you see this period until we get to Bilbao as a waiting period, something to be got through until the real work starts, is that not so?”

“The real work?”

“This job. Whatever it is you and Nicholas have come to do.”

“Aye. Everything else is but a prelude.”

“Yes, but don’t you see, for me the prelude is everything. It is my chance to create something.”

His eyes dropped to her stomach. “A babe?”

She shook her head. “No, though if one came it would be…most welcome.” She sighed, “But it is Nicholas I’m talking about. I’ve promised him that when we reach Bilbao—and if he asks me to—I will leave him and return to England, and I will.” She gave him a look. “I don’t break my promises. But I’m thinking about after that, when he’s done whatever it is he has to do. If I can build something between us now, something good and strong and enduring, then whatever Bilbao brings—for I know from everyone’s refusal to speak of it that it must be something terrible—we will be able to go on afterward. Before Bilbao, we only have a short time, but after Bilbao…well, we will have the rest of our lives.”

There was a long silence. “Till death do ye part?”

She nodded, relieved that he finally understood the depth of her commitment to Nicholas. “Yes.”

He shrugged and said heavily. “So be it.”

“You will help me?”

“If ye want to build something with Cap’n Nick afore Bilbao, then go ahead. I’ll no’ stand in yer way.”

“And afterward, will you help me, too?”

He pursed his lips, then shook his head. “No, lass. After Bilbao, you’re on your own.”

Faith nodded, undaunted. “Just Nicholas and me, then.”

She sighed. One never could talk properly with men—she needed her sisters. She needed her twin. She went back to Nicholas’s bedside and got out her writing materials. She would unburden herself to Hope. Her twin would understand.