by C. J. Archer
"There's only four." Coleclough spoke as if it were nothing… and as if there were really only four. There must have been ten times that many.
Henry put a hand on Lucy's arm and shook his head. "When did you say you got these?" he asked Coleclough.
"About a month ago."
Lucy blinked at Henry. There was no way he'd gotten those scars a mere month ago.
Henry frowned and chewed his bottom lip. Lucy was about to tell her patient that he must have been mistaken, when Henry said, "How old are you, Mr. Coleclough?"
"Call me Nicholas, or Nick. My father is called Mr. Coleclough. I'm eighteen, sir."
CHAPTER 4
Eighteen! There was no way the muscular man with the hard, stubbly jaw was a youth of eighteen. Lucy judged him to be five and twenty at the youngest, but likely older.
"Why are you both looking at me like that?" Coleclough asked. His wide-eyed gaze flicked between Lucy and Henry, growing wider with each passing moment. "Is there something wrong?"
"Mr. Coleclough," Henry began. He did not go on but cast a pleading look at Lucy.
She sat on the edge of the bed and clasped the man's hand in her own to reassure him. His long fingers wrapped around hers. He looked vulnerable all of a sudden, and very worried. It was completely at odds with the masculinity.
"Mr. Coleclough," she said gently, "the blow to your head must have wiped away more than your recent memory. I think it has made you forget several years."
"Years?" His abrupt laughter fell flat when neither Lucy nor Henry joined in.
"There is nothing of the youth about you." She indicated his face, his chest. "I'd place your age in the late twenties."
"What year is it?"
"The year of our lord, fifteen hundred and ninety-nine."
He gaped at them. "It cannot be. You jest."
"I'm afraid not. What year were you born?"
"Seventy."
"Then you're nine-and-twenty."
His hand fluttered lightly over the hairs on his bruised chest. "That explains this." He flexed both upper arms, and the muscles bulged. "And these. My deeper voice too."
It was a calmer response than she expected, particularly for an eighteen year-old, which, in a strange way, he was.
"That's not all," Henry said. "There are a lot more than four scars on your back."
Coleclough leaned forward and reached around, but it must have hurt because he grunted and stopped trying. "How many?"
"Too many to count."
"Never mind that," Lucy said quickly. She gave Henry a glare, but her brother merely shrugged. Sometimes he could be so thickheaded. "I'm sure you'll get your memory back after a few days of rest, Mr. Coleclough. We'll be happy to accommodate you here while you recuperate."
"Call me Nick," he said. "And thank you for your offer, Mistress Cowdrey. Sir?"
Henry nodded. "If my sister thinks you'll be better off resting here, then I won't go against her wishes." He looked out the window where the sun hung low in the sky. "I have to go. Lucy, a word."
She followed Henry out to the landing and shut the door. "Most odd," she said. "At least he seems to be taking the news of his lost years rather well."
"Do you think it will take him long to regain his memory?"
"Henry, your faith in my skills is flattering, but I'm no physician. I really don't know what to expect. All we can do is patch him up and send him on his way back to Kent."
"Hmmm."
"Why the frown?"
"You're not to be alone with him."
"You've already said that. Don't worry. I'll have Matilda with me the entire time, although I don't think he's in any state to seduce me. Besides, he seems rather shy and sweet. I'd wager seducing older women isn't in his nature." She laughed. It seemed rather absurd to have a grown man with the mind of a youth in her guest bedchamber.
"It's no laughing matter. We know nothing about him."
"You think he could be a danger? Henry, you saw him in there. He's as well-mannered as any young gentleman." Yet mere hours beforehand, he had not been. The blow had not only wiped out his memory, it had changed his nature. She had to remember that it might reverse at any time.
He crossed his arms. "Of all people, you should know that good manners are no indication of a gentleman's worth."
Her face heated and she looked away. He had a very good point. The son of the neighboring gentleman had been her friend as a child and her betrothed later. But after a six-month sojourn with an aunt in Surrey, Edmund had returned home to announce that he'd found the daughter of the local nobleman more to his liking and promptly stated that he'd never promised to wed Lucy. Not in front of witnesses anyway. It was true that the discussion had occurred behind the big oak tree with no one within earshot, and only after she'd refused to give Edmund her maidenhead. A moment later, she'd found her skirts pushed up around her hips and herself betrothed.
Or so she'd thought. Upon his return from Surrey, not only had she found her intended betrothed to another, but her reputation in ruins.
"My apologies, Lucy, I didn't mean… I'm sorry." Henry sighed.
"It's all right. But Nick thinks he's eighteen. Do you remember what you were like at eighteen around gentlewomen a few years older than yourself?"
"Yes, and that's what worries me."
She rolled her eyes. "This conversation is pointless anyway, because I'll have Matilda with me the entire time."
"I hope that will be enough," he muttered.
"Henry!"
"Lucy," he said sternly, "you seem to be forgetting some important facts. The man is traveling alone, far from home. He was beaten half to death, but not by thieves. To me that means someone has a grievance against him. Until we know more about Nicholas Coleclough, we tread cautiously. Understand?"
"You are not telling me anything that hasn't already occurred to me." Her own reservations stemmed more from the man she'd met before the attack, not the boy sitting propped up in her guest bed. They were two completely different people. "I promise I'll be on my guard."
Henry wrinkled one side of his nose. "I'm being the irritating big brother again, aren't I?"
"A little."
"It's difficult. I'm trying to see you as a woman of one and twenty, but I really only know you as a girl. I feel like we're almost strangers."
Henry had been away in London for the last three years, returning only between terms. Usually he spent those brief holidays helping their father and brother on the farm, not talking to his little sister.
"I'll fetch Matilda," he said. "Wait out here until she arrives."
Lucy waited, but only until he was down the stairs and out of earshot. Then she opened the door to the guest bedchamber, but did not shut it behind her. She wasn't a complete fool.
Nick sat as still as a statue on the bed, hands in his lap, and a startled look on a very red face.
"Is everything all right?" she asked.
He nodded quickly. "Of course. Why wouldn't it be? You and your brother have been very kind to me, madam."
So why did he look so guilty? "If I am to call you Nick, you should call me Lucy."
"Lucy. It comes from the Latin for light."
"Yes, I know."
"You understand Latin?"
"My father insisted I learn with my brothers, although I must admit I found it a dull subject. I preferred to be out of doors than in the schoolroom."
"Me too. Father says that's why I'm always getting into trouble."
Trouble that necessitated all those marks on his back? Lucy shuddered.
Matilda came in, and Lucy indicated she should sit in the chair by the door. "What sort of things did you do to get into trouble, Nick?"
"I'm not sure I should reveal all my secrets." He smirked, but it quickly faded and he looked down at the hands in his lap. "I wonder what I did to deserve this?" he said quietly.
"Perhaps you did nothing." But she didn't think he believed it any more than she did. Not with the full pack sitting
on the floor beside the bed.
"Open it," he said, indicating the pack as if he'd read her mind. "Perhaps it'll provide a clue as to why I'm so far from home."
She picked up the pack and tipped the contents over the bed covers, near his legs. There was a wooden cup, trencher, clean shirt, provisions wrapped in linen, and—good lord!—another three knives of different sizes plus a club. Together with the two knives strapped to his ankle and arm, that made six weapons. "What do you need so many for?"
He said nothing but stared down at the objects.
"And what's this?" She picked up a long piece of polished wood with a strip of metal slotted into a narrow slit carved into the side.
"Careful." He caught her hand so fast she didn't have time to pull back. His hands were warm, his touch gentle as he cradled her for a moment before taking the object. "That's a knife too." He pulled the metal blade out of the slit to show her then slid it back.
"I've never seen a knife like that before."
Nick weighed it in his palm. "Neither have I."
"Yet you knew how it worked. That's a good sign. You're recalling things from your lost years already."
He lifted one shoulder but didn't look convinced.
Lucy followed his gaze to all the weapons arrayed across the bed covers and felt a chill creep down her spine. No simple traveler required so many.
Nick returned the knives and provisions to his pack. "What's this?" He held up a block of wood the size of a fist. Part of it had been carved away so that a pair of what appeared to be floppy ears protruded from the top at one end.
"The beginnings of an animal perhaps?"
He turned it over and ran his thumb over a smooth ear.
"Can you whittle?" she asked.
"No. At least, not that I know of."
"It appears to be a skill you acquired in recent years. I wonder what you were going to make."
He placed the block of wood back into his pack. She sighed. She had hoped he'd pick up one of the small knives and try to see if the skill returned to him, but he didn't seem interested.
"We should put some Solomon's Seal ointment on the rest of your bruises," she said. "Sit forward a little, so I may reach your back."
She picked up the jar of ointment and asked Matilda to fetch her a clean strip of linen from the trunk under the window, but Matilda's only response was a gentle snore, so Lucy fetched it herself.
"I won't rub hard," she said, perching on the edge of the bed. She dipped the cloth into the jar and gently dabbed the bruises on his back. He sucked air between his teeth and tensed, but after a moment he seemed to relax again. "Am I hurting you?"
"No." He tipped his head forward as she rubbed a particularly nasty bruise on his shoulder. "The cloth is a little rough, though."
She set the linen on the table and continued to rub the ointment over his back with her hands. "Better?"
"Mmmm."
She was careful and intended to be fast, but the sight of his damaged back with its old scars and new bruises made her feel sick, yet fascinated at the same time. She traced the longest and deepest scar from shoulder blade to the middle of his back.
Nick groaned, a deep, low sound that vibrated through him. His bandaged head hung forward, and he arched his back against her hand. She pressed her other hand to his skin, slick and warm from the ointment, and lightly stroked every inch of that broad back. She followed the line of other scars, circled some bruises, massaged his neck where the skin was unmarked. He groaned again, louder, and she shot a glance at Matilda. The maid still slept in the chair by the door, her chin on her chest, her breathing heavy and even.
Lucy concentrated on her task, tried to focus on the bruises alone, but she was fascinated by the beautiful yet damaged skin, and the strong, muscular back with its gruesome branding.
Tears pricked her eyes, and she quickly removed her hands. After all, she hardly knew this man. His injuries, past and present, should not disturb her the way they did. She was too soft for her own good. That's what her eldest brother Simon had told her after Edmund Mallam broke their betrothal. Perhaps he was right. Beatings happened all the time. There was no point letting it upset her.
Nick tilted his head and looked at her through heavy-lidded eyes. "Something wrong?" he asked thickly.
"I'll do the bruises on your chest now."
He sighed and straightened. She shuffled down the bed and dipped her fingers in the jar, but paused before rubbing it on. It was highly inappropriate to touch his chest. Perhaps she shouldn't do it, and he could tend the bruises himself.
But he made no move take over. Indeed, he smiled crookedly as if he sensed her unease—and enjoyed it. The man had a wicked, impish streak.
"Something wrong?" he asked. "Too much hair?"
She laughed. "No." She gently rubbed the ointment on his upper chest. The tiny, springy hairs glistened, and his skin warmed as she worked her way over the undulations of muscle and ribs, down toward his stomach where most of the bruising centered.
His breathing suddenly quickened the further down her hand went. She gently rubbed ointment into the purplish bruises, some of them so large they joined up with others. She followed the path of fine hair, tending to each bruise as she went. She forced herself to focus on his injuries and not the hardness of his body or the smoothness of his skin.
Or what lay beneath the covers, only inches from her fingers.
"Lucy." He whispered her name, barely audible over his heavy breathing. He closed his hand over hers, stilling it.
She glanced up at his face and was struck by the burning heat in his gaze, the tightness of his mouth. She knew that look. He was warring with himself. Desire versus propriety. A gentleman's war. It seemed propriety had won, but only just.
His hand slipped slowly off hers, freeing her again. Free to go under the covers, if she chose to.
"I should leave," she said.
"No!" He cleared his throat. "Stay. I… I enjoy your company. I don't want to be alone. Not yet." The desire disappeared, replaced by naked longing that was childlike by comparison.
She wiped her hands on the dry end of the cloth and placed it beside the jar on the table. She felt his gaze on her, drinking in her every move, and her skin tingled in response.
She should not like the attention, and certainly should know better than to welcome it.
"Of course." She hoped he didn't detect the slight quiver in her voice, the tremble of her hands as she clasped them in her lap. "Shall we talk? It might help you remember some details of your lost years."
"A good idea. What do you want to know?"
"Start with your family. You've already mentioned a father. What about other members?"
She sat on the chair beside the bed and blew out a breath. That had been close. She'd almost kissed him, almost lifted the bedcovers to see if he was big everywhere. Lucy covered her smile with her fingers, but he wasn't watching her anymore. He scratched his chin, his gaze unfocused, distant.
"I have a brother, Thomas. He's two years older and lets me know it. He used to wrestle me and throw me in the duck pond." He chuckled. "That's how I learned to swim. But last spring I grew bigger than him, and he took a turn in the pond. I'd wager I'm even bigger again now."
It sounded like the sort of rivalry Simon and Henry had growing up. "Let me guess. Thomas used his position as oldest brother to lord it over you, reminding you that he would inherit and would one day be head of the family."
"Spoken like a woman with brothers."
She laughed. "My brothers are best of friends, but fierce rivals too."
"Aye, it's the same with Thomas and me. It's just the two of us, and Father of course, except when he goes to court in London."
"Court?"
"He's a baron."
"Oh." A baron's son at Cowdrey Farm! Well, well. "Do you ever go with him?"
"Not me. He took Thomas last time."
"Why not you?"
"I… got into trouble. My punishment was to st
ay home with no one but the servants for company."
"What about neighbors or nearby villagers?"
"I was forbidden to leave the estate." He smirked and leaned forward. "That didn't stop me." He spoke low and glanced at the door as if he were watching for his father. "I snuck into the village and met some lads my own age."
Met? "Did you not know these lads beforehand?"
He shook his head. "Going to the village was banned unless Father accompanied us."
"Banned?"
"By Father."
She gaped at him. He seemed to not think that odd. "You do not mention your mother."
"She died when I was very young."
"I'm so sorry."
"Thank you."
"So it was just your father, Thomas, and you at Coleclough Hall?"
"And the servants. We had tutors too. Father hires only the best."
"Would you consider them your friends then?"
He lifted his shoulders. "My brother is my only true friend. We do everything together, although sometimes against his wishes. I think he only agrees to join in because he hates to be shown up as a coward by his younger brother." He laughed, but it died rapidly.
"What is it, Nick?"
He frowned and plucked the blanket over his lap. "It's nothing."
"Go on," she said gently. "Any information you can offer may help us piece together the puzzle of your lost years."
"It's not so much information as… a question." He lifted his gaze to hers. His brown eyes were huge. "Do you think they know where I am? Thomas and Father?"
Her heart ached. Nick must have felt so alone without his family. She did, and she still had Henry for company, plus she knew what had led her to Cowdrey Farm. Nick did not.
"I'm sure they do. It sounds like you cared for them, and I'd wager they care just as much for you. You must have written to them."
"With what? There are no writing materials in the pack."
"Perhaps you were traveling together when you wandered off and got lost. They could be looking for you now. I'll send someone to ask in the village tomorrow."
He shook his head slowly. "That may be true if I were indeed only eighteen. But I'm a grown man. What grown man travels with his father and brother?"
