The bed creaked when Tate shifted. Wren climbed quietly to a stand. She stepped across the floor, certain the rickety boards would alert her mother to her presence here, which was just as well, for she really didn’t want to be up here alone.
She felt his neck, and a brush of her hand against his shirt only sealed the damp fabric to his skin. Wren hurried back to the loft opening. “Mama,” she called down. “I need you.”
At the sound of stirring, Wren knew her mother wouldn’t be but a moment. Wren moved back to Tate’s bedside. Even in the dim moonlight, she could see that he still wore his boots. She unlaced the first and was starting on the second when her mother appeared.
After sliding a candle to the nightstand, Mama felt his skin. Next, she moved to the window and opened it. A cool breeze trickled in. “I’ll brew a tea for his fever. He needs it to fight that infection, but we oughtn’t let it rise any more. That damp shirt needs to come off. Better wake him.” She moved back down the ladder.
Wren patted his hand. “Tate, wake up.”
He didn’t stir.
“Tate. I need you to wake up.” She patted more firmly, then moved her hands to the sides of his face to try and wake him that way. He was burning up. And not stirring. Quickly she listened to his breathing. It came out ragged. Rushed. Before she could change her mind, she started on the top button of his shirt. And then the next.
Nothing to it. But it felt like a lie, especially as she moved to the one below it, the tips of her fingers grazing the smooth dip in the center of his chest. She was relieved that he was asleep. Then again, if he were awake, she wouldn’t be doing this. Her nervous hands stilled.
“Tate!” She called to him louder. “Wake up.”
He groaned and moved to roll over.
“No, no, no.” It took all her strength to hold him fast.
Suddenly he grasped her wrist. She bit back a yelp at both the jolt and fierceness of it.
Eyes clamped shut, he mumbled something about what had happened to the last man who’d tried to rob him. His grip burned on her arm.
By the size and strength of him, fear twisted her stomach, and knowing of nothing else to do, she spoke her name to him. His hand gentled. Air lodged in her throat; she waited, realizing that though his touch was tender, he wasn’t letting go. Eyes still closed, his voice was husky as he whispered words in a language she didn’t know. Gentle words. His thumb traced across her fingers. Sweat dripped down his temple. He finished with her name on his lips.
Her eyes smarted. “Shhh,” she said softly. “It’s going to be all right.” She dared not move until he laid back. Her hand cooled as his own fell away.
Chest rising and falling slowly, he seemed asleep.
Best just to hurry and get it over with. She worked her way down the buttons of the shirt, and when the last was freed, she knelt with a knee on the edge of the bed. Leaning over him, she slid her thumbs beneath the collar, pulling it away from his neck and down, baring his shoulders.
Her cheeks flushed.
Don’t think. Don’t think. Don’t think.
This wasn’t Tate. Not her Tate.
Oh, but it was.
Wren! Don’t think!
She slid the shirtsleeve past his bandage ever so carefully. Moving around the other side of the bed, she lifted his shoulder and tried to coerce the rest of the shirt from beneath his back. The damp fabric clung to his skin, lodged beneath his weight. He stirred, muttering something about blueberry pie and half a deck of cards before falling quiet.
Hovering over him like this, Wren didn’t realize how loud she was breathing until she clamped her mouth closed. Just another tug, perhaps.
“Wren Cromwell!” Her mother blurted.
Suddenly pulling too hard, Wren fell back against the end of the bed with an oof!—the shirt victoriously in her grasp.
“What on earth are you doing?”
“I did it!” Wren uttered in triumph.
Humor warmed her mother’s face as she carried another flickering candle over. “I can see that.”
“I’ll wash this tomorrow.” Wren set the shirt aside and moved to the washstand, where she rinsed and wrung a rag.
“Why don’t you head on to bed, then. I can sit with him.”
“No. I don’t mind.” Wren slid the cloth from his forehead to his neck.
“Wren.” Gray eyes looked at her knowingly. “You don’t have to. If it’s easier, I—”
“I don’t mind.” Wren said again. She held out the rag when her mother motioned for it.
“He’s restless.” Mama dabbed at his collarbone.
“Yes.”
Maybe Wren should enjoy his suffering. Some tiny twinge of satisfaction that he was uncomfortable. She watched him as her mother smoothed the cloth over his forehead before returning the rag to the bowl.
The sight did nothing to Wren but put a sting behind her ribs.
“Call me if you should need anything.” Mama squeezed her hand. A knowing look lit her eyes as she took the second candle. “He’s always been so safe with you.”
Wren smiled, determined to keep her heart from showing. Her mother moved down the ladder and was gone.
Wren looked at Tate, then around the room. She wasn’t tired, but Tate seemed restless. An idea tiptoed through her mind, so she moved to the corner beneath the opposite window where a narrow cushioned bench was built into the gable. Lifting the seat, she dug past an old plaid blanket, then a wooden sword where her hand lingered a moment. A twinge in her throat, and she swallowed against it. Wren searched deeper and finally found what she was looking for. She quietly closed the lid and returned to the bed, wishing for a chair even as she nestled on the edge of the mattress.
The footboard was her backrest, and pulling her feet in took up hardly any space on the bed at all. Braid slung over her shoulder, she shoved her robe sleeves away from her hands and opened the book, then let it rest against her knees.
She glanced at Tate before beginning.
“So…” She moistened her lips and peered down to the pages. “‘Turning their backs upon the stream, they plunged into the forest once more, through which they traced their steps…. Till they reached the spot where they dwelled in the depths of the woodland.’”
A broad hand resting just there, Tate’s chest slowly rose and fell. The dips and rises that caught both light and shadow from the lone candle bespoke years of wielding a saw. Bracing a rope, taut with load. Despite the fever, he looked almost peaceful, and she hoped it meant he was cooling a touch.
The curtains ruffled in the breeze, stirring her hair as Wren looked back to the book. “‘There they had built huts of bark and branches of trees, and made couches of sweet rushes spread over with skins of fallow deer—’”
He coughed a little, and she lowered the story. Reaching out, she leaned forward and touched his hand, felt his heat. She slid from the bed and used her finger as a placeholder to clutch the closed book against her chest. Snagging the cool rag, she pressed it to the side of his neck, then drew it up along his jaw. He turned his face into her hand, and her whole body stilled—save the pulsing of her heart. Which had her folding the rag with her thumb and fingers to lay it across his brow… and pull away. Wren returned to her perch at the edge of his bed. Her bare feet nestled warm against the blankets.
She opened his book again.
“‘Here stood a great oak tree with branches spreading broadly around, beneath which was a seat of green moss where Robin Hood was wont to sit at feast and at merrymaking with his stout men about him….’”
Chapter Six
The ship wasn’t rocking, no timbers creaking, which meant only one thing: no wind. And no wind meant being stuck in the heat for who knew how long. Reef sharks circling the hull off the coast of Tortuga. Shady palms teasing in the distance on Barbados. Norway but a memory at their backs.
Tate’s eyes opened.
He stared at the ceiling for several seconds. Judging by the light slanting across the beams
overhead, it had to be past noon. He wasn’t swaying, which meant this wasn’t a hammock. Sitting up, he regretted the jolt to both his arm and head. He groaned from the pain and sank back to the pillow.
He wasn’t on a ship. He was at the Cromwells’.
Wren. Tate opened his eyes again and searched through a mind as parched as sand until he pulled together the pieces of what had happened. Albeit slowly.
He looked around and, remembering his wound, forced himself to rise against the pillows and iron headboard. With a grunt from needing the use of that arm to slide himself up, he pulled his hand into his lap and studied the bandage that wrapped midway to his elbow. It was fresh, and he remembered how Wren and Mrs. Cromwell had changed it.
Needing his glasses, he found them on a little bedside table and struggled to slide them on with only a few fumbling fingers. A candle was there, burnt down to a stub. He didn’t recall having a candle, but then again, he didn’t recall much over the last few hours. A rustling sounded below. His gaze shot to the opening in the loft floor just as Wren’s dark hair appeared, then her glittering eyes.
She spotted him and stilled. “You’ve woken.”
A few responses came to mind, but his mouth was so dry, he didn’t speak. Just watched her draw herself up and come toward him, both bowl and basket in hand. She set each on the bed and touched his forehead. Tate tried not to stare but was pretty sure he failed. Through his years at sea, he’d heard countless tales of mermaids. Always of their beauty. Though never any more than myths to him, it had always been Wren’s face that rushed to his mind when the seamen’s tales whittled away the night hours below deck.
Still mute, Tate kept his gaze on her face. Too weary to even smile, he wished he had the words to tell her how grateful he was for all she and her mother had done. This bed. The bandage. The clothing. Even as he thought of her father’s shirt, he pressed a hand to his chest, only to find it bare.
He looked down slowly, lest his head whirl again. Wait. He wore no shirt. Simply a covering of mismatched quilts about his waist and—Lord help him, he braved a glance—his pants. He felt his shoulders sink a touch in relief.
That mouth of hers curved up. “Don’t worry. We didn’t compromise your innocence for the sake of a fever.”
“My innocence,” he whispered almost soundlessly. His amusement at her choice of words fell lost on the rasp of his voice.
She moved about and asked for his arm in the way she gently turned his wrist so the smooth side faced up. With tender fingers, she loosened the knotted bandage. He watched her work, words still failing him. Even a request for water seemed beyond him. But then she was offering him some.
A nod was all he could muster.
“I’ll be right back. This can wait a moment.”
She was gone in a breath and returned near as quick, her rustling skirts as blue as the pattern on the china cup she brought him.
He sipped the tepid water and was glad it was neither cold nor hot, for he feared his throat would tolerate neither.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice husky.
“You’re welcome.” She bowed her head to unravel the last pass of bandage around his forearm, and he noticed her hair—the rich brown of wet planks—was done just as the day before. Neither down and free, nor coiled tightly, it was simply pinned loose, draping in soft curves at the base of her neck. As if she’d done it with no thought or care. But that was never her way. All the more reason it surprised him. He studied the twists that looked likely to tumble free any moment, if but a pin were pulled free.
He brushed his thumb and forefinger together, minding his hand to stay where it lay.
Suddenly her eyes were on him. His first instinct was to look down. For her to not know all that passed through him with her so near. With her anywhere. It struck him hard that he loved her no more in this moment than he had at sea. He simply had let his feelings lie unkindled. Out of necessity and nothing more, and even at that he’d failed miserably. But now, with her beside him… for him to speak words instead of wishes.
Yet he couldn’t draw anything sensible to his tongue. He simply sat there, mute—and frankly, dumb—as she laid towels out beside the bowl. She poured a trickle of warm water, flushing his wound and the spent herbs. She worked as quiet as he was, and though he was a man who had always filled the space with talk, it didn’t seem to unnerve her. Her touch was feather-soft, and he had to remind himself that he wasn’t dreaming. Time and time again.
“You’re what?”
He looked to her face. “Sorry?”
“You said you were dreaming.”
“No.” He shook his head fiercely. Regretted it. “Ow.”
“No?”
In his mind, he tracked an excuse for his slip, but the best he came upon was “Uh…”
She smiled. “That’s not the first odd thing you’ve said.”
Oh, Lord, help him, what had he said? His eyes beseeched hers, and her smile only deepened. He took another sip of water, intent on finding his voice.
“Don’t worry. It wasn’t anything worth regretting.”
He cleared his throat. “I’ll be the judge of that, if you’d be so good as to tell me what it was I’d said.”
She was nearly laughing. How he’d forgotten the sight.
His chest aching, he pressed a hand there, only to be reminded that he was bare from the waist up. “My shirt?”
“Drying on the line with some of your other things.” She smiled sweetly—the sight of her mouth suddenly making him think of plum sauce, whether the taste or simply the craving for it, he didn’t know. He realized it was the latter—for he’d never kissed her.
He’d remember if he had.
And why he was likening her to food was surely due to his empty stomach. But truth be told, he wasn’t thinking of food. He rubbed his free hand back and forth through his hair, wishing his mind wasn’t scrambled so. He tried to remember what they’d been talking about. “What did I say?”
Voice still light, she relayed his midnight request for pie and how he’d said something about playing cards.
Tate felt his brow dig in and shook his head. “I suppose I didn’t eat enough supper.” Relieved, he reached for his cup again. “Is that all I said? You’d tell me if there was anything else?” Though what could he take back now? A smarter man would have kept his mouth closed.
She cleared her throat.
God in heaven, please help him if he said something foolish. Heat crawled up the back of his neck. “If I—”
“You were confused. I think you thought I was someone else.”
He racked his brain for whom that might have been, but there was no one else. How he hoped she knew that. His distress must have shown, for she was smiling again.
“I believe you thought me a robber.”
He let that sink in. Wondered what he might have said… or done. “Did I…?” He searched her face that was tilted down. “Did I hurt you?”
“No.” She said it too quickly as her eyes flicked to his, then away. “Though you seemed bent on it for a moment.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She dabbed the last of the warm herbs onto his cut. “I won in the end.”
Relief shoving away his tension, he looked around a moment, making a show of studying his person to make sure all was well. “Did you hurt me, then?”
She laughed. It was small, then in a motion that caught him by surprise, she gave the top of his ear a gentle tug as she used to do. “I didn’t use strength.” Humor fled her face, eyes round but trusting. “I’d not have won.”
It was a wonder he’d known to draw in air, for he surely couldn’t now. “And what…” He swallowed hard. “What did you use?”
She set about gathering up the mess, dropping the soiled bandage in the bowl, followed by a stray rag.
“You’re not gonna answer that, I take it.”
“Are you hungry?” She looked at him, her face smooth and innocent as if she hadn’t
just made a heat stretch across his back. “I’ll bring you up some breakfast. You just rest. You’ve had quite a time of it. And I’ll see about your shirt. It’s likely to be dry within the hour, but it’ll need mending. You’ve slept half the day away.”
“Have I?” He suddenly thought of burdening them. Overstaying this welcome. “Do you need this room? For another guest? If you do, just tell me, and I’ll—”
“The room’s yours so long as you need it.” She discreetly slid a straw hat down from a peg and held it beside the folds of her skirt. “We’ve the front bedroom should more company come.” A kind answer, though indifferent.
He forced himself to keep from trying to read into her matter-of-fact tone. It changed nothing, as he hadn’t a place to be other than here, at least not for a few days and, truth be told, a bit longer. His head spinning for more reasons than one, he watched her cross the loft and lower herself out of sight.
Chapter Seven
Bringing Tate meals would have been easier if he didn’t keep falling asleep. After setting yet another tray on his bedside table to cool the hour away, Wren nudged the quilt higher up his shoulder, wondering if he hadn’t slept in a month and marveling at how far he must have traveled. And in his condition. One more night his fever returned, and with her mother’s help, they tended to him. Which had Wren wanting him to rest as she tiptoed off to her next chore.
The task drew her out to the garden bench that was little more than a few rotting boards spread across its base. Wren settled several pots in the center and rolled up her shirtsleeves. She and her mother had forced nearly two-dozen daffodils near the end of winter just to have the cheery blooms all around the house. Now tired and spent, the bulbs were ready to be planted outdoors with the rest of their narcissus companions.
Tipping one of the pots over, Wren let the earth crumble free, and a trio of bulbs rolled into her palm. She set them aside and tossed the dirt into the garden. The pot she stacked off to the side, only to add several more within minutes.
The Heirloom Brides Collection Page 15
