She leaned forward in the bed, scrutinizing his face. The cut of his jaw—strong and square, not as soft as it once was. His cheekbones stone slices—a life lived hard, reflected in his features. Dark blond hair with strands that dipped into brown. But it was his blue eyes that she remembered well—so light, the color of a wispy blue sky in the brightest part of the day.
This wasn’t a ghost. This was a man. Not the boy she once knew, but the boy grown into a man. A man glaring at her. “But it is you.”
The wrinkles creasing his brow unfurled and he shook his head, taking three steps toward the bed. “I’m no one you know, Ness.”
“But you are. You’re Conner Burton.”
He stopped by the side of the bed, looking down at her with a harsh crinkle around his blue eyes that told her he thought she was fully mad. “I’m Talen Blackstone.”
Her head snapped back. “No. No.” She looked away from him to the window and then her gaze shot back to him. Had she gone mad? “You’re Talen Blackstone? You’re the one?”
He sighed, his brow re-wrinkling. “Must we go through this again? How many times are you going to ask me that question?”
Her gaze met his. “How many times have I asked you that?”
“Too many.”
“It is you?”
“Aye.”
“But it is not. You’re not Talen Blackstone. You’re Conner Burton.”
“I’m not.” His arms crossed over his torso as he scowled down at her. “I’ve never heard that name in my life.”
She’d seen this man—whoever he was—just like this before. His arms wrapped across his massive chest, his blue eyes hard, impenetrable as they took her in. Standing there just as he was now. Had that been a day ago? Two?
She was losing her ever-blasted mind.
Or the alternative. Her gaze dropped to the coverlet, cringing at her own question. “Am I dead?”
“No.”
Her neck craning, she looked up at him. He’d also looked at her like this years ago when she’d aggravated him. A much smaller version of him, of course, but the same. Conner. It was him.
Impossible.
“Conner, what are you playing at? It’s me—Ness—do I look so awful that you cannot see me through the bruises?”
His head angled to the side as his lips pursed. “Fine, I’ll humor you. Just how do you think I know you?”
“How could you not remember? You were eleven. I was ten. I hated you.”
“You hated me?” His mouth set into a hard line. “You’re seeing crooked if you think I’m this Conner boy. At eleven I was on a Royal Navy ship in the war, swabbing decks. I’m an orphan set to sea at an early age. Nothing more. I’m not what you think you see.”
“But how can that be? What about before that?” Her hand jabbed out to reach up and grab his forearm. “You’re Conner. You were the first boy that I fancied myself in love with. You—”
“No, you just said you hated me.” He jerked a step backward out of her reach. “Keep your story straight, Ness.”
“I did. I did say I hated you.” Her head bobbed up and down, her voice going manic. “But then I adored you. You were eleven and I was ten and we played in the fields in Cumberland every summer before that. I hated you because you tormented me and you were fast and I could never catch you until you slowed down for me. But then you slowed down for me. And I didn’t hate you anymore. And you were sweet. And I thought the sun revolved around you. I always thought we would grow up and I would marry you.”
His boot clomped onto the wooden floorboards as he stabbed another step backward, his head shaking with a snarl on his lip. “Shut your mouth. You don’t know me and you are mad. Pure crazy.”
Her mouth clamped shut, the sting of his words striking her to her core.
No. She couldn’t be. Not now. Not mad.
Hell. What if she was? What if one of the punches into her face had addled her brain?
She sucked in a breath, trying to stop her voice, but words still flew from her mouth with her exhale. “But, you…you don’t remember?”
His shoulders lifted, no recognition in his face. “No. I’m not this boy you think you see—Conner—I can tell you that.”
“But…but how could you not…” She tugged the coverlet off her lap and swung her legs out of the bed, her toes touching the floor. He had to be Conner. He had to be. She was sure of it. How could he not remember her? She wasn’t mad—she wasn’t.
She stood, her balance wobbly. “But how do you not remember?”
He didn’t move a muscle. “I don’t know you, woman.”
“You do.”
His face broke at her last insistence, fury rising so quickly in him it set his eyes ablaze, the whole of him morphing into a seething bull. “This is what Madame Juliet sent to me?” His hand whipped out from the hold against his body to wave in front of her face. “A madwoman? This black and blue face?”
He took a threatening step toward her, leaning over her small frame. “Let me give you a word of advice, Ness. It would behoove you to know me for who I am and to quit this silly nonsense that has scattered your brain, for I am out of patience.”
“Would it?” She glared up at him. What should have her scurrying back into the bed, didn’t. He was Conner. She was sure of it. Conner would never hurt her. Never.
“Aye. It would. The man you came to for help is the man you should be talking to. Talen Blackstone.” His upper lip lifted as he seethed in a breath. “Now, I came in for one thing, and I mean to get it.”
“Which is?”
“To get an answer out of you. Who did this to you?”
That. He’d asked her that before. Fuzzy snippets of that demand from his lips floated through her head. But she couldn’t chance it. Couldn’t tell him what had happened. Gilroy’s reach was too far, too evil. No one could know where she’d come from. Who had done this to her. Juliet had told her to keep that information to herself.
She shook her head. “I cannot tell you.”
“You can and you will.”
She didn’t think it possible, but he leaned farther over her, making her spine crack as she arched backward to not be swallowed by him.
“Or you can vacate my establishment.” His voice rumbled around her. “Vacate my area of London.”
Her right hand flew up, pushing on his chest. “No—no—you cannot kick me out.”
He grabbed her hand from his chest and flung it downward. “I can and I will.”
Her head shook, fear as stark as blood on snow freezing her bones. “No, I ask you. I beg of you—”
“I don’t care for beggars.”
Her mouth shut, her teeth cracking hard together. Her eyes closed to the danger in front of her as she mentally counted the coin in the boot Juliet had pushed onto her foot in Edinburgh before she’d shoved her onto that mail coach. How long could she live off of those coins? Was it enough to get on a ship? Leave this land?
That was the only way to surely escape her husband. To disappear. But what then? She was trained to be a lady, nothing more. Could she take in sewing? Become a governess? Did they have governesses in the Americas?
Her look darted past Talen, skittering about the room.
Nothing. Where was her dress? Her cape? She didn’t even have any damn clothes. For that matter, where were her boots—Juliet’s boot with the coins in the heel?
The crushing panicked weight from the lack of a path forward descended over her and her breathing sped, almost out of control.
Gasping. Gasping, for no air could make way into her lungs.
“Juliet…” She had to suck in a frantic breath before every choked word she uttered. “But Juliet said you would keep me safe. Help me.”
“Juliet oversteps.”
Stumbling two steps backward, she sank back down onto the bed. Her breath gone. None going into her lungs. None going out. The room spinning. Her right hand flew out, trying to catch her balance on the bed before she began to spin with the r
oom and fall to the floor.
Her eyes squinted closed as she gasped again and again, trying to force air into her lungs.
An audible sigh reached her ears and his boots clunked across the floor and then back to her.
His fingers wrapped around her right wrist, lifting her hand from the bed, and she opened her eyes to find him shoving a tumbler of reddish-brown liquid into her fingers.
He stood straight, pointing to the glass in her hand. “Drink it.”
Her hand quivering, she lifted the glass to her lips, then hesitated, doubting the liquid would go down her throat.
“Drink it.”
She tilted the glass and the liquid burned a quick hole down her throat, and with it, air followed into her lungs. Brandy. She took another sip and another breath made it into her lungs. Five exhales and inhales and the room stopped spinning.
It took several long moments before her shoulders drooped, her hand clutching the tumbler dropping to her lap. She opened her mouth, though she couldn’t lift her eyes to him. “You are right. I will leave. I will leave in the morning. I did not mean to burden. Juliet was positive you would help and I believed her. I should not have done so. It was silly, really. There is no reason for you to help me. May I ask for my clothes and my cloak? I know they were torn and a mess, but they are all I have. If you could be so kind as to have them delivered to the room or tell me where they are, I can collect them. And my boots. I will need my boots, please.”
“Stay.”
Her look whipped up to him. “What?”
“Stay. Juliet told you I would protect you. Then I will. It’s what she intended. But I’ll not hear another word of this past you think exists but doesn’t. You don’t know me. Understood?”
She nodded, smothering the instinct to argue with him. If she had to keep her mouth shut on the matter for a safe roof over her head, she would do it.
She didn’t have any other option.
She didn’t even have her wits about her yet.
He moved forward and plucked the near-empty tumbler from her hand, then moved to a chest of drawers at the wall beside the door, setting the glass next to the decanter that sat lonely along the top.
Starting toward the door, he paused and looked back to her. “Your boots are under the bed. I imagined you would want them close by.”
Her mouth went slightly agape. He knew exactly what was in the heel of one of those boots. Of course he did. The boots didn’t match. One was hers, the other, Juliet’s. He knew Juliet. Knew that Juliet never would have sent her to London without a coin to spare. Her voice came out in a grateful squeak. “I do. Thank you.”
He offered a curt nod and opened the door, but then halted one more time and glanced back at her. “I’ve seen this. Seen women look at me like you did just now.”
“Like what?”
His mouth pulled back on the right side—not a smile, more of obscure whimsy at a held secret playing at his lips. He shook his head. “Never mind.”
She wouldn’t let him escape so easily, her words barking out before he left the room. “Like what?”
He looked to the partially open window on the far wall as a heavy sigh lifted his chest. His ice blue eyes swung back to her, pinning her. “I’m not your hero, Ness.”
She met his stare, stifling the exhausted chuckle in her throat. “I agree.”
{ Chapter 5 }
Ness stared at the last page of the book—A System of Sheep-Grazing and Management—fingering the paper between her thumb and forefinger as her eyes read each word slowly, not wanting the book to end.
She’d read through the dreadful thing four times in the last three days. But it was late, the book and the light from the fire the only lifeline keeping her away from crawling into bed where the nightmares would start.
Sheep were infinitely more peaceful than the demons that visited her once her eyes closed. So given the choice, she would spend her time with the sheep.
Three days of sitting, locked, in this splendid room. Staring at the ceiling and the cherubs so long it seemed like they’d started to float about on their own. Staring out the window that looked directly out onto the brick building next to it. So close, if she stuck her arm out the window, she could touch the red pitted bricks. Truly, the window served the purpose of an excuse to hang long, light blue drapes in the room, much more so than to let air in and out.
Thus, the sheep book had been her only entertainment.
The only person in and out of the room had been Verity, the silent maid that came and went from the room, never saying anything and only nodding or shaking her head to Ness’s questions. She’d helped Ness with her clothes and her hair, as Ness could manage very little with her left fingers barely jutting out from the top edge of the bandages.
Verity must have recognized Ness’s restlessness and had brought the book in with dinner days ago. Though Ness couldn’t complain. She would take anything at this point to keep her mind occupied and not drifting back to the horror of a week and a half ago.
Drifting back to what she had been willing to do to end it.
The key in the lock of the door behind her clicked and the door opened. It was late for Verity to be entering the room.
Talen stepped into the room, not asking permission, not hesitating at the door to see if she was properly dressed. She was accustomed to that. Her space, her body were not her own.
He strode across the room and stopped in front of her chair by the fireplace, his eyes raking her over from head to toe.
She hadn’t seen him in days, so his sudden interest, this late in the eve, was disconcerting. She’d rather thought he’d completely forgotten about her. Which wasn’t a bad thing, except for the fact that she’d been locked in the room.
Whatever he discovered in his assessment of her person, she couldn’t read in his face.
He leaned forward and picked up the book from her lap. “A System of Sheep-Grazing and Management.” The edges of his lips quirked upward. “Engrossing reading?”
“Verity brought it in. It is the only thing available to read.” She eyed the volume in Talen’s hand. “I don’t know why she thought I would be interested in sheep management.”
“She cannot read.” He flipped the book over in his hand, the rough rasp prevalent in his low voice strong tonight. “It has a pretty cover. Embossed trees and sheep and hills and some birds. I’m sure it seemed a fine choice to her.”
Of course. Verity had been kind in bringing her the book and she’d been sour on it. Shameful. Her look lifted to his face. “Verity, can she speak? She hasn’t said a word to me, she just motions.”
“She’s mute.”
“It is kind of you to employ her.”
He shrugged. “It also ensures she will not tell tales of what happens here in the rooms of the Alabaster House.”
What seemed like kindness now reeked of a calculated choice. Every time she thought she saw the slightest glimmer of compassion in Talen, he quickly dissuaded her from the notion.
“That is what this place is called? The Alabaster House?” She’d never been sure if that was a nickname because of the building or the real name of the establishment.
“Aye.” He set the book onto the gilded side table by the chair.
She nodded, more to herself than to him. “What are you doing in here?”
“I came to check on the progress of your healing.”
“You didn’t expect me to be sleeping?”
“I can look you over asleep or awake.”
“You’ve been in here while I was asleep?”
“Aye.”
A shiver skittered down her spine. Heaven to hell, why had Juliet sent her to this man? Had she just traded one overbearing ogre for another? “So, what is your assessment?”
“The bruises are fading and the swelling has mostly subsided about your face. You heal fast.” He took a step to the side, turning away from her to assess the room. “Why is it that you aren’t already asleep?”
; “My mind is restless and I cannot sleep.”
He looked over his shoulder at her. “Do the sounds from below keep you awake?”
“No. Fear. The past. Those things keep me awake.” Her gaze landed on his light blue eyes and her breath caught in her throat. It was hard to look at him and not obsess upon the fact that he was Conner.
She was sure of it. Sure of it still. More sure than she’d been days ago when her mind had still been hazy and she could only see out of one eye.
Not that she dared to bring up the topic again. She wasn’t yet ready to get kicked out of this place and be on her own. She had to make plans first. Plans as to what she would do next.
Talen turned fully toward her. “You don’t think you’re safe here?”
It took her a long second to realize the offense on his face. She shook her head. “No, you mistake me. It is not a fear of this place. I do feel safe here. And the food has been most tasty and this room is grand, so I have nothing to complain upon.”
His lips quirked to the side. “But you have a complaint?”
She stood, her hand flattening across her stomach. “I haven’t been out of this room in days. I am starting to imagine I’m going mad, trapped in a room like this with nothing but my thoughts and the cherubs above and the System of Sheep-Grazing and Management.”
The slightest chuckle passed his lips. “It can be stimulating reading. Do you agree with the Romney Marsh system or the traditional method?”
“The Romney Marsh system by far. It seems to spare the trauma of the ewes, especially if there is a lost lamb but a suitable replacement when twins are born by another ewe. With some centered attention on lambing, one gets happy ewes. Happy ewes make happy lambs.”
A smile actually took root across his face and he took a step closer to her. His right hand lifted, his fingertips going onto the bandages that wrapped her left arm in place along the splint. “Are you going to tell me who broke you like this?”
Her mouth pulled into a tight line. Of course. This again. He wasn’t just there to check on her healing, he was there to demand answers from her. She shook her head.
Dangerous Exile (An Exile Novel Book 3) Page 3
