Sleeping with the Enemy: Lords of Lancashire, Book 4

by Barbosa, Jackie

  Then again, perhaps after almost ten years alone, she had earned the right to be the slightest bit shallow, the tiniest bit shameless. Not that she had never had any opportunities in those years, mind, but none that she’d felt any inclination to take advantage of. Raising her son and managing the farm had been demanding enough without adding a man—a husband—to the mix. She had loved Samuel, and any man who stirred her less than he had was hardly worth the effort.

  Geoffrey Langston stirred her, though, and in ways she couldn’t fully understand or name. But she didn’t believe it was merely because she found him physically attractive. When he had grabbed her ankle in the forest and begged her to help him, he’d been asking for more than medical attention. He’d been asking for someone to care about him. And over the course of the past few days, she had come to do just that.

  He’d been abandoned, left for dead. She had seen the moment when that had become apparent to him, as well as how much it had baffled and unnerved him. If she did as she should and turned him over to the militia, it would be another abandonment. Another unmooring. She couldn’t do that to him…not yet, at any rate. Enemy or not, he was a human being and, at least for the time being, a vulnerable one. Until he was capable of caring for himself, she felt responsible for his well-being. And unless he did something to prove himself a danger to her or her loved ones, she would not force the issue.

  The only question, then, was how she could get away with sheltering an enemy soldier under her roof for an indefinite period of time with running afoul of the local militia, her minister, her neighbors, and her hired hands.

  Not to mention her son, who was not going to be happy with her. At all.

  * * *

  Langston’s health improved steadily over the next two days, although he spent most of the time sleeping. Today, however, he was significantly more alert and also capable of feeding himself the soups and stews she had been providing him in increasing quantities.

  He sat up in the bed with several pillows propped behind his back, wearing one of Daniel’s white linen nightshirts. It was one thing to have a strange man lying mostly naked in bed in a widow’s home when he was unconscious; it was quite another when he was fully awake. Laura might be on the road to perdition, but she still had some standards of decorum to maintain, even if she did notice the bronzed expanse of his chest where it peeked out from the collar of the nightshirt rather more than she ought to.

  He handed her the bowl, nearly but not quite empty, and let out a contented sigh. “That was delicious. Thank you, Mrs. Farnsworth.”

  She tried not to allow her pleasure at the compliment or her delight in his clipped British vowels to be too obvious. “There’s plenty more when you’re ready. I imagine you’ll be hungry again soon.”

  Nodding, he adjusted the blanket over his hips and gave her a wry smile. “I am still hungry now, but my stomach informs me there’s no more room in the inn.”

  “That is to be expected, under the circumstances.”

  He grimaced. “I wish I knew what the circumstances were.” Reaching up behind him, he gingerly touched his fingers to the back of his head. “I have no recollection of how this happened or how I came to be where you found me. My last memories are from more than a day before the battle began, so I cannot even be sure I was injured in combat. In fact, I think it unlikely, since it’s not particularly desirable to turn your back on an enemy soldier during a fight. I’ve managed to stay alive this long in part because I avoid doing so.”

  “How long have you been in the British army?” Laura asked, her curiosity winning out over maintaining any appearance of polite detachment.

  “A little more than twenty-five years.”

  Twenty-five years? That was practically a lifetime. Before now, she would have put his age within a year or two of her own thirty-eight, but if he’d been in the military for that long, he must be closer to his mid-forties. Unless he had been younger than Daniel when he’d joined.

  And for most of those twenty-five years, Great Britain had been in a nearly constant state of war with one country or another. What sort of man chose a life of incessant battle and danger? Not a gentle or peaceful one, she thought, although nothing in his behavior since he’d awakened had suggested he was prone to either cruelty or violence. On the contrary, he had been the soul of gratitude and gentlemanliness. Perhaps that was why she was having such a hard time thinking of him as her enemy. As a potential threat.

  “You must enjoy it.”

  “Enjoy what?”

  She twisted the bowl between her hands and shrugged. “Being in the military.”

  “Fighting,” he said, his tone light and not, as far as she could tell, the least offended. “You mean I must like fighting.”

  Her face flushed with heat. “I suppose so, yes.”

  He shook his head, then winced. “I don’t enjoy fighting. Not really. What I enjoy is getting my men and myself out of fights alive. I like using my wits to come up with a strategy both to win a battle and to avoid as much bloodshed as possible. And I’ll admit, there’s no time when a man is more alive, more engaged, more truly in the moment, than when he’s trying to keep his head from being blown off. It’s not precisely fun, but it’s not dull, either. But mostly, I’ve been in the army for this long because I’m reasonably good at it, and I have no idea what else I would do with myself.”

  “You could pick apples,” she said impetuously.

  He raised his eyebrows. “Pick apples?”

  What on earth was she thinking? She had been trying to remind herself that, despite his good manners and better looks, he was someone who killed for a living, but here she was offering him a job. Now that she’d spoken the thought aloud, however, she couldn’t very well take it back. "Our main cash crop is apples. Well, apples and the cider we produce from them. And we need to start harvesting in about two weeks. I normally hire a few men from town for the picking season, which lasts about a month, but this year, I’m not sure I’ll be able to find anyone. Although some people have come back to town now that the British army has retreated, I imagine a lot of the men who take temporary jobs have found work somewhere else and may not ever return. So, I really am in need of help, and…” She gave a little shrug. “And here you are, in need of something to do.”

  A wistful smile crossed his features. “There is nothing I would like better than to help you with your apple-picking, Mrs. Farnsworth, but we both know you need to turn me over to the U.S. forces at Fort Moreau. Our countries are at war, and you cannot continue to harbor me beneath your roof.”

  Laura set her jaw. If there was one thing she hated, it was being told what she could and could not do. “If you want to go to the fort,” she told him, “then I will not prevent you. But we both know it could be months or even years before the war officially ends, and you’ll be a prisoner until then.”

  “And why should that trouble you?” he asked, his brow furrowed with genuine puzzlement. “I cannot understand why you are so determined to help an enemy. You have already done far more than anyone would have asked or expected.”

  But it wasn’t about what anyone had asked or expected, was it? It was about her own wants and needs. She had wanted—even needed—to save him from death, enemy or not.

  And that was the real trouble, wasn’t it? Their countries were enemies, certainly, and he was a soldier. He would be a threat to any American soldier he met in battle, but did that necessarily mean he was a threat to any American he met under any circumstances? Did being a soldier require one to feel hatred toward and wish injury upon any citizen of a country with which one happened to be at war?

  Because the reverse was certainly not the case. Laura hated the war and the damage it had wreaked upon the lives and livelihoods of her countrymen, but that did not mean she hated anyone who happened to be British. Or even every British person who happened to be a combatant in the war. She could separate individuals from their nationality and their characters from their careers. Were soldiers
somehow constitutionally incapable of doing the same?

  “Are you my enemy?” she asked sharply.

  Langston frowned at her. “I am British. I am a soldier. Our countries are at war. So I would say yes, I am your enemy.”

  “No. I mean do you wish to do me or my family harm? If you were well enough, would you get up and slaughter us all in our beds because we are Americans and thus your enemies?”

  His eyes widened and he shuddered, looking genuinely appalled. “God, no! Aside from anything else, what possible military objective could I achieve by committing such an atrocity?”

  She arched her eyebrows. “So you are not personally my enemy.”

  “I suppose not.” Then he grimaced and added, “But you probably should not trust me on that score. I have served with any number of men who felt quite sanguine about committing violence against enemy civilians when the opportunity arose. I could be lying to you.”

  “You could,” she admitted, “but I do not believe you are.”

  “I can’t imagine why.”

  Laura couldn’t repress a chuckle. “Because if you are trying to convince me to let you stay on so you can commit dastardly crimes, you are going about it all the wrong way. You should not be urging me to deliver you to the army or warning me not to trust you.”

  “Perhaps I am doing that to lull you into a false sense of security.”

  Smiling wryly, she shook her head. “That requires me to imagine that you anticipated every turn of this conversation in advance. You would’ have had to know I would ask you to stay and help with the harvest, and since I did not even know myself that I was going to suggest that until I did, that seems highly unlikely.

  “But more than that, as a woman who’ has been on her own for a decade, there has never been time when I have not been called upon to make judgments about the character of strangers. I cannot run this farm without the assistance of able-bodied men. Now that Daniel is nearly grown, I have more protection than I once did in the event I make an error, but I have not done so yet. If you are my first mistake, then I will have made it with my eyes open.”

  Langston released a long, slow sigh. “Very well. Let us assume you are correct and that I don’t mean to harm you. What happens when your neighbors find out who I am? What happens when the local militia shows up on your doorstep to take me into custody? I cannot imagine that would go well for you. We both know what you need to do to keep yourself and your family safe.”

  Annoyance flared in her chest. He was trying to do the honorable thing, but it was one thing for him to do so in his own behalf and another entirely for him to do it on her account. She was perfectly capable of handling whatever censure might come her way. In fact, she had become accustomed to censure over the years, since a fair percentage of the people of Plattsburgh seemed to feel that a respectable woman oughtn’t attempt to make a living without the benefit of a husband, especially not when doing so required her to hire and house a man who was not her husband—and a Negro to boot—to assist her. She noticed, however, their displeasure did not extend to abstaining from the beverage that had pulled her out of what would otherwise have been grinding poverty.

  When—or if—the truth came out, she would handle it the way she handled everything: by going on about her own business and expecting others to do the same. For the most part, this was a simple and brilliant strategy that had served her well.

  Not to mention that neither Joseph nor Abigail would risk losing a guaranteed extra hand on the farm during picking season. Daniel would be harder to convince, but he was also her son. She could manage him.

  She just had to manage the lieutenant colonel himself. Somehow, someway, she had to get him to stay. And not simply because she needed help with the apple harvest, though that would certainly be a blessing, but because she had just conceived a very nasty suspicion about how he’d come to be injured and, if she was right, he might be in very grave danger.

  “I appreciate your concern for my well-being,” she said at last, “but I assure you, it’s quite unnecessary. The worst thing that can happen to me is some people may disapprove of my actions. But I’ve lived here all my life, and that’s nothing I haven’t experienced before.” Especially since Samuel’s death. How many times had she been forced to defend making the very same decisions that, had she been a man, would not have caused so much as a raised eyebrow? But that was her burden to bear, not Lieutenant Colonel Langston’s. His was potentially lethal. So she continued, “What troubles me more than the possibility of a bit of criticism from my neighbors is that you don’t know when you were injured or by whom. Given that, I’m not at all sure it is wise to deliver you into the hands of the very people who might have been responsible in the first place.”

  “But that is how most soldiers become prisoners of war,” he pointed out. “They are injured in battle and taken to the opposing army’s field hospital for treatment. If I was concussed during the fight, then they have no more reason to kill me now than they had on the day of the battle. In fact, they will have good reason to treat me well, so they can exchange me for American soldiers who’ve been captured by the British.”

  Laura shook her head in frustration. “I don’t think you understand what I am trying to say. It is not that I think you were injured by American forces during the battle and they will therefore do you harm. It is that I think you might have been attacked by someone on your own side, and if that person finds out you are still alive, he may have reason to try again when you are returned to your own people.”

  His beautiful, autumn-colored eyes widened with incredulity, but Laura could see him chewing the idea, considering its merits. When he grimaced, she knew he had come to the same conclusion she had.

  Her heart squeezed painfully. Bad enough to wake up and realize that the men whose lives he’d tried to protect, the men he’d trusted to have his back, might not even have bothered to try to determine whether he was alive or dead before packing up and leaving. Worse still to imagine that one of them might have turned on him and tried to kill him.

  Yet the theory made sense. Had he fallen on the battlefield, it seemed farfetched that he could have gotten up and staggered miles from the scene without being intercepted by someone. After the British had retreated, the Americans would have gathered the bodies of the dead from both sides. If they’d found anyone alive, he would have been taken to the field hospital for treatment. The only thing more unlikely than escaping after the battle was over would be getting up in the middle of the fight and wandering away in a daze without having his head blown off.

  “That is a possibility I had not considered,” he admitted, his voice gravelly with suppressed emotion. “But you may be right. It could explain why my last memories are from well before the battle began. I just cannot think who would have done such a thing or why.” He scrubbed his hand over his face, looking for the first time as jaded and careworn as she would expect of a man who’d spent a lifetime as a soldier. It didn’t make him any less devastatingly handsome, though. She wished it had. And was perversely glad it had not.

  “So, you will stay here?”

  “For the time being.” Nothing in his expression suggested he was happy about the prospect. “It’s the wisest course of action until I can remember what happened and determine the best way to proceed.”

  Foolishly, she hoped he never did.

  Chapter Four

  Geoffrey swung his legs to the floor and rose gingerly to his feet. He managed to maintain a standing position for a whole ten seconds before head began to swim and his knees began to wobble.

  Bloody hell. Three days had passed since he’d woken, and he was still weak as a kitten. The inactivity was going to drive him mad.

  Collapsing back to a sitting position on the edge of the bed, he scratched at his face, which was covered with a scraggly, itchy layer of facial hair he was desperate to get rid of. But if he couldn’t stay on his feet for more than a few seconds at a time, he would certainly be unable to stand in
front of a mirror long enough to shave off more than a week’s worth of beard.

  He swore under his breath. It was bad enough that he was an invalid and almost totally reliant on the assistance of virtual strangers to keep body and soul together. Worse was that, despite five days of doing little but sleeping, eating, and thinking, he still could not remember how he had come to be here. And he needed to remember. Because the longer he stayed, the more loath he would be to leave.

  To leave her.

  As if she’d heard him thinking about her, Mrs. Farnsworth appeared in the doorway. More likely, he hadn’t sworn as quietly as he’d meant to.

  She peered in at him, bringing sunshine and warmth with her. He wondered how a woman with such dark hair could exude so much light. "Do you need something?” she asked, eyebrows raised. She had taken away his breakfast—a hearty serving of porridge with a dollop of maple syrup and cream that he had managed to consume in its entirety—a short time ago. Usually, he fell back asleep for an hour or more after any meal, so her concern at finding him awake was understandable.

  He grimaced and rubbed his chin. “I was hoping I would be able to shave this morning,” he admitted. “But I’m still too weak.”

  “It’s bothering you?”

  “Itches. And feels a little greasy.”

  She nodded, gliding further into the room. Today, she wore a gown of dark gray topped with a slate-blue apron. Between her hands she held a cloth, with which she dried her hands. He must have interrupted her in the midst of some household chore. "That sounds quite unpleasant. I can shave it for you if you like.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to do that.”

  Her smile was so radiant, he had to fight not to close his eyes for fear of being blinded. It wouldn’t have helped, anyway. The image would still be there, burning him just as badly.

  Geoffrey couldn’t explain what it was about her that affected him so strongly. His response to her was entirely uncharacteristic. Not that he didn’t like women. He did. Very much. But given the facts of his life—and the very real possibility of his premature death—he knew love and marriage were not for him. He took care of his physical needs with willing partners who were likewise uninterested in forming lasting entanglements, and doing so had never been a particular hardship. Like killing when the situation demanded it, detachment had come so easily to him that he had genuinely believed himself to be incapable of anything deeper than mild fondness and lust.