Cates, Kimberly (6 page)

He blinked like bedamned in an effort to focus his eyes. The woman must have a nice sturdy rope someplace in this caravan. If he couldn't manage to hang her, he might be able to hang himself.

"Good morning, lay-abed!"

Redmayne stifled a groan as she careened into his line of vision like a drunken butterfly, her face wreathed in a blindingly radiant smile.

If he ever did hunt down the traitor, he knew exactly what kind of torture he'd inflict to get the man to confess his crimes—lock him in a room with Mistress Sunshine. An hour in her company and he'd be confessing to crimes he hadn't even committed.

"I'm so glad you're finally awake!" she said, energetically stirring something in a blue bowl. "It's so hard to be quiet on such a lovely morning, and entertaining company is so rare here, I hate to waste a moment of it. I've made you the loveliest breakfast. Exactly what you need to strengthen you up."

Perhaps there were
some
benefits to having fallen under her care. He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten. "I'm most obliged, madam."

She drew a stool near his bed, and before he could object, tucked a napkin under his chin as if he were five years old. For the first time in his life, Captain Lionel Redmayne couldn't think of a single thing to say. Then she plopped down on the stool, bowl cradled in her lap, and took up the spoon. The woman couldn't possibly intend to feed him thus!

"You'll find it quite delicious, I'm certain," she said, scooping up a spoonful of some gray-white speckled glop. Perhaps she was in league with the assassins after all and was attempting to poison him.

"What is... this?"

Guileless eyes met his. "Gruel."

Redmayne raised one eyebrow, staring at her as if her hair were afire.

"Miss... er, Fitzgerald, I've fallen beneath pistol fire eight times in battle, and
no one
has ever dared present me with such... slop."

Her smile faltered. "I made it myself, stirred in some lovely herbs that will help you to heal. You do want to get strong again as fast as you can, don't you?"

"Not if it entails eating that." Most women he knew would either be running for cover, wailing, or raging at him in high dudgeon. Rhiannon Fitzgerald merely sat there, gazing wistfully into the accursed blue bowl. He should have been relieved. He'd taken the bounce out of the woman—that was what he'd desired from the moment he heard her chirping away, wasn't it?

"I didn't mean to offend you," she said. "I tasted it myself, and it was tolerable enough, I hoped."

Redmayne felt a twinge of a most unfamiliar kind. It couldn't possibly be guilt. He didn't believe in it— a waste of time and energy. What was done was done. And yet, as he looked at those downcast eyes with their ridiculously long lashes, he recalled everything the woman had done for him since she'd discovered him bleeding. He stunned himself by growling, "Give it to me."

"Wh-what?"

"The bowl, Miss Fitzgerald."

She grasped the crockery against her middle as if she expected him to snatch it out of her hands. "Don't feel obligated to—"

Obligated? He was obligated to the woman for his very life. If it would please her to see him choke down the odious stuff, he'd humor her. Perhaps he could feed it to the cat when she left the cart. After the claw marks the beast had left, it deserved to be poisoned.

"Miss Fitzgerald, I'll eat it—by my own hand, if you please."

She handed the bowl over, looking so pleased it made the twinge he'd felt all the sharper. "Let me help you out of your shirt. I thought I would mend it."

He didn't like the idea of surrendering anything to the woman, but if it would keep her too busy to think up any more herbal concoctions to plague him with, it would be a small enough price to pay.

She reclaimed the gruel, placing it on a precariously narrow ledge as he tried to wrestle his way out of the garment. But the slashes in the linen and the throbbing wound in his shoulder made the task difficult. Of course, she
would
bustle over to help him.

She'd removed every stitch of clothing he wore while he was senseless, but this time he was aware of her deft feminine fingers brushing his skin, not even briskly, but rather with a kind of inborn tenderness he sensed was as much a part of the woman as the spattering of freckles on her nose. It was an alien thing to him, such gentleness in a touch. Dangerous. Like the juices of the opium poppy, it held the power to numb self-control, dulling a man's will, fettering his independence. It had the power to make even a strong man crave more.

He wanted her to take the garment and go somewhere, anywhere far away from him. But instead of tripping off about her business, she plopped back onto the stool and grabbed up a little basket brimful of sewing gewgaws.

She was threading a needle by the time he recovered from shock. "I thought I would keep you company," she explained. "There's nothing more dreadful than being sick and alone."

She was mistaken. There was something far worse, he thought grimly—the mere idea of letting anyone see him made weak and vulnerable by his wounds. Even animals had the sense to drag themselves off to holes or dens to lick their wounds in private. He schooled his face into bored lines, hiding any evidence of his acute unease. "I wouldn't dream of being such an inconvenience to you. Go about your business."

"How thoughtful of you. But distracting you from your discomfort is my business at present. I confess there's not a great deal to do, traveling about in my little house like this. I tidied up the camp while you were sleeping, and had my breakfast. I even poked about a little to make certain those wicked men who shot you were nowhere nearby." The tiniest of lines at the corner of her mouth betrayed the nervousness she was trying to hide—fear of the men who had hunted him down.

The thought of her running afoul of the assassins made Redmayne exceedingly irritated. "And what would you have done if you
had
found them?" He asked in accents frigid enough to create ice crystals in a pot of boiling water.

"Why, enchanted them with a fairy spell of course," she replied with a wicked twinkle in her eyes. "That is one of the advantages of being fairy-born."

Now he was to be afflicted with her sense of humor? "Miss Fitzgerald..." He was going to tell her not to be ridiculous. But didn't even acknowledging such a statement make him seem equally absurd?

"So you see," she went on cheerfully, "I have absolutely nothing to do at the moment but stitch and enjoy your company."

"I take my meals alone."

"Poor lad. Far too busy with your duties to seek out even such small comfort as conversation, I would wager. But there's nothing you can do here, either, so you can just rest."

Perhaps he could drag himself on his belly away from camp, Redmayne considered, even such an indignity looking ever more attractive. Hell might take the form of a talkative angel after all.

"So would you like to tell me about yourself?" she asked. "You must have had many grand adventures."

He'd sooner have been roasted over a bed of hot coals than give her any more glimpses of the man he was. Likely even Mistress Sunshine would be sobered by such enlightenment. If he couldn't dislodge her from his side, his only option was to distract her inquisitive mind. But how? He groped for a moment, then seized on a solution with some reluctance.

"I'd prefer to talk about you, madam." Far preferable to the truth:
I
wish you would leave me the devil in peace.
And most people would rattle on about themselves ad nauseam. "What could possess a lone woman like you to wander about in this fashion?"

"Oh, I wasn't alone at first. My papa was with me."

Redmayne spooned up some of the gruel, determined to eat it in record time. There was always the hope that once he was done with the vile stuff, she'd take herself off to scrub the dishes or some such. "Did your father have some sort of itinerant job that made it necessary? A tinker? A peddler?"

"Papa was a barrister."

Redmayne stilled, eyes narrowing. The woman had managed to get his attention. What the devil was a barrister doing wandering around in a painted cart? And yet there was so much about this woman and the contents of her wagon that was inconsistent with the life of a traveler. The cultured tones of her voice, the aura of a lady, instead of the half-wild look he'd seen in the eyes of every Gypsy he'd ever run across. Even the china bowl that he held could have presented itself at any fine dining table without shame.

"When I was a child, we lived in a delightful place, a small estate near Wicklow called Primrose Cottage." Her lips softened into a lost-angel smile. "Rose vines had grown over it for a hundred years, so that the walls were almost covered. And in the summer, when the sun warmed the blossoms, it was like living in a fairyland. There were gardens brimming with every kind of flower, paths weaving through woods so lovely it was easy to believe the lords and ladies of the fairy kingdom held their revels there."

"Why did you leave this paragon of a home?" Another spoonful of gruel—more vile than the last, yet not nearly as unpalatable as making conversation thus. Of course Rhiannon Fitzgerald would open her very heart for his inspection at the slightest prodding. But he couldn't help being a trifle amused at himself. Captain Lionel Redmayne coaxing childhood confidences out of someone. It was like a wolf tenderly inquiring after the health of a lamb. But it was obvious Miss Fitzgerald knew nothing of wolves—dressed in fur or in bright red uniforms.

"Papa was the most wonderful man—full of stories and dreams and love. He opened his arms to the world like a child, always expecting something beautiful to rush into his grasp. He worked very hard, but the cases he took on didn't often make a great deal of money. He had a great hunger for justice, and believed if only he could show people the truth, they would embrace it eagerly."

It was a miracle the man had survived as long as he had, Redmayne thought grimly. There was nothing people loathed more than being shown an uncomfortable truth. They welcomed it about as enthusiastically as they would have welcomed being plunged into a field of nettles. And instead of blaming their own blindness or heedlessness for the discomfort, they were all too eager to kill the messenger, as the Romans had been wont to do.

"Our finances were in some disarray. In an effort to recoup the funds after some costly cases, Papa made some investments with a man he had much faith in. Unfortunately, I'm afraid the man was not to be trusted."

"A great surprise, I'm certain," Redmayne muttered, lips twisting with irony.

"What little savings we had were already strained. We lost Primrose Cottage."

"And the legions of injured parties involved in these just causes your father worked so hard to defend—none of them came to your aid?" Nothing irritated him more than blind idealism, especially when confronted with the victims it could leave in its wake.

Bristling at his sarcasm, Rhiannon Fitzgerald straightened her spine and met his censuring gaze squarely. "Captain Redmayne, most of Papa's clients could barely afford to feed themselves, care for their own families. Several offered to give us a place to stay, but that would hardly have been fair, causing them hardship. Papa refused to accept their help. He said he'd been eager to see the wonders of Ireland since he was a little boy listening to tales of castle ruins and the Giant's Causeway, fairy forts and ancient stone beds where legendary lovers had lain. What better way to see them all than to travel about in a gypsy cart? We'd have a grand adventure, the two of us."

"And your mother? Was she equally eager to set out on this grand adventure?"

"I don't even remember her. It was always just Papa and me."

She'd been left at the mercy of that cloud-brained imbecile her whole life? And at the height of her father's foolery, the man had dragged his daughter out onto the open road? Fed her some ridiculous tale about how wonderful it would be. And then he'd left her alone out here in the midst of nowhere, where any calamity might befall her.

"Your father might have lowered his principles a trifle, taken on a few cases in which he could actually make money—just for a bit of variety," Redmayne observed.

He expected to ruffle her feathers again, see that spark of indignation in her eyes because he'd dared to question her saint of a father. But instead she only picked at a loose thread as if it held the secret to unraveling the universe.

"That was the strangest part." A crease formed between her delicate brows. "As long as I could remember, Papa had been turning away a great many clients. He gave himself to every pursuit wholeheartedly, wouldn't take any case unless he would be willing and able to sacrifice the last drop of his blood for the cause. But in the weeks before we lost Primrose, the people who had been clamoring for his help disappeared as well."

"Trust rats to know when a ship is sinking," Redmayne muttered, more to himself than to the woman.

Her eyes widened. "Odd you should say that. That's exactly how I felt. As if Primrose were a mouse's hole and some giant invisible cat lay in wait outside it, frightening away anyone who might come near. It was so sudden, so complete—the silence, the feeling of isolation."

Redmayne was astonished to feel a stirring of curiosity in spite of himself.

She looked down at the mending in her lap, her voice dropping low. "I wouldn't have minded leaving the cottage so much if I'd felt that the new owner would love it as I had. Care for my mama's roses, take joy in the gillyflowers carved into the mantelpieces. It was a house that had been cherished from the moment it was built. The walls, the very walls, whispered of love." For the first time a wistfulness touched the rare purity of her features, making them even more vulnerable than before. Redmayne's shoulders tightened, but not entirely with impatience. "I knew the house would be lonely after we were gone."

The girl had been packed into a gypsy cart, lost practically everything she owned, not to mention any chance at a decent future—for what kind of man would marry a penniless girl in a garish painted cart?—but as the wagon rattled off into an uncertain future, what had she been worried about? That the house her irresponsible ass of a father had lost would be
lonely.