Patricia Rice (9 page)

A ghostly white figure fly down from the ceiling,
and for a moment, Morgan almost believed in angels again. Then he
staggered against the cupboard, felt the pain rip through his thigh, and
reality returned.

“Morgan!” The feminine cry pained his soul as he lurched unsteadily for the chair.

What could he say? Feeling a fool, he lowered
himself to the chair and closed his eyes. He didn’t know why in hell he
had insisted on riding all the way back here. There was a brothel in
London where the whores would have nursed him in the most pleasant of
ways. He could be there now with all that voluptuous beauty hovering
over his fevered head and cooing in his ear.

Instead, he had a hysterical child in patched cotton
chemise wringing her hands and gazing at him with damned wide gray eyes
and tears.

“Heat some water and tear up that cloth I brought home the other night. Then go back to bed. I can look after myself.”

Ever obedient, Faith stoked the embers and added
kindling beneath the pot of water in the fireplace. Silently she climbed
back up to the loft and returned carrying a scrap of cloth from her
small store of possessions.

Knife in hand, Morgan attempted to saw through the
thick buckskin of his breeches. The crude bandage he had tied about his
thigh earlier lay in a filthy ruin upon the floor, and the blood was
beginning to flow again. He cursed as his head spun and his hand
slipped. He should have kept a closer eye to that guard. He was getting
careless.

Soft fingers curled about his, and he gladly
surrendered his weapon. She smelled of the fragrant soap he had brought
home to please her. He leaned back his head and closed his eyes as the
pain throbbed through his leg. He was aware of her gentle hands holding
his thigh while the cold knife blade cut along his breeches, but he was
beyond absorbing anything other than that he was home.

It was an odd feeling, this warm sensation of
belonging somewhere. He was home, and in the morning everything would be
all right.

Faith’s fingers trembled as she cut through the last
of the breeches leg. She could see the long, bloody gash across the
outside of his thigh, but she was not at all certain whether the gash or
the tree-strong limb made her more nervous. She had never, ever touched
a man’s leg before. The hair-roughened skin covered rippling lengths of
muscle that dwarfed her own meager limbs. Desperately she applied warm
compresses to the wound and tried not to think of what lay concealed at
the top of his bare thigh beneath the remains of his breeches.

“Just wrap it up, lass. ’Twill be fine in a day or two.” Morgan’s voice was weary, and he spoke as if from a distance.

Faith looked dubiously at the gaping wound, but the
bleeding was not such that it required more drastic measures. At least,
she didn’t think it would. Remembering her mother’s strictures on
cleanliness and the treatment of wounds, Faith reached for the bottle on
the table. She had a better use for the alcohol than rotting his
stomach.

Morgan roared at the unexpected rush of stinging
liquor across his leg. His eyes flew open, and he glared at Faith with
ire at this betrayal, but she ignored the daggers he looked and
proceeded to tear her thin shift into long lengths.

Morgan grabbed a strip of the threadbare linen,
discovered the suspicious remains of a bit of lace and a button, and
growled ominously.

“What is this? Can you not follow the simplest of
orders? Bring me the bolt of cloth, and I’ll do it myself. I’ll not go
about with lace dangling from my leg.”

Faith jerked the scrap from his hand and pushed his
palm hard against the padding she had folded over the gash. “Hold this
still. I cannot work when you wiggle about.” She removed the offending
bit of lace and the one button and carefully set them aside for other
use. “Unless you intend to go about as God made you, no one will know
what you have on. There is no sense in wasting perfectly good cloth.”

“It is my perfectly good cloth and I’ll waste it as I wish,” he  snarled. “If you had other plans for it, I’ll buy you more later. I’ll not have you tearing up your garments for my sake.”

“Did you think I could sit here for a fortnight and
do nothing but comb my hair? Your cloth is already made up into a
serviceable garment. I saw no reason to render it into rags. I apologize
if you are offended, but you did not say you meant to set up a
hospital.”

Odd, he had never heard that tone of defiance in her
voice before. It quavered slightly, as if from disuse or as if she were
waiting for the blow to follow, but he could not raise his hand even if
he wished to.

He could not begrudge her a new shift or two if that
was what she wanted of the cloth. The one she had on was a child’s
loose bodice buttoned to the neck, without the frills and furbelows he
was accustomed to seeing when he undressed his women. It didn’t suit
her.

That wasn’t a particularly coherent thought, and he
shook his head groggily. The slim figure in white rose to carry away the
bloody water and bandages. Her waist-length braid glistened in the
firelight, and he caught a glimpse of a well-rounded calf and dainty
ankle, and he groaned at his fevered imagination.

He refused to open his eyes again when she returned.
He would not let his fever turn a scarecrow child into a full-grown
woman to suit his lust.

“You need to be in bed.” Her voice was almost
seductive to his fevered mind, and Morgan growled. To his surprise, the
sound emerged as a groan.

Rejecting her offer of help, he pushed against the
table and staggered to his feet. He needed to rid himself of his
sweat-drenched clothes, but he could not offend the child’s modesty. He
attempted to remove his coat and felt himself falling before small but
strong hands caught and steadied him.

With much tugging and pulling, both coat and
waistcoat fell to the floor. Morgan lurched for the bed and caught
himself on a slender shoulder conveniently placed by his side. Her bones
were more frail than a bird’s, but she held his weight as far as the
bed.

She managed to remove his boots without his help.
The ride had been eternally long, and he knew he’d lost a lot of blood. A
little rest would bring him around. Gratefully he swung his legs into
the bed and allowed the covers to be pulled up around him. A little
rest, and he would be fine.

Faith brought her blankets down from the loft and
curled up by the fire, where she could be close should Morgan call for
her. She doubted that it would ever occur to him to ask for help, but
she wanted to be there if he did.

He was so perversely self-sufficient that he could
have bandaged his own leg, got himself to bed, and undressed. She didn’t
fool herself into thinking he would be grateful that she was there.
Morgan had made it plain that he didn’t need anybody.

But he wouldn’t throw her out as long as she could cook. Holding that thought, she slipped into slumber.

The next morning, apparently groggy with fever and
pain, Morgan tried to stumble outside. Faith caught him, pushed him back
into bed, and handed him the cracked china chamber pot from under the
bed. She then absented herself to feed the horses.

When she came back in, he was asleep. She emptied
the pot and started a light broth cooking from the last of the dried
meat. When he woke, he refused to eat it, demanding something more
substantial. She gave him bread and poured the broth into a mug and he
drank it as if it were coffee, too fevered to know the difference.

The next day was a repeat of the first, only
Morgan’s fever had subsided slightly, and he was a little stronger.
Faith had a harder time keeping him in bed and forcing nourishing
liquids down him. She knew in another day or two it would be impossible
to control him, and she fretted over the slowly knitting wound in his
leg as she bandaged it. Too much movement would reopen it.

By the fourth day, Morgan was aware enough to lie in
bed and observe Faith move out about the cottage while garbed in the
overlarge gown she had worn when she first arrived. She had apparently
taken in the ugly bodice and hemmed the skirt, but it was a woman’s gown
and required curves and a corset to fit properly. She covered the lack
with a large kerchief and a chemise with large ruffles and succeeded in
almost creating the illusion that she was more than a child.

Deciding that lying in bed was sapping his brain, he
swung his legs over the bed’s edge. The little shrew in drab brown
placed her hands on her hips and glared at him. He gave her his best
grin and dragged himself to his feet. She braced herself for his fall.
He stepped forward, staggered, and gratefully grabbed her shoulder.

“Get me to a chair and fetch me a stout stick, Faith, me lass. I’ll not be a burden to you for long.”

“Don’t try your blarney on me, James Morgan de Lacy.
That leg shouldn’t be moved until mended. I’ll take the stout stick to
your thick head should you try to go farther than that chair.”

Morgan cast his small maid a look of astonishment as
he sat down, then chuckled at her grim expression. “Hit a man while
he’s down, will you? Just remember, I’ll be up again soon, and then I’ll
seek my revenge.”

Faith offered a quivering smile and dipped an
impudent curtsy. “Yes, master,” she replied. “I have made a vegetable
soup. Will you have some?”

“No meat in it, I suppose.” He stretched his leg and considered that fact gloomily. He needed to be up and about.

“You will not miss it.” Faith ladled the soup into a
cracked bowl and carried a loaf of bread to the table with it. She was
dying to hear the story of how he had injured his leg. At the same time,
she really did not want to know. She could be serving a meal to a
murderer.

Reminding herself that it was her Christian duty to
lead Morgan to the path of righteousness, Faith perched on the barrel at
the table rather than avoid him by cleaning the pots, as usual. She
watched as he savored the soup, reading the pleasure on his broad face.
Were it not for the harsh angles of his cheekbones and the occasional
glint of ice in his eyes, he would almost be a handsome man. Surely he
could do better than this life of crime.

“Have you ever thought to seek a less dangerous occupation?”

Morgan choked on his soup. “This one suits me,” he answered curtly, recovering.

“It suits you to nearly lose your life, or at best,
your leg?” Faith ignored the ire leaping to his eyes. If her father
could face a mob, surely she could face one maimed highwayman.

“’Tis my business what becomes of me, and none of yours. I’d rather die with sword in hand than perish of starvation.”

“You are far from starvation,” she pointed out. “You
can buy a cow and some more chickens and start a garden, and you will
have all that you could possibly need.”

“And you think that’s all a man wants?” Irate,
Morgan struck back. “You think I should be grateful for a puling little
acreage and a cow? Do you wish to spend the rest of your life gathering
eggs and stirring pots over an ancient hearth?”

Dreams of silks and lace briefly entered her
thoughts, but Faith resolutely cast them out. Happiness wasn’t silk and
lace, but a lifetime such as he described did seem a trifle tedious. “It
is far better than hanging from the gallows,” she replied tartly. “Have
you no trade? You could sell this land and move to the city if country
life does not suit.”

“Oh, country life suits fine enough.” He sneered. “I
could be riding my thousand acres of rolling hills, taking my horses to
Newmarket, overseeing a tenant population of hundreds, but a papist is
not good enough for such as that. Your fine English parliament leaves me
no other career but that of thief. This land is mine only through an
Englishman’s unlucky gamble. Should it be discovered what I am—not a
thief, mind you, but a papist—I would not hold title long. One fine day
I’ll have all I want, but it shall be at the expense of the bloody
Sassenachs who cost me all I owned.”

His bitterness soured the food on the table. Faith
had nothing to say in reply. The Wesleyans had been jeered and set upon
by ruffians across the country, but they had never been persecuted as
had Catholics. She knew little of the penal laws, but surely they could
not be so cruel as to deprive a man of a proper living. She sighed and
rose to clear the table.

“I think it will cost you your most precious possession should you continue this course,” she said slowly.

“My life is none too precious, even to me, if it must be lived forever this way.” Morgan rose and stomped toward the door.

Faith heard the door slam and lowered her trembling
hands to the dishwater. She was a fool to think she could change him,
but he was a fool not to change. If only she could make him see—but he
was blind, blind from hatred and perversity. Where was the good in
fighting that?

Remembering the man who had taken her in when no
other would, Faith straightened and vowed to try again. Somewhere inside
that hardened shell waited a good man needing to get out.

Morgan returned with a rabbit for the cookpot and
using a stout tree limb for support. Faith shook her head at his
stubborn foolishness. From the lines of exhaustion on his face, his
pride had cost him enough this day. She brought him a cup of coffee and
found a keg to prop his leg on, and resumed paring potatoes for their
evening meal.

“When my leg heals, I will go into London and find
what I can of your family. You need to tell me what you can of them.”
Morgan sipped his coffee and followed Faith’s movements.

She was still angry, he could tell by the set of her
shoulders. It seemed odd to have anyone reprimand him or care what
became of him, but he would not succumb to her weakness. She would be
gone in a few weeks’ and there would be none to care whether he lived or
died.