He weakly moved his head on the pillow, trying to let her know he was there.

  "Oh, Damon. . . . If I'd known that bloodthirsty wretch was going to do such a thing the minute I turned my back, I would never have left you. Oh, please forgive me, my darling . . ." She broke down in more tears, their warm moisture spreading over his neck and chest. "I'm so sorry . . ."

  "Nothing . . . to forgive," he whispered into the darkness that cloaked him, and tried to raise his other arm to rest it across her shoulders. But he hadn't the strength to do even that.

  "He hurt you. That's it, Damon, I don't care if he has served your family nearly as long as Britwell, I'm sending straight to the village for someone else."

  He merely smiled weakly, for it took all his strength to move even the muscles of his face. "You're . . . the first champion . . . I've ever had," he whispered. And then, with what he hoped was light humor, "Glad I don't . . . have to face the doctors . . . alone."

  "Never, Damon. I swear it."

  She held him for a long time. Presently the warmth of her body, combined with such a resolute promise, brought him a feeling of peaceful security, and he let go of consciousness and allowed himself to sink back into darkness.

  ~~~~

  The new doctor didn't even try to bleed the marquess, having already heard tales from the villagers, who'd heard them from the servants, of Lady Gwyneth Evans Simms' ferocity. He came twice a day to change the dressings on his patient's back, advise ways to keep the fever — which came and went with alarming regularity — down, and make guarded, hesitant predictions with regards to his patient's prognosis. He made no bones about the fact that he found Lord Morninghall's fever a matter of grave concern. Such a concern was not easy to discount, as Damon's fever burned the sheets beneath him, indeed, the very air that surrounded his body, and pus soaked the wrappings that girded his shoulder and made the room stink of imminent death.

  But Gwyneth was determined that this dark angel, this remote but magnificent man she loved, would not die. With the help of old Britwell, whose grave face reflected the anguish he shared with her at seeing his master in such a state, she stripped the damp sheets from the bed, threw the windows open wide to invite the Cotswold breezes inside the gloomy room, bathed Damon's feverish body with cool water, and sent one of the staff to Burford to procure a large bag of dried lavender from a local shop. This, she and Rhiannon sewed into pouches she placed beneath Damon's pillow, atop the gilt-encrusted table at the foot of the ancient bed, and even at the feet of the two wolves who guarded their ill lord so fiercely.

  At the beginning of the second week, Damon's fever broke. He stirred from his heavy, death-like sleep, not saying a word but weakly nodding when Gwyneth asked him if he could take some chicken broth, which heartened her to no end — especially as he trustingly rested his hand in the crook of her elbow as she spooned it to him, and managed a weak smile before lying back against the pillows and drifting away from her once more.

  The following day he took some oatmeal for breakfast, managed to stay awake until lunch, and woke early in the afternoon, complaining irritably that he was starving to death. And as Gwyneth sent a servant down to the kitchen to bring up some more broth, it was all she could do not to throw open the windows and shout with glee and triumph.

  Lord Morninghall was on is way back to the land of the living, at last.

  ~~~~

  For Toby Ashton, the days passed with agonizing slowness, until at last, the morning of his scheduled escape finally arrived.

  The Reverend Milford, together with Jack Clayton, came for him just before dawn and hustled him quickly out on deck.

  Toby had a sense of foreboding, which was reflected in the tense faces of his companions. But despite the loud hammering of his heart, he willingly went with them, trusting them — and Connor, who was supposed to be piloting the water boat — to know what they were doing.

  On the still-darkened deck the water barrels stood in neat, shadowy, rows, ready to be loaded onto the boat that would take them to shore for refilling. Working in hushed whispers, the chaplain quickly pried the top off one, and Jack just as quickly lifted Toby straight up and put him down inside. Several feet away stood another guard, his back toward them, and Toby suspected he'd been bribed to see and hear nothing.

  "Get down in there, good an' tight!" Jack whispered, taking the lid from the chaplain, and as Toby crouched down, his knees against his chest, the hard, slimy wood against his spine, the lid came down over his head, blocking off the faint moonlight.

  "Further!" Jack hissed. "I gots to get this lid on!"

  His body crunched in half, Toby bent his head and tucked it against his knees. He felt the rough lid pressing against the knobby nape of his neck and shoulders, heard the dreadful sound of it being tightened down over him. Reverend Milford had bored a coin-sized hole in the lid for him to breathe through, and through it Toby heard the chaplain's kind voice.

  "You all right in there, Toby?"

  "Cramped, sir, but I reckon I'll be just fine."

  "Very well, then. Can you stay that way for another two or three hours?"

  He had no choice, really. "Yes, sir. I'll manage."

  "Good, then. Not a sound from you, or all shall be lost. May God be with you, Toby."

  He heard the two men walking away, then he was all alone in the close, stifling darkness. He huddled in the barrel, terrified of moving, of breathing, of being. In another few hours Connor will be here. Nothing to worry about. You'll be all right. Think about how many others Connor has rescued . . .

  Time passed. The air inside the barrel became hot, stuffy, and humid with his respiration and body heat. The sweat began to roll down his chest and back, and a tiny pinhole of light came through his airhole and touched the damp wood a half-inch from his nose as the day began to dawn. Scared, Toby squeezed the miniature of his mother, still hanging from a chain around his throat, and it brought him some small measure of reassurance.

  Outside he heard men talking and smelled the thick smoke from the galley. The ship was awakening.

  He dug his elbows down against his ribs and hips. He heard heavy footsteps moving about, the tramping trudge of prisoners as they were brought topside to perform menial deck tasks, Radley shouting at someone. People were passing just a few feet from where he crouched, so he huddled closer against himself, hardly daring to breathe in the close darkness.

  "Fine day this morn, eh, Jack?"

  "No finer than any other, if ye ask me. We'll see rain by noon."

  "Aye. Cloudin' up already, ain't it?"

  Toby shifted slightly in the barrel, his back and neck on fire from being stuck so long in his cramped position. He squeezed the miniature harder, until he could feel the strokes of paint beneath his thumb. The pinprick of light was growing brighter, and the sounds were more numerous now: the tread of passing sentries, gulls screaming overhead, a distant splash as a bucket was emptied over the side. And now someone was hailing the prison hulk in a thick Irish brogue that gave no hint of its owner's true accent — an American one — and Toby, near tears in the barrel, knew that Connor had come for him at last.

  "All right, get those damned barrels off the deck and loaded, and be quick about it!"

  It was Radley, impatient and angry as always.

  Toby held his breath and waited.

  From nearby he heard footsteps and grunts as men lifted something heavy.

  They're moving the barrels now. The boat is here, and Connor must be watching. God, I'm scared.

  They were picking up a barrel near his now. Toby braced himself, knowing that if his body rolled at all within the barrel, he'd be discovered. Then he heard the voices, close and just overhead, the hands on the wood that enclosed him, the grunts and curses of the men who lifted it.

  "Geez, this one's heavy!"

  "Shut up an' quit complaining."

  "Ye'd think the bloody thing was never emptied, for God's sake . . ."

  Toby clenched his teeth, trying not to cry out as his head and nape bumped painfully against the lid. He felt a sudden drifting sensation, and knew they were hoisting the barrel to a block and tackle and swinging it out to the water boat. He shut his eyes, terrified, and prayed to God the rope wouldn't break.

  He could not know that, back on the prison hulk's deck, Foyle was standing with his hands on his hips, head thrown back and watching.

  He could not know that Foyle had suddenly frowned and was pulling out his spyglass, training it on Toby's barrel.

  And he could not know that Foyle had spied the small breathing hole the chaplain had cut in the lid.

  Foyle's loud bark rang out suddenly. "Hold up there, I say!"

  Toby braced himself, his barrel swinging wildly in the air as those on the water boat tried frantically to get it aboard.

  "Damn you, I said halt!"

  He heard Connor's swift curse.

  Then all hell broke loose.

  Chapter 23

  The Marquess of Morninghall awoke to the same hot sheets beneath his body, the same clinging darkness that banded his eyes, the same dull ache in his shoulder, and the same twittering of chaffinches just outside his window that had been his lot every time he'd managed to haul himself above the surface of unconsciousness over the past two weeks. But on this early June morning something was different.

  He knew that he wasn't going to die.

  His stomach was ravenously hungry, his head was clear, and he was thoroughly sick of being in this confounded bed. Sometime during the course of his illness the bed had ceased to terrify him, and he wanted nothing more than a huge breakfast, mobility, and Lady Gwyneth Evans Simms — and not necessarily in that order.

  "Gwyneth!" he roared.

  Silence.

  He waited impatiently, sitting up in bed and gripping the edge of the mattress. He couldn't see a thing through the bandages that wreathed his face, but the scent of lavender hung in the air, and he dimly remembered Gwyneth telling him she'd put it beneath his pillow and around the room to freshen the ancient chamber. He could also smell the sunshine outside, and the roses, their scent wafting up from the gardens beneath his windows. Some, he knew, would be a blushing crimson, others a pale salmon or yellow or white, some the size of soup bowls and others the size of teacups. He took a deep breath of their gentle perfume and found it pleasant. If the roses were out, then the gentle hand of summer would be grooming the fields of wheat, barley, and oats that rolled away in all magnificent directions beyond his windows —

  "Gwyneth!"

  Reaching blindly behind him, he yanked his pillows up against the headboard, lay back, and gingerly touched his face through the bandages. Damn these infernal wrappings! He wanted them off.

  Now.

  What the hell had they done to him?

  He was just sliding his forefinger beneath the gap the bandages made as they rose to cover his nose when he heard hurried footsteps coming down the corridor.

  He lowered his hand and let it rest beside him, drumming his fingers against the sheet.

  The steps came into the room and stopped.

  "Damon?"

  "Good morning, my dear Lady Simms." He raised his hand and blindly, aristocratically, bade her to enter. "Do come in."

  "Awake, I see."

  "Yes, and damned hungry as well. Bloody starving, in fact. And I'd like these confounded bandages off at once."

  He heard her soft laughter as she approached and felt her hands on his face, soft and warm and gentle through the bandages. Behind her came more footsteps, and her hands stilled for a moment as she turned and spoke. "Janie? Bring me a pair of shears, a towel, and a bowl of warm water. Your lord is awake."

  "And annoyed," Damon finished darkly.

  "Stop it. The staff are already scared to death of you."

  Small wonder, he thought, as most of them had never met him and probably believed all the stories that had been Mama's legacy. Then his irascibility fled as she sat down on the bed beside him, her body close to his, her sweet scent of peaches, soap, femininity, Gwyneth, infiltrating his senses. As she explored his face through the bandages, he realized he wanted nothing more than her hands on his flesh, wanted nothing more than to touch her. Just . . . touch her. He wondered what she was wearing, if her breasts were pushing against a soft, silken bodice, if her hair was scraped back or loose, if she was looking at him with tenderness or anger or patience. Once, in a time far removed from the one in which he now knew himself to be, he would have hoped for the anger and the confrontation it would have bred.

  But not now. Now, he wanted the tenderness.

  "So." His tone came out as a mixture of sugar and vinegar, for tenderness was something he'd never experienced before meeting her, and reaching out and asking for it, in any manner, was difficult for him. "Whose brilliant idea was it to bring me here to Morninghall, of all places?"

  He stretched a hand toward where he thought her thigh must be. Was she in silks? Bombazine?

  Velvet. She was wearing velvet.

  His fingers sank into the lush fabric, feeling her leg beneath. He waited, tensely, for her to remove his hand.

  She did not.

  "Reverend Milton's and Admiral Falconer's."

  "Why the hell should Falconer care about me? He's one of them."

  "One of whom?"

  "One of the navy's favorites. Them."

  Damn. He couldn't keep the anger out of his voice, even now.

  "Really? I found him to be a charming, noble-hearted man who seemed every bit the hero he is proclaimed to be. Really, Damon, he acted out of your best interest."

  "No one acts out of my best interest."

  "If that is so, then why do you think I'm here?"

  Her challenge brought him up short. He didn't know the answer to that, wasn't sure he wanted to know, and the question filled him with agitation, confusion, and despair.

  "I don't know," he muttered, mulishly setting his mouth and feeling that piercing, emotional something pushing against the vault of his chest. "Obviously, though, you do. Why don't you tell me?"

  "No, Damon. You know why I'm here, and I'm not going to do the work for you when the answer lies within you. I ask you again: why do you think I'm here?"

  "They probably paid you."

  "Try again."

  "You wanted to torment me."

  "Really, I expect better from you than that," she said chidingly.

  Her tone was infectious. Some of his crossness subsided. "Um . . . because you have a guilty conscience?"

  She let out a great, audible sigh, but he could sense her smiling patiently down at him. "What am I going to do with you?"

  He could think of a few things. Dear God, could he . . .

  "You could take these confounded bandages off my face to begin with," he murmured, his fingers stroking her thigh through the velvet skirts. "And then, perhaps, we could discuss some of these things we can do . . ."

  He expected her to reprimand him.

  Instead, she giggled.

  "You find that amusing?" he asked, trying to make his mouth look fierce.

  "I find it — encouraging. Now be still while I put you to rights again."

  He heard the maid return with the shears and bowl, then her hurried retreat. Gwyneth's hands were on his face once more, gently thumbing his cheekbones and touching his brow, his jaw, his temples through the bandages. It felt good, relaxing. He lay back against the pillows, smiling and hoping she would never stop touching him.

  Maybe insanity wasn't so bad after all.

  But on a sudden note of dread, Damon knew he wasn't insane. He was enjoying this, enjoying intimacy, and he was a hundred percent right in the head.

  He swallowed.

  "Does that hurt?"

  "No."

  "Does this?"

  "Not much."

  "Good. Be still, then, while I cut these wrappings off." Her thumb slipped between the bandages and the gap at the base of his nose, and he tensed as he felt the cold point of the shears sliding beneath, snipping, cutting, moving up, up, up toward his eye. He froze, barely daring to breathe, and had a sudden, awful fear that when the bandages came off he still wouldn't be able to see, that he would be forever blind, crippled, helpless. He squeezed his eyes shut as she peeled the warm, damp wrappings away from his face. Cool air swept in against his cheeks, brow, and eyelids; he heard the splash of water in the bucket, felt her gently washing his face with a warm, damp towel.

  An expectant stillness hung in the air.

  "You may open your eyes now, Damon."

  His guts seized up, for the truth was, he was afraid to open his eyes, afraid he would be blind, and he didn't want her to know he was such a coward.

  "You have not told me why you're here at Morninghall," he persisted, trying to buy time. "And I've run out of guesses."

  But he knew why she was here. He knew, and that truth was so fragile, so frightening, yet so very much to hope for, he dared not give voice to it.

  "Open your eyes, and I shall tell you."

  "I cannot."

  "Yes, you can."

  Anger and frustration swept through him. Sweat broke out beneath his spine and his heartbeat quickened with agitation, but he did not open his eyes.

  Her voice was gentle and patient.

  "Open them, Damon. Please."

  His fist tightened in fear. If one of his eyes was missing, he wouldn't be able to see her. If he had brain damage, he wouldn't be able to see her. If, during the beating, something had broken inside his head, and he was forever impaired, he wouldn't be able to see her, and not being able to see her was something he wasn't ready to contemplate —

  "I have something very important to tell you, Damon, but I will not do so unless you open your eyes."

  There was such raw, aching tenderness in her voice that it made him suddenly want to bawl like a baby. He wanted to hate that tenderness, tried to hate it as he'd always hated pretty flowers and fragile porcelain, but there was something so beauteous and sweet about it, something so loving and warm, that he could not. And where there had once been rage and fury and black, twisted wrath, he felt only a huge, choking knot of emotion constricting his chest, moving up the back of his throat until it tightened and closed painfully and he could not even swallow.