Compromised Miss. Anne O'Brien

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      ‘I can’t find her…’ His grip tightened.

      ‘You will. Rest now. She’ll come to you….’

      He lay quietly. Harriette thought for a moment that he had accepted her assurance, but then his movements became edgy as if still caught up in a web of anxieties.

      ‘But she’s lost,’ he whispered, eyes opening blindly. ‘I don’t know where she is and I can’t find her.’

      Harriette was moved by a desire to give him some respite from whatever tracked and haunted him in his dark mind as she enclosed his hand between both of hers. If she could anchor him to the present, it might stave off the monsters in his dreams. ‘Hush. You need to sleep. I’ll keep the nightmares at bay.’

      It seemed that he focused on her in the end. But to no great satisfaction.

      ‘No one can do that for me. No one can stop them.’Then he slid down the slope into unconsciousness again. His hand fell away.

      Disturbed, Harriette bathed his face in cool water, his chest where sweat had pooled in the dip of his collarbones. Who was Marie-Claude? His wife? She did not think so since he did not seem to know her. Not, therefore, his lover, either? French, from her name. Had she some connection with his presence in France at Port St Martin?

      There were no answers, only questions.

      He seemed calmer, his sleep deeper. Harriette contemplated leaving him, but dared not, so she was committed to spending the night. The upright chair proving far too uncomfortable for sleep, she leaned her arms and head on the folded quilts at the foot of the bed and dozed, confident she would wake if he did. No one need know that she stayed the night with him. Her lips twisted wryly. Certainly not her imaginary lover who knew nothing of her dreams and who now was dead to the world.

      When Lucius awoke it was daybreak, when she had doused the candles and was watching the sun, the faintest sliver of red-gold on the horizon. Harriette found herself held by a direct stare, keen and searching, and of a striking grey-green. The earlier confusion was gone and now the eyes that held hers were awake, aware. In their supreme confidence Harriette detected the recovery of a formidable will. Here was a man used to authority, to having no one question his wishes, wearing the habit of command like a glove, despite his unorthodox lack of clothing. She could not look away from his regard, but forced herself to keep her expression carefully controlled in defiance of the unfortunate tremor in her heart. At least she had had the presence of mind to stuff her long-suffering hair back under her stocking-cap with the coming of the day. She really could not face an explanation of her sex and unchaperoned presence in his bedchamber.

      ‘Good morning.’ She broke the little tension.

      ‘I feel better,’ he replied.

      ‘Does your head ache still?’

      ‘Not so much. My shoulder hurts like the Devil.’

      ‘It’s badly bruised. Are you hungry?’

      ‘Yes.’ He sounded surprised.

      ‘I’ll send Jenny with some soup.’

      He rubbed a hand slowly over his chin, grimacing at the roughness, casting a glance down at his torso that the sheet did not cover. ‘Will you arrange for some clothes for me?’

      ‘Yes. You won’t like them. Not much haut ton to be found in Old Wincomlee, and your own garments were too badly damaged, I think, to be of further use to you.’

      ‘I’m relieved to be alive to wear them at all.’

      A surprising note of dry humour. Harriette steadied her gaze. So far their exchange had been ridiculously innocuous, as if meeting in a polite withdrawing room. If she did not take the matter in hand, if she succumbed to cowardice, she would bid him good day and wave him from her door, as if he were not in possession of a bullet wound and an unsavoury reputation. She took a breath and stirred the mud in the bottom of the pool. ‘Are you a spy?’

      The humour was quickly gone. ‘No. I am not a spy.’ There was no hesitation, but then he would be unlikely to tell the truth, even if he was. ‘Why did you think I was?’

      ‘Marcel—the French smuggler who brought you to my cutter—said you were associated with an individual called Jean-Jacques Noir.’

      A quick frown between his brows, a thinning of lips. She saw immediately that he recognised the name. ‘I know him. But I am no spy.’

      ‘Marcel says he is a man of vicious character.’

      ‘Yes. I believe he is.’

      She was getting nowhere. ‘Who is Marie-Claude?’ He certainly recognised that name. His eyes snapped to hers. ‘I don’t know.’

      A lie. He had looked dangerously uneasy, but nothing to be gained in pressing him if he would not say. It was, after all, none of her concern. ‘Very well. I don’t believe you, but can’t force you to tell, except by torture!’ She walked to the door, then paused, looking back. ‘Will you tell me this, then—what is your name?’

      ‘Lucius Hallaston.’

      It meant nothing to her. She gave a brief nod and would have left him, aware of nothing but a deep disappointment that the man who seemed for some inexplicable reason to have such a claim on her was entirely disreputable. This man who had awoken her inexperienced heart and her emotions, who had reminded her painfully of what was lacking in her loveless life, had feet of clay. The disillusion settled like a heavy stone below her heart.

      On her way to the door she stopped beside him, to press her fingers against the hard flesh of his shoulder. Yes, it was cool, the fever gone. But not in her own blood. Even so slight a touch sent heat racing through her blood. This is simply physical desire! Harriette felt her face flush with shame.

      ‘Do you have family who will miss you?’ she demanded, curtly, to cover her embarrassment.

      ‘A brother in London. I won’t be missed for a little time. You, I think I remember, are Harry Lydyard.’

      ‘Yes.’ She repressed a little laugh of wry mirth. ‘I am Harry Lydyard.’

      He still thought of her as a man. It didn’t matter. He was devious, deceitful and well on the road to recovery. She would send George to deal with his needs and there was no need for her to see him again. Within twenty-four hours he would be gone from her life.

      And good riddance! But her heart trembled as if at a great loss.

       Chapter Three

      Lucius Hallaston spent the slow passage of time whilst his strength returned alone, considering his situation. It was not an operation that encouraged optimism, although he tried. His body was sore as if trampled by a team of his blood horses, his head hammered, a sharp pulse of pain just behind his eyes, but he was not incapacitated. It could have been much worse, he supposed. He could be dead. True, lifting his left arm and shoulder was an excruciating movement, but if someone could find him some clothes, he could take control of his life once more. Or could he? The desperate failure of the enterprise in France was hardly evidence of his controlling the events of his life!

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