HerOutlandishStranger Page 15

  “Good.”

  “No. That is not what most people believe. My poor uncle almost had an apoplectic fit. My aunt called me a selfish minx, and though that is perhaps the truth, I could not be swayed to change my decision. I thought that it was only a matter that affected my life, I did not…” Her voice faded for a moment then she said, “I did not know how much I had hurt other people. I implored my Papa to not disrupt his plans to go to Spain, even though the worst came to pass.”

  His brow furrowed. “What could the worst be? Other than marrying the rotten Brian?”

  “Word leaked out—I daresay Brian had a hand in that—and my reputation was ruined.”

  “So that was the end of it?” Jazz asked.

  Eliza made a strangled noise then bowed her head. She walked down the deck away from him. He followed and made a small sound of encouragement.

  After a moment Eliza continued. “That was not the end of it. My poor sister, poor Jane. Her suitor could not stand the chagrin of being associated with a tainted family. I am certain her fiancé persuaded her to break off their engagement. As a gentleman he couldn’t cry off, of course, but he applied such pressure to her she released him.”

  “You’re flipping joshing me,” Jazz said.

  “I assume your words signify that I exaggerate? I wish I were lying. No, I brought my sister’s good name down with mine into the muck. I do not know what went on between Jane and her young man, because she would not confide in me. She never forgave me, you see. She didn’t have a chance.” Eliza seemed to have trouble keeping her voice steady. “My father tried very hard to persuade Jane to go back to London and face her suitor.”

  “Of course. Why wouldn’t she talk to the idiot?” Jazz blurted without thinking. He’d probably slipped about some sort of primitive rule of society manners. He’d already figured out her cultures didn’t think much of their females.

  But she didn’t sound shocked, only sad, as she answered. “Pride. And shame. My uncle said it was impossible for me to show my disgraced face in London unless I agreed to marry Brian, but Jane could go to the city. I was so sure Jane could ride out the gossip. But she would not heed my father and I did not even try to talk to her, for I knew she would not listen to me.”

  She twisted to look out to sea. “Forgive me. I haven’t spoken of this before.”

  Jazz leaned over and touched her cheeks with one of the small cloths she carried in her sleeve. He silently handed it to her. She gave him a small, forced smile, took a shuddering breath, and went on.

  “Jane refused to leave Sussex or even return to our old home because she was afraid that everyone in our old village would have heard the story. She did not want to risk our neighbors’ ridicule or worse, their pity. And so…when I was taken ill from the influenza I probably contracted at the inn, she and Papa were there with me. Jane would not forgive me, but she insisted on nursing me. And she contracted the illness.

  “I survived. But she was dead within a fortnight. When I was well enough to care for her, to talk with her and beg her forgiveness, she was gone.

  “Papa. We were devastated. But Papa never, never blamed me. He said—” She stopped suddenly and her brown eyes searched his face. “He said that I was the victim of a cowardly man who used women. You said something much like that in Spain. La, just imagine. I have heard nearly the same words of comfort from the two men I’ve loved best.” She spoke lightly, but the word love rang like a bell.

  Jazz put his hands on her shoulders and met her gaze. He must answer. “Never, never blame yourself, Eliza,” he said in a low, thick voice. “You are far better than the two men who took advantage of you.” He pulled her against him and murmured her name. He did not dare say anything else.

  *

  The ship bound from Coruna to Southampton reeked of fish. They set sail into a rising storm.

  Eliza was sick almost before they weighed anchor. She was sick until she wondered how her insides managed to stay inside her. Jas held the basin and insisted she sip water. “If only to give you something to bring up,” he told her cheerfully. He seemed unscathed by the lurching ship or, surprisingly, the scents that filled the tiny cabin.

  She turned away from him. “How can you jest with me?” she moaned.

  He smoothed a damp strand of hair from her cheek. “I wasn’t giving you guff. Mag gave me one of her potions that has a bit of ginger. Turns out not to be a great antiemetic for you, poor girl, but it’ll keep some fluids in you, eh? You won’t get dehydrated on my watch. We’re trapped on the water for too long. What I wouldn’t give for some real meds.”

  She didn’t have the energy to ask him to translate his nonsense.

  When they at last landed in England, Eliza eyed the gangway.

  Jas’ voice at her shoulder announced, “No, not worth the risk.”

  “I am not such a fainthearted ninny. I can walk—”

  He interrupted by sweeping her into his arms. “I don’t want to have to fish you out after you topple off the gangway.”

  Occasionally on their long trek, Eliza had fantasized about the moment she again stepped foot in England. Despite sad memories, she loved her native land. But the long bout of sickness caused her spirit to falter. And after the sunny warmth of Portugal, a gray, chilled typical English day seemed a sad welcome to her. She buried her head in Jas’ shoulder and tried to draw some comfort from his sturdy body and familiar scent as he carried her ashore.

  He unceremoniously sat her down on top of a barrel by the quay. Then he pulled out a flask he’d bought in Lisbon to replace their primitive skins of water. From another pocket he produced one of the small squares. She made a terrible face. “I thought those dreadful squares were gone.”

  “I saved two. In case of starvation. C’mon now, Liza, you only have to nibble it. Tiny bites.”

  Just to stop him waving the disgusting thing in her face, she took it from his hand. The first contact with her lips almost gagged her, but after she managed to swallow an infinitesimal amount, she found it easier to face the wretched square. By the time she’d slowly eaten her way through it, and sipped at the water, the ground had stopped shifting beneath her. She was tired and had the headache, but seasickness was just a memory.

  “Mr. White, you are a marvelous surgeon.” She smiled blearily up at him. Even the worst of her melancholia evaporated.

  He gave her a smile and nod, but seemed preoccupied. He cleared his throat. “Eliza, er, would you mind being Mrs. Peasnettle for a bit longer? It will be a few days until we get you back to your uncle. I think we’d better let you stay put a bit before setting off on any more travels.”

  She sighed with relief at the thought of spending days resting in one place. “No, I have no objection. I could be Mrs. Peasnettle for the rest of my life.”She grabbed his hand. “I would, too, Jas. If you would be Mr. Peasnettle. I need no more than that. Give me an imaginary name and I will keep it as faithfully as any real one.”

  He held her hand between both of his, but shook his head slowly. “I would, I swear by…by whatever it is I hold sacred I would marry you and stay with you. But I know that it can’t happen. For a few weeks perhaps, we can share a name, but you must go to your uncle unmarried and you must marry a man in London. Another man.”

  It couldn’t happen. She still felt too miserable and weak or she would have once again begged or bullied him to explain exactly what that meant.

  Near them, the busy sailors unloaded the ship. The creak of the pulleys, thumps of cargo on the wooden docks, bellows of commands, and occasional shouts of laughter filled the air. Wrapped in their own silence, Eliza paid attention to none of it. Her face felt frozen with chagrin as she stared into his sad eyes.

  But she was finished with self-pity and refused to sulk. She pulled away from his grasp and slid off the barrel. When her still wobbly legs caused her to stumble, she refused Jas’ help. She took several sharp swipes at a muddy spot at her bedraggled, stained skirt and avoided his eye. “That makes twice I have
unbecomingly proposed to you and have been rejected. Ha! And that last I offered was not even a decent proposal of marriage. I swear if I had a jot of sense or self-respect left in my heart I would walk away without looking back, Mr. Strange White. No! If you mention that you know I must marry someone else because of your infernal piece of wood, I warn you I shall scream until the watch comes and drags you away.”

  “Eliza.” He caught her elbow and firmly pulled her around to face him. “If by some chance I am wrong—if you are still unmarried in, eh, say, twelve months, I promise… I swear that I will come be with you in whatever capacity you wish. Will that be enough to keep you from loathing me?”

  She exhaled an impatient gust of air. “I could not hate you if you dragged me to my uncle and never looked back. And have I not told you that you owe me nothing? Yes, yes, Jas. If you come to me in twelve months I will marry you at once. Do you see? I put on no show of pride. Quite the opposite in fact.

  “But…” She hesitated and then continued haltingly. “But I should warn you that you would have to agree to take on another, for lately I cannot see going to the country and having one of those six-month illnesses young misses sometimes get. I thought long about this when I thought I would expire on that wretched ship. There has been so much death in our world lately and here,” she patted her hard, slightly swollen abdomen, “is a bit of life, no matter who—or even what—the father might be. I knew on that ship that if I lost the baby my heart would hurt.”

  She felt slightly abashed as she admitted, “I think my answer will be to masquerade as a widow with her orphan.”

  “Good plan,” he said heartily.

  She considered boxing his ears. “Pshaw. It is a dishonest and dreadful ruse, Jas. But I fear I truly have lost all interest in my womanly honor and only want to keep my baby and my sanity. You are so clever with the forgeries, perhaps you could give me a husband who died a soldier in Spain? I shall be a widow.”

  “It is a very good plan.” He spoke firmly and looked as pleased as if she’d promised him a rare treat.

  He held out his crooked arm, the formal method she’d once shown him, should he ever need to lead his dance partner to the floor. Arm in arm, they walked into England.

  Chapter Thirteen

  England

  The small inn was clean, warm and everything civilized they hadn’t experienced for what felt like years.

  They were given one room because they decided to save money and besides, they were used to sharing space. But this small space felt different. After the time on the hillside when they’d made love, something had shifted back and Eliza knew he had been trying to keep his distance. She wished she had the bravado to overcome the awkwardness, demand a return to intimacy, but she’d never felt more like a minister’s daughter. Oh, she’d give a thousand pounds to have the strength of a brazen hussy.

  Jas cleared his throat. “I shall go down to order some food and tea, shall I?” He stopped and looked at her. He must have recalled the last time she’d been alone in an inn with a man who’d left the room for food.

  “No,” he said with horror. “Liza, I’m not your awful Brian Whatshisname.” Their laughter started at once and they were comfortable again. Until she stroked his arm and he started as if she’d struck him. She’d been about to speak, but the craving she felt—and even more arousing, the hunger she saw in his face—charged the air and made words difficult. Thick desire made her knees weak.

  “No, you’re not Brian,” she whispered. “I know that what we do is far more wonderful.”

  He grabbed her up into a kiss that penetrated every bit of her senses. She smelled the peppermint on his breath, the delicious male scent of him. He groaned. “I’m going. I must leave.”

  “But then you’ll come back?” she asked.

  He pushed his hand through his hair, as if the thought pained him. “Of course.”

  She considered asking him straight out why, if it hurt to be around her, did he bother, but she was not at all sure she wanted to hear the answer. “All I want,” said Eliza to break the peculiar new tension, “is a bath. I have been dreaming of a good hot bath for what must be months. I doubt they will have a hip bath but I’ll happily make do with a simple wash basin.”

  Jas looked relieved. He nodded and looked around the small, tidy room. “Where’s the water? Near the fire?”

  She smiled. “We must order it.”

  “Right. I’ll go down and ask them to give you some then, shall I?” He closed the door gently behind him.

  Liza feverishly ripped through her sack, hoping to find some piece of clothing not covered with mud or shredded beyond recognition. Her father had thrown in some odd garments she had not worn out, including a light-blue muslin frock that would be suitable for a summer tea party, but hardly an early English spring. She held the dress up and felt a rush of love as she recalled her father’s oblivious attitude about women’s clothing and her sister Jane’s comical frustration as she tried to get him to admire some bit of ribbon.

  When her searching fingers found the bar of sweetly scented soap her father had thrust into the bag, she felt gratitude as well as love. Her father must have fetched it and the reticule from the box under her bed where she kept her tiny stash of frivolous luxury items. The inn provided perfectly acceptable soap, but she laid it aside and scrubbed vigorously with the soap her father had packed. Buckets of water later, she at last felt as if the dirt had been stripped away.

  Her skin prickled with the unfamiliar sensation of cleanliness. Her head seemed to float, for her hair felt pounds lighter. When Jas knocked at the door, she sat in front of a mirror and combed out her damp curling hair, grimacing at the snarls. She threw a grubby knit shawl over her shoulders. Pity the shawl wasn’t cleaner, but suddenly her demure pink tea gown struck her as too low cut.

  Jas had found a barber as she’d washed. She caught sight of him and gasped. Without the golden beard, and with his hair clean and trimmed, his face appeared much younger and almost obscenely handsome. He leaned against a wall and examined her for a few silent moments. “I, er, asked about another room. But the innkeeper said the private parlor thing is taken. Do you think it’s safe for you downstairs?”

  She stopped gaping at him. Good Lord, her mouth had been hanging open. “Why do you ask?”

  “I need a good wash too.”

  Her face burned. “Of course, how silly of me. I shall simply take a stroll outside.”

  “Five minutes,” he promised. “I’ll be done in five minutes. This is not the seediest place I’ve ever seen, but I’m beginning to catch on to the rules for females. Don’t wander far. I think it best if we eat in the room, don’t you?”

  *

  The minute he finished washing, he jammed himself into his least dirty clothes and bounded down the stairs. Jazz reflected that he’d probably have felt ill at the reek of ale, smoke, cooked meat and live horse if this had been the first place he’d alighted in this world. Now it smelled delicious.

  The dusty street outside the inn was empty except for a sleeping dog stretched out in the sun. He went back inside to order a steak and kidney pie and wait by the door, drumming his fingers nervously on the table. Where had she gotten to? And where was Steele?

  Eliza soon returned, peeling off her gloves. “Shall we?” she asked, and her too-cheerful manner told him she must be nervous too. He slowly mounted the stairs with a bottle of wine and a glass in his hand. He knew all about alcohol from the CR and learned that natives had used it to help relieve tense situations. Good. He needed all the help he could get about now.

  She sat down on the chair by the mirror. He leaned against the window frame. They waited in silence. A few blessed minutes later, the innkeeper’s daughter showed up with a tray containing their food. They sat down on the rickety chairs pulled up to the small table and carefully divided the rich, steaming pie.

  Even food failed to dispel the uncomfortable air, but Jazz’s table manners did the trick. To Liza’s obvious amusem
ent, he held a knife and fork in what he knew was a peculiar manner.

  He caught her watching him, a gleam he knew well in her eye. “Eliza,” he said with a sigh. “I know you have some new impertinent question you’re dying to ask me. Go on. You have my permission. I might not answer, though.”

  She giggled. “It is true. I have noticed before, you eat as if you are unfamiliar with the implements. I suppose you employ sticks at a table in your country as the Orientals do?”

  “Hands, mostly,” he said. “But that’s just me. I eat alone most of the time.”

  She tilted her head and looked at him. “Will you at last tell me more about this life you lead? How can you be alone so often?”

  “That’s just the way I live.”

  “And what do you do the live long day?”

  He frowned. “Work. Communicate with friends. I like to ride too.”

  “Horses?”

  He made a face as he recalled the stench and flies of the large animals. “No. A kind of hobby horse.” He wondered how he’d describe a bike if she asked for more details. They were antiques in his time, and not invented in hers.

  She didn’t ask about that but she had more questions. “You told me once that you work alone inside your home. You live alone too. How often do people call upon you?”

  “Once a day at least.” He only partially lied. Often he could go for weeks, even months at a time without coming face-to-face with anyone, but he did see people every day through CRs. He wondered if this era knew the word hikikomori. Hermit, that was the word they’d use. He was a city hermit. “Eliza, you are a pest. I said you could ask one question. Don’t they teach you young ladies basic arithmetic in this country?”

  “No, only the gentlemen learn maths.” She grinned, ate a mouthful, then continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “I don’t even know how ambitious you are. What are your grand plans for your future? That is if I do find this man I’m to marry?”