The Brazen Bride

Why, in this instance, a stranger’s life mattered so much she couldn’t fathom, but she wanted him to live. Actively and continually willed him to live.

To have a fallen angel fall into her life only to die before she even learned the color of his eyes was simply unacceptable. Fallen angels did not fall from the sky-or get washed up in her cove-every day; she’d never laid eyes on a man like him, awake or comatose, in all her twenty-six years, and she wanted, yearned, to learn more.

A dangerous want, perhaps, but when had she ever shied away from danger?

The afternoon waned, but brought no change in her patient. As evening closed in, she sighed. The children came up with another set of warmed bricks. She helped them switch the hot bricks for the cool, then, with the children clattering down the stairs, eager for their dinner, she drew the curtains over the window, checked the man one more time, and headed for the door.

Her gaze fell on the objects she’d left on the tallboy by the door. She paused, glanced back at the figure so still in her bed, then picked up the three items-the only things other than his clothes he’d been carrying.

The dirk-a fine piece, far finer than one would expect a sailor to own.

The saber-definitely a cavalryman’s sword, well used and lovingly honed.

She’d get the boys to polish both blades. The saber’s scabbard might yet be salvageable.

The third object, the wooden cylinder, was the most curious. As Will had guessed, the man had been carrying it wrapped in oilskins in a leather sling; with him unable to shrug the sling off, they’d had to cut the shoulder straps to remove it. The wood was foreign; she thought it was rosewood. The brass fittings that held the wooden strips together, and locked one end closed, smacked of somewhere far away, some alien shore.

Gathering all three items, Linnet glanced back at her bed, at the dark head on her pillows, silent and still, then she turned, went out of the door, and closed it quietly behind her.

Logan woke to a dark room.

To a soft bed, and the scent of woman.

That he recognized instantly. All the rest, however…

Where the devil was he?

Very carefully, he opened his eyes and looked around. His head hurt-throbbed, ached. So badly he could barely squint through the pain. Doing so, he located a hearth across the room, the fire within it a pile of glowing coals.

Where in all hell was he?

He tried to think, but couldn’t. The pain intensified when he tried, when he frowned. Shifting fractionally, he realized there was no bandage about his head, but there was one-a large and long one-winding about his torso.

So he’d been wounded.

How? Where? Why?

The questions lined up in his brain, but no answers came.

Then he heard voices-from a distance, through walls and doors, but his hearing seemed as acute as usual…

Children. The voices belonged to children. Youthful, too high-pitched to be anything but.

He couldn’t recall anything about children.

Disturbed, uncertain, he moved his arms, then his legs. All his limbs were functioning, under his control. It was only his head that ached so fiercely. Gingerly, pushing aside lumps he recognized as wrapped bricks, he eased to the side of the bed.

Some primal memory kept insisting there were enemies about, even though he couldn’t remember anything specific. Had he been captured? Was he in some enemy camp?

Very carefully, he pulled himself up in the bed, then swung his legs over the side and sat up. The room swam sickeningly, but then steadied.

Encouraged, he stood.

The blood rushed from his head.

He collapsed.

Hit the floor with a hideous thump , almost cried out-might have cried out-when his head hit the floorboards. He groaned, then, hearing footsteps pounding up some stairs, he slowly tried to push himself up.

The door swung open.

Propped on one elbow, he turned his head and looked, knowing he was too weak and helpless to defend himself, but it wasn’t any enemy who came charging in.

It was an angel with red-gold hair, bright and fiery as a flame, who scanned the room, saw him, then came racing to his side.

Perhaps he’d died and gone to Heaven?

“You dolt ! What the devil are you doing trying to get up? You’re wounded , you imbecile!”

Not an angel, then. Not Heaven, either. She continued to berate him, increasingly irate as she checked his bandages, then small hands, surprisingly strong, gripped his arm and she braced to haul him up-an impossibility, he knew-but then two strapping lads who had followed her in came around his other side. The not-an-angel snapped orders, and one lad ducked under his other arm, the second coming to help her as on a count of three they hoisted him up-

It hurt .

Everywhere.

He groaned as they turned him and, surprisingly gently, angled him back onto the bed, setting him down on his left side, then rolling him carefully onto his back.

The not-an-angel fussed, drawing down the tangled covers, removing bricks, then lifting and shaking. Logan watched her lips form words-a string of increasingly pointed epithets; as the worst of the violent pain receded, he felt himself smiling.

She saw, glared, then flicked the covers over him. He continued to smile, probably foolishly; he was still in so much pain that he couldn’t really tell. But he had noticed one thing-he was naked. Stripped-to-the-skin, not-a- stitch-except-his-bandage naked-and his not-an-angel hadn’t turned a hair.

And although most of his body had wilted, one part hadn’t-and she had to have noticed; she couldn’t have missed it as she’d looked down when she’d steered him to the bed, then laid him down, stretched him out.

Which surely meant he and she were lovers. What else could it mean?

He couldn’t remember her, not even her name-couldn’t remember sinking his hands in all that rich, warm hair, pressing his mouth to her sinful lips… lips he could imagine doing wicked things… none of which he could remember, but then he couldn’t remember anything through the crushing pain.

An older lady came in, spoke, and frowned at him. She came to the bed as his lover tried to shift him further into the center of the wide mattress. Thinking he should help, he rolled to his right-

Pain erupted. His world turned black.

Linnet winced at the gasp that exploded from the stranger’s lips-saw his body go lax, boneless, and knew he was unconscious again.

“Damn! I didn’t get a chance to ask who he was.” Leaning against the side of the mattress, she peered into his face. “But what caused that?”

Muriel, too, was frowning. “Did you check for head wounds?”

“There weren’t any… well, not to see.” Linnet knelt beside him and reached for his head. “But his hair is so thick, perhaps…” Infinitely gently, she took his skull between her hands. Fingers spread, she searched, felt… “Oh,