She chewed on her lip again. The man was profoundly troubled—she sensed it. What could she do to help?
“There’s a clerk, my father’s man of business, Master Bradshaw. He has a room at Gray’s Inn.”
Orpheus—nay, Will, dropped her hand like a hot coal. “What did you say?”
She didn’t know why he was so surprised. She repeated the name and address.
He grasped her shoulders, gazing deep into her eyes. “I know you’re still in there, Isobel Marston. I shall bring you out of the darkness, whatever it takes.”
She beamed back at him until a male shout made him drop his hands and step away. Hubert was scurrying down the path. Her smile vanished.
“Isobel. I hope you’ve not been goading our visitor.” His voice was that of a strict schoolmaster, contemplating use of the birch. She shrank back, and Will stepped in front of her.
“Nay, sir, she has troubled me not at all. I have tried, and failed, to get any word of sense out of the lady.”
Ah. She’d thought she was managing to make herself understood—a forlorn hope.
Hubert looked relieved. “I’m not surprised. We had such a time of it last night—she could hardly be restrained at all.” He threw up his hands with a dramatic flourish. “Did you know the insane can fight with the strength of ten men?”
“Perhaps we could use a few of them on the battlefield.” She could hear the smile in Orpheus’ voice. It made her feel warm inside, but she still cowered at his back, hoping to avoid Hubert’s spite.
Will bowed. “I thank you for your elegant hospitality, sir. You have a well-stocked physick garden here, as well as flower and vegetable beds, and an attentive gardener. The house is in good order. Is it true the servants are but lately come into your service?”
“Thank you, thank you. I pray you will break bread with us again before you leave?”
“I shall be glad to. Mistress Marston had better go in and wash her hands before she breaks her fast.”
“Oh, she won’t be joining us.”
Of course, she wouldn’t. Pike treated her like an animal sometimes. It wasn’t as if she’d forgotten how to use her knife, or her napkin, or drink without spraying water all over the table.
When Will cocked his head at Hubert, her cousin continued, “I mean to say, her conversation sits not well when one is at one’s meat. You do recall what she was saying about Orpheus yesterday?”
Will made a dismissive gesture behind his back, and his broad shoulders shook. Something flared to life in Isobel’s belly—he was laughing at Hubert, and letting her see it. But Hubert was oblivious. She stifled a snort—she couldn’t remember the last time she’d wanted to laugh. A strong instinct warned her not to give in to it now.
As Hubert bustled away with her newfound friend, Isobel meandered back to her basket, then sank to her knees and began woodenly planting coleworts, her mind busy. Could she trust the fair-haired man, whose name she couldn’t remember? He hadn’t gripped her painfully, like Hubert and Flinders did, nor dealt her a slap, as Avice did when she became overexcited.
The handsome stranger had given her his time and attention, had tried to speak with her. But could he help her? Did he know any physicians who could improve on the treatment her cousin was providing?
Sometimes, when her thoughts were less clouded, she questioned the way she was dosed for her brain fever. When she needed the medicine most, they didn’t give it to her. But when she felt at her most lucid, they reveled in pouring the stuff down her throat.
She stared at the soil on her hands. This wasn’t right. She must go in and wash. There should be a bowl of water in her room, with sweet rose petals floating in it, or lavender. She hurried inside and headed for her bedchamber, keen to cleanse herself in the scented water. But suddenly, Flinders was there, blocking the passageway. He steered her into a tiny cell of a room and locked the door on her.
Feeling stifled, she hurried across to the window and saw a man emerging from the front of the house, placing a high-crowned hat on his tawny-gold head. A massive wave of despair drenched her as she saw he was leaving, striding away with a peculiar crooked gait. She tried to throw open the window and call to him, desperate to see Orpheus’ startling blue eyes looking up at her. But a frantic fumble had no effect—the window was nailed shut.
Subsiding against the cold stone mullion, her tears wet the glass panes, already misted by her sobbing breaths. Would he ever come back? He must come back. There was something of great import she must tell him, something to do with Hubert, and poison and—oh, he’d know what she meant when she told him.
But nothing in Hubert’s behavior suggested the man was ever likely to be invited to Marston House again.
Chapter Five
As his hired mount cantered away, Will tried to put his unsettling encounter with Edward’s sister from his mind. He’d discharged his duty, and proved his loyalty to his dead friend. Now, he must pick up the shattered pieces of his life, put the disastrous Dutch campaign behind him, and find the peace he so desperately sought.
War did terrible things to a man. The wounds went deeper than the flesh. Yet, how could he have remained at home, lazing by the fireside, knowing the Spanish scum who’d killed his younger brother, Simpkin, were advancing relentlessly on the fiercely Protestant Low Countries? England had a duty to her allies, to her fellow Protestants—it was how the world worked these days.
And what better way for a young man—two young men, in fact, as he’d persuaded Edward to accompany him after one cup too many in a tavern—to make their fortunes? What better way to make a name for themselves, to find favor at court under the aegis of the queen’s favorite, the Earl of Leicester, than to accompany the English troops sent to assist the Dutch?
Will sniffed at the air. It wasn’t fresh, exactly, as this was London, but at least it didn’t stink of black powder, unwashed bodies, sickness, and blood. The Dutch campaign had been doomed from the start. Troops were starved of support from Queen Elizabeth, and went unpaid for months, suffering the leadership of a man unable to navigate the choppy waters of Dutch politics. But there was no point bemoaning the miseries he’d experienced—Will was back in England, no one knew where he’d been, his family’s reputation was intact, and he must be grateful for what he had.
His surroundings took on a familiar aspect, the timber-framed houses packed more closely together, leaning drunkenly on their neighbors, jettying over the street like zealous gossips trying to whisper in each other’s ears. He was almost home. He could slide out of his traveling clothes and into a delicious tub, soak his aching limbs, and rub some arnica salve into his damaged thigh.
“Cavendish? Hold there, Cavendish, it is you. Stay a moment.”
Someone had hold of his horse’s bridle. Without thought, Will’s hand flew to the hilt of his sword.
The man released the leather strap. “Whoa, there, sirrah, do you not know me? Thy neighbor, Mathieson. I beg you, kill me not, as I mean you no harm.”
Will’s hand relaxed, and he dismounted carefully, keen to conceal the stiffness in his leg. “Forgive me, Mathieson—my mind was elsewhere.”
“As have you been. I’ve not seen you in a good six months or more—we thought you were dead. Poor Paulina has been weeping her eyelids raw for worry over you.”