A Stranger's Touch

‘‘Tis nearly morning. Where have they been all this time—and on a night like this?’

‘The storm blew itself out a while back,’ Bess said. ‘The darker the night the better for the “gentlemen”.’

‘I dare say it was some such business,’ Morwenna said and yawned behind her hand. ‘Go to bed, Bess. In a couple of hours it will be time to get up again.’

Morwenna sat in a solid oak-carved chair with a high back. She had made cushions for its seat and the centre splat had horsehair padding covered by tapestry and studded each side to make it comfortable. The first time Morwenna had brought a survivor to this room she’d installed the chair so that she would at least have some comfort as she watched over her patients. Mrs Harding had been very ill, but Morwenna had nursed her back to health and she’d been overwhelmed by gratitude when she was able to return to London and her husband.

‘We are cloth merchants, Morwenna,’ Mrs Harding had told her as she took an emotional farewell. ‘My husband will always be pleased to have you stay with us. If ever you should be in trouble, think of me, my dear, for I would do anything to help you.’

‘Thank you.’ Morwenna had smiled and kissed her cheek. ‘If ever I am in London, I shall seek you out, at least for a visit.’

Morwenna sighed at the memory. It was unlikely she would ever go to London. Her hopes of making a good marriage had gone when her mother died. Since her father’s death she had been little more than a servant in her half-brother’s house. Michael had resented the woman who had taken his dead mother’s place and she suspected that he might resent her, too.

She would not brood on her life no matter how hard or hopeless it might seem at times. While she had Jacques to make her smile she would find the courage to face each day, though there was little else to make her smile in this bleak house at the top of the cliffs.

Sitting down again, she studied the man in the bed. His hair had dried now and she saw it was dark blond. On the beach he’d looked colourless, but now there was a flush in his cheeks. When he’d opened his eyes for a moment she’d seen they were a greenish blue; his nose and forehead had a patrician look, which gave him a slightly forbidding expression, but his mouth was soft and sensual. She felt tempted to kiss him as he lay sleeping, her cheeks growing warm as she realised her own thoughts.

Was she so starved of love that she would consider lying with a stranger? He had beautiful strong limbs and there was not a part of him that she had not seen as she bathed him with the cooling water. A little smile touched her mouth. She’d nursed her brothers before this, so why was she behaving as if she’d never seen a man naked before?

Time passed and she closed her eyes for a while, woke and realised she’d slept, and then she looked at the bed. Her patient was still there, apparently sleeping peacefully. She’d thought he might have disappeared for surely she’d conjured him out of her dreams. Men like this one did not come into her life often. He was every bit as handsome and powerful a man as her brothers, but there was something about him that made her pulses race. Something about his mouth that made her want to kiss it.

Giving herself a mental scolding, Morwenna laughed softly. She was a fool even to consider such a thing—especially if this man had come here to spy on them.

‘Why are you laughing?’

Her eyes were drawn to the bed and she saw that he was looking at her. Getting up from her chair, she moved closer to the bed. He seemed to be awake, but was he still feverish? Sometimes patients appeared to be normal, but when you touched them they became violent and tried to fight you. Her brothers had often tried to get out of bed while still too ill to stand and she’d had to fight to keep them there.

‘I was thinking foolish thoughts,’ she said. ‘You were ill and I bathed you to take down the fever. Are you feeling better?’

‘I don’t know.’ He stared at her in bewilderment. ‘My head hurts like the devil. I was dreaming … I thought my mother …’

‘We carried you here from the beach. Your ship foundered on the rocks, sir. You have a nasty cut on your head.’

‘Who are you?’

‘Morwenna Morgan. I told you my name when I found you last night. For a moment you were conscious, as you are now, and then you fainted.’

‘Did I? I don’t recall.’ He frowned, his eyes moving about the room as if seeking something familiar. ‘I don’t remember anything. Where is this place?’

‘This is Deacon’s House. It belongs to my elder brother, Michael. We live on the Cornish coast. Ships are too often driven in on the cruel rocks in our cove. We do what we can to help the survivors and the villagers bury the dead.’

‘And then take what you can scavenge from the wreck—is that not the custom in these parts?’ He wrinkled his brow. ‘I do not know why I should remember that but nothing else.’

‘You cannot recall even your name?’

‘No.’ He drew a hand over his forehead, as if it pained him. ‘Is that usual after being washed up from the sea?’

‘Perhaps, though I have not known it to happen before,’ Morwenna said. ‘It may be the bang to your head. Have you truly no memory, sir—or any idea why you came here?’

‘I can’t remember anything.’

‘You must surely remember your own name? You called out things in your fever, personal things concerning your mother and other things that I couldn’t quite make out.’

‘Did I? If they haunted me, then they have left me now. Was there no clue to my identity?’

‘None. My brother found nothing in your clothing. Your coat was gone, abandoned or cast off perhaps as you tried to swim for the shore. You can recall nothing of the storm or how you came to our cove?’

‘No. My mind is a blank, there is nothing but the sea raging about me and then I opened my eyes and saw a beautiful face. She said her name was Morwenna Morgan … was that you?’

‘Yes, sir. It was. I found you in the inlet, which is away from the main beach. My brother Jacques helped me bring you here.’ Morwenna placed a hand on his forehead. He was still warm but cooler than before.

He threw back the covers, as if he would get up, then glanced down at himself, realising that he was naked. ‘My clothes?’

‘What’s left of them—your breeches and boots—are drying in the kitchen. Your shirt and coat were, I fear, lost to the sea—and there was nothing to identify you, no papers or even a ring on your hand. Your baggage must have been lost with the ship, but there was one small bag I found near where you lay. It is lying here on the window seat.’

‘Please bring it here,’ he said and made an effort to sit up but fell back with a moan. ‘My blasted head. Please open the bag for me and see what is inside. It may tell us something of who I am.’

Morwenna fetched the bag and brought it to the bed. Opening it, she found brushes, crayons, bottles of powder in different colours and some soggy boards that she knew might be used by an artist. There was also a small leather purse that felt quite heavy. She tipped the contents on to the bed and twenty gold coins tumbled out.

‘It would seem that you have some money and perhaps you are an artist, for these things must belong to an artist.’

‘Yes, so it would seem.’ He frowned. ‘Is there nothing else that bears my name?’

‘I don’t believe so.’ Morwenna felt something in a side pocket and inserted her fingers, drawing out a small metal token. It had writing on one side. She read the lettering and frowned. ‘I think you must be a gambler, sir, for this is a token from what would appear to be a gaming house in London.’

‘Let me see, please.’ He took the little token and studied it. It bore the words Harlands of London and was a token for five guineas. ‘It would seem that I have recently been in London, would it not?’

‘Yes, I think you must have been,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you won the money there at this place? There are no clues to your identity, but if you returned to London and asked someone might know you at this place.’

‘Yes, thank you,’ he said and closed his fingers over it with a kind of desperation. ‘I must hope that someone will tell me who I am.’

‘Do not despair just yet, sir,’ she said and smiled at him. Now that she suspected he might be an artist she was no longer afraid that he had been sent to spy on her brothers. ‘You had a nasty bang on your head and the loss of your memory may be temporary. In time it will return to you.’

‘Perhaps. You are good to be concerned for a stranger.’

‘I have helped others in similar circumstances, sir. I am glad to have been of service to you.’

‘Yet I should go,’ he said. ‘I must not be a burden on you. Pray turn your back, Mistress Morgan. Preferably leave the room. I need to relieve myself.’

‘Lie still and I shall bring you the chamberpot, sir.’

‘Turn away for your modesty.’ He put his legs over the side of the bed, touched the floor with his feet, then moaned and fell back. ‘Damn it, I’m as weak as a kitten.’

‘You have been shipwrecked, sir, and your head bled from the blow you received. You will feel dizzy at first. Lie back and I’ll give you the pot.’

Morwenna reached beneath the bed and brought out the chamberpot. She handed it to him and retreated to the other side of the room to gaze out of the window. The sun was coming up over the sea, turning it pink and orange; this morning it would be as if the storm had never been except for the wreckage on the beach and the man in her bed.

‘Have it your own way.’