A Stranger's Touch

The sounds of him using the pot kept Morwenna looking out to sea until he had done. She turned as she heard him place it on the chest beside the bed with a grunt, then returned to take it by the handle.

‘I am used to nursing my brothers, sir. Please do not be embarrassed. Someone will need to care for you while you are forced to stay in bed.’

His gaze narrowed. ‘Have you no servants to do the menial tasks?’

‘How do you know I am not a servant here?’ she challenged.

‘You spoke of living here with your brothers—besides, you are too proud a wench to be in service, methinks.’

Morwenna laughed. ‘At least then I should be paid for my work. My mother was a lady and my father called himself gentry, though he had rough country ways. However, they are both dead and we have little money. I do have one servant. Bess was our nurse and she helps me now that we have no other servants.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘To empty this, sir. If you wish for it, I could bring you something to eat. There is a tisane by your bed. It must be cold now, but it will still taste good. I shall return soon with food and more drink.’

‘It is not fitting that you should wait on me or do these things for me. Send your servant instead, Mistress Morgan.’

‘Bess is asleep and I shall not wake her.’

‘I am grateful for all you have done, Mistress Morgan, but I feel it wrong that a young woman of your breeding should do such things for me.’

‘You are no different to me than my brothers,’ Morwenna lied. ‘As soon as you feel able to leave your bed you would do best to leave us, sir—but until then I shall help you as best I can.’

She went out before he could answer her, pride and temper carrying her down the stairs. Who did he imagine he was to tell her what was right and proper? She was accustomed to doing much as she pleased, for even Michael did not interfere unless it suited his purpose.

It was awkward that the stranger had lost his memory. Michael would want to know who he was and why he was here—he suspected any stranger that came to their village. Morwenna would not have him mistreating the stranger. She must find a way to keep him safe until he was well enough to leave them.

It might be best to tell her brothers that he was an artist—and if necessary she could invent a name for him. Better that than leave Michael suspecting the worst about the stranger in their midst.

The stranger smiled as the door closed with a little snap. The fire in Morwenna’s eyes as he’d told her it was not fitting that a woman of her breeding should care for him had amused him. She was proud and beautiful and it seemed that she had compassion, for she’d taken him in without knowing who he was or where he came from. His smile faded as he tried to remember who he was and why he was here in Cornwall.

The token in his bag suggested he’d once been in London. Why had he left town to come to a part of the country that most thought of as God-forsaken?

Someone had said that recently. At least, the phrase had come easily to his mind. He seemed to recall that he found the Cornish coast rugged but beautiful—that he had either painted it before or was looking forward to painting it in the future.

Perhaps that was his reason for being here. If this bag belonged to him, he must be an artist. Was he a successful one? Did he have money—more than the few gold coins lying on the bed by his side?

Something was not quite right. He felt that there was more to his life than that of an itinerant artist, moving from place to place to earn a living as best he could.

Was he a gambler down on his luck? Did he have a family and where did he belong?

Something told him that he was not married. He had a feeling that he was a lonely person and that there was an empty place inside him.

Now why did he feel that? For a moment a feeling of panic swept over him. Why could he not recall even his name? Supposing he never did?

Fighting his panic, he focused on the girl who had just left the room. She was right to suggest that he must seek his identity in London. Whatever his reason for being here, he must return to town and try to discover his name and family.

Once again a smile touched his mouth as he thought of Morwenna. She and her brother had carried him to their house and the girl had nursed him through the night. He dimly recalled feeling very ill and crying out as he tossed and turned, but whatever had haunted him then had gone, lost in the mists of amnesia. When he’d woken he’d seen the girl sitting in her chair near the bed. She was laughing to herself … at her own thoughts. The look on her face had intrigued him. What was she thinking? She might almost have been dreaming of her lover.

Something in him had rebelled at the thought of her with a lover. Perhaps he’d spoken out of turn, telling her that it was not fitting for her to do what she’d done. Had she left him on the beach he might have been killed, though the villagers would find little profit in robbing him for he wore no jewellery—at least he wore none now. Could the girl or her brother have taken it?

No, that was an unworthy thought! Had she been a thief she would have taken the money from his bag. If he wore no jewellery, he could not be anyone in particular—a gentleman often wore a signet ring with a crest, but he did not.

Yet instinctively he knew he was of gentle birth. Perhaps he came from an impoverished family and had chosen to make his living from his talent, if he had talent? He was still not certain that the bag belonged to him. Other men would have been on the ship that went down.

One of the first things he must do when he felt able to get up was to find something to draw on and then he might discover if he could be a painter. Until then he could only surmise that he was an artist.

He would have liked to get up, but for the moment he felt too ill. He must just lie here until his strength returned. Since he had nothing more to occupy his mind, he would think of Morwenna and that look in her eyes …

‘Will you take this tray up to him?’ Morwenna asked when Bess entered the kitchen. She had prepared a plate of hot crispy bacon with eggs and bread fried in the fat, also a mug of grog made from ale spiced with cinnamon and a dash of brandy. ‘He was awake and he may be hungry or thirsty.’

‘This is food for a hearty appetite,’ Bess observed. ‘If he is sick he needs porridge or gruel to ease his hunger.’

‘I think he would throw it at you. He cannot yet leave his bed for he is dizzy, but there is little wrong with him—though he claims he does not know his own name or from whence he came.’

‘You think he lies?’

‘I don’t know. Michael mustn’t suspect it or you know what will happen—but he ought to leave this house as soon as he is able to walk.’

‘Aye, I know it. Give me the tray. I’ll ask if he wishes for anything more.’

‘I emptied the pot and will bring it up with a can of water. It’s my day for cleaning the bedchambers, though my brothers will sleep clear through the morning if I know them.’

‘Least said the better, lass. They were out helping to rescue men from the sea last night. No need to say more.’

Morwenna nodded as Bess picked up the tray and went out. She cut a slice of cold ham, placed it between a thick slice of bread and munched it as she waited for the water to boil. A part of her was eager to see the stranger again, though her common sense told her she would be best to let Bess care for him. By his manner and his look he was gentry, though perhaps like her he had little money. Why would he make his living as an artist if he were wealthy?

She shook her head. It was unlikely—though, sometimes, rich aristocrats spent time sketching simply to amuse themselves, of course. Twenty gold coins were not a fortune, but it was more than Morwenna had ever owned in her life.

A little smile touched her lips as she thought how handsome he was, but she shook her head almost at once. She was a fool to daydream over a stranger. She could not deny the instant attraction she’d felt, but he was unlikely to have felt the same.

It was because she seldom saw anyone other than her brothers, of course. Morwenna had no life of her own, nor any amusement or pleasures outside of what she made for herself.

Bess was always telling her to go to her mother’s sister in London, but she knew her aunt to be an unkind, bitter woman. She’d buried two husbands and she had money to spare, but she was unlikely to spend it on the daughter of a man she despised.

‘My sister, Agnes, never forgave me for marrying your father,’ Morwenna’s mother had told her when she was ill. ‘She warned me that he would break my heart or drive me to an early grave. It is not your father’s fault that I am sick, dear heart. I was always sickly, which was why my sister warned me against marriage to a man like William Morgan. I needed a gentle, kind man, but I loved him and I followed my heart. I do not regret it, though the bitter winds here have been my undoing.’

Morwenna had mourned her mother more than her father, though she knew that he, too, had grieved deeply, and despite his denials it was love of his dead wife that had caused him to neglect his own health and die of an infected boil on his neck. Morwenna would have cleansed it and bound it for him, but he would not let her touch him. At the end the physician told her that the poison had seeped into his blood and led to the fever that ended his life—but perhaps he had not wanted to live. He had quarrelled fiercely and often with his eldest son and ruined the family with his gambling and bad investments, though no man could govern the weather and a risky cargo lost at sea was the undoing of more than one merchant adventurer.

Her father had been given to risky ventures, but he had always been loyal to Queen Bess in her time and the King, even if he disliked his politics. It had been on a visit to court after his first wife died that he’d met and married Morwenna’s mother, bringing her back to this house at the edge of the cliff. Jenna Morgan had always dreamed of taking her lovely daughter to court, but the girl’s father had forbidden it.

‘No good giving the girl ideas above her station. She’ll marry a local man and do what I think best for her,’ he’d declared, but he’d never bothered to find her a husband and Michael was too wrapped up in his work to think of such a thing.

Carrying the empty pot in one hand and a pewter can of warm water in the other, Morwenna started up the stairs. Pausing outside the door of the guest chamber, she heard a curse and then a muffled laugh.

‘Damn you, old mother,’ the stranger muttered. ‘Have it your own way, crone. I’ll suffer you to help me since I cannot do it myself.’

Opening the door, she went in and saw that her patient had managed to struggle into the hose and breeches he’d been wearing when she found him. Bess had provided him with one of her father’s best shirts and a doublet of well-worn leather. He was now lying on the bed, propped up against the pillows. She noticed that he had eaten the food and had the tankard of warmed ale and cinnamon in his right hand. His gaze fell on her as she entered and he frowned.