To Wed A Rebel (15 page)

“Aye, he’s that.” Isaac coughed, a movement that spread pain up his ribcage. “My clothes?”

“I had to, they – they were wet,” Ruth said by way of explanation, stammering with embarrassment. “I didn’t look.”

He laughed. He wished he hadn’t. “Look all you want, love.”

The more he said, the more annoyed Ruth seemed and the more it encouraged him. Isaac rolled his head towards her, sheets halfway down his torso. He didn’t miss the way her eyes wouldn’t meet his.

Oh, she’d had a look all right.

The fire was blazing, even if the night was warm. He was still cold.

“I need to look at your arm,” she said, with no hint of apology. “It’s going to hurt.”

Isaac nodded mutely as Ruth’s ruined shawl was unwound from the gash. The small part that had scabbed over came away with the material and he swore. That was all he said as Ruth washed the dirt and grit and sand away from the cut. Fresh water, a clean cloth, more pain and then she finally bound it with deft fingers.

“You’ve done this before.”

Ruth shook her head, face hard. “Not like this, never like this.”

There was sweat on her forehead, damp patches and blood along her dress, and her hair was a ragged mass over her shoulders. When had she come to look so wild and so far removed from the bookish, uptight creature he usually took her for? Had he done this to her? Had he made her into this or had she, this other woman, always been there?

“Do not ever do that again,” she added harshly, rooting around in a chest of drawers for a clean shirt. She handed it to him, but he still needed help and she offered it silently.

Isaac did not acknowledge the command and instead asked, “Why didn’t Simms come with you?”

“I told him to stay behind. I thought you’d be cross with him.”

“I bloody well am.”

“It’s not his fault that you were out there trying to kill yourself.”

“We need the money.”

“There are other ways.”

“Not to get what I want.”

“What
do
you want?”

Isaac shut his eyes again, too tired to talk. And he didn’t want to discuss this, not with her.

“You need to rest,” said Ruth, her dress sweeping the floor, a chair creaking as she sat in it. “I will be here.”

“There’s no need to stay,” he slurred, voice thick with exhaustion, already fading out once more. “I can look after myself.”

It’s all he had ever done, all he knew.

“I will be here,” she repeated.

He hadn’t the strength to argue.

Chapter Eight

Ruth

It was impossible to drift off. The wooden chair she rested on was not designed for comfort. If Ruth nodded off at all, it was only for a few minutes. Morning came with a sluggish, grey light and it allowed her to fully survey Isaac’s injuries – at least those she could see above the covers. His impossibly dark eyes blinked open, eyelashes – too long, wasted on a man – were roped with sleep that he palmed away. The movement had him grunt with pain, one arm still bound, the cut having bled through its wrappings in the night.

A hesitant few moments followed and Ruth finally cleared her throat.

“Breakfast,” she said, getting to her feet, the book on her lap falling to the floor. “I will bring you some and then we shall look at that arm.”

“We can do it now.”

“No.”

“Don’t think I’ve got the stomach for it?”

“I think you’ll faint without anything down you. I’ve seen it happen before.”

An accepting nod left Isaac and Ruth was glad to leave the stuffy room, if only for a moment.

Nessa released a low whistle when Ruth stumbled into the kitchen. “The state of you, girl,” she said. “Anyone would think you’d been the one fighting, not ’im.”

There was blood on her dress, bags under her eyes and marks on her arms from when she’d tried to lift Isaac up by herself, away from the jagged rocks that lay like teeth on the shore. She’d struggled, rolled him onto his back, kept the sea from drowning him. And no one had helped her, no one but Brye, the very man who had almost finished him.

When Ruth was set to go back upstairs with a bowl of thin gruel, Nessa stopped her.

“Now, you sit down here and eat your own first,” she said firmly. “Or else you’ll forget all about eating and get yourself ill and be no use to no one.”

Ruth nodded dumbly and moved mechanically. Without thought or feeling, she hastily gulped down the meal – a sight that would have had her old academy friends in shock.

When she brought up Isaac’s breakfast, she found him sitting on the edge of the bed, the book in his hands, the green one about flowers. He was staring at the neat handwriting on the inside cover. An unwelcome, flickering emotion – almost jealousy – rose up Ruth’s throat, but she swallowed it down and wordlessly handed Isaac the bowl.

“Thank you,” he said, quiet, eyes down.

Isaac ate slowly, split lip opening up anew, flinching when he caught the wrong injury.

“You need to eat,” said Ruth, tone blunt. “If you need me to—”

“No.”

“I am only trying to help.”

“I am not a child.”

“Obviously, for if you were, I think you’d be a little better behaved.”

And not so reckless – and easier to discipline.

A churlish look was shot her way and she returned it. A stand-off ensued, before Isaac grunted and finished his gruel. That was the end to their civil conversation, or what passed for civil between them. With a strained noise, Isaac shoved the bowl aside and began to unwind the rags around his arm.

“Let me,” said Ruth, waiting for a refusal that never came.

New bandages were put in place and Ruth was keen to leave him, to find a nest to curl up in and sleep away the day, until she saw the stain of dark red on the pillow at his back.

“Take off your shirt,” she said quickly, climbing onto the bed behind him and tugging at the material.

For a moment, it seemed as though he’d refuse, but the clothing came off – slowly, so as not to rile any other injuries.

Ruth sighed softly, a frustrated sound against his shoulder blades. “It’s only a graze, that’s all, but I need to clean it.”

“Do what you must.”

With delicate movements, she fetched what she needed and wiped away the worst – sand, dirt, blood. The bowl was unsteady in her hands and water sloshed over the rim, speckling her skirt. She had been too concerned with his injuries, too fraught, too angry, to truly study him before. Now her fingers unconsciously smoothed across his back and the scars that lay there. He wore no other garments. He wore nothing – only the sheets that spilled over his lower half. There was little to stop her tired eyes seeking out all that remained uncovered. It was curiosity, she told herself, nothing more. She’d never seen a man built like this before, not beyond the statues and sculptures in the grand houses and gardens she’d toured. Isaac was not marble, he was flesh.

It was almost enough to make her forget who he was, what he’d done, and that he’d abandoned her the moment he could, almost as soon as the vows had been exchanged.

And
God,
she was tired. Too tired to care about the questions she asked, the boundaries she had put between them, the promises she’d made to herself. To hate him, to push him away, when at that weak moment she’d rather pull him towards her. Was it so wrong to want to be held by another, after everything that had happened, even if it was by him?

It’s the tiredness talking, nothing else.

“Where did you learn to fight like that?” The question was a distraction, a way to forget how warm his skin was under her hands.

“The Navy.”

“Is that where you got these scars?” Ruth had only glimpsed them on that confusing night at the inn and now daylight revealed him to her entirely.

“Yes.”

“Didn’t it hurt?”

“It was easier to take the punishment than to see another suffer.”

She traced the lines unconsciously, feeling him lean back into her touch. “What do you mean?”

“Another was meant for the lash. I stood in his place.”

“Why?” Her head felt too heavy and she rested against him, forehead on his shoulder.

“I can take a beating,” he said simply, fingers brushing her hair. “You need to get some sleep, Ruth.”

Even the suggestion had her sway slightly. The bowl was pulled from her, set aside, to stop it from spilling. He was right and she did not want him to be.

“I will,” she promised, one hand dropping to her lap and the other scraping her hair back, tracing where his fingers had been. “You will be all right though?”

“I’ve had far worse than this.”

“I – yes, I suppose that’s true.”

Ruth lay back on the pillows, meaning to get up, to go elsewhere, while exhaustion pulled her eyes closed. And just like that she fell asleep, next to him, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

***

When she woke, he was gone. Her fingers stretched out onto his side of the bed. It was still warm; it smelt like him. When had she come to know that smell?
Christ.
Now that she had slept, her mind was clearer, her emotions less brittle, less vulnerable. The book –
British Flora
– was still at his bedside. It drew her gaze and she thought about the woman who had owned it before and what she meant to Isaac, whoever she was.

A spurned lover?

Another woman he’d tricked?

A village girl who had fallen for his handsome face and cruel games?

Where was he now? No doubt back at the inn, seeking out another fight, lying to another woman. No, she could hear his voice coming through the floorboards – the kitchen.

After changing her clothes, Ruth headed straight for the outdoors, to her garden and its hard vines and overgrown shrubs. A pair of shears was close to hand, left by Simms. She snatched them up from the dry grass, the handles comfortable in her grip, and hacked at anything that got in her way. The overrunning ivy was pulled free, dead branches cut from the walls, gorse trimmed back into a recognisable shape.

It was hard work. Her muscles ached and the noon sky soon clouded over. When rain dotted her shoulders she paid it no heed. Even when thunder cleared its throat in the distance, a warning of what was to come, she ignored it.

Simms wandered past after a time, took one look at her, and kept on walking. He knew better than to disrupt a woman in her state and this was no day for small talk. Not before long, a voice broke her concentration.

The last person she wanted to hear.

“You did all this?”

Ruth glowered from where she knelt, annoyance contorting her features. Not only at his foolish behaviour the night before, but because the woman’s name in the book haunted her too. “Why are you out of bed?”

“Answer my question and I will answer yours,” Isaac countered, with a frustrating half-smile that pulled on his marked, bruised face.

“Yes, I did,” she said, raising her eyebrows to prompt a reply from him.

“If I stay inside any longer I’ll go mad.”

“It’s the best place for you.”

“Probably,” he agreed, before extending the green book to her. “You left this.”

“Oh, I thought – thank you.” Its small, comfortable shape was alien in her grip now that he had held it. She set it aside and turned back to the unruly border and pulled hard on the first stem she found, whether it belonged there or not.

Isaac stood beside her like a shadow and if he wanted to speak, he didn’t. Did he expect her to?

Unsaid words hung between them, as tangled as the vines stretched high along the cob walls.

“The name inside the book –
Isabelle
– did you love her?” Ruth had only meant to think it, but the question came out despite herself. She didn’t face him. She kept her head down, lips turned white from how hard she pressed them together.

“Yes,” said Isaac. “I did.”

Then he can love, then he’s not a monster after all.

Still, she almost wished she didn’t know.

“I see.” Ruth tugged a nettle free from its home, not caring when the leaves stung her arms and brought them up in spots.

“She was my mother,” explained Isaac. “She died when I was young and – and my father – he struggled to cope without her.”

“I am sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry; it wasn’t your fault.”

Ruth shook her head. “I hate when people say that.”

“What?”

“
That
,” she finally met his eyes and got to her feet, gloves coming off. “Telling me I shouldn’t be sorry at hearing bad news – everyone says it,” she murmured. “It’s not as though I am trying to, God forbid, take responsibility for what’s happened.”

Isaac didn’t seem cross at her outburst and his remark was not even the source of her annoyance. It was purely something to latch on to. “Then what are you trying to do?” he asked calmly.

“I don’t know, express regret? A knowledge that if I could have done, I would have… I don’t know…”

“I don’t think we have a word for all that in our language.”

“No,” she said flatly. “We don’t.”

A heartbeat, two, and Isaac said, “I owe you thanks for last night.”

Ruth knew there was more to come judging by the slope of his shoulders, the lines that creased his eyes, the shape to his mouth.

“And I owe you an apology,” he added. “For everything.”

“Don’t.” For a long while she had wanted to hear it, as though it would make a difference. “There are some things that cannot be mended that way, cannot be made right.”

“I can try.”

“Nothing has changed between us. We are not friends – I don’t think we ever can be – and I have not forgiven all you’ve done,” said Ruth, watching his expression harden and hating the bitter taste the words left on her tongue. “I do not think I ever will.”

Isaac’s mouth was hard. “I haven’t forgiven myself.”

The truth, at last, or something close to it.

“You should go back upstairs.” She dismissed him, wanting to know why her cruel remarks – said solely to hurt him – ended up hurting her too.

His feet were bare, breeches loose on his hips, a ragged excuse for a man who still would
not
leave her alone. With a deep sigh, that infuriated Ruth no end, he said, “You saved my life.”