shuffle sounded in the room and a murmur, and the woman pushed away from him with a cry.
He sat up like a shot.
The woman slid away to a corner of the bed, clutching the blanket up to her chin. Morning light shone through the small window and three pairs of eyes stared at them both, the wrinkled old man who had opened the door to them the night before, a wrinkled old woman and a younger, thick-chested man.
“What the devil?” Tanner growled.
The spectators jumped back. The old man gave a servile smile. “M’wife and son are back.”
Tanner glared at them. “You disturb our privacy.”
In actuality, he and the woman were the intruders. Tanner had given the old man little choice but to relinquish what was surely the bed he shared with the old woman. The night before all Tanner could think of was to cover the woman in blankets and warm her with his own body—and be warmed by hers. He’d left their clothing in a pile in the front room and carried her to the little bedchamber behind the fireplace, ordering the poor man to bring as many blankets as he owned.
The younger man—the farmer’s son, obviously—rubbed his head and winced, and the hairs on the back of Tanner’s neck stood on end. The son, he would swear, had been his seaside attacker. Tanner frowned. Their place of refuge suddenly seemed more like a lion’s den.
He quickly regained his composure. “What are you doing in this room?” he demanded again, checking his finger for his gold signet ring and feeling under the bedcovers for the purse he’d had sense enough to remove from his coat. He held it up. “Were you looking for the purse?”
The younger man backed away to where clothing hung by pegs on the plastered walls above two wooden chests.
“We merely came to see if you required anything, that is all.” The old woman simpered.
Tanner scoffed. “All three of you at once?”
The young man gave a chagrined expression and inclined his head.
Tanner glanced at his companion, still huddled under the blanket. He turned to the others. “Leave us,” he commanded.
The old man and woman scurried towards the door. Their son moved more slowly, his hand returning to his head.
“We require our clothing.” Tanner added.
The woman paused in the doorway. “Your things are still damp, m’lord.” She tipped her head in a servile pose. “I’ve hung them out in the sun and the wind. ’Twill take no time at all to dry.”
“Good.” Tanner’s tone turned a shade more conciliatory. “Treat us well and you will be rewarded.” He lifted the purse.
The son smiled. “What else do you require, m’lord?”
“Some nourishment, if you please.”
The man bowed and closed the door behind him.
“They thought they could nick my purse,” Tanner muttered, rubbing the stubble on his chin. He did not have the heart to worry her with his suspicions about the farmer’s son. “How do you fare, miss? Are you all right?”
She moved beneath the blanket as if testing to see if all parts of her still worked. “A little bruised, but unharmed, I think.”
Her eyes flicked over him and quickly glanced away. Tanner realised he was quite bare from the waist up. From the waist down, as well, but the covers concealed that part of him. He reached for a blanket and winced, pressing a hand to his ribs.
“You are bruised,” she cried, reaching towards him, but immediately withdrawing her hand.
He looked down at himself, purple bruises staining his torso like spilled ink. “Nothing to signify,” he said, although his breath caught on another pang of pain.
He glanced at her again and the humour of the situation struck him. It was not every day he woke up in a naked embrace with a woman whose name he did not know.
He gave her a wry smile. “I do not believe we have been introduced.”
Her eyelids fluttered, reminding him of shy misses one encountered at Almack’s. “No, we have not.”
He made a formal bow, or a semblance of one there in the bed only half-covered by a blanket. “I am Tannerton. The Marquess of Tannerton. Tanner to my friends, which, I dare say—” he grinned “—I had best include you among.”
The blue of her eyes sparkled in the morning light. “Marquess—” She quickly cast her eyes downward. “My lord.”
“Tanner,” he corrected in a friendly voice. “And you are…?”
He had the feeling her mind was crafting an answer.
“I am Miss Brown, sir.”
It was a common name, and not her real one, he’d wager.
“Miss Brown,” he repeated.
She fussed with the blanket, as if making sure it still covered her. “Do you know of the others from the ship? Did anyone else survive?”
He gave her a steady look. “The Bow Street Runner, do you mean?”
She glanced away and nodded.
He made a derisive sound. “I hope he went to the devil.”
She glanced back at him. “Did any survive?”
“I know nothing of any of them,” he went on, trying not to think of those poor women, those helpless little children, the raging sea. “We were alone on the beach, except for the man who tried to rob me.” The man who had just left this room, he suspected. “We made it to this cottage, and all I could think was to get you warm. I took over the farmer’s bed and must have fallen asleep.”
She was silent for a moment, but Tanner could see her breath quicken. He suspected she remembered the terror of it all.
“I believe I owe you my life, sir,” she whispered.
Her blue eyes met his and seemed to pierce into him, touching off something tender and vulnerable. He glanced away and tugged on the covers, pulling off a faded brown blanket. He wrapped it around his waist and rose from the bed. “Let me see about getting you some clothes. And food.” He turned towards the door.
“A moment, sir,” she said, her voice breathless. “Do—do you know where we are? Who these people are?”
“Only that we are in a farmer’s cottage,” he replied, not entirely truthfully. “There was a lamp in the window. I walked towards its light.”
She nodded, considering this. “What do they know of us?”
His gaze was steady. “I did not tell them you were a prisoner, if that is your concern.”
She released a relieved breath. “Did you tell them who you are?”
He
