Reckless Angel Read Online Free Page B

want a mother’s care.”
    â€œShe is dead?”
    â€œAye, in childbed with Ann some four years past,” he replied bleakly.
    â€œYou do not seem that old,” Henrietta remarked, regarding him in speculative fashion over her knees.
    Daniel looked astonished. “I do not feel ‘that old.’ A man of nine and twenty has not exactly one foot in the grave.”
    â€œHow old is your other daughter?” This was a much more appealing conversation, Henrietta decided, and might well serve to keep the other one at bay for a while longer.
    â€œElizabeth is eight.”
    â€œAnd there are no other children?” A marriage lasting upward of five years would generally produce more than two offspring four years apart.
    Daniel shrugged. “Two little ones died; one at birth, the other of milk fever when he was a week old.” And his Nan had never carried a child with any ease, had labored in long agony to deliver each one, until finally exhausted…He put away the futile train of thought and the guilt he had learned to live with.
    The figure on the bed opened her mouth for another question, but Daniel, realizing how far they had drifted from the urgent matter at hand, cut her off before she could form the words. “Of what family are you?” He snapped his fingers impatiently. “This has gone on long enough.”
    â€œI cannot go home. Surely you must understand that?” The obstinacy was replaced now with a softplea. “Do you know what they will do to me? Sir Reginald probably will not wish to marry me any longer—”
    â€œIn which case you will be spared a rank and drunken bedmate,” he interrupted harshly. “I had thought ’twas that fate you had fled.”
    She bit her lip. “So it was. And if I had managed to wed Will, then everything would have been all right. But I am afeard to go back unwed. ’Twill be a thousand times worse if Sir Reginald says I have spoiled my maidenhead—which I have not, because Will was too honorable,” she added. Daniel inhaled sharply at the slightly aggrieved note investing the addendum and he began to feel some sympathy for the girl’s parents. “But he could say it was so and refuse to marry me,” she finished with a helpless gesture that reminded him of how young and defenseless she was.
    Daniel was defeated. There was no severity he could visit to extract the information from her that would not be surpassed by what she knew awaited her at home. He paced the tiny chamber while she sat on the bed, watching him anxiously over her drawn-up knees.
    The sound of raised voices outside jarred the tense silence. Daniel strode to the window, his face paling beneath the tan as he recognized Tom’s angrily protesting tones mingling with those of a stranger. Was it Roundheads? But below he saw just one man, no more than a youth, engaged in exclamatory conversation with Tom.
    Henrietta stumbled off the bed, the strangest expression on her face. Her legs were still weak and the weakness was not aided by her painfully pounding heart. She clung to the windowsill at Daniel’s side. “’Tis Will!” She looked up into her companion’s astounded face. “’Tis Will! He is not killed!”
    Daniel was conscious of an overpowering relief mingling with utter bewilderment as to how this salvation could so mysteriously have appeared.
    â€œWill!” Henrietta’s shriek set his ears ringing. “You are not killed!”
    The young man looked up at the window, shading his eyes against the sun. “Do I look it, Harry? How the devil did you…? Oh, never mind.” He turned back to Tom, now stunned into silence. “D’ye see, man? I am no foe. I have been turning the countryside outside in looking for her, and those damned Roundheads are everywhere!”
    Tom nodded. “Ye’d best go up, young sir.”
    A bare half a minute later, Will Osbert entered