Sweet Rogue of Mine (The Survivors #9) - Shana Galen Page 0,2

back?” Nash sneered and then was sorry for it. None of this was Rowden’s fault. None of this was anyone’s fault. Nash had known the risks when he went to war. He just hadn’t thought anything would happen to him. He’d been so young. Like most young men, he’d thought he was invincible.

Rowden rose. “I’ll make you some coffee. We can start there.”

Two hours later, Nash was willing to concede life might be easier if he had a few staff members. Not that he needed them to tend to him personally. He could damn well take care of himself. But he did grow tired of Rowden’s muttering as he crashed about in the kitchen making awful-tasting coffee, hauled water up to the tub in Nash’s bed chamber, and even laid out Nash’s clothing. The muttering had ceased once Mrs. Brown made an appearance. Nash didn’t know why she still came every few days. She hadn’t been paid for months, and Nash wasn’t exactly welcoming toward her. Half the time he didn’t even eat the food she set in front of him. But he supposed he owed it to her that he had clean clothes and a bar of soap and something edible in the larder.

Nash wanted to be left alone, and she did her best to leave him alone. That was why he hadn’t run her off completely.

Now, dressed in clean, uncomfortable clothing with his too-long hair still damp on his neck and forehead, Nash made his way gingerly across the foyer. His belly rumbled. He’d had a bit of bread with the coffee and now his body seemed to want more. Nash thought he might see if any more food had been left in the dining room, but then he heard voices. Rowden and Mrs. Brown were in there. Nash turned his head to catch their words.

“—so glad you have come, Mr. Payne. I’ve been so worried.”

“You’re a good woman to have endured all of this.”

“Pshaw. My family has worked for the Earls of Beaufort for generations, and I remember Mr. Pope when he was just a baby. I couldn’t leave him. He was always such a good lad. Not a bit of temper in him. Always smiling and laughing. Always with a kind word. It was the war what did this to him.”

Nash didn’t know if Rowden answered. He couldn’t stand the pity he heard in Mrs. Brown’s voice, and he knew he would either explode in rage or get away. He chose the latter, and before he knew what had happened, he was outside, squinting in the sudden brightness. He could see even less in the sunlight than in the shadows. The light seemed to wash away what little vision he had left in his right eye, making everything into a white blob. Nash closed his eyes and used his walking stick to feel for any obstacles before him. He remembered walking the streets of London with this same stick. He’d swing it about or twirl it, trying to appear dashing to the young ladies. Now he needed it to keep from falling on his face.

How pathetic.

He moved toward the back of Wentmore, where there had once been an informal garden of tall flowering trees, vines, paths, and foot bridges over babbling brooks. It was certainly overgrown now, but at one time he had known that garden so well, he could have walked it blindfolded. Ironic that now that was, in essence, what he would need to do. The informal garden was one of the reasons his father had given Nash the care of Wentmore. The estate was not his, of course. All of the Beaufort properties would go to Nash’s eldest brother when he inherited the title. But no one in the family had wanted Nash at the estate in Richmond. It was too close to London. Too close to Society, where everyone might see the horror of his injury.

So they’d sent him north, to Wentmore, which was buried in the countryside and close to nothing but a tiny village named Milcroft. The family had come here when the children were young as Lady Beaufort thought it was quaint and had wanted to expose the children to “simple people.” And indeed, the area surrounding Milcroft was inhabited by dairy maids, blacksmiths, bakers, a country doctor, a vicar, and many crofters—some of them Beaufort’s tenants. The people had been kind and welcoming, and Nash had spent a few weeks each year running about barefoot along Wentmore’s extensive