The Virtuous Widow Read Free

and I feared you would take a chill.”
    He blinked up at her. His head throbbed unbearably. The rest of his body ached as well, but his head was the worst. Dizziness and confusion washed over him.
    And then it hit him. She had spoken in English. Not Portuguese, or Spanish or French. English—not foreigners’ English, either—proper English. His sort of English. So where were they? He tried to speak, to ask her. He felt his mouth move, but it was as if someone had cut out his tongue. Or severed it from his brain. He felt his lips moving, but no words came out. He fixed his gaze on her face and tried to muster the energy to ask her the question. Questions. They crowded his splitting head.
    The woman sat down on the floor beside him again and smoothed his hair gently back from his forehead. It felt so good, he closed his eyes for a moment to savour it.
    “I don’t have any brandy,” she said apologetically. “All I have is hot soup. Now, drink a little. It will give you strength and warmth.”
    Warmth? Did he need warmth? He realised that he was shivering. She lifted his head up and though he knew she was being as gentle as she could be, his brain thundered and swirled and he felt consciousness slipping from him. But then she tucked him against her shoulder and held him there, still and secure and somehow…cared for. He gripped her thigh and clung stubbornly to his senses and gradually felt the black swirling subside.

    He recoiled as something clunked against his teeth. “It is only the teapot,” she murmured in his ear. “It contains warm broth. Now, drink. It will help.”
    He wanted to tell her that he was a man, that he would drink it himself, out of a cup, not a teapot, like some helpless infant, but the words would not come. She tipped the teapot up and he had to swallow or have it spill down him. He swallowed. It was good broth. Warm. Tasty. It warmed his insides. And she felt so soft and good, her breasts against him, her arm around him, holding him upright against her. Weakly, he closed his eyes and allowed himself to be fed like a baby.
    He drank the broth slowly, in small mouthfuls. The woman’s breath was warm against his face. She seemed to know how much to give him and when he needed to wait between mouthfuls. He could smell her hair. He wanted to turn his head and bury his face in it. He drank the broth instead. The fire crackled in the grate. Outside the wind whistled and howled, rattling at the doors and windows. It was chilly inside the cottage, and the floor underneath him was hard and cold, but oddly, he felt warm and cosy and at peace.
    He finished the broth and half-sat, half-lay against her, allowing her to wipe his mouth, like a child. They sat for a moment or two, in companionable silence, with the wind swirling outside the cottage and the questions swirling inside his head.
    Beneath the blanket he was stark naked, he suddenly realised. He stared at her, another question on his unmoving lips. Who was she, to strip him of his clothes?
    As if she knew what he wanted, she murmured gently in his ear, “You arrived at my cottage almost an hour ago. I don’t know what happened to you before that. You were half-dressed and sopping wet. Frozen from the sleet and the rain. I don’t know how long you’d been outside, or how you managed to find the cottage, but you collapsed at the door—”
    “Is Papa awake now?” a little voice said, like the piping of a bird.
    Papa? He opened his eyes and saw a vivid little face staring at him with bright, inquisitive eyes. A child. A little girl.
    “Go back to bed this instant, Amy,” said the woman sharply.
    He winced and jerked his head and the blackness swirled again. When he reopened his eyes, he wasn’t sure how much time had passed. He was no longer leaning against the woman’s shoulder and the little face of the child was gone. And he was shivering. Hard.
    The woman bent over him, her eyes dark with worry. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I