Return to Summerhouse (The Summerhouse 2)

She knew he was referring to the head lice. “I have parsley seeds,” she said. “I could wrap your head in them, but if you’d rather have Thomas shave your hair off, I’ll understand.”

“Thomas or a beautiful woman?” William said. “I will have to think on that.”

Faith laughed. “Maybe I shouldn’t help you get well. You might be dangerous.”

“And since when did a woman dislike danger in a man?”

“You, Mr. William, are going to be a problem,” she said as she took his empty plate to the cabinet where she had a big porcelain bowl of water.

She tidied up while Thomas took the bowl of hot water Faith handed him and the straight razor and a bar of Beth’s soap. For a moment Faith held her breath, but from the way Thomas wielded the razor and the way William moved his face, this was something they’d done many times before.

Thomas gently cleaned William’s face of excess soap.

“I hope I—”

William broke off because they heard the sound of a horse approaching. Faith went to the door and saw a tall, dark man sitting atop a black horse as if he’d been born on the animal. She knew without a doubt that this was Tristan. Even though she’d been his guest for a few days now, she’d seen him only from a distance.

“I believe this is your nephew,” Faith said, turning to look at William. He was watching her intently.

“Tristan,” he said, and tried to sit up straighter. Faith ran to help him.

“He is beautiful, is he not?” William said when her face was close to his.

It was probably her imagination but she thought she heard jealousy in his voice. “If you like boys,” she said under her breath.

William gave a sound like a laugh and he seemed to sit up straighter in the bed.

When Tristan Hawthorne walked into the orangery, it was as though the room filled with him. It was a big area, at least sixty feet long, but Tristan seemed to take up all of it. When Faith had first seen the drawing of him that Zoë did, she’d thought he looked like Tyler, but now she knew he didn’t. Tyler was a good-looking, hometown boy, and wasn’t in the same league as this man.

“Tristan,” William whispered and lifted his arms. Faith could see his thin arms shake with fatigue, but he held them aloft to welcome his nephew.

Tristan took his uncle’s hands in his, then bent forward to kiss his cheek. “You look…” He couldn’t say anything else as he stared at William, his eyes drinking him in.

“I was saved by an angel,” William said. “I was praying for death, when this angel came and saved me.”

Faith could feel her whole body turning red. “I only did what anyone would do,” she managed to say.

Tristan turned to look at her, an intense gaze that made her uncomfortable. In that moment she had even more admiration for Amy. How in the world had she been able to take on this man? Faith knew that she would never have had the courage to stand up against his intense glare.

“No,” Tristan said, “you have done more than what we did. I thought that the doctor…”

He couldn’t seem to say more, but she couldn’t let him carry his guilt. She knew how it felt to think that if only she’d done something different, the bad wouldn’t have happened.

“You did the best you could, and it’s to your credit that you trusted me, a woman you’d never met, to take care of your uncle. For all you knew I could have been a charlatan.”

“No,” he said. “I trusted Amy. I have trusted her from the beginning.”

And loved her, Faith thought. Tristan was as in love with her as much as she’d ever seen anyone in love. Amy, Amy, Amy, she thought. What are you doing to this poor man? His beloved wife had died and now he was in love with Amy—and she was going to leave him in less than three weeks.

Faith smiled modestly and stepped away from the two men, giving them time alone. She didn’t know what was going to happen with William. She could clean him all she wanted, but if there was something wrong with the inside of him, he still wouldn’t be well. She would just have to wait and see.

She left the walled garden and walked toward the old house. The front of it was trampled by cows and thick with manure, but she could see how beautiful it had once been. But the house had been abandoned when Tristan had built the new one for his doomed wife.

As Faith walked around the house and even got close enough to look in some of the windows, she knew that to these people the old house was nothing special, but to her modern mind it needed to be preserved and treasured.

She picked some wildflowers from the fields and when she got back to the orangery, Tristan was gone and William was asleep. But he woke up an hour later and said he was a bit “peckish.” Faith knew this meant he was hungry.

Three days later, William’s mouth had healed enough that he could chew food, and with Faith’s help, he had taken a few steps. At first Thomas had tried to support him, but William said he was a clumsy oaf and not good as a crutch.