Burning Up

injuries, however dubious his prospects, then he’d had hope.
    Now . . .
    “She has not returned,” Sloat said behind him, his voice an unctuous blend of sympathy and satisfaction.
    Jack’s hands fisted at his sides. His eyes felt gritty and dry. “No.”
    He had been back to the cottage three times with increasing desperation and diminished hopes. Morwenna was gone as if she had never been. The air smelled like a deserted campsite, of ash and abandonment. Only the rumpled covers of the bed and scattered gifts from the villagers proved she had been there at all.
    He felt her absence like an amputated limb, a phantom pain in his chest where his heart had been.
    What had she said after she sang the young fisherman from the sea? Go back to your sweetheart . . . hold her tight for the time that has been given to you both.
    Good advice.
    So why the hell hadn’t he followed it? He should have relished every day, every hour, every second he had with her.
    Now it was too late even to apologize.
    She had saved him from death. More, she had made him feel alive.
    And instead of thanking her, he had accused her of not trusting him. Of not being what he imagined, when she was so clearly everything he needed.
    No wonder she left him.
    A cough recalled his attention to the steward standing behind him.
    “Apparently no one has seen the girl since your, er, outing the other day,” Sloat said. “It’s caused some talk in the village.”
    Jack felt a prickle like a soldier’s warning awareness of danger. He turned from the window. “What are you suggesting?”
    “Nothing. Good heavens, nothing at all. Actually, I defended you.”
    Cold comprehension pierced Jack’s fog of misery. “What do they think I did? Push her overboard?”
    Sloat’s tongue flickered over his lips. “Of course not. Even if, in a moment of passion, you were driven to . . . But no one would ever accuse you of such a thing. Certainly not to your face.”
    No one but Sloat, Jack thought grimly.
    “Perhaps I should present myself to the magistrate,” he said only half in jest.
    “Oh, no, sir.” The steward sounded genuinely shocked. “But perhaps . . . Might I suggest a stay in town would be in order? Only until the talk dies down.”
    “You are very careful of my reputation,” Jack observed.
    Even more concerned, he guessed, with his own consequence in the household and the neighborhood. Sloat’s activities had been curtailed by Jack’s arrival, his position further threatened by the possibility of Jack’s marriage. The steward must want nothing more than for Jack to go away.
    “A change of scene would do you good,” Sloat urged. “The estate provides enough income to support a London residence. More income if . . . Well, enough has been said on that subject, eh?”
    More income if Sloat were left in charge to carry on as he had before.
    This was overreaching, even for Sloat.
    “I will stay,” Jack said.
    Even if Morwenna never came back, his duty was here.
    “Don’t look for thanks,” Sloat warned him. “These Scots are an ungrateful lot.”
    “Excuse me, sir.” Watts, the red-faced butler, shuffled into the room. “There are several gentlemen . . . men . . . persons here to see you. From the village.”
    “I warned you there was talk,” Sloat said. “Send them away.”
    Jack silenced him with a look. Whatever the accusations, he would face them. He nodded to the butler. “Show them in, Watts.”
    The butler blinked and wandered off, eventually returning with the delegation from the village: the shopkeeper Hobson in his shabby coat, the broad baker with his orange beard, and the old and young fishermen whose boat had been caught in the storm. They came in tugging their caps and stamping their feet, ill at ease as dray horses on a racetrack.
    “Gentlemen,” Jack said politely. “What can I do for you?”
    Sloat sneered. “Isn’t it obvious? They’re here to extort money.”
    “I don’t think so,” Jack said, watching their faces. “Two of them have already presented their accounts and been paid.”
    The sharp-faced shopkeeper nodded. “That’s right. That’s why we came. Partly why we came.”
    “Because they want more. I told you how it would be,” Sloat said to Jack. “Once they recognize a soft touch, they rob you blind.”
    The young fisherman flushed and took a step forward. “We’re not thieves.”
    “Not like some,” the baker rumbled with a dark look at Sloat.
    “Why don’t you tell me your