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ARTEMISIA

CORNWALL, ENGLAND – 1817

Mrs. Artemisia Longwood was traveling down a country road one fine afternoon when she glimpsed something in the bushes that made her tap the roof and call out, “Driver, stop!”

Her coachman pulled the carriage to a halt. She poked her head out the window and craned her neck to get a better view. Perhaps she had been mistaken when she saw a man’s naked arse flash by.

But no, if anything, the situation was even worse than her initial impression. The man was not wearing a stitch of clothing.

“We can’t leave that lying there.” She sighed.

“With respect, my lady, that is no lion. That is a naked man!” said her scandalized driver.

“Indeed. We must do something,” she said. Why the task of upholding moral virtue always fell into her unwilling lap was a mystery for the ages. First, her long-dead and not-much-mourned husband had left her with a mess of an estate to clean up. Now, this rogue was passed out in a hedgerow. “Children might see him in the altogether. They could be scarred for life. We shall protect the innocent from this ignominious display. Bring him in.”

She did not mention that they were rather fine buttocks that warranted closer inspection by a lady of appropriate age, such as herself. What was the harm? She was a widow, and if the man was foolish enough to get drunk and pass out nude in a bush in the middle of the afternoon, he deserved to be harmlessly ogled. It wasn’t as if he would know what she had done when he woke up.

Having thus justified her decision, she waited for her coach driver and footman to wrest the naked stranger out of the bushes and into her vehicle. Once he was lying awkwardly across the seat, Artemisia draped a blanket over him, but not before taking a quick peek beneath. From the neck down, he must be the handsomest man she had ever laid eyes upon in all her twenty-eight years. Granted, the sum total of her experience included four men, and one of them had been her brother when they were both still babies, but she had also seen innumerable Greek statues. This man’s physique rivaled any sculpture’s.

His face, when she finally bothered dragging her gaze above his clavicles, wasn’t half bad either. She frowned at the sizable purple knot near his temple.

Perhaps he was not a drunkard, as she had initially thought. He might have been a traveler who was set upon by highway robbers. This part of Cornwall was rife with smugglers and other brigands.

“Drive on,” she ordered. She had best be going before she met a similar fate.

“Shall we continue to our intended destination, milady?” the coachman asked.

Artemisia hesitated. The Mermaid’s Rest was the inn that had been recommended to her. Her cousin, Margaret Gibbs, had advised her to avoid the rougher tavern in Cavalier Cove, which Artemisia would have dismissed simply because of its cheeky name, the Cock and Bull. But she hadn’t planned upon taking two rooms for the evening, and she could hardly share one with a complete stranger. Even if he was unconscious.

“Yes, please, continue to the Mermaid’s Rest.” Perhaps there would be someone who recognized this unfortunate person and could help him get home. Wherever that was.

She examined his hand where it flopped bonelessly over the edge of the seat. Despite the sun-bronzed skin everywhere except for those muscular buttocks, they were not tough-skinned like a laborer’s. Instead, they were stained with ink.

Hm. A clerk wouldn’t likely possess all those delightful muscles, nor would he be tanned from the waist up like a man who worked outdoors. What little she knew about the man was not adding up. Intriguing.

His low groan when the wheel hit a rut and jounced the carriage made Artemisia sit up straighter.

“You poor man.” She reached out to touch the knot on his temple, grimacing. She didn’t want him dying on her, and she did pity the man. “That must be wickedly painful.”

Ink-stained fingers manacled her wrist. Startled, Artemisia yanked back. He didn’t let go.

“You are remarkably quick and strong for a man who has had his head bashed in,” she said a little breathlessly, taken aback by his sudden display of strength. One moment he’d been unconscious and the next he moved with the speed of a striking snake.

“Who are you? Why am I naked?” He pushed her hand away and sat up. The blanket fell away from his bare chest. Blue eyes narrowed at her. “What have you done with my clothes?”

“Me?” Artemisia scoffed indignantly. “I have not done anything with your clothes. Presumably, you either left them off somewhere, or someone stole them. Why, I cannot imagine. Who are you?”

“I asked first.”

“I am Mrs. Artemisia Longwood.”

He lifted one eyebrow and winced, for it was the brow closest to the bloody knot at his temple. “I have no idea.”

Artemisia scoffed. “I didn’t expect you to have any idea who I am. My name is hardly famous, or infamous, for that matter. I was asking for your name, sir.” She did not say you cretin out loud, for she was a polite woman who did not go around calling strangers names. She thought it, though.

“As I told you, Mrs. Longwood, I don’t know. I cannot recall anything about myself, as a matter of fact.”