Moonlight Surrender (Moonlight Book 3) (11 page)

“Seems to be better.” He was well pleased when he had slipped into the room barely two minutes ago and touched Duncan’s forehead. It was cool. “You slept here all night with him.”

It would have been a lie to say he wasn’t surprised at her vigilance. He had been sure that she would have sent for one of them during the night to take her place. Her dedication pleased him.

The ache in her back attested to the fact that she had spent the night in the chair. She rotated her shoulders, seeking to shed the stiffness.

“Yes, apparently I did.”

And what would her mother say when she heard that
piece of news? Beth had no doubt that the woman would hear. Sylvia would make a lengthy report as soon as they returned, and perhaps even write of it before they ever reached France. But she had no time to dwell on that, or on the effect it would have on her mother.

Beth moved forward and touched her hand to Duncan’s forehead. The compress had slipped down and was about his chin now.

“It’s cool as a witch’s—“ Samuel stopped himself with a gulp. “As a baby’s bottom,” he amended for her sake with a sheepish grin.

She withdrew her hand, greatly satisfied. “The fever’s broken.” She said the words to hear them aloud.

Samuel beamed at her as if Beth had performed some sort of miracle. “All Duncan needed was the laying of your hands.”

She merely laughed, thinking that he jested with her.
“Sylvia?” She suddenly remembered that the woman’s welfare was her responsibility, or at least, that was the way it had evolved.

“She’s well, mistress.” Samuel’s smile widened, so much so that it aroused her curiosity. “Very well, indeed.” His eyes swept over her, approval registering in them. The morning dress became her. “You’ve changed your clothes, I see.”

She recalled the eerie feeling that she had had last night when she was changing, a feeling that she was being watched. “Yes.”

Samuel looked around for the pile of discarded clothing. “Might I have the others washed for you?”

Beth shook her head. “I don’t intend on staying that long.”

Samuel nodded toward the window to bring her atten
tion to the rain.

“The weather intends otherwise, I’m afraid.” He looked at the sleeping man in the bed. “And Duncan is not full well yet. I know he’d want to thank you himself for what you’ve done.”

She didn’t want to waste time, waiting for thanks. And she had an uneasy feeling that she had no desire to be around Duncan when he was at his full strength and well.

“There’s no need,” she assured Samuel.

He eyed her knowingly. “Just as there was no need to
repay him for saving your life.”

He had her there.

“I see your point.” She sighed, frustrated. “Well, given the weather, I suppose we’re not going anywhere
just yet.” Beth hesitated, then opened her trunk again.
Scooping up the garments she had bundled on top, she handed them to Samuel. “Here.”

Samuel tucked the lot of them into a ball under his arm. “A wise decision. They’ll be cleaned and ready for you when you leave us.”

She nodded as she turned toward the window. “Does it always rain like this, for days at a time?”

“Sometimes weeks.” His comment had her looking at him sharply. “But not now, I’m sure,” he added hastily, lest she decide to leave while rivers ran from the sky. Duncan, he had a feeling, wouldn’t forgive him if he let
the young woman leave before he had a chance to speak
with her.

With the clothes tucked safely under his arm, Samuel
quietly removed the untouched soup. “I’ll be sending
breakfast up to you shortly. Or will you be taking it
downstairs?”

It sounded like a very good idea. She’d spent too much time sitting here, looking at that face last night. A change would do her a great deal of good.

“Send someone to stay with him,” she instructed. “I shall be eating downstairs.” Her first order of business,
she decided, was to ask Sylvia the meaning of Samuel’s
broad, satisfied smile.

“Right away, mistress.” Arms loaded down, he began to back out of the room the way one would in the presence of a ruler.

“One more question, if you please?”

Samuel came to an abrupt halt. “Yes?”

“The driver. Have you—?”

Samuel nodded. There was no need for her to continue. “Donovan’s gone to fetch his widow even now. Will that be all?”

She nodded. As he backed away, Beth laughed to her
self. What a curious place this was! One moment Samuel was eyeing her as if she were an interloper, the next
he was treating her as if she had raised Duncan from the
dead.

“You are real.”

Beth gasped as she swung around at the sound of his
voice. Duncan was sitting up in bed, weakly propped up on his good elbow. His long, flowing golden hair fell riotously about his rakishly handsome face, brushing against the tops of his bare shoulders. Beth felt a tightening in her chest the likes of which she hadn’t experienced while he lay unconscious. Awake he was twice the man he was when he lay sleeping.

Her mouth felt as if her father’s cottonseed had fallen into it. She coughed and cleared it, or tried to. “Excuse me?”

He smiled, one corner of his mouth lifting higher than
the other. Her stomach turned to undercooked porridge. “Last night, I thought I dreamt you.”

She thought he was speaking of when she was trying to probe the lead from his shoulder. The words he had heaped on her head returned to her and she smiled. “Do you always curse your dreams?”

Feeling weakened, he was forced to lie back against his pillow again.

“Curse you?” he echoed, confused. “If I remember correctly, I was completely lost in worship.”

Now it was Beth’s turn to be confused. She stared at him. “Sir?”

Trepidation created uncertain ripples within her. His
smile was too familiar, too unsettling. Apprehension be
gan to consume her.

The smile widened further as the memory returned, vivid and clear. “I have never gazed upon a woman as perfect as you.”

“You hardly saw me last night,” Beth pointed out ner
vously.

Anxiety dried her mouth. She remembered the moan
she had heard when she was changing and vehemently
denied the source, clinging to her belief that it had been the wind.

“You were out of your head most of the time as I was
removing the ball from your shoulder. And then,” she insisted in isolated, measured words, “you slept.”

“Aye.” Duncan’s eyes touched her body as if he knew
what it looked like without her morning dress on. “And dreamed.”

“Of what?” she barely whispered.

Please God, don’t let him say what I think he’s going to say.

“Of a wondrous, supple-limbed woman in my room, as unclothed as the day she was created.” The familiar smile grew only more so. His eyes held hers. “Like a goddess rising from the sea, ripe and beautiful.”

Though she thought herself far beyond it, Beth blushed from the roots of her hair to the bottom of her soles. Fury seized her. After all she’d done for him… .

Her throat was hoarse when she spoke. “You, sir, are no gentleman. You are a rogue.”

“Aye, perhaps,” he agreed. “But I’m a very blessed one.”

Chapter Eleven

She didn’t know which inflamed her more, his words, or the wide grin upon his face. In either case, she whirled on her heel, wanting to put distance between them as quickly as possible.

“Wait,” Duncan called after her.

Against her better judgment, she stopped. Curiosity, she knew, would one day be her undoing. She stood still, not deigning to face him, feeling that he deserved no more than to talk to her back.

“Stay. I meant no harm.”

The man meant more than harm. He was a heathen. She had no idea why she even bothered to converse with him. She would have fared better talking to her horse.

Still, Beth fisted her hands at her side and turned around. “If you meant no harm, why didn’t you close your eyes, or give me a sign that you were awake, instead of watching me like some blackguard pirate?”

She’d hit upon the truth without suspecting it, he
thought, as he watched the way her bosom rose and fell,
fueled by indignation. It made him think on the way she had been last night, supple and inviting.

He lifted a shoulder and then let it fall, shrouding himself in innocence. “At times, old ways are hard to part with.”

Her eyes narrowed. He was admitting his shamelessness? “Then you are a blackguard?”

“Was,” Duncan amended, as he inclined his head. “At least, there were some who called me that.” He saw curiosity highlight her eyes like beacons shining upon the darkened waters. “I was a privateer.”

That was merely a title to hide the bearer’s true intent.

“A thief, you mean.” There was no difference between a pirate and a privateer, except that one held an allegiance to himself and the other could be publicly bought.

Duncan held up a finger to halt her verbiage before it
spilled out. “An honorable one.”

As if there was honor among thieves. Did he think her a brainless dolt to believe in such prattle? “Who sold himself to the highest bidder.”

Duncan smiled as he leaned back against his bed. That was not the way of it. It had been allegiance that
had bought him. That, and the need to provide for his
extended family.

But if he told her that, she would call him a liar. So he told her what he knew she would readily believe that he believed.

“Money is an honorable institution.”

He was having sport with her. Did he think, because he had seen her without a stitch of clothing, that she was entirely without a mind as well? Or scruples? “I won’t remain here and be mocked.”

“Not mocked, Beth.” He shook his head as his mouth curved. “Worshipped.” She had a body that invited worship, and he possessed hands which he would readily raise in prayer.

They hardly knew one another, and he was speaking to her the way a man would after asking permission to court her. No, she amended, not even then, for she would have had his tongue cut out for being so forward. “You are too familiar.”

Her umbrage made Duncan laugh, though it hurt his
shoulder to do so. “Ah, not nearly as familiar as I would wish.”

She had had enough. Beth turned once more on her heel and aimed for the door.

Now you’ve done it
, he thought. She looked intensely
angry this time.

“Wait,” he called again, but she didn’t bother to stop. “Would you walk out on a wounded man?”

She gained the door and pulled it open. The words were thrown over her shoulder. “I would if that man were a rogue and a base scoundrel.”

“A rogue and base scoundrel who saved you from a
dishonorable fate.” He saw her brace her shoulders and knew that he had guessed correctly. She was the kind who felt honor bound to repay her debts.

Beth spun around, her eyes flashing. She crossed the room to his bed, as if to engage in battle. She saw through him well.

“A fate that you would wish now to bestow upon me, no doubt, if you were able.” She poked a hard, angry finger at the center of his chest.

“I am more than able for that, Beth.” As her hand rose to strike him, his eyes met hers and held. Duncan grew serious, his voice softening. “But never that way, Beth. That much about me you must believe. If we were ever to come together, it would be strictly by your wishes.”

Duncan saw that he had her and continued. He told her nothing less than the truth.

“I see no joy in taking a woman against her will.” He
smiled at her, his words moving like warm waves upon
her skin. “The joining of two bodies is truly a wondrous
thing. It should never be marred by curses and pain.”

Did he really believe that? she wondered. Once more he had caused the very breath within her to be stilled. To hover in her throat, moving neither up nor down as she stared at him.

Beth shook herself loose of the spell he cast upon her. The man had the tongue of the devil, she thought, not
completely grudgingly.

“So you mesmerize your victim instead, like a serpent with a helpless mouse.”

He laughed once more, then groaned as he clutched at his wound. “You are no mouse, Beth, and you are as far
from helpless as heaven is from hell.”

What was she doing here, bandying words about and
talking of bedding with a man who wasn’t her husband? Yet her feet remained where they were, held fast by she
knew not what.

A fascination spun through her, though Beth resisted it.

She pressed her lips together and tried to think of
other things than the unsettling effect this man was having upon her. Her eyes fell upon the way he clutched his
shoulder.

“Do you feel better?”

“Looking upon you has helped me do that.” He heard
her quick intake of breath, saw the angry flash rise to her cheeks. He rather liked it, but knew he was treading in dangerous waters. “Yes, much.” He regarded the neatly bandaged arm thoughtfully. “You did this?”

He vaguely recalled her ministering to him, but it was far less vividly imprinted in his mind than her supple
silhouette had been.

“Yes.”

He obviously didn’t remember. Perhaps he had been out of his head with pain after all. She brushed her fingers over it now as if to straighten it. It was, she knew,
but a shameless excuse to touch him again. She dropped
her hand, annoyed with herself.

She raised her eyes to his. “How could you tell?”

Duncan felt himself warming again as fresh desire
stoked the fire within him. There would come a day, he
suddenly swore to himself, when he would have her.

“Samuel would have left something three times as large in its stead. His handiwork is not nearly so neat.”

“Wait, you’re undoing it,” she chided, batting his fin
gers away. Carefully, she tucked the end of the bandage
about again.