The Delicate Matter of Lady Blayne (30 page)

“Oh, Freddy.”

She had spoken so softly, he’d barely heard her.

But he had heard her. He went to stone.

Firmly, he placed his hands on her shoulders and gave her a gentle push away.

She grasped the edges of his open collar and clung to them. “Freddy, please.”

Glassy eyes met his.

“Forgive me.” Her words resonated with such pain, such regret.

That twisting inside him began again. More faintly, but there nonetheless.

Determined to remain in control this time, he took her hands and pried them off his collar. “We must get you cleaned up.”

Once again, he cursed the lack of servants. He must fetch and heat enough water to wash her encrusted hair and then do it all over again so that he might bathe her. At the same time, he’d have to ensure she wouldn’t run away.

“Catriona,” he said firmly.

She stared at him, still glassy-eyed.

“Listen to me carefully,” he said, holding her hands.

She gripped him so hard her nails bit into his skin.

He glanced down and saw broken nails with dirt embedded beneath. Open gashes, bleeding—

Tightness spread from his chest, up into his throat. A choked gasp echoed in his ears, one that he barely recognized as his own.

“Your hands.” He heard the accusation in his voice. “Your beautiful hands!”

She gasped.

He closed his fists around her hands and gave them a none-too-gentle shake. “What have you done to your beautiful hands? Your hair?”

God, if he had walked by a chamber and heard any other man speaking those words to a woman, in such an accusatory yet sorrowful tone, he would have said that man had gone insane.

But he couldn’t stop himself. “What were you thinking? Don’t you know that every part of you belongs to me now?”

Her mouth dropped open.

“Yes, me,” he spoke slowly, emphatically. “James.”

Something sparked in her eyes.

“You’re mine.” He squeezed her hands. “These belong to me.”

“I-I…” Her voice cracked.

The painful twisting inside himself increased until it felt like something broke.

He took several deep breaths until he’d regained his equilibrium. Then he gentled his hold on her hands. “Listen to me, Catriona.”

She nodded.

“I am going to fetch water to wash your hair.” He took her wrists. “Come,” he said, leading her.

She offered no resistance as he steered her to a chair. “You will sit here and wait.”

“Yes.”

“I mean it, Catriona. If you disobey, I shall skelp you until you can’t sit. For a week!” Fear made his last three words harsher then he’d intended. Fear borne of a sudden mental image of her running away into the cold, rainy night.

She stared at him with such wide eyes, he wondered if perhaps he’d spoken too sharply to her, given her current state. Then her eyes came alive; their intensity shone like emeralds. She laughed, a clear, tinkling sound.

A chill passed over his scalp. He felt a bit ill. He tightened his hold on her wrists. “Catriona?”

Damn, his tone sounded too sharp again.

She gasped, still laughing. She appeared to be trying to stop. She held up a hand as a peal of giggles beset her. Then she smiled, flashing her small, white teeth. Her lush mouth curving.

Sudden desire heated his blood.

“Oh, James!”

At hearing the sound of his name, the wash of relief that came over him was stunning. An urge swept through him, to drop to his knees and gather her to himself, to kiss her. And not stop.

He eased his grip on her wrists.

“Skelp.” Another series of giggles overcame her. Again, she held up her hand and waved. “In your crisp English tone, it’s just too hilarious.” Her eyes sparkled. “All those elocution lessons that your aunt insisted on.”

Her laughter, so merry, so girlish and free, made his mouth twitch. The temptation to join her in mirth was hard to fight.

“You are so much the Englishman.”

Suddenly, he felt accused. Disloyal to his origins. He hardened his expression. “I mean it, Catriona. You’re not to move an inch.”

Her expression turned grave, her eyes large and round. “Of course, James.”

He turned from her then gathered and heated several buckets of water. He brought one to her chair and knelt, taking her hands and bringing them the water.

“I can wash my own hands,” she said.

He ignored her, soaping the mud encrusted flesh and frowning at the cuts and abrasions left behind. He looked up at her, sternly. “If you wish work in the garden, you must wear protective gloves.”

“I didn’t think of it.”

“Aye, you didn’t think.”

“I am sorry.”

“I’ll punish you for things like this. Putting yourself in danger, harming yourself.”

“Will you?”

“That’s a promise.”

“Two promises.”

“What?”

“You’ve made me two promises this night.”

Frowning, he stood, then took the bucket of muddy water away. He came back with two more buckets of water and considered her position in the chair. He could place the hipbath behind the chair and have her lean back to let the dirty water flow that way.

After that was done, with her hair thoroughly toweled and combed free of tangles, he filled the bath. He thought about leaving her for privacy’s sake.

But as he watched her sitting there, her hair fast drying from the heat of the fire, with her eyelids drooping, he realized she was too tired.

He helped her strip off the soiled nightdress.

The fire blazed cheerfully, the flames casting dancing shadows and light over her full breasts with their rosy tips, rounded hips and—

His pulse sped as his erection reared to life and strained against his fall.

God.

How was he to cope, alone with a madwoman who was dependent on him?

A gorgeous madwoman with the body of a goddess.

He couldn’t have her. Not until she regained herself.

But tonight, he would have to gaze upon her. To touch her.

He reached for the cloth and the soap, startled to see his hands were shaking. Irritation at himself bristled along his every nerve. He fisted his hand on the cloth and wet it. Then he rubbed it over the soap until the scent of jasmine and vanilla and lush spices filled the air. Again he bristled in annoyance with himself. Why had he purchased this damned soap? Why had he brought it here? He was only indulging his weakness with her. He had been doing so ever since he had come home to Scotland.

They had no future.

The Earl of Greythorn couldn’t wed a madwoman any more than he could wed a self-indulgent lady of scandal.

He dragged a chair over to the large tub of steaming water, then sat and held out a hand to her.

“Come here,” he said, hearing the terseness in his voice but unable to help it. He would either be cold and terse, or he would be atop her.

She came to him, walking slowly, her face showing a girlish sort of shyness.

“Give me your arm,” he said.

She obeyed and he took the soaped cloth and scrubbed her arm.

“Now the other,” he bade her. Then he rinsed the cloth clean before motioning to her. “Kneel.”

She knelt before him, holding her face up to him. Her eyes were large and trusting.

He wanted to kiss her.

More than wanted it.

Temptation beat in his veins like the thunder rumbling outside. He compressed his lips then carefully folded the cloth to make a fine point. With gentle motions, he wiped her cheeks free of mud, all the while aware of the rise and fall of her generous breasts. Aware of them brushing against his inner thighs as he angled to get closer to better clean her neck.

He wanted to toss the damned cloth aside and take hold of those breasts. To squeeze their softness. Cursing under his breath, he gently pushed her aside then fetched another bucket of water. “Sit in the chair,” he said, then he washed her feet. He couldn’t help lingering with the soaped cloth over her ankles and calves. “Rinse your feet in the water, then get into the tub and finish bathing.”

She obeyed with alacrity.

He barely breathed a sigh of relief when her curves disappeared underneath the water in the tub, for their image was imprinted on his mind. His cock throbbed and throbbed, the pangs of desire seeming even more intense now that the distraction of washing her was done.

She sat in the tub, sleepy-eyed with her hair curling softly around her beautiful face, appearing too tired to wash herself.

Well, the job would have to be considered done.

He couldn’t trust himself to touch her any more.

But he had to.

He held a hand to her. “Come, arise.”

She stared at him, her eyes looking glassy again.

“Wait,” he said. He left her and then returned with some heated wine laced heavily with honey.

She drank it with painful slowness, leaving him to sit there, increasingly spellbound by the sight of her nipples gently rising over the waterline and then falling beneath it with each breath. At last, the job was finished. She was clean again. He helped her from the tub then wrapped a towel about her. Rubbed those luscious curves until her flesh was rosy and dry.

And he was throbbing and hard as iron. With Catriona wrapped in a fresh towel, he carried her from the kitchen to her chamber. Once dressed in a clean nightdress and tucked into her bed, she reached for him as he made to leave.

“The garden, you promised.”

Tenderness came over him, wiping away the edge that unrequited lust had given him. He caressed her cheek. “Of course.”

He remained sitting by her bed, watching her as she fell asleep. He might never love a woman again, not as he had loved her back in her days of innocence. But he wanted, needed, to protect her from everything. From everyone. Forever.

But the Earl of Greythorn could never wed a madwoman.

Never.

* * * *

Sunny sat at the table in the breakfast room. Sunlight glared on the yellow wallpaper printed with ruby-red colored birds perched on chocolate-brown branches and emerald leaves. The wainscoting was the palest green, and the linen tablecloth a brilliant white. Stark cheerfulness. She focused on staring into her teacup, wishing she’d had the sense to leave her hair loose so that it could fall over her face. At the memory of last night’s madness, her cheeks flamed and her meal of cold chicken and bread lay forgotten.

Not daring to raise her head even a degree, she peeked through her lashes at James, studying every line of his sternly set face and the blue highlights the sunlight made in his coal black hair.

Her heart, her belly, her knees all went soft. Mushy. Weak.

He had been so kind last week when she’d been in pain. He had sat with her each day, all day, on the settee. Urging her to choke down small meals of fruit and watered wine that he’d laced with honey and beaten eggs. Allowing her to rest her head in his lap and reading to her endlessly from books of plays and poetry and natural science—all that he had found in the study.  He even read to her out of her romance novels.

Late in the nights, he had come to her bedchamber and rubbed her back with a type of oil that heated when it touched her skin, and kept massaging her until she drifted off into a brief and fitful sleep.

Even later in those nights, he had played cards with her. Sometimes he simply stroked her hair and told her tales from his days at sea. The drama of those stories, and his deep, steady voice, distracted her from her pain, lifting her out of it and carrying her miles away.

He had been too kind, too patient.

In return, she’d grown increasingly irritable, restless—and now, apparently, prone to wild flights of fancy!

Not exactly a pleasing companion for a gentleman.

Thank goodness her wits had returned to her with the daylight.

He had already finished his chicken, bread and two apples. Now he sat there leisurely sipping a cup of steaming black coffee whilst he read a newspaper. The most recent London Times that had come there, but days old of course. Something major must have caught his attention, for he had inhaled deeply at least three times already.

The servant who had come with the papers had also brought a substantial stack of letters, all thick with official-looking wax seals. Perhaps James needed to lock himself away in the study the entire day to answer them.

He certainly wouldn’t be in the mood to go digging in the herb gardens whilst playing guardian to a madwoman.

“You don’t really have to go.” Embarrassment made it hard to speak.

He looked at her, his gaze calm and blue as still, deep water. “What?”

“You don’t really have to go to the garden.” She raised her voice with difficulty, feeling the heat rising in her cheeks.