A Wild Yearning (5 page)

Ye wooden-headed fool! How can he help but notice, the way they're practically a-pokin' him in the face?

Ty touched an old bruise, yellow now and almost faded, just above her hipbone. He straightened and looked down at her, his brows drawn together in a frown. "Today obviously wasn't the first time he's used his fists on you."

Shame filled Delia, so bitter she thought she could taste it. She was ashamed to expose her weakness to a stranger. Oh, especially to him. She was ashamed of her da's drunkenness, but she was as much ashamed of herself. She was sure it was all her fault, that if she had managed to keep their home properly the way her ma had before she'd died, then her da would never have been driven to drown his misery in drink.

She couldn't meet Ty's eyes, so she spoke instead to the silver buttons on his waistcoat. "'Twas all my fault. I got his dander up with my sass."

"Jesus Christ," Ty muttered under his breath.

She glanced up in time to catch the look of anger on his face and thought it was directed at herself, and the shame blossomed until tears filled her eyes. She turned her head aside before he could see them.

"Your ribs aren't broken," he said, his voice gruff. "But they're certainly badly bruised and they may well be cracked. To be safe, I'm going into the bedroom to get something to bind them up with. You won't run off?"

She sniffed and surreptitiously wiped at the tears. "Like this? Not bloody likely!"

Ty was gone for only a moment and he returned carrying a long piece of linen. He wrapped it around her ribs, pulling so tightly that Delia wondered how she was going to manage to breathe when he was done. And still, still his touch was so incredibly gentle. Tears, hot and warm, filled her eyes and a sweet ache pulled at her chest. Then his hand accidentally brushed her sensitive breasts and the sweet ache turned into a quivering hunger that was more than a hollow feeling in her belly. It was a yawning pain in the region of her heart.

She looked down at his bent head, at the dark, thick waves of his hair touched with gold by the torchlight, and she knew that what she was thinking was wrong, could never, never be; that she was a fool to wish it and a fool even to think of doing what she was going to do; and that she would do it anyway...

She had known this man for only a few minutes. He was a stranger in every way except one—she had felt the healing touch of his hands. And she knew, somehow she knew, that he alone in all the world could heal her soul.

She knew. And it was enough for her to want to be where he was, live where he lived. She wanted to wake up in the morning and know there was a chance, even if only a small one, that she would see his face sometime that day.

She swallowed and drew in a deep breath. "Dr. Savitch?"

"Um?"

"Can I change my mind again?"

"I've been told that's a woman's prerogative."

"Then ye'll take me to the Merrymeeting Settlement, to be wife t' yer friend?"

"If you wish. It's either you or no one because, frankly, I've run out of time and the inclination to interview any more desperate females." He tied off the binding with quick, deft strokes. "You can get dressed now."

While Delia put her clothes back on, he went over to a lowboy on one side of the hearth where a pewter pitcher and cups had been set out on a tray. He poured wine from the pitcher into one of the cups and carried it to the gateleg table. He spoke while he worked.

"Look, Delia, whatever you decide won't be irreversible, at least not until you and Nat actually marry. It's easy enough to catch a sloop at Falmouth going west, except during the winter months, of course, when the bay is frozen over. If once you get to Merrymeeting you decide you can't abide the place or you can't abide Nat, or he can't abide you, then you'll be shipped back to Boston. At my expense."

Delia made a face at his back. Lord, he made her sound like a piece of merchandise.
Returned due to inferior quality.

Ty stirred the crushed leaves from the pestle into the cup of wine. He brought it over to her. "Drink this."

She eyed the cup suspiciously. "What is it?"

"Something to make the pain go away."

As she reached for the cup her fingers brushed his and she felt the jolt of it all the way down to her toes. But if he had felt anything as well, she couldn't tell by looking at him.

She drained the cup and handed it to him. She started to wipe her mouth on the back of her hand, remembering not to only just in time. "Well..." she said, feeling suddenly awkward. "Uh, when—"

"Be here tomorrow morning at eight o'clock. That doesn't give you much time, I know, but we should have left two days ago. It's going to take us a good three weeks of hard traveling to get there."

Three weeks! Delia hadn't realized the place was so far away. Suddenly the thought of setting off for such a distant wilderness filled her with fear. But the lure was so tempting— the promise of a fresh start, a new life, a home of her own and a man to take care of her, a man who needed her and waited there for her, or someone like her—a lonely, desperate woman to be wife to him and mother to his two children. It all pulled her to Merrymeeting...

Her head was drawn up to meet the force of the doctor's compelling eyes. She remembered the feel of his hands on her flesh where he had touched her.
And him,
a small voice cried out inside her, a voice she tried without success to squelch.
Ye're going because of him.

"Well... till the mornin' then," she said. She started for the door, but he stopped her by softly calling her name.

"What about your father? When you tell him you're leaving, will he...?"

She smiled and waved a hand, as if brushing away his concern. "Oh, ye needn't think he'll come after me any more this night. Nay, he'll be flat out on his tick by now, a-flappin' the roof with his snores."

He smiled back at her, and she felt a strange flutter under her bound-up ribs. "Then I'll see you tomorrow morning," he said. "Don't bring any more with you than you can comfortably carry."

She laughed at that, feeling suddenly happy and wonderfully free. "Go on with ye, doctor," she scoffed. "I don't
own
any more than I can comfortably carry."

Tyler Savitch grimaced at the trencher of food before him. Salt cod drenched in a sauce of butter and eggs and heavily spiced with pepper. It was supposed to be the specialty of the Red Dragon Inn, but after one look and one whiff, his abused insides had risen in revolt.

He looked around the empty taproom, seeking someone who could take it away and bring him something bland, such as a bowl of samp or a piece of toasted bread. He was just about to get up in search of a servant when his ears were assaulted by loud bangs and a terrible squawking noise coming from the hall.

"Aooow! I told ye, ye damn idiot, that he's expectin' me!"

This was followed by a husky voice sputtering a string of cuss words bluer than any Ty had heard outside of a Sagadahoc lumber camp. He recognized the voice. How could he not, since he had tossed and turned all night while it haunted his nightmares?

The door to the taproom banged open and Delia McQuaid strode through. She had one hand on her head, holding down a battered straw hat, and from the other hand dangled a lumpy grist sack. She still wore the same muddy, rum-stained clothes from the night before, except she had added to the ensemble a moth-eaten woolen cloak that looked as if it had been plucked straight off the rubbish heap.

She plopped down on the bench opposite Ty, dropping the grist sack at her feet. He supposed its contents represented all the chit's worldly belongings—it and the paltry rags she wore on her back. He thought with a repressed sigh that the rum-stained bodice was probably the only one she owned.

Still, now that she was closer he noticed she had cleaned herself up from the filthy wretch she had appeared to be the night before. In fact, to his surprise, she was actually rather pretty. Beneath that grayish grime had been flawless skin, pale as snow flowers except for two pink blooms of color on her cheeks and a slash of bright coral that was her wide, expressive mouth. Her ablutions had even extended to her hair—what he could see of it beneath the floppy brim of the pathetic hat. Last night he had thought her hair to be the dull black of soot, but he saw now that it was shot with ruby lights, giving it a richness that seemed out of place on a tavern wench.

She sighed loudly, blowing a lock of hair off her forehead. "That damned porter. Ye'd think this was bloody Windsor Castle the way he's a-guardin' the front door." She paused, looked at him for a long moment, then flashed a brilliant smile. "Mornin'."

Ty said nothing. He drained his tankard of ale and rapped it down on the table. His eyes automatically fell on her breasts, which were straining against the tight lacing of her too-small bodice. It wasn't only that damn sensual, husky voice that had haunted his dreams last night; those breasts had been in there, too.

It bothered him, this prurient interest he had in this girl's body, this wretched, pathetic waterfront brat. His
patient,
for God's sake. It was so unprofessional, so unlike himself. Hadn't he always prided himself on his self-control? He decided the fault was all in the fact that he had fallen into bed last night half-drunk and in a state of aching unspent lust. A state which was entirely the fault of the abject creature now sitting across from him.

He scowled at her from beneath the brim of his cocked hat.

"Ye look a bit bilious this mornin'," she said.

"A man of such refined tastes as myself," Ty intoned, "should never indulge in rum that has been debased with arrack, tea, and lemon juice."

"Huh?"

"I drank too much of that god-awful punch at the governor's assembly last night. My head feels like a pumpkin that's been kicked by a mule. And you banging around and yowling like a pair of fighting cats doesn't help matters any."

"Ye were lit last night?" She was staring hungrily at his trencher of salt cod, and Ty thought that if she were a dog she'd be drooling. "Ye could've fooled me, ye could, because ye certainly didn't show it. I can always tell when my da's had a tot or two, right off. Are ye goin' to be eatin' that?"

Ty shoved the trencher and spoon across the table to her. "Please. Help yourself. How do your ribs feel this morning?"

She smiled brightly at him. "Oh, ye've magic in yer hands, doctor! They scarce hurt at all anymore."

She sat, elbows akimbo on the table, and shoveled a heaping spoonful of the salt cod into her mouth, chewed once, swallowed, and shoved in another mouthful. Some of the sauce dribbled down her chin and she wiped it off with the back of her hand.

"So ye truly were drunk last night? Who'd have thought it?" She grinned at him, showing a mouthful of half-masticated cod. Ty's stomach stirred uncomfortably.

"Don't talk with your mouth full. And for God's sake chew the stuff a few times before you swallow it," he admonished.

The grin froze on her mouth, then her jaw snapped shut. Furious color flooded in a tide up her neck and over her face, and she swallowed—so hard he saw the movement of it in her throat. The spoon, clutched awkwardly in her fist, trembled slightly.

Then her chin came up. Slowly, she dipped the spoon into the trencher and carefully brought it up to her mouth. Her lips opened into the tiniest slit and she took a dainty piece of fish off the spoon. She chewed it very, very slowly, her eyes fastened on his face, and the silence stretched out long between them.

Christ, Ty thought with a shudder. What have I done? He drummed his fingers on the table. Had he really agreed to take this wretched tavern wench back with him to Merrymeeting to be Nat's bride and caretaker to those poor, motherless children? Stalwart, plodding Nathaniel Parkes, a man who was psalm reader at the Sabbath-day meeting, a man who had once shyly admitted to Ty that he'd known in the biblical sense only one woman in his life, and that woman was his wife of ten years, a wife dead a bare two months. Ty tried to picture Nat with the girl sitting across from him, a girl who had probably been turning two-shilling tricks since she was thirteen.

He swallowed a sigh. "This grog shop you work in—"

"The Frisky Lyon." More cream sauce trickled down her chin; she smeared it off with her fingers, then wiped them on her skirt. "Only I don't work there no more. Not since I poured a noggin of rum all over Jake Steerborn's head and flattened his fat nose with a tray—all 'cause he got t' feelin' a little too frisky." She laughed, spraying bits of soggy cod all over the table. Ty's stomach heaved.

"Christ, Delia, you have the manners of a pig!"

"Well, excuse me all over!" she snapped back at him. But her feelings had been hurt, for a moment later she dropped the spoon into the trencher with a clatter and stared down at her lap. Ty cursed himself.

"I'm sorry." He reached across and touched her hand where it lay on the table. Seeing her hand, so pale and insubstantial against the heavy dark wood, made Ty realize just how thin and frail she was. Jesus, he thought, the chit's half starved and you're railing at her about her table manners.

"When was the last time you got a good, decent meal inside of you?"

She shrugged. "Yesterday sometime. I had a collop of cold pork an' a slice of bread."

He nudged the trencher of salt cod. "Go on, finish that up. Or would you like something else?"

She shoved it back at him. "I've had sufficient, thank ye."

His lips twitched at the way she said it—
I've had sufficient, thank ye
—as if she'd practiced it for hours in front of a looking glass, hoping someday for the appropriate occasion to use it. He thought of that pugnacious chin of hers that came right up at the slightest provocation. Her pride amused and touched him.

Yes, she had pride, and a strange dignity in spite of her grimy, ragged appearance and her abominable manners. It was because of the pride and dignity inherent in the person of Delia McQuaid that he had picked her out from all the other whores and slatterns and desperate, downtrodden women who had come to him hoping for a chance at three square meals and a roof over their heads in return for slaving on a farm and warming a man's bed. Her pride... and later seeing the horrifying bruises on her body... had more than convinced him his decision was the right one. His face hardened with renewed anger at the memory. At least if he took her to Merrymeeting he would be saving her from her drunken bastard of a father.

He realized she had been speaking to him. "I beg your pardon?"

"I was askin' ye what the governor's assembly was like. I'll bet ye there was music an' dancing an' card playing an' everything." She sighed. Her eyes, Ty suddenly noticed, were beautiful—a rich, tawny gold with a starburst of green in the centers. They shone brightly at him. "Oh, what I would give t' have been there."

Ty had a sudden mental picture of the likes of Delia McQuaid at a governor's assembly and couldn't repress a smile.

She blinked, and the shining look left her eyes. They grew solemn and serious, and Ty found he couldn't look away. She stared at him for so long and hard that he began to grow uncomfortable. Then she said, "Do ye know ye've got a real nice smile? I like yer smile."

Ty felt strangely flattered. "Thank you."

"And ye've got a damn fine-lookin' arse, too."

"Jesus Christ!" Ty cheeks grew hot. He knew he was blushing and his embarrassment fueled his anger. "I realize, wench, that you are hardly a lady, so I can't expect you to behave like one. Nevertheless, I insist that while in my presence you refrain from using language more suited to a randy sailor. As I said, I am a man of refined tastes and I like to be surrounded by fine things."

Her face was florid with embarrassment. Nevertheless, Ty saw that rebellious chin jerk up, and he braced himself for the worse.

Then the chin quivered and fell. She looked down, clasping her hands tightly in her lap. "Oh Lord, Ty, I'm so sorry. When my tongue gets t' flappin', I forget t' think. It's all the time a-gettin' me into trouble." She looked up at him with pleading eyes. "Ye aren't going to change yer mind about taking me with ye, are ye?"

"Don't be absurd," he said gruffly, feeling like a brute. He shoved the bench away from the table, pushing himself to his feet. "Come on, brat, let's get out of here."

He walked across the taproom, heading for the door and not bothering to see if she followed. Delia almost knocked over the table in her haste not to be left behind. She snatched up her grist sack, anchored her hat firmly on her head, and hurried after him.

"Bloody pompous ass," he heard her muttering beneath her breath. "Him and his
re-fined
tastes."

Delia had never been so excited in her life.

She had taken the ferry once across the river to Charles Town for the fair, and that had been a real adventure. And once with Tom she had ridden in a cart out to Mill Pond for a Sunday picnic supper. But never, never had she done anything so grand as to go riding in an honest-to-God coach.

The coach was painted black and trimmed in silver. It even had a crest painted on the doors, and it was pulled by two pairs of matching coal-black horses. The tall, dark-skinned servant called Jackie, who had come into the Red Dragon to get Ty, had climbed into a box in back, while another servant dressed in the same black and silver livery sat in front to do the driving. She had followed Ty inside the coach and plopped down right next to him on a seat of a leather so fine it was as soft as silk.

Sighing happily, Delia settled back, smoothing down her skirts and trying to assume what she thought was a dignified expression. She admonished herself sternly to remember to act like a proper lady, for she was riding across Boston in a fancy coach to meet Ty's grandfather.

Ty had been heading for the inn's front door, Delia close on his heels, when it had opened and a round, dusky-skinned face topped by an enormous yellow periwig had peered around the jamb. An earring made of a shoe buckle dangled from one black ear, swaying gently in the morning breeze, and a pair of big brown eyes searched the hall.

Ty stopped so abruptly that Delia plowed into the back of him. He groaned loudly. "Jackie... what the bloody hell are you doing here?"

The big brown eyes fell on Ty and the face broke into a wide grin. The head disappeared a moment, then the door opened wide and a tall man, wearing silver and black livery and a silver slave collar sauntered in.

"Here you is, Massah Tyler. Ah been sent wid the coach t' fetch you. Your grandfather wants t' see you and he's got his mad up. Lawd, yes, he's mad enuf t' chew nails."

"Bloody hell!" Ty had said again.

Delia would have liked to point out to Tyler W. Savitch, M.D., that all his "bloody hells" was hardly language befitting a gentlemen of refinement, but she refrained. There were currents of an almost savage restlessness beneath his hard, controlled exterior. She didn't know him well enough yet to dare to test the limits of that control.

So now she contented herself instead with rubbing her hands across the smooth seat and breathing deeply of the crisp leathery smell. While the coach rumbled through the traffic of gigs, carts, and sedan chairs, Ty stared out the window, wearing an angry scowl.

Delia couldn't believe her good fortune that Ty had decided to bring her with him. She knew he hadn't meant to do so at first. In fact, he had turned around and started to spew orders at her about staying put and out of trouble, when she had seen a wicked gleam suddenly come into his dark blue eyes.