I Adored a Lord (31 page)

H
E MADE HER
sing. At least, her sighs certainly sounded musical to
her
.

He made her dance—­after all—­patiently, in truth generously, teaching her the moves to an intricate pattern that rendered her breathless in his embrace. It was a dance that did not require standing up.

Later, after she dozed then awakened to the heat of his body shielding her from the cold night and the caress of his hands, he made her want him inside her with such wicked intensity that she sobbed and pleaded, which seemed to her at once despicable and divine.

Finally giving her what she needed, he made her cry out his name again. Rather, she cried it voluntarily, helplessly. Quivering, she pressed her mouth to his skin to stifle the sound of her ecstasy. But she heard it and she suspected he did too.

Afterward, she wrapped her arms around him and held him close.

Then he made her laugh. Summoning Gonçalo from the dressing chamber, he offered her a tour of all the objects from his wardrobe and other personal items that the pup had destroyed, beginning with his shaving brush and—­after a lengthy list—­culminating in two pairs of what had once been very fine boots.

“You cannot give him up now,” she said upon a sleepy smile. She ached all over with glowing warmth. Curling into the bed linens, she sighed quite foolishly but probably predictably for a woman who had been made love to four times in four hours. “He has eaten so many of your belongings that his tastes are trained to you,” she murmured. “He is ruined for anyone else.”

The nobleman sitting on the bed beside her, wearing only a dressing gown of the same midnight blue color of his eyes, gave her a sidelong perusal. “Ruined, you say?”

“Oh, yes,” she mumbled. “Entirely ruined.”

He stroked a lock of hair from before her eyes.

Her eyelids drooped. “I must go.”

“No,” he said quietly.

A yawn shuddered through her. “I must return to my bedchamber before I—­”

“You will remain here.”

She felt his hands upon her as though in a dream. But he did not touch her now where he had given her such pleasure already. Softly, he traced the curve of her shoulder and the length of her arm, then each finger in turn. Fighting against thickening shadows, she felt his hands on her waist, his arms around her, his shoulder beneath her cheek, her palm upon the hard, warm plane of his chest.

“Sleep,” she heard. Or felt.

Then sleep claimed her.

 

Chapter 20

The Good-­bye

N
o beautiful black-­eyed woman ornamented his bed when Vitor awoke to the gray light of dawn. Nor was she to be found in the chair by the fire or the dressing room, which was empty. He scratched his fingertips across his jaw that was rough with whiskers and wondered how and when she had returned to her bedchamber in the gown she had worn to dinner, and how she would explain to anyone she now encountered how she happened to be in the company of his dog before the sun had fully risen.

His dog.

His woman.

The next thought stalled his hand upon his jaw:
Her man
.

He lay very still as his heartbeats stumbled and he considered the implausibility of it.

Upon his fifteenth birthday he had learned the truth of his paternity, and within a fortnight had boarded a frigate bound for Lisbon. Three years later when the Portuguese court fled Lisbon, he took up the project both his fathers approved: serve Portugal and England in Spain or France or wherever else their need took him. Swiftly wearying of the tedium of intelligence gathering broken by days, sometimes weeks, of horrifying peril, he journeyed to England and unwittingly stepped into the disaster that was Wesley's courtship of Fannie Walsh. Returning to Portugal, again he crossed the Pyrenees into France, where he came into the hands of mercenaries who turned him over to the British for a hefty sum, who in turn used his vengeful brother to torture him.

Honor and loyalty and all the lessons he had learned at school and war and from his fathers . . . betrayed in a fortnight. After that, the monastery hidden in a remote crevice of the Serra dal Estrela seemed the ideal place to burn away his anger in hard labor and silent contemplation of higher things. Even as he accepted the cowl he'd known that he was unsuited to monastic life, and he had been quite certain he would miss women. But solitude and an end to rushing headlong into danger had appealed to him at the time.

The respite had been brief. Two years. Then he'd been ready to set off again.

Now, for the first time in his life of chasing adventure and courting danger, Vitor was terrified. Denis often chided him for his vagabond ways. But this was no laughing matter. After fourteen years could he cease running, finally? For a woman?

But Ravenna Caulfield was no ordinary woman.

He bent his head and closed his eyes.

A furtive scratching sounded at the door; the lady returning with his pet before she was discovered, no doubt. Vitor drew on his dressing gown and went to the door.

His elder brother's valet stood there in shadow, his face taut.

“My lord.” The words quivered. “His lordship is terribly ill. You must come.”

I
N LONG, RUSHING
slides and dripping as loud as rainfall, the snow on the mountain melted. Trees, roofs, and walls gradually reappeared from beneath their icy mantle, spring valiantly attempting to show its face.

Ravenna's shoes splashed across the forecourt as the sun poked its golden nose over the mountain, and she thought it especially fitting that the roads should begin to thaw today. Lord Whitebarrow and his family would be departing. Along the route their carriage would certainly become mired in mud. Pity.

She grinned.

Grace did not deserve it, though. A weak character had led her to follow her sister's example. But she had loved truly, despite the censure society would have heaped upon her for the unequal union. Oliver Walsh's death had broken her heart. Ravenna understood that pain. For the unkindnesses of her past, Grace's grief was punishment enough.

As she neared the front door, nerves danced in her belly. She'd slept little and awoken to the heat of a man's body beside hers, his big hand loosely clasped around her arm in sleep. Through the night he had done things to her that she'd never before imagined and that now, at the mere thought, made her face and the excessively tender place between her legs hot. Then he had ordered her to remain, as though it were perfectly reasonable to demand that she sleep in his bed and to awaken there too. Clearly he'd had no thought of how she would depart or when, only that he must have what he wished, by his command and upon his terms.

Standing in the halo of dawn by his bed, watching him sleep, she had wanted to touch him, to trace with her hands the sculpted contours of his chest and arms that the bed linens revealed, and to wake him with her lips upon his skin. Her body had warmed and she wanted to wrap her arms around him and breathe him in, then to caress him as he had taught her to caress him during the night, as she had done willingly, eagerly.

Some commands were not so difficult to obey.

With a secret smile and Gonçalo at her heels, she entered the house and tracked the scents of coffee and freshly baked bread to the dining room. Ann met her in the corridor.

“Oh, thank heaven, you are found!”

Ravenna's nerves spiked. After dinner the night before, she'd left the drawing room quite obviously with him. Iona would think nothing of it. But Ann was truly modest. She might not understand.

“We have searched for you everywhere,” Ann said. “I've just sent the footman to the tower thinking you might have gone there. But Mr. Franklin—­”

“Mr. Franklin? Is Lord Case unwell?”

“Terribly unwell. Mr. Franklin despairs of him. You must help him, Ravenna. It could not be borne if such a fine man were to be lost like this. And poor, dear Arielle . . . She must not suffer Grace's—­” Her voice broke off and her hands spasmed around Ravenna's.

Ravenna pulled away. “I will gather my medical bag and go there directly.”

At Lord Case's door, Mr. Franklin admitted her. The bed curtains were parted and Vitor sat in his shirtsleeves in a chair by the head of the bed, elbows bent to his knees and hands over his face. He lifted his head and his handsome face was stark. Swiftly he came to his feet. She crossed the chamber. Lord Case was utterly still, his face waxen. She drew back the coverlet from his injured arm, and the scent that arose curled her nostrils.

“Remove his nightshirt.” She set her medical bag on the nightstand and opened it.

“But, madam—­” the valet said.

“Remove it this instant. Cut it off if you must. The bandage too.”

Vitor reached for his coat, withdrew the knife he had used at the river to cut her free of her gown, and sliced through the earl's nightshirt from neck to wrist.

“My God,” he uttered.

The arm was swollen twice its size to the elbow, and crimson. A yellowed bandage dug into the flesh.

“Cut off the bandage,” she said. “Even if he feels it, it will only be a relief.”

Vitor did as she said, and the wound was revealed, a raw, running sore. Mr. Franklin choked and backed away, pressing a kerchief to his mouth. Lord Case did not stir.

“I need red wine,” she said. “The wound must be bathed and drained. When did you last dose him with the fever powders, Mr. Franklin?”

He did not answer.

Vitor said sharply, “Tell her.”

“Yesterday morning, my lord.”

She snapped her gaze to him. “Why haven't you dosed him as I instructed?”

He pressed the cloth to his mouth. “Mr. Pierre said that I was not to give him any further medicines that would thicken his blood, but that today he would bleed him—­”

“Mr. Pierre?” She pressed the wine-­soaked cloth to the wound, allowing it to pool, her pulse speeding. “Is there a physician in the village, after all?”

“Monsieur Pierre is the cook here in the castle,” Vitor said. “Franklin, did you consult with the cook on his lordship's care?”

“Yes, my lord. He treats the ailments of the staff and the villagers when—­”

“Did you dress the wound with the salve I left with you, Mr. Franklin?” The festering flesh was slick, the wine sliding off in beads.

“No, miss. Mr. Pierre recommended fat cured from a swine—­”

“Pig fat?” She swallowed over panic. “Good Lord, you have poisoned his blood. Flaxseed. Charcoal. Even dung, if you must. Not animal fat. But I will fix it.” She willed her hands not to shake. “I will fix it. There is nothing to fear.”
Nothing to fear
. No more death in this house. No more loss. Her hands would save him. She
must
save him.

“Why did you follow the cook's counsel when I had made it clear to you that Miss Caulfield was to be consulted on Lord Case's injury?”

“My
lord
,” she barely heard the valet say. As her hands worked, her pulse washed in her ears like the ocean crashing upon shores of hard hewn rock, a sound from her earliest childhood, years almost beyond memory but not quite. Never quite far enough away.

“She is a
woman
,” the valet said.

“Get out,” Vitor said. “Send my valet and inform his highness that I require his presence here at once. Now.” He came to her side. “I trust you. I do not fear.”

But she did. She feared that she could not endure one more loss. She would lose him—­this man beside her whose world had nothing to do with hers. She knew it as surely as she knew how to heal his brother. And deep in her heart she wished for the hundredth time that on that day so long ago she had flown away with the little bird and, like it, had never returned.

S
HE WOULD N
OT
be alone with him except by his brother's bedside. Vitor bade her sleep but she would not admit him to her bedchamber, nor would she welcome her friends. At luncheon the prince's guests lingered morosely over their plates. They could imagine no entertainments while the earl's life was in danger. When Ravenna appeared it was to eat only what Lady Iona set before her, then to allow Vitor to join her while she examined Wesley. She spoke only of the wound, the fever, and her treatment of both.

“The ice must be changed frequently. Cold is essential to keep the heat of the wound from encouraging it to fester further.” She bathed Wesley's arm and dressed it again, settled new packets of ice around it, then closed her medical kit and went to the door.

“Ravenna—­”

“I will return in an hour. You should remain with him. Do not trust his care to another.”

“I will not.”

“You did when you were in the dining room.”

“I went there looking for you.”

“Don't do that again. Send a servant for me. If there is any change, send for me instantly.”

“Ravenna, allow me—­”

She turned away. Lady Iona and Miss Feathers hovered at the door.

“He is unchanged.” She brushed off their solicitude and strode away alone.

T
HE SWELLING IN
the earl's arm decreased throughout the night. His fever broke after dawn the following day. A footman brought Ravenna the news. She ran to his bedchamber and entered without knocking.

Lord Case was sitting up in bed, his brother in the chair at his side.

Vitor stood.

“You see, Vitor,” the earl said weakly. “She saunters in here as if I wished her to witness me in this state, which it is true I might under other circumstances but not now, for God's sake.” He spoke slowly but clearly, and the knot around her heart began to unwind. He studied her beneath hooded lids. “She has no respect for a man's vanity or pride.”

Steadying her nerves, she moved to his side. “I am happy to see you improved.” She reached for his wrist and pinched it between her thumb and forefingers and counted silently.

“Was I a wretched monster while I was insensible?” His voice had lost some of its hauteur.

“Perfectly dreadful,” she said. “Wasn't he?”

“Yes,” Vitor said. “Nothing out of the ordinary for you, Wes.”

“You wound me. The both of you. I would throw you out but that imbecile Franklin would probably kill me within the hour. I am stuck with you, I suppose.” He looked up at her face. “Am I dead?”

“Not today.” Ravenna tamped down her giddy smile and released him. “I have sent to the kitchen for broth and tea.” She turned to Vitor. “Make him drink them both. No wine or spirits, or I shall be very cross.”

“I shouldn't like to see that,” the earl murmured, but Vitor smiled. It went to her belly and toes, curling deliciously and making her want to laugh, to run across a field of wildflowers and feel the warmth of sunshine on her skin and make love to him again.

She took up her bag and moved to the door, training her face to sobriety. “I will call upon you again after breakfast.”

“Miss Caulfield,” the earl said. “Wait a moment, if you will. Vitor, go away now, do.”

“Not even on your life am I leaving her alone with you.”

The earl's eyes were serious.

“You may go,” she said to Vitor. “I am impervious to ravishment and in any case I am probably ten times stronger than he is right now. If he can stand, I would be amazed.”