Lost in Your Arms (6 page)

He gasped as he finished drinking—even that bit of activity exhausted him. “No.” Making the effort, he grasped her wrist to keep her in place. “Who’s Mr. Throckmorton?”

“He’s the master of Blythe Hall, the one Mrs. Brown went to fetch. He’s . . . your friend?”

She was implying a question.
Do you remember him?
MacLean shook his head in answer.

“Mr. Throckmorton owns this estate, where you have been recuperating.” She disengaged herself from his hold. “Let me get you something to eat.”

She walked toward the stairway, leaving him incensed that she had eluded him with so little trouble, desolate from the loss of her touch, and resentful that he depended so much on a female, even a female who claimed to be his wife. “What do you mean, boorish?” he demanded.

Swinging to face him, she shook her head as if confused. “What?”

“You said I was as boorish as ever.”

“Oh.” She glanced at the stairway as if longing for
escape, then took a slow step back toward him. “You and I are estranged.”

“Nonsense.” He spoke without thinking. “I would never be estranged from my own wife.”

“Again you call me a liar. As I said—boorish.” With a flounce, she walked to the stairway and called to someone below, “I need a cup of broth. Don’t dally!”

As she returned to his side, he saw the flame in her burning so brightly that she brought a memory back. The night. The lightning. The weight of her breast in his hand. The sharp sense of possession, of rightness.

All right. It was possible. She could be his wife. A lying Jezebel kind of a wife, but if he had wed her, he had tamed her before. He would tame her again.

“Come here,” he said softly, wrapping her in a blanket of command.

If she was impressed, she hid it well. With her hands on her hips, she inquired, “What do you want?”

He didn’t think she’d be easily manipulated, but this weakness prevented him from going after her, so he had to try. “You’re afraid of me. A big, strong lass like you, and you’re afraid of me.”

“I am not!”

“Then come here. It’s not as if you can’t leave whenever you wish.”

“Oh, for heaven’s—” She knelt beside the bed, taking the same position she’d been in when he’d awoken. “What?”

Ah, she was a girl with no experience of a man’s guile. A girl he could play like a little silver fish on a hook. Rolling onto his side, he caught her face in his hands.

She pulled back.

“I want to kiss you,” he said.

“Why? I’m not your wife. I’m a liar.”

“Sarcastic lass!” He caressed the curve of her cheek. “And you say I’m a liar, too, who remembers and doesn’t admit to it. A couple of right suspicious sorts we are. But the truth is, I don’t remember anything. Not my name, not my place, not why I’m in pain or how it happened. So I’m searching for a memory, and if you’re my wife, you are the key. The only thing here in Suffolk in England that is familiar to me. So grant me the kiss I want, because I need to know who I am, and I’m too weak to hold you.”

Guilt purchased him what force could not. She bit her lip, then sighed with extravagant petulance, closed her eyes and pursed her lips.

He laughed softly and tilted her head to his. Ah, the touch of her tender mouth against his! No matter that she was unwilling or exasperated. Just as he knew where the Crimea was located, that he was a warrior and a Scot, and that he had reason to be suspicious of his circumstances, so he knew how to gentle an unwilling woman with kisses.

He kissed Enid over and over, small, gentle, swift busses that landed on the corner of her mouth, on her lower lip, even on the tip of her nose. Her cherished pucker of disdain relaxed as she tried to keep up, to understand his strategy. That’s when he pressed his mouth exactly on hers. He learned the contours of her lips, their plush texture, that sweet indent at the top, the width that made a man plot erotic joys. All the while, she caught her breath repeatedly as if startled by his every advance. For a moment he thought of pulling back and asking how long they’d been estranged. Then
he diagnosed such a deed as insanity and slid his fingers around to cup her head.

She noticed at once he’d imprisoned her. She tried to draw back, but he wasn’t as feeble as she would have liked. At least not when he had good and rightful reason to use his strength. He held her, coaxed her, coerced her . . . deepened the kiss. Her mouth opened under his, and she jolted him with her sweet wetness, the taste of spice and the warmth of wonder. She withheld her tongue, so he went seeking it, little forays into the depths of her mouth, searching for and finding all her secrets, and showing her how well he could use those secrets against her. She responded tentatively at first, then as he got her used to him and his wickedness, she brought her hands up and cupped his face just as he cupped hers.

Held captive by a female. By a female who claimed to be his wife and, even if she weren’t, would soon thrash beneath him in delight.

The world held no greater pleasure than coaxing an unwilling woman.

He wanted to laugh aloud when his body—aching, wounded, weak—stirred to life. He could scarcely lift his head, his leg burned, and as far as he could tell, he’d been near death. But his pecker, valiant, aggressive, none-too-bright, still reared its impudent head and demanded to be serviced. Ah, it was good to be a man, to be alive on this sunshiny day . . . to be kissing this bonny lass who gave him such incentive to thrive.

But not now. Anything he tried now would end in ignominious collapse. Besides . . .

Withdrawing by degrees, he brought the kiss to an end. He kissed her wrist, smoothed her hair back from
her face, and waited until she opened her eyes. Her heavy lids and dazed expression fueled his masculine pride, and for a moment he almost returned to the chase. But he hadn’t the strength, and so instead he said, “Dearling, we have company.”

Chapter 6

Gasping, Enid came to her feet in a rush and covered her hot cheeks with her hands.

Mr. Throckmorton. Mr. Kinman. Mrs. Brown. Sally, one of the scullery maids who had so often come bearing a meal. That gatehouse keeper with the hard face—what was his name? Harry. And a strange man she had never met before. All lined up staring as if they’d never seen a man kiss a woman.

Mr. Kinman’s jaw dropped.

How long had everyone been standing there—and why had she not heard them walking up the stairs?

As if she didn’t know.

Because she’d been experiencing the most delicious, exotic, erotic kiss she’d had in years.

All right. Ever.

Even now her hands trembled, her breath caught, and the heat in her face was not solely from mortification. MacLean had set her ablaze, and if they’d been
alone and he’d been healthy, she would have . . . and really, how healthy did a man have to be to perform between the sheets? Lady Halifax claimed that men were capable of every kind of licentious behavior regardless of their age, intelligence or vigor.

Dropping a curtsy, Enid stammered, “Mr. . . . Mr. Throckmorton! Excuse me. I’m sorry. I didn’t see you.”

“I’ll say you didn’t,” Mrs. Brown muttered.

“No, please, Mrs. MacLean, excuse
us
.” Mr. Throckmorton proved his discretion when he bowed and without so much as a sly wink, said, “We thoughtlessly interrupted a long-awaited reunion.”

No, you didn’t
, Enid wanted to say.
I haven’t been waiting for MacLean at all.

She saw no graceful way out of this embarrassment, and when she heard an indulgent chuckle from the bed behind her, she wanted to turn and land MacLean a blow. Perhaps he’d forgotten how many pugilistic skills she’d learned at the orphanage . . . well, of course he had if he didn’t remember anything, but she’d be glad to jog his memory.

“MacLean.” Mr. Throckmorton strode to the bed, took MacLean’s emaciated hand gently in his and shook it. “You had us worried.”

“I would imagine.” MacLean didn’t appear gratified to have a man of such importance drop everything to attend him. Instead he watched Mr. Throckmorton coolly, taking his measure before bestowing his confidence.

MacLean had his nerve . . . but Enid had already discovered that.

Mr. Kinman shambled over next, a big, overgrown
man who stood looking down at MacLean with a grin on his face. “ ’Bout time you woke up,” he said.

Perhaps MacLean didn’t remember him, but such was Mr. Kinman’s unadulterated delight that MacLean returned the smile. “Lazy as an old yellow dog, that’s me.”

Mr. Kinman hit him gingerly on the shoulder. “That’s you,” he echoed in a rumbling voice choked with emotion.

Enid’s stomach tightened on seeing MacLean’s importance to these men. These last few weeks, everything in her mind and soul had been concentrated on MacLean. Ill, unconscious, wounded as he had been, he had been
hers.
Now he was awake, he spoke, he listened, he looked at everyone else. She had been demoted to the role of caretaker. Which is, of course, what she was. She preferred the part.

At least he didn’t kiss the others
, she thought, and promptly blushed at her own foolishness.

“How do you feel?” Mr. Throckmorton asked him.

“As if I’ve been beaten and starved.” MacLean gestured to the maid. “Is that food on that tray?”

“Aye, sir.” Mrs. Brown hurried to him, Sally in her wake. “Let me slide another pillow beneath yer shoulders and we’ll get some broth into ye.”

MacLean’s eyes narrowed. “Broth! I don’t want broth, I want real food.”

He had come awake with a vengeance.

“Mrs. MacLean has the final say on yer care.” Mrs. Brown courteously turned to Enid. “Mrs. MacLean, what have ye to say to that?”

“Hm?” Enid wrenched her mind away from the turmoil of her emotions and back to the business at hand.
“Oh! Broth now, and once we see if he holds it down we’ll start him on soft foods.”

He groaned. “I have a taste for peaches.”

“Tomorrow,” she promised, but she didn’t look at him.
Couldn’t
look at him. Smug, self-satisfied. When had he learned to kiss like that? And with whom? And why was she jealous of some faceless woman now when for eight years all she’d asked of fate was that MacLean stay far, far away from her?

She moved to help Mrs. Brown raise him on the bed but found herself supplanted by Mr. Throckmorton and Mr. Kinman, both of whom assisted Mrs. Brown effortlessly. Enid watched as Mrs. Brown lifted the mug of broth off the tray, and decided she wasn’t needed. Decided she was glad of it.

“I’m Throckmorton,” he introduced himself. “This is Kinman, my right-hand man. That’s Harry over by the door, he’s in charge of the gatehouse, and that fellow with the crossed arms is Jackson. I’ve hired him as your valet, to care for you and your clothing, to shave and bathe you as you wish.”

A valet? Enid looked at Jackson, who moved to the bedside and bowed. Jackson was of medium height and age, with brown hair, slightly stooped shoulders, gold-rimmed glasses, and the most impressive set of side-whiskers she’d ever seen. He might have been innocuous except for his superior air, which many valets considered so much a part of their nature.

A valet. Enid’s duties were swiftly disappearing.

Enid moved back toward the stairway, back to Harry’s side. “MacLean’s awake,” she said unnecessarily.

“He is.” Harry never took his gaze off the bed. “Will he recover?”

“It’s too early to tell.” She hesitated. “But yes. I think so. If sheer willpower can make it so, he’ll recover.”

“Willpower.” Harry sounded skeptical. “Does it mean so much?”

“It means everything. I’ve cared for a great many patients, and it’s their will that keeps them alive past their time. Willpower that drives them to recover. Or a lack of will that brings them to an untimely end.”

“MacLean has always had the most fortitude of any man I’ve ever met.”

Fortitude? Stephen MacLean had fortitude?

“I would never have recognized him.” Harry turned his remarkably large brown eyes on her. “Would you?”

She didn’t like Harry, she realized. She didn’t like him or trust him at all. He watched too intensely. He dressed in dark clothing. He stood too tall, and with the coiled tautness of a steel spring. His size, his strength, everything that should have made him a good bodyguard instead exuded a faint sense of threat.

But she didn’t know him. Certainly Mr. Kinman trusted him, and more important, Mr. Throckmorton.

And she . . . she had suffered too many changes in her life lately. She’d had too little sleep and too much worry. She should remember—she had proved herself to be a poor judge of character. She had married Stephen MacLean. So she contented herself with a mere, “MacLean is greatly changed.”

“Enid!” MacLean sounded testy. “Come here, Enid. You know I’m too weak to hold this mug by myself.”

She did, but that he would confess such a weakness filled her with suspicion. She approached. The crowd around his bedside parted. Like an Eastern potentate,
he lolled on the pillows. How easily he had moved from a coma to dominating a room full of people. And he was trying to extend his domination to her.

Her steps slowed. She badly wanted to defy him.

He scowled at her, commanded her attendance with his gaze.

Who did he think he was?

Her husband.

But no. He’d said she’d lied to him. He’d said he didn’t believe they were married. She knew the truth. He was her husband, Stephen MacLean—reprobate, gambler, knave. Probably
he’d
perjured himself when
he’d
said he didn’t remember anything. Stephen MacLean had always been the kind of man who would rather tell a lie when the truth would do. But there was something about him—the brief show of panic, the irrational fury—that made her think that in this matter, at least, he told the truth.

She owed him nothing except the care for which she was paid to provide—and he did need care. He had just come to consciousness. He might slip away from them at any moment.

Accepting the mug from Mrs. Brown, Enid sat beside him on the bed. She slid her arm behind his head and lifted the mug to his lips. He drank that as greedily as he’d swallowed the water, and she extended the mug to Mrs. Brown for a refill.

He glanced up at her, then around at the assemblage. “Now, dear lass, are you going to burp me?”

The men laughed, relieved from the tension created by seeing one of their own fed like a baby.

The women exchanged exasperated glances.

Enid accepted the broth and held it for MacLean.
This time he sipped more slowly and with a great deal more caution. She observed him as she had observed him these last weeks, hoping he would keep everything down, praying that this time he would sleep to wake again.

Now he was awake, and she couldn’t seem to cease her vigilance.

It wasn’t healthy for a man to be the center of anyone’s existence; men already had exaggerated ideas of their own importance.

Mr. Throckmorton looked around at his minions. “You know this, but I must impress on you the importance of silence. No word of MacLean’s recovery must be allowed to leak out. My wedding is fast approaching. There will be guests aplenty at Blythe Hall. A single mistake could put his life in jeopardy.”

All faces looked solemn. All heads nodded. All except MacLean’s; he watched Mr. Throckmorton with cynical interest.

Nor did Enid nod. Instead she again wondered why such a protective net extended over the person of her husband.

“I will speak to MacLean alone,” Mr. Throckmorton said.

Sally left first with a bob of a curtsy. Mrs. Brown followed. Jackson bowed again, then descended the stairs. Mr. Kinman headed for the door and paused beside Harry, who stood still, his brown eyes dwelling on MacLean, then on Enid, with sober intensity.

The way he watched them made her uncomfortable. She realized MacLean’s head rested in the crook of her arm. That she must appear protective and . . . affectionate.

She tried to remove her arm.

Catching her hand, MacLean held it firmly in his grasp.

She could have gotten free, of course. His wasted muscles had no power. But from the little she knew of this MacLean, he wouldn’t give up without a fight. Such a struggle would be undignified.

Mr. Kinman clapped his hand to Harry’s shoulder. “Come on, man, we’ll go have a drink to celebrate. Then it’s back to work. We’ve got a lot to do in the weeks before the wedding.”

After a final, measured stare, the gatehouse keeper descended the stairs.

Enid moved to put the mug down so she could leave, but MacLean squeezed her fingers gently and challenged Mr. Throckmorton with his tone. “Not you, you’re my wife.”

“Now I’m your wife?” Enid mocked. “Quite a change from an hour ago.”

“Of course you’re his wife,” Mr. Throckmorton said. “And you should stay.”

MacLean rubbed his cheek against her hand. “There. We have a ruling from an authority. We are married.”

Enid wanted to reply smartly, but she became a shadow in the chamber as the two men sized each other up. Their concentration, the sense of power each man exuded astounded Enid. Of course Mr. Throckmorton possessed that indefatigable air of command, but MacLean seemed to possess it, too, and when had that happened?

“So there’s going to be a wedding here,” MacLean said. “Who’s getting married?”

“I am.” Going to the hole in the floor, Mr. Throckmorton shut the door on the stairway and the room below. “Mrs. MacLean, I would like you to keep this locked at all times when you are alone with your husband.”

“Why?” Enid and MacLean demanded together.

“There will be a great many strangers here for my wedding, and I would rest more easily if I knew you to be undiscovered.”

Mr. Throckmorton’s answer was no answer at all, but before Enid could question him further, MacLean said, “Congratulations on your upcoming nuptials. I can’t imagine what sort of lass would be so foolish as to tie herself to a morose bastard like you.” MacLean looked startled at his own joking, friendly comment.

“Wait until you see her,” Mr. Throckmorton said. “Celeste is beautiful. She’s charming. She’s too intelligent for her own good. You’ll really wonder what she’s thinking then.”

“You’re rich?”

Mr. Throckmorton nodded.

“Is she of like circumstances?”

“Poor as a church mouse. But she loves me for myself.” Not a hint of sarcasm colored his tone; Mr. Throckmorton was a happy man and didn’t care who knew it.

MacLean’s mouth turned down. “You
believe
that?”

Appalled, Enid chided, “MacLean, how rude!”

MacLean picked her hand off his shoulder and kissed it. “I’m a rude lad, I think.”

But Mr. Throckmorton didn’t seem to be offended by MacLean’s insolence. Placing his fists on the mattress, he leaned over MacLean. “Even if I didn’t, I
wouldn’t care. If I had to bribe her to marry me, I’d do it. I would do anything to have Celeste.”

“Then you’re a fool,” MacLean said.

Mr. Throckmorton grinned. “You lied—as a safeguard, no doubt. You
do
still have your memory.”

Anticipation gripped Enid.
Did
MacLean remember?