Never Kiss a Rake (33 page)

At last the surgery was over. “She’ll do,” Brattle announced, washing his hands in a fresh basin of water. “Make sure she keeps her arm in this sling for the first few days, and have her rest. This kind of thing takes a toll on the body, but I see no reason that she won’t be back on her feet in three or four days.”

“And when will her arm be healed enough for work?” It wasn’t work he was interested in, of course. He wanted to know how long he had to wait before he could get her into his bed.

Not that it had to be his bed, of course. The top of his desk, up against a wall, on the carpet, anywhere he could think of would be acceptable. Except that he liked the idea of curling up on a soft mattress with her, which was strange. He always hated it when his current paramour spent the night. He was a light sleeper, and he couldn’t sleep with someone else in the room.

He wanted Bryony in his room, in his bed. It was illogical, and presumably only a passing fancy, but he looked down at the warm figure in his arms and resisted the impulse to pull her closer.

Brattle looked at him with disapproval for his heartless ways. “She’ll be ready when she tells you so. People heal at different rates, and you’d best leave her be to do so. I’ve brought laudanum for her. She’ll be in pain, and there’s no need for her to suffer.”

Kilmartyn didn’t even notice when the doctor left. Slowly, carefully he let go of Bryony, letting her slip back onto the mattress. He turned to look at Mrs. Harkins, who was now sitting on the edge of the bed. “She needs all that blood washed off her. I don’t suppose you’re going to let me take care of it.”

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, your lordship!” Mrs. Harkins puffed up in indignation, for all the world like a ruffled chicken. “I won’t be having such goings on, and I’ll tell you that direct. No one’s taking advantage of the poor thing while she’s so bad off.”

“And when she’s better?” he asked with a faint smile.

“It’s a good thing I know you’re funning me,” Mrs. Harkins said with the disapproval of a long-term retainer. “That poor girl hasn’t done you any harm, and I won’t be having you ruining her reputation.”

He glanced back at Bryony. Done him no harm? She’d destroyed his peaceful way of life, confused him, filled him with so much ridiculously impossible need that he was half-mad from it. He took a deep breath. “She’s lucky to have such a fierce protector in you, Mrs. Harkins.”

It was most definitely the right thing to say. The bristles vanished, and she began to look at him with a hint of, was it possible, approval?

“You’ll want to bathe her and change the sheets,” he said, finally pulling himself out of the strange bubble that had seemed to surround his
head. “I’ll administer the laudanum as needed, and we’ll leave her in this bed for the time being. That will make it easier on everyone.”

“Yes, my lord,” Mrs. Harkins said in a properly servile voice. She rose, looking at him. Waiting for him to leave.

He wasn’t going to win this particular battle, but there’d be plenty of time in the future. “Very well, Mrs. Harkins. I’ll be in my library.”

“Emma,” the cook said, and one of the maids emerged from the shadows. He hadn’t even realized she’d been there all along. “Go up to Mrs. Greaves’s room and fetch a clean chemise and see if she has a nightdress with loose sleeves.”

“Yes, Mrs. Harkins,” the girl said, moving toward the door.

Kilmartyn rose, and the girl politely stepped out of his way. He, master of his house, was being dismissed by his servants, and he was allowing them to do so.

All for the sake of the spying Miss Russell. He really must be out of his mind.

S
HE HURT
. T
HAT WAS
all Bryony could think as her mind went swirling around in brightly colored circles. That pain was all through her, but most of all her arm. She tried to sit up, but someone had tethered her to the bed, and through the bright daze all she could think of was Kilmartyn.

She opened her eyes, but that didn’t help. The room was very dark—only the glow of a fire at the far wall provided any light. Not her tiny attic under the eaves, then, unless someone had set the house on fire. She was ready to believe anything.

She closed her eyes again, trying to fight her way through the crippling dizziness. She knew what it was—laudanum. She’d been dosed with it enough when she’d been sick that she’d never forgotten the taste of it. She hated it, and its efficacy against pain seemed just about nil at that moment. If she was going to hurt like hell she’d just as soon be awake for it.

It took a few moments of intense concentration, but slowly she pushed past the smothering mists of the drug, like someone fighting through cobwebs covering a doorway. And she’d been spending too much time cleaning this wretched house if she started to think of things in terms of cobwebs and dust.

She counted in her head, forcing herself to concentrate on pragmatic, mathematical issues. Common sense began to drift back in, and she realized she wasn’t alone in this strange, dark bedroom. Someone was in the chair beside her, and she knew who it was. No one she should find safe and comforting. It was the devil himself.

Her eyes fluttered open, and she turned to look at him. He was asleep, stretched out in a club chair, his long legs propped on a stool. Why had he fallen asleep in her room? Did he think she was going to die? To run away? For some reason his voice echoed in her head, insisting she’d been shot. That was absurd! Why would someone want to shoot her?

She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out but a harsh croak, and she realized she needed water quite desperately. The tiny sound had woken him, though, and he sat forward, his feet hitting the floor as he looked at her.

“You’re awake, then. Obviously. What do you need?”

“Water.” It was so raw and garbled it was amazing he recognized the word, but he nodded, rose, and crossed the room. A moment later he was back with a tall glass of barley water. He sat down on the bed beside her in a matter-of-fact manner, slipped his hand behind her neck and pulled her up to drink, holding the glass against her mouth.

It was cool and refreshing, flavored with lemon and mint, and she drank it gratefully until Kilmartyn pulled the glass away. “Don’t overdo,” he said. “You’ll end up throwing it all up and I don’t fancy changing my clothes again.”

He set her head back on the pillow, slowly, and his fingers lingered as they pulled away from her neck, offering a quiet, soothing stroke before leaving her. “Did I throw up on you before?”

“You did not.”

She tried to shrug, but her left shoulder didn’t work, strapped down as it was. “One can only hope.”

His soft laughter was like a puff of springtime. “You are the most refreshing female I’ve ever met. There are not many women who would lie in my home, recovering from a gunshot wound, and insult me with such equanimity.”

“I didn’t insult you. I just said I wouldn’t have minded throwing up on you.”

“You said you hoped you’d thrown up on me. A very slight difference, I grant you, but a difference nonetheless. How are you feeling?”

She could think of several terms she’d heard in the stable but Kilmartyn was not someone to bandy curses with. “Words fail me.”

“One can only hope.”

She was surprised to find out she could laugh. It hurt, and she groaned in the midst of her chuckle, and she could feel unexpected tears fill her eyes. With luck he wouldn’t be able to see them, but luck had hardly been with her recently, and he’d already proved to be far too adept at seeing in the dark.
Like a cat,
she thought. Not a tame tabby, but one of those long, sleek jungle creatures she’d seen in books.

“Do you remember what happened?” he asked in his indolent fashion.

She tried to think. “You said I’d been shot,” she said after a moment. “But that’s impossible.”

“Since I watched Dr. Brattle dig a bullet out of your arm I assure you it’s not impossible at all. Did you happen to see anyone when this happened?”

“No one,” she managed to say. “I don’t even remember it happening. Did you shoot me?”

For the briefest moment she saw shock in his eyes, but he covered it quickly, and there was a faint flash of a grin in the darkness. “Now that would be a terrible waste of female flesh.”

It was wasted anyway,
she thought with a trace of self-pity, her eyes filling with tears. She was young and strong and her body would wither and die without ever being touched, loved.

It was the laudanum, of course, making her maudlin, and she tried to ignore it. She really didn’t want anyone touching her.

She closed her eyes again, drifting into the pain. She could feel the tears slide down her face, and her misery only increased. She didn’t want to cry in front of him, be it from pain or weakness or both, but she couldn’t even blink it away. She was alone, abandoned, and she hurt, and the misery encircled her like a cocoon, smothering her.

“Poor darling girl,” she heard his voice, a lilting, gentle croon, and the tears kept flowing, just as she was hoping to regain control. She didn’t want him being kind to her. She couldn’t accept pity from him, not from him.

The mattress dipped, and she distantly realized he’d climbed onto the bed with her. She should order him away, but her tears only came more heavily as she felt him slide one arm underneath her, so carefully that she barely felt it in her trussed arm. He put his other arm around her waist, and instead of trying to pull her against him he simply wrapped his strong, warm body around hers, tucking her head against his shoulders. He was wiping her tears away with something soft, but there were always more coming, and he whispered to her, words she didn’t understand. She didn’t need to. They were words of comfort, and he called her his darling, his love, his sweet, precious girl, and the colors swirled down around her once more. He had put laudanum in her barley water, she realized belatedly, feeling the last bit of her mind slip away. His long fingers were on her cheeks, brushing the tears away, and at the very last, just as she was sinking into sleep once more, she opened her eyes to see him looking down at her, such honest emotion in his eyes that it stripped the lies from her.

“Did you kill him?” she whispered.