Rexanne Becnel (10 page)

When the woman spied the three of them still in their coats, with a frosting of ice crystals on their shoulders and hoods, she crossed her arms and glared down her nose at Phoebe. “Are these the manners you would teach this child? To barge in unannounced, uninvited, and without even removing your outerwear?”

“Bugger off,” Izzy said, charging past the woman.

But the black-garbed harpy caught Izzy by the arm. “Oh, no you don’t. This is a sickroom. No visitors allowed.”

“Take your hands off her,” Phoebe demanded. “Izzy has every right to be concerned about her sister.”

The housekeeper gave Phoebe a scornful once-over. “I shouldn’t be surprised that you’d take up for her. You’re all of a kind. You. Her. That niece of yours.”

At the first cross word Helen had ducked behind Phoebe, and in the face of this woman’s undeserved scorn, she clutched at Phoebe’s skirts. It was the only thing that prevented Phoebe from slapping the odious woman silly. How dare she imply anything so sordid!

She drew herself up. “I suggest you release that child, get out of my way, and keep yourself well beyond my reach when I go through that door. For I assure you,” she added, starting forward. “I
am
going through that door.”

Bullies were all alike, Phoebe thought as she strode unchallenged through the door. They backed down at the first sign of opposition. But her satisfaction at besting Farley Park’s vile housekeeper disappeared the moment she entered the nursery. The sour smell of vomit, the overheated room, and the glum expression on the rumpled doctor’s face as he spoke to Lord Farley foretold an enemy far more difficult to defeat than a hateful, dried-up old woman.

“What is it?” she asked, focusing on the doctor as she removed her cloak and bonnet.

“Hallo, Miss Churchill,” Dr. Ward said, as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world to find her at Farley Park. “I’m thinking she’s contracted some sort of pox. But the high fever has me a trifle baffled, as does the vomiting.”

Pox. That was Dr. Ward’s catch-all phrase for anything he couldn’t otherwise diagnose. Leya could be suffering with anything.

Phoebe glanced at Lord Farley who stood over Leya’s bed. He looked as if he’d been up all night—his hair stood up in dark blond spiky clumps; his unfastened waistcoat hung open; and his shirt gaped at the throat and was stained with who-knew-what. Most distressing of all, his face sagged in lines of worry and exhaustion. How awful he must feel to have no clear diagnosis for Leya’s illness.

With an effort she tore her gaze from him and turned to the girls, who stood warily just inside the tall doorway. “Izzy, I want you to take Helen to your room. Or down to the kitchen. Whatever you like.”

Izzy frowned. “What about Leya?”

“She’s very sick, but I’m going to stay with her and do all I can to help. Only I can’t have you and Helen getting sick too. If you want to help your little sister, you must stay healthy and do exactly as I ask. Can you do that for me?”

Izzy’s fearful gaze darted from Phoebe to the tiny bed where her half sister lay, then back. “Will you come tell us how she fares?”

“Of course I will.”

“All right, then.” Izzy nodded. She caught Helen by the hand. “Come along, Helen. We’ll go to the kitchen and tell Cook to prepare tea for everyone.”

Phoebe smiled encouragingly at Helen, who looked frightened to death. “That would be lovely.” She glanced at Lord Farley, who stood over Leya’s bed, staring down at his listless child. “Have her also send up breakfast for your father.”

When the girls left, Dr. Ward drew Phoebe aside. “It may simply be the same childhood pox that comes around every few years. Most children survive with no repercussions. We’ll know for sure if blisters begin to form. Take care not to touch them. And keep everyone well away from this room. Meanwhile, my advice is to try and make her as comfortable as possible. And keep that fever down.”

Then he collected his coat and hat and let himself out, leaving Phoebe and Lord Farley to tend the now eerily silent Leya.

“Thank you for coming.” Lord Farley’s voice was a low rasp against the crackling pop of the fire. “How did you know to come?”

“Izzy.” Phoebe moved to stand next to him beside the bed. “I assume you didn’t send her to me.”

“No.”

Phoebe stroked Leya’s burning cheek. “I do believe Izzy loves this little girl. She’s known Leya, what, two months or so?” She lifted her gaze and studied his profile. “And yet already she loves her little sister with a fierce intensity.”

“So do I.” He turned to face her. “I never expected to. But I do. And I can’t—” His voice broke and she saw him swallow hard against the emotions that flailed inside his chest. “I can’t lose her. I can’t.”

“Don’t talk about losing her. Children survive illnesses like this all the time.”

“But not always,” he said, his voice dark with fear. “Not always. She’s from India, you know. What if she’s more susceptible to whatever sort of pox this is?”

Phoebe didn’t know how to reassure him except to say, “I’ll help. However I can, I’ll help.”

His hand caught hers and without thinking, she clasped it. It was totally inappropriate for more reasons than she cared to consider. Yet it felt achingly right. Palm to palm, fingers entwined as if in a solemn pact, they joined their hands, their wills, and the strength of their bodies to fight for Leya.

It proved to be a very long day.

They fell into a natural pattern, sharing ideas and efforts, and never ceasing their vigilance. Phoebe knew the importance of dribbling water down the baby’s throat, for a fever could quickly parch her tiny, burning body. One slow spoon at a time she fed water to Leya, so that her stomach wouldn’t revolt.

In India Lord Farley had seen a dangerously feverish child immersed in a cold bath, anything to reduce the killing heat. In the Orient, he told her, the healers advocated cleanliness for both patient and caregivers. Also for bedding, clothes, dishes—anything that came or went in the sickroom should be kept scrupulously clean with hot water and lots of soap.

And in the midst of it all, Izzy and Helen brought tea and broth for Leya, plus bread and meat for them.

“You must discharge that housekeeper,” Phoebe murmured much later in the afternoon while Leya slept. Lord Farley sprawled back upon a settee, his eyes closed in exhaustion, his long legs draped on the floor. She had collapsed in a large upholstered chair.

“I know. Unfortunately I have to wait until I can secure a decent replacement.”

Working side by side with him, worrying and praying and battling the same demons, had broken down enough barriers between them that Phoebe hesitated only a moment before saying, “I don’t think you should wait. That odious woman’s poisonous attitude is far worse for this household than hobbling along a few weeks or even months without a proper housekeeper. The woman makes no bones about the fact that she despises both Izzy and Leya—and probably you as well for forcing her to deal with them.”

A weak cry from Leya forestalled his reply. They both leaped up to find the baby shivering, her lips trembling, her few teeth chattering. At once Phoebe picked her up, bedding and all, and hugged her close. Lord Farley draped a blanket over Phoebe and his child, tucking it close around her on the chair. They’d been through this twice now. Fever, then chills. Cool water, then warm broth.

Together they fought for Leya through the long hours of the night, taking turns, dozing intermittently. Near dawn Phoebe went out to use the necessary, and discovered Helen and Izzy sleeping just outside the nursery door on a mattress hauled from one of the nearby bedchambers. The two were curled up together, under a mound of blankets, for the hall was cold and drafty. A welcome smile curved her lips. They reminded her of puppies, like Bruno and his litter mates. It seemed that, faced with Leya’s illness, they’d put away their animosity toward one another. At least something good was coming from this dreadful night.

When she returned, Lord Farley stood over Leya, a lamp in his hand and a worried frown upon his face. “The blisters are spreading. Look at her cheeks.”

“But remember, Dr. Ward said that was good. It means the illness is progressing as it should. The sooner they come, the sooner they’ll leave, and the sooner she’ll recover. We may have to bundle her hands, though. If she scratches them she could scar.”

“I won’t care if she scars, so long as she lives.” He was silent a moment, then turned to face her. “I’ll never be able to repay you for what you’re doing.”

He said no more; but then, he didn’t need to. The power of his feelings, the utter sincerity of them, was there in his eyes. It was in the very air between them. They were connected now in a way that transcended this one day and night of struggle. They’d fought together for this child’s life, and Phoebe was beginning to believe they’d won. No matter what the future held, she and Lord Farley would always share this night, this victory.

But it went deeper than that; it was more pervasive, more primitive. Their gaze clung. Bone weary though she was, Phoebe felt the moment stretch out, taut and crackling, until the inexplicable undercurrent grew too hard to fight.

She ran a shaky hand through her disheveled hair. She’d never been drawn to anyone like she was drawn to him—and he seemed equally drawn to her. It couldn’t merely be lust, she told herself. It couldn’t. No sane man would lust after a woman as unkempt and drooping as she was.

Could there be more between them? Might he actually care about her?

Her poor beleaguered heart was long past sorting out the truth from wishful thinking. As she began to sink into the sea-blue depths of his eyes, she could only say, “You needn’t thank me, Lord Farley. I’ve grown to love Leya too.” She was drowning in his eyes, hardly able to breathe. “And…and also Izzy.”

The entire world shrank down to just the two of them, now, in this room.

“I’ve never met a woman like you.”

She let out a strangled laugh. “No?” Of course he hadn’t. He traveled in very different circles than she.

He shook his head. “Will you stay here at Farley Park until she’s well?”

“Of course.” Her voice faded to a whisper.

“I can discharge Mrs. Gatling today.”

She nodded.

“But I’ll need your help.”

Again she nodded. A team of wild moor ponies couldn’t drag her away.

He stepped nearer, a mere foot closer to her. Yet in that one step he breached a wall, he crossed some line that up to now had kept them fellow soldiers in the battle they’d waged. But no longer.

Instead of soldiers fighting the good fight, they were stripped to their most basic selves: a woman and a man, excruciatingly conscious that the attraction they already felt had suddenly strengthened. No longer a flickering flame of heat, it had become a raging fire. An inferno…

It made perfect sense to James. This woman, so unlike Catherine, so unlike any other of the many women he’d known, made perfect sense to him. He pulled her closer. She was the perfect height, and the ideal size. He felt her melt unresistingly in his arms. She was kind and generous and she adored his children.

But best of all, she wanted him.

He tilted her chin up and searched the unblinking hazel depths of her eyes. She was so innocent. That was the only contrary ripple in the tidal wave of certainty that rushed over him. Too innocent to know what was best for herself.

But he ignored that ripple. He wanted her.

No, it was more than that. He needed her.

“Phoebe.” He murmured her name against her lips and felt her mouth answer.

“James.”

One syllable, yet he’d never heard anything so erotic. His name in her low, breathy voice.

“Ah, damn,” he muttered. He was well and truly lost. His weariness fled, replaced by full-blown desire. Her breasts, pressed soft and warm against his chest, and yielding. Her supple waist fitted the curve of his arm, and her mouth…

Her sweet, luscious mouth was created for him and his pleasure. Innocent and seductive, her lips met his, slanted to fit better, and opened to accept the greedy thrust of his tongue.

He wanted to devour her, to consume her for his own selfish pleasure. At the same time he was determined to make her burn with desire for him.

Somehow he moved them to the settee, sitting down with her on his lap. Her arms circled his shoulders; her fingers tangled in the hair at his nape. He shifted her so that her legs draped over the arm of their seat and tilted her backward in his embrace. She was his for the taking, his to sate his ravenous hunger upon, and then to savor a second, a third—an infinite number of times.

In his breeches his arousal demanded more and he thrust against the warm fullness of her bottom.

Her answer was to kiss him as he’d been kissing her, to explore the depths of his mouth with increasing boldness, increasing demand. It was a demand he was fully prepared to meet.

He slid her off his lap. She flexed to accommodate him, and without even pausing for a breath, he lay over her upon the narrow settee.

Beneath him Phoebe felt the change, like a shift in the wind, like a tilt in the axis of the earth. Up to now she had wielded the power. Sort of. Now he held it.

Or maybe he’d always held it. Maybe it had been her delusion, thinking she could say yea or nay to this man, and control the restless beast he’d loosened inside her.

Lust. In her head she heard the word spoken in her mother’s harsh, disapproving voice.

Then another voice, young and rebellious—her own, she realized—pointed out that if her unhappy, critical, friendless mother so vehemently disapproved of lust, it must be a marvelous thing.

Though contrary to a lifetime of belief, once considered, the heretical thought would not go away. Emilean Churchill had hated so many things: music, laughter, anything bright or exuberant or filled with emotion. But her mother had been wrong about all of that. Could she be wrong about lust as well?

Phoebe needed to know, for above all else, she did not want to turn into a bitter, critical woman like her mother.

So she accepted the hard masculine weight pressing down on her, and she gloried in the knowledge that James Lindford wanted her, Phoebe Churchill. He could have any woman he wanted, but he wanted her because, despite their differences, at heart they were alike. They knew what really mattered, and they fought for it. He’d left London for his children; she raised her niece. And then tonight they’d worked together to keep Leya safe. A man who loved his children as intensely as James loved Leya and Izzy surely would love a woman just as intensely. He would cherish her.

As if to prove her right, he began a trail of kisses, warming her neck, heating the shell of her ear, rousing a fire of epic magnitude in the nether reaches of her belly.

“James,” she moaned, moving restlessly beneath him, wanting things from him she could not rightly put into words.

But he knew. He knew and he answered her silent pleas with a touch here, a caress there. The inside of her elbow. The palm of her hand. The place beneath her ear that had no name. When had these common, everyday parts of her become so sensitized?

Then one of his knees parted her legs and pushed between her thighs. It was a strange, invasive movement. Possessive. Thrilling. At the same time one of his hands skimmed up her waist and ribs, then palmed the side of her breast.

Oh yes. Don’t stop
, was her shameful, greedy response.

He heeded that too, sensing it though she could not form the words. Then he smoothed his thumb over the crest of her breast, and someone groaned. Could that be her?

When he did it again, using the tip of his thumbnail to tease her nipple to excruciating awareness, she again groaned.

“Phoebe,” he said, murmuring her name against her lips, against the curve of her neck, and the hollow of her throat. And all the while he increased that sweet torturing of her breast until she was panting with need, a human inferno thrashing beneath him, churning on the inside and threatening to explode from the violence of her emotions.

When a surge of cool air swept over her legs, she felt one blessed moment of sanity. The lower half of her was entirely bare. How had that happened?

She had her answer when his palm, hot and bold, curved behind her knee. But that sensual, wholly improper caress felt too right for her to bid him cease. If this was lust, she feared she would never deny it again.

When he ground his hips against hers she thrust back in instinctive acceptance. How had she ever thought this a repulsive act? How could she have disdained it? Feared it? Dreaded it?

He shifted to one side and his hand moved higher. She sucked in a sharp breath when he reached the apex of her parted legs. Fear and longing pounded through her veins as he cupped that most private part of her. Fear. Longing. Need. She
needed
to know the rest of this.

“Are you chaste?” He murmured the words hot and hoarse in her ear.

Inside she had melted into a roiling brew of emotion. But somehow she managed to nod. Speaking was impossible. Yes, she was chaste. But for how long?

Maybe she should stop him.

But then he parted the curls down there, parted them and touched her, and any thoughts of stopping these wondrous feelings burned right out of her head.

Oh yes. Oh there. Oh, this wonderful…marvelous…unbelievable…

He made a tiny circling movement, like he’d done with her nipple. Only this little circle was so much closer to the boiling center of her longing. Of her lust. He circled her and it felt hot and wet—and then she erupted.

“Yes. Yes.” She heard her cries over and over as her body arched in spasm beyond her ken. He urged her on, stroking until it was unbearable, until she was sobbing, her face wet with unknown tears. That’s when he moved his finger farther back, someplace deeper, filling her with new feelings even as the tremors still rippled through her. He thrust in and out, rousing her anew. Though the sensations were the same, they were somehow different.

For just a moment he stopped, just long enough for her to gasp for breath. Had she died? Was this heaven?

Then once again he shifted over her, and she felt a new probing, harder and larger.

Phoebe opened her eyes to find his face an inch from hers, his eyes dark and unnervingly blue, and fixed intently upon hers. “It may hurt,” he murmured. “Just a little. But that will pass. I promise.” He pressed harder, filling her in a new way, a frightening yet necessary way.

“Phoebe?”

She nodded, never removing her gaze from his. In he came, short probing strokes, each one bolder, each one deeper. He filled her, stretched her. Possessed her. Then a pause, a sudden thrust, and he was fully in her.

It didn’t hurt. Not really. But she gasped at the finality of it, the unimaginable sense of completeness. She was his now and the thought filled her with joy.

His. And he was hers.

Their eyes held as he pulled slowly out, then came into her again. “Oh my.” She breathed the words.

A faint smile curved his mouth and she felt the strongest urge to kiss that mouth. He stroked into her again, faster, deeper, beginning a rhythm she instinctively recognized and rose to. She accepted him into her body, into her heart, and pulled his head down to hers, fastening their lips as erotically as their loins.

This pure pleasure, this utter completion—could this be what she’d so feared? She vowed then never to fear it again, for this was perfection. This was joy. This was love and lust and need and forever. And when he rushed her back into that wild chasm of freedom and victory and physical abandon, she took the leap eagerly, exploding around him in the same moment that he exploded into her.

Afterward Phoebe wasn’t clear about exactly what happened and in what order. She could believe that she’d fainted, except that she never fainted. All she knew for certain was that he was heavy and replete upon her, and then, without her being aware of it, he was gone.

She sat up and a dampened cloth was pushed into her hand for her to clean herself. It was awkward and totally disorienting. But then he was there, kneeling before the settee, smiling at her. He caught her other hand and kissed it, then studied her with a serious expression.

“That wasn’t—” He broke off and released her hand. “I didn’t plan on that, Phoebe. The long night together—” He broke off again. “I won’t make any excuses. What’s done is done. Though I should, I can’t regret it. I hope you don’t either.”

Phoebe cleared her throat. Her cheeks were scarlet and she wanted to look away from him. But there was no escaping his scrutiny. “I don’t regret,” she said.
Should I?

“Good. We need to talk about this. But not now. Not here in the nursery. I’ll summon a maid to find you a bed.”

“What about Leya?”

“She’s sleeping. No need for both of us to sit up with her. I’ll sleep later. And once we’re sure she’s all right, we’ll talk about what just happened.”

He was right, of course. Phoebe wanted to talk now, to figure this out, except that she was too befuddled and overwhelmed and exhausted to think straight. And then, Izzy and Helen were asleep just outside the door—

She went rigid with horror; the last of her confusion fled. She
hoped
they were still asleep. She remembered being awfully noisy. Added to that, dawn was near; the housekeeper and some of the maids might already be up and about.

So she agreed to his suggestion, ducked her head, and was grateful when he departed to summon a maid.

She stared about the silent room, then, testing her shaky legs, stood. Good Lord. She’d really done it this time, taken an irrevocable step in a direction she could not change. Not ever.

And though she was glad and would never wish this night different, as the seconds stretched into long minutes, a new fear crept over her. This might have been a first for her, but that wasn’t the case for him. He’d done this selfsame act with any number of women. At least three, but probably more. Many more.

She frowned and drifted over to the small iron bed and gazed down at his sleeping daughter. He hadn’t married any of the women who had borne his children. Why should he behave any differently with her?

And what if they, too, had created a child?

Her hand flew to her stomach, but with an exercise of will she tightened her hand into a fist and drew it away. It was pointless to worry about that possibility now. Still, she couldn’t help counting back to the last visitation of her monthlies. Two weeks? No, three. At any rate, it had been before she ever met James—Lord Farley. Before he’d returned to his country estate with his oddment of a family.

A weight of fear began to lift from her chest. She should be safe then, with only a few days to wait to be sure.

She looked back at Leya and felt an unexpected pang of regret—utterly perverse, of course, but nonetheless real. There would be no baby Leya for her and she should be grateful. But if they ever did this again…

No. She could not let that happen. It was far too dangerous. Unbidden, however, a ripple of remembered passion coursed through her, like an echo of a favorite melody. If they never did this again—if she never married anyone or ever lay in a man’s arms for the rest of her life—she would have to remember the music they’d made this night, the melody of passion and love. Physical love if not true love.

Phoebe hugged her arms around herself and shook her head. If she let herself think like this she would drive herself quite mad. She was simply too tired and too overwhelmed by the last few hours to think clearly. She needed the reprieve of sleep; she needed to escape her thoughts, at least for a little while.

A still sleepy maid came into the room and silently led her off, past the two little girls slumbering in their makeshift bed in the hall, and away from James, who settled in a chair next to Leya’s bed. The chamber given her was on the second floor, small but pleasantly appointed, with a newly laid fire struggling to beat back the chill. The maid said little, only turning down the bed and pointing out the chamber pot and a ewer filled with water.

Phoebe was relieved when the girl left. It was too hard speculating on what the girl did or didn’t suspect, whether she could tell just by looking what Phoebe had done tonight, how drastically she’d been changed.

Far easier to be alone, to undress herself and suffer the icy penance of her cold-water ablutions. Even the sheets were frigid despite the mountain of bedding she pulled over herself. But in the stillness of the featherbed her memories kept her heated. Before the bed had fully warmed from her body heat, Phoebe was asleep, exhausted in body, spirit, and heart.

When she awoke it was to utter bedlam. The first jolt came when Helen threw herself across Phoebe’s bed, sobbing hysterically. Through the open door came the screaming of an outraged Izzy. “Get out of my house! You bitch! You whore!”

Phoebe jerked upright in absolute panic. They knew what she’d done! Guilt exuded her every pore. They knew what she’d done last night with Lord Farley, and soon everyone in Swansford would know!