Sinfully Ever After (Book Club Belles Society) (25 page)

Rebecca was remarkably composed in the sight of so much blood. He didn’t think she would ever stop impressing him.

She was still wiping his face and it felt very good. Very good. So he kept pointing out more blood for her to find. There was plenty.

Luke was soon installed in her brother’s bedroom, despite a few salty protests about what “people” might think about him staying there.

“Oh, do shut up,” she exclaimed. “You don’t want to go to the manor, so where else is there? Who else would have you? I’m quite sure no decent soul wants
you
lying around on their furniture. Fortunately, however, I don’t have much of a reputation worth saving.” She knew that these days many villagers considered her a scarlet woman, because of all the rumors, first about Lucky Luke and then Charles Clarendon. But she had decided it was her turn not to care for once. She’d spent enough years being the one who worried.

Besides, promising to marry someone on a wager, she’d found, did peculiar things to a person, complicated their thoughts and feelings. Even when they were usually sensible and clever.

But now was not the time to think about herself. She had a man to tend and that was one thing she knew she could do. She had the perfect no-nonsense manner, and she was not in the least squeamish. Therefore she threw herself wholeheartedly into the supervision of Lucky Luke. Someone had to do it.

She pushed him behind the dressing screen in her brother’s room. “Don’t get blood on the carpet.”

Wincing, he lifted his breeches and dangled them in the air. “I know you’ve been waiting to get these off me, wench.”

“Naturally.” She snatched up his soiled, torn clothing as he dropped it over the top of the screen. “I’ll bring you a nightshirt of my father’s, but you’d better wash first. Wait there and I’ll bring you some water for the basin.”

“Wait here?” he grumbled. “Where else can I go now you’ve got me naked?”

She smiled archly. That might be one way to keep him under her control. With this mischievous thought in mind, she took his clothes down to the fire to burn them. He’d have to make do with a nightshirt until she and her friends had a proper plan of action to make him stay. For Sarah’s sake, of course. No other reason.

But as she took his waistcoat, poised to discard it in the flames, a pearl and ruby necklace tumbled out from an inside pocket. She caught it in her hand, astonished. What was Lucky Luke doing with such an item in his possession? Something he won gambling, perhaps?

She suddenly remembered Justina’s missing bracelet, Mrs. Makepiece’s lost silver teaspoons, and the silver milk jug she hadn’t been able to find. Then she thought of how she caught him sneaking about in her hallway on Christmas Eve. He’d claimed to be looking for a fob watch. One she’d never seen.

Was it possible that Lucky Luke was not only a seducer and a gambler, but also a thief?

* * *

Dr. Penny was sent for, and he confirmed that the patient had suffered nothing more than a few bruises and scratches and a nasty cut below his left eye. Nothing broken. Surprisingly. The ruffians must have been disturbed before they could do a more thorough job.

“For a man of seven-and-thirty, sir, you are in remarkably fine condition, despite being beaten like an old rug.”

Luke’s brother had warned him of Dr. Penny’s eccentricities—his love of stuffed creatures. “Perhaps he can do something for you,” Darius had muttered dryly. “He once told me he prefers dead patients, so you qualify. Just don’t sit still for too long or he might have you stuffed.”

Dr. Penny stood at the bedside and scratched his white hair. “But now to the matter of that leg, Colonel. How will you chase after the rapidly moving Miss Sherringham?”

He scowled and replied gruffly that chasing after that wench was certainly not anything he had in mind to do. He knew she was listening outside the door. “My daughter, Sarah, however, has pestered me to have you look at it. I told her you probably would not be able to help, but she insisted.”

“I see.” The doctor pulled up a chair and sat. “What happened to the bullet when you were shot? It was removed in a military hospital?”

“No,” he snapped. “I took it out myself.”

The doctor’s bushy white brows shook and heaved like the foam on a rocky sea. “You took it out yourself?”

“Made a bit of a mess of it, but where I was, there were no good doctors.” He rubbed his bad thigh, because the more he talked of it, the more it hurt. “Besides, I saw how they hacked me about when they took the first one out after Assaye. I thought I’d make as good a job of it myself.”

Dr. Penny shook his head gravely. “Ah, the well-meaning amateur. Thus the healing has resulted in adhesions forming, no doubt. These have contributed to stiffness and restricted, contracted muscular movement. If the leg is not properly exercised…tell me, have you tried thermal springs? Such as those in Bath?”

He could think of nothing less appealing than a journey to that favorite watering hole of society.

It must have shown upon his countenance for the doctor chuckled. “I quite agree. I was there once myself and pray there will never be an occasion for me to return. But the natural sulphur will work wonders for you. That, combined with regular massage, will be of tremendous benefit. I suggest you take some time to try the cure. Greater mobility can be restored.”

Luke agreed morosely that it was something to consider. Once Sarah heard about it, he knew she would have something new to poke him about. She was already talking about one day taking a trip there to dance in the Upper Rooms and see the sights. Now she had another reason to want her “father” to take her there. The responsibilities of parenthood were onerous, to be sure. She had even suggested he might take her shopping for bonnets.

Dr. Penny left him that day with the genial assertion that he was in good hands.

So there he was, in Nate Sherringham’s bed, hiding out while his battered and bruised face healed. He could hear the low voices outside on the landing as Rebecca conferred with the physician, and he suspected grimly that this wench would take advantage of him now, while he was at her mercy.

It would probably be a damn sight worse than what those thugs had done.

* * *

To Becky’s extreme irritation, he would not tell her what had happened or who was responsible. “’Tis nothing,” he kept saying with a breezy sigh. “I’ve done worse to myself in my sleep.”

She would not let him see her laugh, as she was determined to be a strict nurse. No nonsense. Solemn and dignified. Like Mrs. Makepiece.

“Papa, he will have to stay with us until he is recuperated. Just a day or so,” she told her father as she prepared a tea tray for the invalid. “We cannot let Sarah see her father this way, can we?”

He agreed at once. “The colonel must stay as long as he needs, m’dear Becky. As long as he needs.”

Ness was also welcome, of course, and enjoyed a beef and gravy supper before he went to sleep at the foot of his master’s new bed, ready to protect him again as—well, Becky thought, smiling—as
Necessary
, despite his name.

“I hope you know your dog saved you,” she told Luke as she carried the tray to his bedside table, lit the candles, and shut the curtains.

“I wasn’t dying,” he grunted. “I tripped.”

“Yes, and bumped, many times, against something hard, but I always suspected you had a toughened skull.”

“Well, I would have got up and been perfectly—”

“If not for your dog, you would have lain there in the bulrushes, in the rain, and probably caught pneumonia.”

“Don’t exaggerate, woman.” His dark gaze followed her around the room. “Where did Ness find you, anyway? What were you doing out in the rain so far from the village?”

Ah, now
that
she would rather not tell. “Since you like to keep your secrets,” she replied smugly, “I shall keep mine!”

“Hmm.” He scowled and his mouth turned down sulkily. “What are
folk
going to say about me staying here in this house?” The emphasis he placed on the word “folk” suggested he had someone in mind.

“It’s only a night or two until the worst of the bruising and swelling has gone down,” she assured him. “Don’t worry, the blacksmith who brought you here has been sworn to secrecy, and my friends and I will look after you here, keep your ugly face from frightening poor Sarah.”

“Your friends?” He clenched his hands into fists on the quilt, and from his tone of voice, anyone might think her friends consisted of Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition.

She wrote notes to Justina and Diana that evening, and the next day, at the meeting of the Book Club Belles, the three of them shared the secret of Lucky Luke’s whereabouts. Becky did not tell Lucy, of course, for she could not be relied upon to keep the news from Sarah.

“I shall bring him some of my special broth,” Justina whispered as soon as they had a chance to discuss the matter without the youngest two girls hearing.

“And I will take some of my mama’s fruit cake,” vowed Diana. “He liked it very much, she said.”

Becky smoothed her palms over her skirt and said casually, “While he is in our house, I thought we might have the opportunity to help the colonel, in his efforts to reform.”

Diana and Justina stared at her.

“It will be a pleasant surprise for Sarah, won’t it?” she added.

“For Sarah?” Justina smiled.

“Yes. She would love to have him dance with her at the Manderson assemblies and they open again in another week. We shall have him ready to escort Sarah to the dance.”

It
would
do
no
harm
to
clean
him
up
, she thought. Little Sarah had tried, but she could only do so much with a stubborn seed ox like Lucky Luke. It needed some stronger hands, clearly.

The matter of the ruby and pearl necklace she kept to herself, for she had yet to decide what to do about it. Luke had not mentioned the necklace at all, or even asked about his clothes, but he probably assumed they were being cleaned and mended.

Later that afternoon, Justina and Diana brought their offerings to the house as promised.

“I told Sarah that you have gone to Manderson for a few days to have one of my father’s colleagues look at your leg,” Justina assured him. “That has made her extremely happy.”

He gave a lopsided smile. “Well, that’s good. Worth getting a beating for. What else can a father do for his daughter?”

Becky, busy spreading another quilt over the bed, wondered at the perverse side of her nature that made him seem so dreadfully handsome suddenly. Bruised and swollen and with a cut under his eye, his was a face she liked looking at. As he talked about his daughter, that face lit up.

It was difficult to imagine him capable of thievery, but where else could he have come by that necklace?

The next morning, Luke announced his head was feeling much better, he had stopped seeing stars, and he could get out of bed. Dr. Penny had shown them some exercises to get his leg muscles functioning better, and Becky made certain he practiced them, even though he complained and cursed.

“I don’t know why my leg matters to you,” he muttered. “I suppose you just enjoy seeing me in pain, woman.”

She smiled. “It has a certain appeal.”

“When all I ever tried to do was make an honest woman of you.”

* * *

In truth, he had thought he was about to die. When those blows first contacted with the back of his head and sent him to his knees, Luke had assumed this was it, his just deserts after a life of sin.

Damn it! He’d cursed at the air as he went down, because in spite of his intentions, he still wasn’t ready yet to go to his maker. He hadn’t come up with a suitable phrase for his headstone, and he hadn’t given his brother instructions for the horses with plumes.

Now there was Sarah too. She’d been left behind before with no explanation, and he didn’t want to do that to her again.

But then his eyes opened and he was not dead. There was the sweet smell of wet earth under his fingernails, as if he really had dug himself out of a grave.

And there was Rebecca and his dog. And life.

He wanted to embrace all of it. Trouble was he still needed one bloody arm for his walking cane. Unless he finally applied himself to doing something about it. For too many years, he’d relied upon that cane. No one expected too much from a lame man, did they? That pain in his thigh was good punishment for his past actions, he thought. Whenever he felt guilt about the way he’d been as a young man, he fell back on his injury. Like twisting a knife in a wound.

Then a redheaded virago named Rebecca marched into his life and suddenly he wanted to be a whole man again. For her.

The doctor had shown her a simple massage for Luke’s thigh, and she, a dedicated if somewhat brutal nurse, insisted on trying it out immediately.

Luke clutched the quilt to his chest as she approached with a stern look upon her face and something that looked like goose grease slathered over her hands. “I don’t think this is proper.”

“I’m quite sure it isn’t.” She snatched the quilt out of his fingers, pulled up the nightshirt—one of her father’s—and set to work on his stiff muscles.

“Steady on, woman,” he yelled. “Have a care!”

“Oh, hush! You should have taken greater care when you were first wounded. Dr. Penny says frequent exercise and massage would have kept the leg from seizing up. I suppose you laid around feeling sorry for yourself, the muscles gave up, and then they were stuck this way. Just as they say that if you pull an ugly face for too long, the wind will change and your expression will be frozen in place.”

He snorted. “Astounding how one silly woman can become a medical expert after a five-minute conversation with the local quack—ouch!”

“That was for calling me silly.”

“Argh!”

“And that was for calling Dr. Penny a quack.”

But a moment later, it was her turn to utter an exclamation when she saw the linen nightshirt lifting over his groin.

“Well, what did you think would happen?” he growled, amused by her shocked face. “You put your hands on me like this and the stiffness moves from one place to another.” It was actually growing unbearable, made his voice a little choked and gruff. She was temptation incarnate, even with her prim face determined not to smile. Her hands might be small but they were talented when it came to his aches and pains.