How many bacteria had been breeding on the needle Zachary used? Robyn wondered despairingly, and what would she do if William developed a raging fever. She had never thought it would be possible to yearn with such intensity for a supply of antibiotics.
“Let me see Zachary’s handiwork,” she said.
William had no time either to protest or to oblige. A scratching came at the bedroom door, soft but insistent. “My lord, are you there’? ‘Tis Jackson, my lord. ‘Tis way past the hour for your lordship to ready yourself for dinner.”
Robyn, William, and Zachary exchanged horrified glances. Robyn acted almost on instinct. Pressing her finger to her lips in a gesture that she fervently hoped indicated silence to people living in the eighteenth century, she seized Zachary’s arm and propelled him back into the priest’s hole.
“Close the doors,” she whispered in his ear, her words no more than a breath of sound. “Don’t come out until William summons you.
She was untying her bodice even as she spoke, gesturing to William that he should remove his riding jacket, which he was still wearing, presumably to keep out the bitter chill of the unheated room behind the priest’s hole.
“My lord?” Jackson’s voice came again from the corridor outside the bedroom door. “We are worried about you, my lord. Are you sick, my lord?”
Why was he being so persistent, Robyn wondered, when most of the servants at Starke were remarkable for their stolid lack of initiative? There was no time to worry about possible reasons. Shaking her head in a frantic signal to William not to answer his valet, Robyn grabbed his jacket and tossed it onto the floor, where it landed a couple of feet away from her discarded skirt. On tiptoe, she ran to the connecting door that led to her bedroom suite. Beckoning to William to follow, she tugged and pulled at her remaining petticoats, not bothering with pins or tapes, or buttons, simply stripping off her clothes in urgent, silent haste. She dropped the petticoats behind her in a trail leading directly to her bed.
William, thank heaven, understood what she was trying to do. He tore off his shirt and tossed it down close to her bodice. He had to keep his breeches on, because they were tom and stained with blood, but he pointed to his boots, miming a request for Robyn’s help in pulling them off.
“My lord?” Jackson’s voice was louder now, although still extremely deferential. “My lord, Hackett is with me, my lord, and we are coming in, begging your lordship’s pardon.”
The majordomo had been persuaded to use his keys much earlier than Robyn would have expected. Was that Jackson’s influence? Or had she simply miscalculated?
Robyn leaned over and whispered in William’s ear. “Leave your boots on. Too late for anything else.”
He grimaced, but climbed booted into her bed and stretched out his arm in rueful invitation. “‘You look so enticing,” he murmured as she pillowed her head on his shoulder. “What a shame that I am too exhausted to take advantage of your quite spectacular state of dishevelment.”
“When they come in, I will pretend to wake up and be angry,” she whispered. “Can you pretend to be embarrassed?”
“Somehow I do not think I will have any difficulty in being entirely convincing,” he said dryly.
“Hush, here they come.”
The heavy iron key grated loudly in the lock. They heard the door to William’s bedroom open with a creak, followed by the muted sound of the servants’ voices, floating through the open, connecting door.
“Well I never—they aren’t here!” Jackson said. Robyn wondered if she was imagining the faint note of disappointment in his voice.
“Well, where are they?” Hackett sounded genuinely bewildered. “Nobody has seen hide nor hair of them since Captain Bretton left, and that’s nigh on two hours ago.”
“They were here in this room, I saw them, and there do be clothes all over the floor.” The rustle of garments being picked up drifted through the door. “Lord love us, her ladyship’s petticoats do be scattered clear across the room.”
“But where is her ladyship?” Hackett asked querulously. “And what about the master? Why have they not come downstairs to eat their dinners?”
“Something fearful strange has happened,” Jackson declared. “Vanished, they has, like Jonah, swallowed down into the belly of a whale.”
“There are no whales in Starke,” Hackett said dourly. “Look, the door to her ladyship’s bedroom is open, and her—ahem—her...”
“Her stays!” Jackson exclaimed. “Her stays is lying in the doorway. Lord love us, Mr. Hackett, do you think her ladyship was felled by a Jacobite murderer, crazed with cold and hunger?”
Hackett snorted. “You do be obsessed with Jacobite murderers, Jackson, and that’s a fact. You and Captain Bretton make a matched pair, seeing Jacobites under every bed. You know the master supports King George. There are no more Jacobites in Starke than there are whales.”
The voices were coming nearer, approaching the connecting door to her bedroom. Robyn closed her eyes as she heard two pairs of feet creep cautiously toward the bed.
“Good Lord alive, they are in bed!” Jackson broke a moment of breathless silence.
“What are they doing in bed at this hour of the day? Be they dead?” Hackett’s voice quivered with anxiety.
“No, they b’ain’t dead. I think they do be sleeping after they’ve... you know. See how her ladyship’s breasts do rise and fall?”
“You should not be a-looking at her ladyship’s breasts,” Hackett said sternly. Robyn tried not to blush as she felt the majordomo edge even closer to the bed. “Lordie, lordie. They be stark naked under those covers, can you imagine it? Catch their death of cold they will.” He sounded torn between awe at such lustful, wicked abandon and disapproval at the foolhardiness of it.
Robyn could feel a blush starting at her toes. William’s body was beginning to shake and she had a dreadful conviction that he was trying not to laugh. Good grief! Did the man have no sense of self-preservation? Didn’t he realize the danger they were in? She decided it was past time to start her portrayal of a sultry, bad-tempered Lady Arabella waking up after two hours of passionate sex.
She stirred sleepily against the linen pillows, yawned, stretched, and finally opened her eyes. With languid movements, she pulled herself into a sitting position, hugging the sheet close to her body. She didn’t want Jackson’s prying eyes observing her nakedness, but more importantly, she didn’t want him to glimpse William’s boots and breeches. Some powerful primitive instinct was warning her not to trust Jackson.
She rubbed her eyes and allowed her gaze to wander drowsily around the room before focusing on the two servants. With more acting skill than she’d ever known she possessed, she fluttered her eyelashes in mock amazement, before giving a little shriek of outrage.
“Hackett, Jackson! What are you doing in my bedchamber? How dare you enter my rooms when you have not been summoned!”
Bowing and backing toward the door, the two servants both tried to apologize at once.
She threw a pillow at them, taking care to miss. “Be quiet,” she commanded. “Where is Mary? How dare you awaken me when I was feeling so tired and sleepy? Why did you enter the room without permission?”
“We tried to awaken you, my lady. When there was no response we became worried, my lady.”
“Why did you wish to wake me, when clearly I wished to sleep?”
Hackett bowed, picking up the pillow and simultaneously retrieving some of his natural dignity. “‘Tis past three of the clock, my lady, and dinner is ready to be served.”
“And so?” Robyn gave an arrogant toss of her head. “Am I now to adjust my life to suit the whims of my cook? No wonder my poor nerves are quite shredded to pieces. First that dreadful Captain Bretton marches through my bedroom, and now my own servants plague me. I should not be in the least surprised if I developed a case of the vapors.”
William gave a muffled snort that he managed to turn into a yawn. He sat up, giving a fair imitation of a man, exha
usted by sexual exertions, trying to gather his wits. His gaze flicked from the servants to Robyn and settled into an expression somewhere between embarrassment and outrage. “What has happened, my dear? Why are the servants in your bedchamber? Did you summon them?”
“Of course not.” Robyn leaned back against the pillows, pouting. “Your servants tell me that I must get up for dinner because it is three of the clock. But I do not wish to get up for dinner. I wish to eat dinner in my room. With you.”
“Come now,” William said coaxingly. “Remember that you have your new blue silk gown to wear. Would you not prefer to eat downstairs?”
“There is nobody to see my new dress,” Robyn said pettishly, renewing her pout. “I am tired and I am bored. You never invite guests to dine with us. We are always dining alone.”
“My dear, we have scarce recovered from twelve days of Christmas feasting when we were never without company.”
“Yes, and I am quite exhausted by all the rich food. I want you to eat with me in my sitting room. I am much too tired to get dressed.” Robyn turned to the two servants, who hovered in the doorway, uncertain whether to go or stay. “You may tell Jean-Luc to prepare a meal to be served upstairs tonight. His lordship will join me.”
“Yes, my lady. I will deliver the message myself.” Hackett bowed deeply.
“And you may tell Mary that her ladyship will not be needing her services for another hour or so,” William said. “Jackson, I will require hot water for washing. See to it immediately.”
“Yes, my lord.”
The servants left the bedroom, closing the door quietly behind them. Robyn got out of bed and crept across the room, pulling the door open a crack and peering around to make sure they had truly left.
“All clear,” she said, returning to the bed. “Was it wise to ask for hot water? How can you bathe in front of Jackson without revealing your wound?”
“I won’t bathe, I will simply ask him to shave me,” William said. “I needed a convincing excuse to send Jackson from the room.”
“Do you think we persuaded them we had spent the past two hours making mad, passionate love?”
“For the moment they are too embarrassed even to consider questioning the scene we presented for them.” William eased himself out of the bed, wincing as he straightened his leg and stripped off his breeches. “Unfortunately, their embarrassment will soon fade and they will begin to wonder why we were suddenly consumed by a lust so overwhelming that we chased each other through an entire suite of rooms, and ended up in a state of such mutual exhaustion that we slept through three separate attempts to rouse us.”
“Perhaps we could pretend that since my accident I’ve woven a spell over you,” Robyn said. “For the next few days, whenever we are together, try to appear as if you are driven half-mad with longing and desire.”
William paused in the act of rolling his bloodstained breeches into a bundle. He looked away, giving an odd, harsh laugh. “That would be no pretense,” he said. “Do you really not know how desperately I want to make love to you? Have you not realized that I spend my days pretending to work, but in reality counting the hours until nightfall, when we can be together? Since the accident, I burn for you, Arabella.”
He stood by the hearth, his shoulders tensed, the strength of his body all the more apparent in the glow of the firelight. His hair, still streaked with the gray of that morning’s powder, hung to his shoulders in a thick, unruly mass. When he swung around to look at her, Robyn was reminded so strongly of Zach that her heart squeezed tight with despair.
Not now, she thought hopelessly. Don’t make me think of Zach when you and I are literally fighting for our lives, and there is no time to straighten out the muddle of my feelings for each of you.
But even as she remembered Zach, her pulses raced and her body swayed toward William. She ached to be held in his arms, to feel the warmth and security of his love surrounding her. It was William she desired at this moment. And yet—she still loved Zach.
“My dear, you must not look so sad.” William’s hand closed around her wrist, and he pulled her into his arms, kissing her gently on the forehead. “Forgive me for burdening you with my nonsense. There is no reason for you to listen to me.”
“Yes, yes there is, and what you said wasn’t nonsense. It was wonderful.” She hung her head, afraid to look at him, afraid of what she was going to say. “I think I’ve fallen in love with you,” she said, and her body convulsed in shivers. “My God, how is it possible? What am I going to do?”
William crooked his finger under her chin, tilting her face upward. His eyes met hers, dark with passion and a hint of wry, sympathetic laughter. “Listen to the pair of us,” he said. “You would think that falling in love was a terminal affliction.”
She smiled tremulously. “Not an affliction, but terminally confusing, at least for me.”
“Take heart, my love.” He brushed his thumb tenderly across her mouth. “Since we are both victims of the same disease, perhaps we can discover together how to survive it. I have heard tell that there is no cure for what ails us, so we can only hope to endure the symptoms as best we can.”
“I didn’t mean to love you,” she said, more to herself than to William. “I knew I was beginning to love the children, but I thought it would be all right to love them.”
“And I most assuredly did not mean to love you.” He carried her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss into the center of her palm. “Robyn,” he said softly, “is it so very bad that we should love each other?”
“No. Yes.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. I can’t think straight anymore.”
“Sometimes we can think too much. I know I have spent far too much of my life trying to be calm, rational, and logical.” He slid her hand down between their bodies, closing her fingers over the rigid thrust of his erection.
“This is what you do to me, Robyn, every time you come near. And this surely has nothing to do with reason and logic.” He gazed down at her with one of his wry, self-mocking smiles. “Is it not absurd that with so much at stake, I am holding you in my arms and thinking not of the risk of discovery, but only of how much I want to make love to you?”
“Yes, it is totally absurd,” she said, but she didn’t move away. Instead she nestled closer, rubbing her face against his chest. His muscles rippled beneath her cheek, and she flushed with heat, longing to drown out the clamor of her confusion in a session of passionate, stormy lovemaking. When he kissed her, when he caressed her, when he thrust deep inside her, doubts disappeared. When they made love, she could forget everything that had happened before her accident and simply feel.
He cupped her face between his hands and looked at her searchingly. “Do not tempt me with your softness,” he whispered. “My God, Robyn, we must be sensible. We have only minutes to prepare ourselves for the return of the servants.”
“Yes.” But still she didn’t move.
“Tonight,” he said. “Tonight we can be together.”
With a shuddering sigh, Robyn turned away. William stepped forward, as if to take her back into his arms, then stopped abruptly. “I must put on some clothes before Jackson returns.”
“Take care how you hide your breeches,” Robyn said, finding her robe and wrapping herself gratefully in its swansdown warmth. “Something in Jackson’s manner today made me uneasy.”
“I owe Oliver Cromwell and his Puritan fanatics a debt of gratitude,” William said. “My bedchamber is a treasure trove of hiding places.” He twisted the center of a carved rose by the window in his bedroom. A small panel swung out, to reveal a space about one foot square beneath the windowsill. He shoved the bloody breeches inside the hole. “Easy enough to dispose of them,” he said. “Less easy to imagine what I should say to Jackson to explain their disappearance.”
“Make it a convincing story,” Robyn said, sitting down in front of the dressing table. “Perhaps you will think I am seeing problems where none exist, but have you ever wondered if Jack
son could be an informant for Captain Bretton?”
William smiled grimly. “My dear, I do not wonder if Jackson is an informant, I am quite sure he is in the captain’s pay. In fact, I have frequently counted on Jackson to carry false information from Starke to the captain’s encampment. He has never yet failed me in his treachery.”
Robyn stopped in the middle of brushing her hair. She recognized in William’s voice the forced calmness of a man who had grown accustomed to living on the knife edge of danger.
“Dear God,” she whispered, the brush falling unheeded from her hand. “You are a supporter of Bonnie Prince Charlie! You haven’t just helped a few rebels who happened to be old and close friends of the family. You’ve been a leader of the Jacobite movement all along, haven’t you?”
For a moment she thought that he wasn’t going to answer her. When he finally spoke, he did not look at her. “I have always believed the Hanoverians are usurpers,” he said. “In my opinion, the Stuart cause is just, although appallingly disorganized, as rebellions usually are. Bonnie Prince Charlie appealed not only to the downtrodden and the malcontent, but also to those of us who believe that freedom of worship and political representation for Catholics has been too long delayed.”
Her heart thudded with fear. “The prince’s cause may have been just, but it is irretrievably lost,” she said. “William, you must believe me. The Stuarts will never regain the throne of England, and Bonnie Prince Charlie will die in exile. It will be a hundred years before Catholics are given the right to hold public office in England.”
Fortunately, he assumed that she was making a political prophecy rather than stating an historical fact. “I am neither fool enough nor sentimental enough to believe that Charles Stuart will be granted a second chance to reclaim his kingdom,” be said bleakly. “The prince’s failure is the more complete because he came within a hairbreadth of achieving success. You do not need to warn me that the Hanoverians and their Teutonic hangers-on have become too strong to be forced out of England. All I strive for now is to salvage a few wretched Jacobite lives from the wreckage of a thousand romantic dreams.”
Timeless (A Time Travel Romance) Page 34
