Anna peered around the messily folded linens she held piled high in her arms. “Did he wake up?”
“Did he… No, no. Not yet.”
“That’s good. Best we get the wound cleaned and bandaged before he’s conscious or he will be in quite a bit of pain.” Moving quickly about the room, Anna set her stack of linens on a small dressing table and dragged it across the floorboards to the foot of the bed. “Do you know how he came to be shot?” she asked, her blue eyes bright with curiosity as she looked down at the stranger.
“Do I… No. No I do not.” Beatrice felt odd. Granted, since Jeffrey’s death she always felt a bit odd, but this was different. This was new. She almost felt a bit lightheaded, as though her head had been stuffed with clouds. Her stomach felt different as well, and there was an uncomfortable heat between her thighs she’d never experienced before.
Pressing a hand to her temple she found her skin warm to the touch much like the stranger’s had been. Bewildered, she glanced down at his still countenance and wondered if she could have caught something from him. Her lips twisted. No doubt along with his poor attitude he’d also brought some deadly disease into the house. She should have shown him the door when she had the chance, but it was too late now. The last thing she intended to do was allow him to die in her guest bedroom. Oh no. He was going to live. And then he was going to leave.
“I say, are you feeling alright Lady Bea? You do not look well,” Anna observed. She tilted her head to the side, sending her white mob cap sliding off to the left. Catching it just before it fell she yanked it back into place. “You’re all… well, you’re all blotchy truth be told.”
Beatrice forced a smile. “I suppose I am simply a bit exhausted.”
“No wonder. Why, it has to be well past midnight. Makes me wonder what this fellow was doing out and about at such a late hour.”
“Yes,” Beatrice murmured, “it certainly does.”
Who are you? she asked silently as she once again studied him, albeit this time with considerable more subtlety. What is your name? Where did you come from? How were you injured? So many questions, all of which would go forever unanswered unless they managed to successfully tend his wound and stop his fever.
“Where are Tom and Sadie?” She glanced at the door as though by speaking their names she could somehow make them appear, but the hallway outside the guest bedroom remained dark and empty.
“I don’t rightly know. Sadie was only a few steps behind me. Should I go look for her?”
“No! I mean… no, that is quite alright.” The last thing Beatrice wanted was to be left alone again with the stranger. Ironically enough it was not him she didn’t trust. At least not in his current state. It was herself. The way he made her feel… she didn’t like it. Not one little bit. “They should be along soon enough.”
Anna eyed her strangely. “You should go to bed, Lady Bea. Sadie and I can tend the wound.”
From within the folds of her dressing robe Beatrice’s hands clenched into tiny fists. Tempting as it would be to run to her room, climb into bed, and pull the covers over her head she knew doing so would be nothing short of neglect. Anna and Sadie were excellent maids, but hardly capable of treating a horse, let alone a human. Their cheerful dispositions disguised a rather alarming lack of common sense and Beatrice had little doubt that if left in their hands the stranger would be dead before dawn.
“No,” she said with a firm shake of her head. “I will see this through.”
When Sadie and Tom finally returned to the room, both out of breath but carrying all of the necessary supplies, Beatrice ordered them about with the strict authority of a military commander.
“Bring that other table over here and set up the candles there,” she said, pointing at an empty armoire pushed back against the far wall. “I will need as much light as possible to see. Anna, soak half the linens in the hot water and be ready to hand them to me as requested. Sadie, do you have the scissors?”
Eyes wide, Sadie stepped forward. “Yes, Lady Bea. Here they are.”
“Excellent. Tom, please help me roll him to the side. I will need to cut his shirt off before we can proceed with cleaning the wound.”
A tall, gangly lad of fifteen with brown hair and a smattering of freckles over his nose and cheeks, Tom was a boy of few words. But he was dependable, and loyal, and he didn’t hesitate before coming up beside Beatrice and rolling the stranger onto his side.
She worked quickly and efficiently, slicing down the back of his shirt and both sleeves, careful not to jostle his wounded shoulder any more than absolutely necessary. Once the shirt was removed she dropped the tattered remnants on the floor and turned her attention to the bullet wound. It was easily identifiable by the angry red circle just beneath his left clavicle. There were streaks of dried blood running down the length of his chest, and when Tom again moved him to his side so she could study the exit wound she saw even more evidence of blood loss. Thick and red, it continued to slowly ooze from both the front and the back, as though there was a spigot inside of the stranger that someone had forgotten to shut completely off.
“That does not look very good a’tall,” Anna observed as she leaned over Beatrice’s shoulder, the candlestick bobbling in her hand. “But at least it seems the bullet passed all the way through.”
“Not quite so close,” Beatrice cautioned when she felt the lick of the flame a bit too near the nape of her neck for comfort. The last thing she needed was to have her hair set on fire. A laugh bubbled up, but she swallowed it back down before it could spill out between her lips. Hysteria had its time and place. She’d learned that well enough. But this was neither the time, nor the place, to lose her mind. After, she told herself as she began to clean the wound. After this is done you can laugh and cry and wail. But not now. Not until the job is finished.
Beatrice had never been a woman of extreme emotions before Jeffrey died. She’d felt sadness, of course, but never the deep, debilitating wave of grief that had overcome her mind, body, and soul after his death. Her tears could have filled buckets, and the buckets could have filled troughs, and the troughs small ponds. But even worse than the ceaseless crying was the way she’d swung so wildly between emotions without any sense or semblance of control. She had been deliriously happy one day, absolutely devastated the next. Some days she had enough energy to clean the entire house from top to bottom, while others she couldn’t manage to crawl out of bed.
It had been some time since she’d succumbed to her ‘illness’ (at least, that is what the doctor had called it) but she felt the symptoms of it beginning to stir as she methodically cleaned the stranger’s wound. It always began with a tightness in her chest, followed by a growing numbness in her limbs. The tears would come first, then the inappropriate laughter, almost as if her body did not know how to process what her mind was feeling.
A sheen of sweat soon dampened her brow and trickled down her spine. She ignored it, too focused on the task at hand to be distracted by such trivial matters. Damp linens soaked in blood were soon scattered at her feet. Her back ached from hunching forward over the bed and her hands were stained with red, fingertips wrinkled and pruned from the water. A lock of hair tumbled into her eyes. She blew it away without stopping her work.
Blot. Wipe. Rinse. Repeat.
Blot. Wipe. Rinse. Repeat.
Blot. Wipe. Rinse. Repeat.
Twice Anna offered to take her place. Twice she was denied.
“I can do it,” Beatrice muttered under her breath. “I can do it. I can save him.”
She didn’t see the worried look the two sisters exchanged behind her back before they shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders. Nor did she see the sun beginning to rise outside the window, indicating the night had passed into dawn. The only thing she saw - the only thing she allowed herself to see - was the stranger in front of her.
At long last, the wound ceased its bleeding. The flesh around the bullet hole was still pink, but did not look as angry as it h
ad been when the stranger’s shirt was first removed. At least Beatrice didn’t think it did. In truth she was feeling rather weak in the knees and her vision was beginning to blur from the sheer intensity of staring endlessly at one spot for what had seemed like hours on end. Taking the last clean strip of linen she bound it around the stranger’s body, knotting it securely just above his shoulder.
“There,” she said, taking a staggering step back. “I think… I think that will do it.”
“Well done Lady Bea,” Anna said
“Good job,” grunted Tom.
“Excellent work,” Sadie declared.
Unfortunately, Beatrice did not hear any of their praises for she’d fallen to the floor in a dead faint.
CHAPTER FOUR
“What the devil happened to you? Wake up.”
Groggily Beatrice rolled onto her side, pulling the heavy top quilt along with her as a cold winter draft whispered across her exposed skin, leaving goose bumps in its wake. Feeling an opposing tug on the covers she automatically tightened her grip, loathe to give up her only source of warmth. “Anna start stoking the fire,” she murmured, her eyes still closed as she clung to the last vestiges of sleep. “It is positively freezing.”
“Anna is not here,” a vaguely familiar masculine voice drawled, “so I suggest getting off your arse and stoking the fire yourself.”
“Oh!” Beatrice gasped as the quilt was abruptly yanked off the bed along with the sheets. Left with nothing to cover herself except for her thin nightgown she reached blindly up towards the bedpost where her dressing robe usually hung only to find that it, too, had been taken. Grabbing a feather stuffed pillow she held it pinned to her chest as she sat up against the wooden headboard and glared accusingly at the half dressed man standing at the foot of her bed.
“What are you - this is highly - get out!” she sputtered, unable to believe the stranger had been presumptuous enough to come into her private chambers while she was still asleep. The nerve! And to show up only half dressed… Her gaze flicked down to his brawny chest before snapping back to his face. Other than the snugly fitting black trousers he’d arrived in and the bandage she’d wrapped around his shoulder in the wee hours of the morning he was absolutely naked, and while some distant part of her feminine brain couldn’t help but appreciate the fine specimen of masculinity standing before her, the other part - the prim and proper part - was thoroughly embarrassed.
“Out,” she repeated, turning her head away as she pointed blindly towards the door.
Instead of leaving, however, the stranger did the exact opposite. Feeling a sudden shift in the mattress Beatrice looked sharply to the foot of the bed… and gasped again when she saw her unwelcome guest had sat down.
“I came to see how you were doing,” he said, one dark brow lifting as his amused gaze swept over her. “One of the maids said you fainted.”
Beatrice did vaguely recall the floor rushing up towards her at an alarming rate of speed. After that… nothing. Anna and Sadie must have tucked her into bed, which explained why she’d woken up in familiar surroundings. Although it certainly did not explain what the strange was doing here or why he thought he had the right to sit on her mattress! “This… this is wildly inappropriate. I - I am not even dressed and you… well… you are not dressed at all! You really must leave at once.”
“You keep telling me that.” One corner of his mouth lifted in a roguish grin. “How is working out for you so far?”
For a moment Beatrice seriously considered throwing a pillow at his head. Never in all of her life had she met a more infuriating individual! Gritting her teeth, she sat up a little straighter. “I do not even know your name, or how you came to be shot, or where you have come-”
“Jack Emerson, at your service.” He gave an elaborate flourish with his good arm and bent forward at the waist in a mocking bow that had Beatrice’s jaw clamping together to the point of pain. “As for the rest, it’s neither here nor there.”
“Neither here nor there?” she repeated incredulously. “I think-”
“I think you think too much,” he interrupted.
Her eyes narrowed. “Pardon me for wanting to know more about the man sitting half naked at the foot of my bed!”
The stranger - now known as Jack Emerson - threw back his head and laughed. It was a deep sort of laugh, the kind that came straight from the gut and the likes of which had not echoed through Stonewall Manor for quite some time. “And here I thought you were a timid little rabbit frightened of her own shadow. But you have claws, don’t you, and sharp teeth to match. I believe I like you, Mad Lady Bea.” One piercing gold eye closed and opened in a wink. “Which is a great compliment, seeing as I do not like many people.”
“Do not call me that,” she whispered. A fresh wave of cold air rippled over her, lifting the downy hair on her neck and arms straight up. Shivering, she pulled the pillow closer against her body, clinging to it with all of her strength. “It - it isn’t nice, and it isn’t kind.”
Two deep lines appeared on Jack’s forehead as his gaze turned sharp and searching. “I meant no offense,” he said slowly. “I thought the name was nothing more than a jest.”
A jest? He thought being labeled as a lunatic by adults and children alike was a jest? She released a strangled laugh and shook her head from side to side, sending a waterfall of stringy blonde hair tumbling over her shoulders. “Perhaps to some, but not to me.”
“Very well,” he said simply, catching her by surprise. “I will not call you that ever again.”
Their eyes met, troubled brown against calm gold. Beatrice was the first to look away. She bit the inside of her cheek, worrying the flesh between her molars as she struggled to make sense of the man at the foot of her bed.
Knowing his name did not make him any less of stranger. She still knew virtually nothing about him. Who he was. Where he came from. Why he was here. She should have been in a panic. She should have been screaming for help. She should have been running for her life. But she was doing none of those things and that, more than anything else, bothered her the most.
She’d never cared before what people thought of her, nor what they called her. So why did it matter so much to her what this man thought? Why did the very idea of him thinking her crazed make her skin turn cold as ice?
Why would his opinion matter, when no one else’s did?
“Beatrice.”
She turned at the sound of her name, lips parting. “Lady Tumbley,” she corrected automatically, even though the intimate use of her Christian name gave her a jolt of unexpected delight.
His teeth flashed white in a wide, mocking grin. “My sincerest apologies, Lady Tumbley. I wanted only to ask where do you go?”
Bewildered by the question, she frowned at him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean” - he shifted his weight towards her, palms pressing flat against the mattress - “when your eyes turn vacant and you stare at something that isn’t there, where do you go? What are you thinking?”
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” she scoffed even as she looked away, startled by the depth of Jack’s intuition for in truth she did go somewhere else when her mind wandered, but how could he possibly know that? How could he know anything about her? Her fingers tightened on the pillow, nails digging into the soft fabric. She and Jeffrey had courted five months before he’d dared to take the liberty of addressing her by her first name, and only then after asking (and receiving) her permission. It hadn’t been until after they were married that he entered her bedchamber and if he’d ever asked her a question of a strictly personal nature she could not recall. Yet in the span of five minutes Jack, a man she knew not at all, had done all of those things.
Why would he take such an interest in her? More importantly, what did his interest mean?
It means, she answered silently, that he is a cad and a rake, just like he said. And you, Beatrice Tumbley, are a fool if you ever allow yourself to be convinced otherwise.
&n
bsp; “Very well,” Jack said in a tone that implied he knew she wasn’t telling the truth. “Have it your way.”
“How long do you plan on remaining in my bedroom?”
“That depends,” he drawled.
“On what?” she asked suspiciously.
“On how long you want me here.” Moving quicker than Beatrice could have ever thought possible given his injury, he slipped a hand beneath the voluminous folds of her nightgown and grasped her ankle, fingers easily encircling the delicate bone.
“What are you… let go!” she shrieked, kicking out as hard as she could which, unfortunately, wasn’t very hard at all.
Seeming amused by her efforts Jack merely grinned. “Easy,” he murmured when she jerked her knee up in an attempt to wrench free of his grasp, “you’ll hurt yourself.”
“I will hurt you if you do not release me this instant!” Beatrice countered, cheeks heating as she felt his hand begin a perilous ascent up the back of her calve. His caress scorched her flesh, leaving an uncomfortable - albeit not completely unpleasant - sensation in its wake. To feel a man’s touch after so much time… She squeezed her eyes shut, pulse quickening and heart pounding as Jack’s fingers slipped higher… and higher… before his fingers skimmed to a halt on the sensitive skin just beneath her knee. She inhaled sharply, eyes snapping open to find him staring straight at her, his own eyes dark with desire.
“Do you like that?” he said huskily.
Beatrice bit her lip. “I… I…”
Abruptly his hand stilled, then fell away completely, leaving her feeling oddly bereft. Not wanting him to see her disappointment she leaned forward and quickly readjusted the hem of her nightgown, pulling it down as far as it would go and tucking the edges beneath her toes. Her leg still tingled where he had touched her, abdominal muscles quivering with the force it took to steady her breathing.
“Get dressed,” Jack said curtly before he stood up. Wincing ever-so-slightly, he stretched his good arm up behind his head, fingers opening and closing before he steadied his hand on his hip. “And come downstairs. You need to eat something.”
Regency Christmas (Holiday Collection) Page 17
