Bewitched

by Cullman, Heather;

  Chapter 6

  Damn the chit to hell! Damn her for being beautiful, and desirable, and spirited. Damn her for reminding him of what he had lost and how very much he missed it. Most of all, damn her for being so bloody provoking.

  Michael smiled grimly at the irony of that last. In this instance the consequences of Emily provoking him had turned out to be bloody to the extreme. Indeed, Timothy Eadon had taken one look at his agitated state when he had come upon him in the park, scowling after Emily’s retreating form, and had promptly declared an immediate need to bleed him of at least twenty ounces. Bleeding was, of course, the prescribed remedy for any emotional or physical state that might be deemed sufficiently stimulating to trigger a spell; a treatment effective in that it left the patient too weak to do or feel anything at all. Besides that, it hurt like hell, a prospect that went far in keeping the patient properly subdued.

  Having tightly bound Michael’s upper arm, making the veins in his lower arm bulge bluish-purple against the pale skin of his forearm, Eadon now positioned the wickedly sharp ivory and steel spring lancet over a thick vein just below the inner bend of his elbow. Glancing up at his patient, he inquired, “Ready, your grace?”

  Closing his eyes, Michael gave a single curt nod, his breath hissing out from between his gritted teeth as the blade stabbed into his flesh. His arm jerking away in agonized reflex, he muttered, “Ouch, damn it!”

  “There now, hold steady, your grace,” his tormentor coaxed, wrestling his patient’s arm back to the table with one strong hand. Bracing it firmly in place, he dug yet deeper to open the vein, adding in a soothing voice, “It will be over soon. Just relax and think of something else.”

  Michael opened his eyes just enough to shoot the man a disgruntled look. It was easy for Eadon to tell him to relax, he didn’t have someone slicing up his arm. Still—

  He sucked in another quick breath of pain as the man rotated his now throbbing arm to allow the open wound to drain freely into the silver bleeding cup he held below it.

  Still, regardless of how miserable Timothy Eadon made his life, he was nonetheless easier to bear than would have been one of the other assorted physicians, quacks, and butchers who had sought the prestigious position as his attendant. Eadon at least treated him with respect, something which most definitely could not be said about the other candidates, all of whom had spoken to Michael as if he were a half-wit and had pompously cited their intention to deal with him as such. And though Michael truly despised and dreaded Eadon’s treatments, he was able to take some comfort in the fact that the man genuinely wished to help him. He was also more than qualified to do so.

  Having spent many years observing the seizure-plagued wretches at Guy’s Hospital in London and examining the effects of various therapeutics on their fits, Timothy Eadon had become an acknowledged expert on convulsive conditions about which he had written countless treatises. It was one of those treatises, one published in a volume amid the mountains of medical tomes his grandmother had combed since the onset of his spells, that had led him to be offered the lucrative position of Michael’s caretaker.

  Though Eadon had at first been reluctant to accept, having been desirous of continuing his studies at the hospital, Michael’s grandmother had finally offered him a sum of money that no sane man could turn down. Thus, he had now been with Michael for a year and a half, ever since Michael’s release from Bamforth Hall.

  As he always did when he thought of Bamforth, Michael winced.

  “Your grace, please! You really must hold still,” Eadon chided, his large, square-palmed hand tightening on Michael’s arm. “It will make matters ever so much easier for you if you will just relax and imagine something pleasant.”

  Imagine. Michael winced again at the word. After today he would forever associate it with Emily, and thoughts of her most definitely were not what he would call pleasant.

  “There, there, your grace. Only ten more ounces to go,” Eadon murmured, clearly mistaking Michael’s wince as one of pain at his ministrations.

  Michael ignored him. Once upon a time, before he had become what he now was, he would have found imagining Emily pleasant to the extreme. How could he not? She was exactly the sort of woman he had always fancied. And there lay the problem. The very sight of her, with her lush figure and exotically beautiful face, stirred feelings in him he hadn’t felt in a very long time—torridly sensual ones that aroused urges he was no longer allowed to experience or able to satisfy.

  He wanted her … God! How he wanted her! He couldn’t recall ever wanting a woman as badly as he’d wanted Emily as she stood by his side in the chapel, a sultry temptress in virginal white silk and Brussels lace. Indeed, so strong was his desire that it had almost brought him to his knees in devastated need when she had lifted her face to his at the close of the ceremony, chastely offering her lips for the bridal kiss.

  Michael groaned softly at the remembrance of those lips, so full and red, prompting another pacifying murmur from Eadon.

  Never in his life had he seen such a lusciously ripe mouth; never had he felt one so pliant or tasted one so honeyed. And the way she’d smelled … mmm … sweet, like garden carnations beneath the hot summer sun. It was a pleasant fragrance, one rendered irresistible by the bewitching alchemy of her wondrous skin.

  Now oblivious to Eadon’s ministrations, Michael’s thoughts lingered longingly on Emily’s skin. It was porcelain perfection blushed with the most provocative shade of red he had ever seen. Strawberries and cream. Mmm, yes. It reminded him of strawberries and cream. And it just so happened that he adored strawberries dipped in sugared cream. No doubt he would adore the taste of her skin beneath his kisses even more.

  No doubt at all, he thought ruefully, brutally forced back to his wretched reality by yet another shock of pain as Eadon prodded his arm wound, encouraging it to continue bleeding. Too bad he would never have the pleasure of finding out exactly how scrumptious she tasted.

  Gritting his teeth as Eadon continued his relentless poking, Michael grimly considered the cruel paradox that was his life. He’d married the most desirable woman in the world, which meant that she was his for the taking. And damn it! He wanted to take her, more than anything else in the world. But he couldn’t, not now. Humiliating experience had taught him that. And it was that memory, coupled with the bitter frustration born of the knowledge that he was unable to satisfy his urgent masculine need, that had made him treat Emily so abominably in the park.

  Oh, yes. He knew that he had been wrong in behaving as he had, that he had been unjust in blaming and punishing her for his futile desires. He had known even as he’d lashed out at her that she had done nothing to provoke his lust.

  Nothing but be beautiful, he amended with a grimace, and beauty was quite enough to arouse him these days. Indeed, when one considered the fact that he, who had once been known for his voracious sexual appetite and amorous escapades, hadn’t had a woman in over two years, was it really any wonder that the sight of Emily would affect him so? He shook his head, groaning in despairing response.

  “Easy now, your grace. I know it hurts,” Eadon murmured, referring, of course, to his torturous manipulations.

  Michael spared him a wan smile. Compared to the anguish of his mind, the pain in his arm was negligible. Now too mired in that anguish to escape, he slipped helplessly back into his thoughts of Emily.

  No, he meditated, taking up where he had left off. Emily wasn’t to be blamed for his lust, any more than she was to be blamed for their marriage. Like himself, she’d been nothing but a pawn in his grandmother’s insidious little scheme to ensure the duchy. That she’d entered the marriage with a plan of her own, well, what did it matter? He should simply be grateful that she’d saved him from Bamforth, and let it go at that.

  Unfortunately, what he should feel and how he felt were two entirely different matters. And he couldn’t say that he was particularly proud of ho
w he felt at that moment.

  Had his arm not been otherwise engaged, he would have raked his fingers through his hair in his chagrin. Damn it. Why couldn’t Emily have been someone he could ignore, some plain, spinsterish creature with thin lips and a flat bosom? When he’d grudgingly agreed to this marriage, he’d never—ever!—suspected that his bride would be an enchantress. Not that he’d given the matter a great deal of thought. In truth, he’d been so wrapped up in his own woes that he hadn’t really cared what she would be like. Not that it would have mattered if he had. It wasn’t as if he’d had the power to veto his grandmother’s choice.

  And if he had been given the option, would he have said nay to Emily Merriman?

  Michael didn’t have to think twice to find the answer. There was no way in hell he would have wed her, not when the very sight of her brought him such grief. Then again, if his wife were true to her word, he would be seeing precious little of her in the future, which should settle the problem neatly enough. If only—

  “Ow!” he spat abruptly, pulled from his musings by a sudden, intense burning in his arm. Jerking his abused limb from Eadon’s grip, he barked, “What the hell are you doing? That stings!”

  Eadon smiled indulgently and reclaimed his patient’s arm. Pressing a thick, clean linen pad against the viciously throbbing incision, he replied, “I treated your wound with Dr. Antell’s latest tincture. Not only is it supposed to prevent infection, it is said to reduce healing time by half.”

  “Wonderful,” Michael muttered as the man deftly bandaged his arm. “That means you can cut it back open again twice as often.”

  Eadon chuckled. “Bleeding you once a week should continue to be quite sufficient, your grace, unless, of course, you work yourself into another state. There.” He gave the knot he’d tied in the bandage a final tug.

  Michael grunted. “You can rest assured that I shall take the utmost pains to avoid anything,” or anyone, he added silently, “the least bit stimulating in the future.” And he would. He’d do his damnedest to make certain that his and Emily’s paths crossed as seldom as possible.

  Eadon dipped his head in acknowledgment to his vow. “Very good, your grace. Do you wish to rest now?”

  Michael nodded and started to stand, only to fall back into his chair again as his knees gave out. As always, Eadon was there to aid him, his strong hands bracing beneath Michael’s arms to help him rise. Now shivering uncontrollably, Michael gratefully allowed the man to half carry him to the enormous, domed tester bed a short distance away. Worse even than the pain of the bleeding was the debilitating weakness it left in its wake. His teeth were chattering now. That, and the unnatural coldness.

  Having already disrobed his patient to the waist for the bleeding, Eadon sat Michael on the edge of the bed and efficiently stripped his lower body. After garbing him in a warm flannel nightshirt, he tucked him beneath the covers.

  Utterly drained now, Michael rolled onto his side, gingerly cradling his sore arm in his uninjured one as he curled into a tight ball, desperately trying to get warm.

  “Would you care for a hot brick, your grace?” the ever solicitous Eadon inquired, draping a thick blanket atop the heavy velvet counterpane cocooning Michael’s violently shaking body.

  “Several, please. I’m freezing,” Michael somehow managed to force out from behind his chattering teeth. With that he curled yet tighter and closed his eyes. Unbidden, a vision of Emily sprang out of the darkness, smiling at him in a way that made fire jolt through his loins. Groaning at the resulting ache, he cracked open his eyes. “Eadon?” he called hoarsely to the man, who now stood at the fireplace warming bricks.

  Eadon glanced over his broad shoulder, one thick, tawny eyebrow raised in query. “Your grace?”

  “I would like one of your sleeping draughts as well. The strong one.”

  “But that one leaves you senseless for days,” his attendant protested, frowning at the peculiarity of his patient’s request. So violently did Michael object to being drugged, that he consented to take the potion in question only after he had passed several sleepless nights and everything else had failed to bring him rest.

  “Exactly,” Michael muttered. Several days of senselessness was exactly what he needed to erase Emily from his mind.

  In a region as contrary in climate as it is in its appearance, the sunny Dartmoor afternoon dwindled into an unseasonably cold and rainy night, sending its inhabitants scurrying to seek the warmth of their hearths. The hearth Euphemia sought was the magnificent carved wood and brick Tudor one in her bosom-bow’s bedchamber, before which they now sat cozily ensconced in a pair of century-old easy chairs, toasting their stockinged feet and nursing their rheumatism with the aid of the decanter of gin they had filched from the library sideboard.

  Thoroughly pleased by her day’s work, Euphemia settled contentedly back in her chair, declaring, “The wedding was a rather agreeable affair, I think, considering the circumstances of the marriage.”

  “Indeed it was,” Adeline concurred, pausing in donning the shabby red knit cap she always wore on cold nights to nod. “I was particularly pleased by the pains the staff took to make everything so festive. As you know, neither Michael nor I bid them to decorate the chapel, and the gala following the ceremony was entirely their doing.” Nodding again, she began tying the frayed ribbon straps beneath her chin, her age-gnarled fingers flexing awkwardly in their arthritic stiffness. “I knew the servants were fond of our boy, but I had no notion they adored him so very much.”

  “The servants have always doted on Michael, ever since he was an infant,” Euphemia reminded her, lifting her glass to her nose to savor the crisp, juniper berry-nuanced scent of the gin. “And why should they not? He has always been the best of masters, unfailingly fair and considerate … exactly as we taught him to be.”

  “Mmmm, yes. We did do rather well by him in that regard,” her friend acknowledged, lifting her own glass from the graceful Chippendale tea table they had had the footman set between their chairs. Tippling a lusty swallow, she added in a liquor-choked voice, “Under Michael’s tutelage, Emily should make an admirable duchess. She most certainly looked the part today.”

  Euphemia smiled faintly, a wave of fierce, familial pride sweeping through her at the well-deserved praise of her granddaughter’s beauty. “Yes, she did. Indeed, was she not quite the most stunning bride you ever saw?”

  “Apart from you, who was and shall forever remain the loveliest bride England has ever seen, yes,” Adeline replied, always the loyalest of friends. “Everything about her was sheer perfection, even that gown, which I must admit to having had reservations about when you first showed it to me.” Shaking her head, she took another quaff of gin. “With that barbaric coloring of hers, who would have guessed that the chit would look so very well in white?”

  “Oh, I rather suspected she would, though, of course, I cannot take credit for selecting the color. White has become quite the rage for wedding gowns, you know, and according to the dressmaker, no other color would do.”

  Adeline shrugged. “Nonetheless the gown was a masterful stroke on your part. Decking Emily out in proper wedding attire added a certain … er … seemliness to the affair, making it appear as if the bride had actually anticipated and rejoiced in her upcoming nuptials. What I do not understand is how you managed to have a gown so obviously meant for the altar made up right under her nose. Surely she suspected that something was afoot when she saw the design?”

  Euphemia shrugged back. “She never suspected because she saw nothing of the gown until I presented it to her this morning.”

  “Oh?”

  Another shrug. “Since her American wardrobe was a provincial abomination, she naturally required a new one. Thus, I had the gown made up with the rest of her garments. Of course, I did have to explain to Madame LeCroix that it was to be a surprise and asked that it not be brought forth during fittings. In view
of the fact that it was never adjusted to her form, I think that it fit rather admirably.”

  “Indeed it did. It made her figure appear quite spectacular.”

  “Her figure is spectacular,” Euphemia corrected with a sniff. “Do not forget that she is my granddaughter.”

  “She is at that, every lovely, impertinent inch of her,” her friend agreed amiably, draining her glass.

  Mollified, Euphemia followed suit, after which she tossed in, “If you ask me, Michael is lucky to have her.”

  “Very lucky … not that he is particularly appreciative of his good fortune.” Adeline emitted one of her signature snorts, the loud, forceful one she reserved for excessively exasperating situations. “The way he looked at her during the wedding, you would have thought that Emily was a hangman about to string him up.”

  Euphemia shrugged, unconcerned. “It is only natural that he look so. After all, we did force him into this match. I have no doubt whatsoever that he will appreciate her in time, after his resentment has had time to cool.”

  “Yes, yes, I know. But—damn it!” Adeline slammed her empty glass violently onto the tea table. “I expected him to be at least somewhat appeased by the gel’s beauty. If you will recall, nothing used to lift his spirits like the sight of a pretty face.” Her expression grim, she picked up the decanter and sloshed another ration of gin into her glass. Shaking her head, she muttered, “I must confess that I am beginning to fear that Michael’s illness affected him even worse than we suspected. Did I tell you that he admitted to the truth of that dollymop’s rumors?”

  “You did,” Euphemia confirmed, presenting her own glass to be replenished.

  “Did I also mention how very pained he remains over the episode?”

  Pained was he? Hmmm. Euphemia’s eyes narrowed. A hunch slowly dawning, she inquired, “What exactly did he say?”

  “Oh, it wasn’t so much what he said. In truth, he said very little about the episode,” her friend replied, pouring the refill. “It was the hostility with which he spoke—well, you know how he’s been since his illness. How he masks his pain with anger?”