“What?” She deepened her frown, as perplexed by his manner as by the preposterousness of his assumption. “Why would I be shocked? I was raised in a household of men, remember? The sight of a bare male chest is neither unfamiliar nor shocking to me.”
He made a derisive noise. “Mine obviously is, and do not try to deny it. I saw your expression when you beheld me just now, the way your eyes widened and how you averted your gaze in disgust. Not that I can blame you.” Another snort. “I know what I look like these days, all scraggy and withered. I am hardly a maiden’s dream.”
Where Emily hadn’t been shocked before, she was now. Hardly a maiden’s dream? With his spectacular looks? Oh, if only he knew! Aching at the self-loathing in his voice and desperate to reassure him, yet aware that the fragility of his confidence might make him reject her efforts as pity, she shrugged and countered as dispassionately as she could manage, “You are right, Michael. I was shocked by the sight of you, but not for the reason you think. In truth, I had expected you to be all scraggy and withered, as you so inelegantly phrased it, and was stunned that you are not.”
“Oh?” He raised one eyebrow, visibly incredulous.
She nodded. “If you must know, I was utterly shocked to find your body so”—dared she say it?—“lovely.” Yes. She did dare. Anything to ease the unwarranted shame he so clearly felt for his body. Anything to erase the bitterness from his voice and to restore the self-esteem of which he’d been so tragically robbed. Anything for Michael. Besides that, it was the truth. He was lovely.
He merely stared at her, his eyes slowly narrowing into slits as if weighing her sincerity.
She met his narrowed gaze with a smile and a nod. “It’s true, Michael. Believe it. I think you quite the loveliest-looking man I have seen. Ever.”
His taut lips curled faintly at the corners. “I fear that that says little of the men in America. They must be a very sorry lot indeed if I look handsome by comparison.”
“Ah, but I said the loveliest-looking man ever …” She now skirted the edge of the pool, moving nearer to where he stood. “Which includes the scores of exceedingly elegant English noblemen I met in London.” Unable to advance further for the narrowing of the stone embankment between the tors and the water, she knelt down, bringing herself eye level to him as she finished, “None of whom were anywhere near as handsome as you, my darling husband.”
He contemplated her in silence for several beats, then tipped his head to one side, his brow furrowing as if genuinely mystified. “What a queer card you are, Emily. I do believe that you truly mean what you say.”
“I said I did, didn’t I?” she retorted, steadily returning his gaze. “What makes you think that I would I lie?”
He smiled, gently and with unmistakable tenderness. “Your generous nature. You, sweet wife, are the kindest person in the entire world. And I think that you would do or say just about anything to avoid hurting a person.”
“Perhaps. But I wouldn’t have said that you are lovely if I didn’t mean it. Had I found you as scraggy and withered as you seem to perceive yourself, I would have answered your charges by pointing out how ill you have been and reassuring you that your flesh would be restored with time. I would then have suggested increasing your caudle consumption to one every day, rather than just on the days of your treatments, thus accelerating the process. As matters stand”—she shrugged—“I am most pleased with your progress.”
What didn’t please her, however, were the scars she could see marring the perfection of his body now that she was nearer, cruel souvenirs of the terrible cures he’d endured over the years. More appalling yet was the lividity of the half-healed wounds defiling the flesh on his arms. Good heavens! It was a wonder he was able to use them at all for the pain they must cause him. As she watched him swim toward her, exposing a back red and raw from a recent blistering, she decided that he was not only the handsomest man in the world, but the bravest and most patient one to endure all he was forced to suffer with such grace.
Feeling an almost unbearable tenderness for him now, Emily smiled as he dove beneath the steam-shrouded water, reappearing a scant yard from where she knelt, his lush eyelashes spiky with moisture and his dark hair sleeked back from his stunning face. Smiling in a way that sent her heart skipping across her chest, he said, “I must admit that I am pleased with my own progress. A month ago the very notion of walking this far and still having the strength to swim would have been unthinkable. Of course, the credit for my improvement must all go to you.” His smile broadened to reveal his teeth in all their pearly splendor. Drifting yet nearer, he softly inquired, “Have I thanked you for everything you have done for me yet?”
“At least a thousand times,” she replied, though how she managed to speak, she didn’t know. Her heart had somehow become lodged in her throat.
“Only a thousand?” He out and out grinned, looking younger and more carefree than she’d ever seen him look before. The effect was devastating. “Then I must tell you a thousand more times. And then a thousand more, and a thousand more after that, and—”
She laughed at his buffoonery and splashed him with water, playfully cutting him off. “Silly man! Just seeing color in your cheeks and a smile on your lips is quite thanks enough for me.”
“No. It is not.” His smile faded then and his face grew intensely serious. “Nothing will ever be enough, Emily. Nothing.” He shook his head, his eyes burning like jade fire as he captured her gaze with his. His voice frayed by the depth of his emotion, he hoarsely declared, “I am forever in your debt. If there is anything I can ever do to repay you—anything at all—you have only to ask and it shall be yours.”
The next few moments were suspended in time as Emily stared into those compelling eyes, her heart crying out in longing. All she wanted was him—to see him smile and to hear his voice every day for the rest of her life. He made her feel cherished … special. And over the past month she had come to need him every bit as much as he needed her. He had become the center of her world. Unable to deny her heart’s desperate plea a second longer, she abruptly blurted out, “Just never leave me, Michael.”
He remained very still for several beats, staring at her as if stunned by her appeal. Then he smiled gently. “Emily, my sweet,” he murmured, taking her hands in his warm, wet ones. “Don’t you know that I could never leave you? You are the dearest thing in the world to me.
“As you are to me,” she softly confessed. “You are the best friend I have ever known.”
“Friend … yes.” His smile tightened, turning strangely brittle. “Well, my friendship, for what it is worth, is something I can truly and freely pledge to you. And I do so with the greatest of pleasure.” His eyes filling with a deep, curious yearning, he lifted her hands to his lips and kissed them. After several moments during which she offered him a small, shy smile and he clasped her hands to his water-beaded chest, he began slowly shaking his head. “Emily. My dear, sweet Emily. Whatever am I to do?” The words were uttered on a broken sigh, shadowed by a sorrow she didn’t understand.
“Michael? What is it?” she urgently begged, searching his face, seeking a clue to its sudden, terrible bleakness.
He smiled again, this time tenderly. “It is nothing that you need fret about.”
“But I wish to help you. Perhaps if you tell me—”
He cut her off with a firm shake of his head. “It is nothing I wish to speak of, or anything you need to know. At least not now.”
“But—”
“Your grace?”
They glanced up in unison to see Mr. Eadon and Josiah standing just inside the opening into the circle. Josiah was proudly displaying her kite, which was in surprisingly fine condition considering its misadventure. “We have managed to retrieve your kite without breaking the line, your grace,” Mr. Eadon said with a polite bow. “And a very fine kite it is. I cannot say that I have ever seen anything quite like it. Did you
get it in America?”
“No, I made it myself—from Chinese paper and bamboo my brother gave me,” she replied, feeling strangely bereft when Michael released her hands. Seeing no choice but to properly thank the men for their services, she graced Michael with a final, rather worried smile, then rose and walked over to where they stood.
As she graciously tendered her thanks, quizzing Mr. Eadon about his rock-climbing skills, to which he confessed a childhood fondness, Emily heard the lapping of water, followed by a faint splash. When she casually glanced back at Michael, she saw him climbing from the pool.
His lower body was clothed, but barely, in a pair of loose cotton breeches that rode low on his hips and clung soggily to his flesh. Indeed, he might as well have been nude for all that the garment hid. As if that fact weren’t quite distracting enough in itself, his lower body was every bit as magnificent as his upper one.
Mindful of her disgraceful performance earlier and not caring to repeat it, especially with the servants looking on, Emily pretended to study a tear in the angel’s robe, the whole while stealing furtive glances at Michael from beneath her lashes.
His legs were long, impossibly so, with strongly curved calves and lean but muscular thighs. His hips, too, were trim, as she had expected, the belly beneath the wet cloth taut and flat. Intrigued by the shadowed line of hair trailing neatly from his navel, she dropped her gaze yet lower, inquisitively following its descent. In the next instant her face flushed scarlet.
Good heavens! His main male difference was enormous. Why, she could only imagine the size it must be when it made the changes Judith had described. As she covertly gawked, unable to tear her tantalized gaze away, Eadon appeared beside him with a blanket. Ever attentive to his charge, he promptly tucked it around Michael’s body, obscuring his startling charms from her scrutiny.
Drying his hair with a corner of the blanket as he walked, Michael strolled over to where she stood. Stopping beside her, he murmured, “You made this, you say?”
Emily stole a guilty glance at his face, relieved to see that he appeared preoccupied with her kite. Good. Then he hadn’t noticed her studying his scantly veiled private parts. Just the thought that he might have observed her indecent interest stained her cheeks a shade darker. Hoping that she wouldn’t sound as flustered as she felt, she replied, “Yes. It is a hobby of sorts. I suppose it seems a rather silly amusement for a woman my age, but it is something I enjoy immensely.”
“It isn’t silly in the least. In fact, I think it a perfectly wonderful pastime,” Michael retorted, casting her a look that made her flush all the more from its warmth. “Unlike a piece of needlework or a watercolor painting, both of which just lie there, kites can fly and do the most cunning tricks.”
“Then you like kites, too?” she inquired with a shy smile.
“I love them. I hate to brag, but I used to be rather good at building and flying them myself, though I fear it has been a rather long while since I last made one.” Smiling faintly, he traced the line of the angel’s face, then slanted her a meaningful look. “As skilled as I was, I never made anything nearly as remarkable as this. You, my dear, are a true artist.”
Of course he would notice the resemblance. How could he not? It was a perfect likeness. Certain that her face would burst into flames from the heat radiating from it, she confessed, “I simply painted the loveliest face I have ever seen. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Mind?” He grinned that devastating grin again. Hmmm. Next time she would make the angel smiling. “I am flattered. However, if you truly wished to give your angel the loveliest of all faces, you should have painted your own.”
Emily smiled back, thrilled by his compliment. “You are too kind,” she modestly demurred.
“Not at all,” he protested, the frank admiration in his eyes corroborating the sincerity of his words. “You would make a most fetching angel. Indeed, I would very much like to have such a kite. Perhaps you would be kind enough to help me make one sometime.”
She returned his heartwarming gaze with one of kindling affection. “Nothing would give me greater pleasure, Michael. You know how I love your company.”
Mr. Eadon, who had retrieved Michael’s clothes from the other side of the pool, cleared his throat then, breaking the unexpected intimacy of the moment. “Er, excuse me, your graces. But I think it time his grace got dressed and returned to the house. There is a distinct chill in the breeze, which I fear might bring on a fever.”
Michael’s fond gaze never left hers as he replied, “I will get dressed only on the condition that my darling wife wait for me and allow me to escort her back to the abbey. I would very much like to hear more about her delightful hobby.”
“And I would very much like to tell you about it, darling husband,” she countered softly. “I will await you just outside the tors.” Taking one last look at his handsome face to sustain her while she waited, she followed Mr. Eadon and Josiah through the stone arch.
Once outside Mr. Eadon came to stand by Emily’s side, while Josiah busied himself with rewinding and straightening her kite line. After several moments, during which Emily stood basking in the lingering warmth of Michael’s smile, Mr. Eadon cleared his throat and said in a confidential voice, “I must congratulate you, your grace. You have done quite well with your husband. I have never seen him so happy. To be perfectly frank, his lack of spirit has worried me for a long while now, far more than anything that plagues his body.”
She glanced at him with a slight smile, gratified by his praise. “I am glad to help him. If anyone deserves happiness, it is Michael. He has had such a bad time of it.”
“Indeed he has, though”—he slanted her a measuring look—“I have a feeling that those days are firmly in the past. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if we see a continued improvement in him in the coming weeks.”
“Do you think so?” Her smile widened at the wonderful prospect of Michael restored to health. “I am doing everything I can possibly think of to aid in his recovery.”
“I know so,” he confirmed, his broad, pleasant face made all the more agreeable by his answering smile. “In fact, he is coming along so well that I have decided to give in to his constant objections to the frequency of his bleedings and clysters, and decrease them to once a fortnight rather than weekly. I must, however, insist that he continue his schedule of emetics and purgatives.”
“Why—why—that is marvelous news!” she exclaimed, beyond thrilled by her small victory. While the bleedings took the greatest toll on Michael’s strength, the clysters were the treatment he dreaded most. Clasping her hands together in her delight, she added, “He will build his strength ever so much quicker if he isn’t bled so often.”
“He will… if he doesn’t suffer an increase in seizures, which is always a danger,” he cautioned her. “Though I suspect that his grace is now better able to tolerate the humors in his blood and lower bowel, what with the improvement of his constitution, my suspicions could very well prove false and he could relapse into monthly or even weekly spells again.”
“And if he does?” she quizzed, instantly sobering at the horrible thought.
“I will be forced to increase all of his treatments to thrice weekly, maybe even daily for the first week or so, until his seizures are again under control. At that point I will gradually reduce the frequency until we again find a balance.”
Emily shook her head over and over again, unable to bear the thought of Michael suffering so. Better he continue his weekly bleedings, as barbaric as she found them, than risk what could amount to months of terrible torment. “Perhaps it would be best to simply leave well enough alone,” she concluded softly.
“Perhaps. Then again, how are we to gauge his grace’s progress if we do not test his strength?”
“But if we are risking harm—” Emily protested.
“I can assure you that he shan’t be harmed in the
least. The reverse will only be temporary.” When she continued to look troubled, he smiled gently and added, “Even should the worst occur, which, in my professional opinion it shan’t, his grace cannot help but to make a swift recovery with you by his side. Why, I have never seen a man respond so to a woman’s care. It is obvious that he sets quite a store by you.”
“And I by him. Indeed, all I can think about these days is his comfort and welfare, which makes the very notion of him suffering seizures and enduring yet more treatments most distressing.”
Mr. Eadon reached over and gave her arm a squeeze, his hazel eyes kind and filled with compassion as they met her anxious gaze. “It shan’t be easy for him, no, but the prospect isn’t so daunting that it will deter him from taking the chance. I have warned him of the dangers of decreasing his treatments on numerous occasions, and he has always expressed a willingness to take the risk. If it eases your mind any, I have written several of my colleagues regarding his case and they all agree that his improvement in spirit and strength merit a change in therapy.”
“I am sure you are all correct,” Emily slowly responded, “though I still cannot help worrying.”
“Worrying about what?” Michael inquired from behind them.
Emily turned to smile at him, her misgiving increasing a hundredfold at the sight of him. He looked splendid, healthy, with his flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes. Even the gray trousers and blue-and-red-patterned waistcoat he wore weren’t so pathetically loose. More importantly, she knew that he actually felt good. It quite broke her heart to think of him robbed of his newfound vigor.
“I was just telling your wife that I have decided to decrease the frequency of your bleedings and clysters to once a fortnight, your grace,” Mr. Eadon replied with a nod. “And she was expressing concerns.”
“He says that doing so could result in an increase in your spells,” Emily anxiously elaborated.
“Indeed? And does the prospect of my spells worry you so very much?” Michael asked, a strange shadow passing over his face.
Bewitched Page 22
