He jerked his head up to stare at her in shock. “Dear God, Sidonie, can’t I touch you even this far?”
His beautiful mouth twisted into a bitter line. His unhappiness shouldn’t have such power to wound her, not after only a few days. But it did.
“I swear I mean no harm.” His voice was hoarse with sincerity. He prepared to stand. “If you won’t accept help from me, I’ll wake Mrs. Bevan.”
It seemed capricious to ask him to stay. Jonas was dangerous. To escape him, she’d fled into the downpour like the host of hell pursued her. She touched Jonas’s hand before she remembered she meant to keep her distance, hoping to make him keep his. “No.”
He frowned but didn’t withdraw. She couldn’t fault him for finding her behavior puzzling. After tonight, he must think her demented. Perhaps the rain had rusted her brain. She couldn’t conceive of another reason for her shilly-shallying. “I don’t want you acting my servant.”
“Too bad.” His smile lacked genuine amusement. “It’s either me or Mrs. Bevan.”
She extended her leg toward him. After a pause, as if confirming her cooperation, he returned his attention to her feet.
Finally Jonas dropped the cloth into the bowl and rose to carry it to the washstand. He returned with the last of the towels and began to rub her hair.
“Merrick!” she protested.
The friction sparked a heat in her blood that didn’t entirely result from returning circulation. When he lifted the towel and she could see, his face was set in unyielding lines. He didn’t look like the man who had laughed with her and kissed her. Or who had shown her ecstasy. She shouldn’t want that man back. He threatened more than virtue. He threatened everything she valued.
She loathed the distance he set between them. In spite of the way he abased himself in unspoken apology. Because that’s what he did, however he derided himself as a man without conscience. While she hadn’t understood every emotion when she’d watched him unobserved, she’d recognized remorse. She cursed herself for a hysterical ninny, running away as though a mere “no” wouldn’t stop Jonas.
“No” was something she was lamentably slow to say.
The blanket slipped, revealing the upper slope of her breast. Hurriedly she hitched the covering higher. He didn’t seem to notice. She should be thankful he treated her with respect instead of like a sugarplum ripe for his devouring. Contrary creature she was, she felt piqued.
An hour ago he’d wanted her. Surely desire couldn’t die so fast. She didn’t know. She wasn’t familiar enough with desire to judge.
Glancing at the mirror across the room, she stifled a dismayed cry at the witch staring back. No wonder Jonas wasn’t interested. Her hair was matted, her face was a wan oval, and her eyes stood out like dark pools.
“Have you finished?” she asked, disgruntled with herself, with Jonas, with the whole world.
“Soon.” He refilled her brandy and passed it across. “If I leave you for a moment, will you promise not to hare off?”
A flush heated her cheeks as she accepted the glass. She couldn’t blame him for treating her like an ill-disciplined child. “I’ve run enough.”
“Good to hear.” He bowed his head in acknowledgment then left.
When he returned he’d dressed in shirt and breeches. His ministrations had definitely returned her to warmth and life. She even spent a moment regretting that he was no longer nearly naked.
Wicked girl.
He laid another shirt across the foot of the bed.
“What’s that?” she asked suspiciously.
“I don’t know where Mrs. Bevan put your nightdress,” he said mildly.
“Oh.” She was obscurely disappointed at his thoughtfulness. Of course she didn’t want to sleep beside him naked. Except he’d promised she’d sleep alone, hadn’t he?
Another pang of insidious disappointment.
He’d combed his unruly hair and it gleamed like black satin against his head. He reached for her hairbrush, set out on the dressing table as though this were her room. Whereas she was only a transient occupant.
She needed to remember that.
He stepped nearer and lifted the brush to her tangled hair.
“No.” She jerked away. She didn’t want more spurious consideration. She wanted the real man.
“Hush.” He pressed his palm to her cheek, holding her as he carefully worked the brush through the snarls in her hair.
The room fell silent. The crackle of the fire. The soft whisper of the brush. Rain falling against the windows. The storm outside, like the storm between her and Jonas, calmed.
He brushed her hair until it was nearly dry. He had to reach forward to catch the brandy glass. Lazy delight swirled through her at the glance of his hand over hers. Each stroke of the brush leached away another layer of resistance. After all the fear and anger, she slid into a fog of languorous docility. Perhaps soon he’d take her to bed. Surely he hadn’t meant it when he said she’d sleep alone.
He set the brush aside and lifted her into his arms. She murmured sleepily and nestled into his chest. She was warm. He was warm. Everything was delicious warmth. She smothered a yawn and shut her eyes.
Jonas…
She might have spoken his name aloud. She nuzzled his chest, drawing in more rain-fresh scent. She thought he growled softly in his throat. She wasn’t sure. She was so tired, she wasn’t sure about much.
He set her down on the bed, the mattress sagging beneath her, and pulled up the covers. His arms slipped away with what felt like reluctance and the loss pierced her drowsiness. She whimpered in protest and waited for him to slide in beside her.
She kept her eyes shut. Looking at him veered too near to admitting she’d stopped fighting. She heard him sigh. His clean scent flooded her senses when he pressed his lips to her forehead then briefly kissed her mouth.
She waited for him to join her in the bed.
And waited.
Struggling free of exhaustion, she opened her eyes to see Jonas methodically snuffing each candle until only firelight remained. In the flickering light, his expression was somber. He looked older than she’d ever seen him look before. She was so weary, it was difficult to summon real panic but she recognized something was wrong.
“J-Jonas?”
Without glancing at her, he trudged toward the door. “Goodnight, Sidonie.”
Alarm shattered her lethargy. “What—”
Even as she struggled to stand, to follow him, he left her alone, the door sighing shut behind him.
The rattle of curtains woke Sidonie. Last night’s storm had cleared to sunshine. She was by herself.
She’d only slept a few hours. Jonas’s erratic behavior had vanquished exhaustion. When he didn’t return, she’d gone looking for him. Eventually cold and lack of success forced her back to the bedroom.
“There be tea on the table.” Mrs. Bevan shuffled around the room collecting last night’s detritus. Damp, crumpled towels, the discarded blanket, ruined clothing. Sidonie blushed when the woman gathered the remnants of her extravagant gown, but Mrs. Bevan spared it hardly a glance.
“And good morning to you,” Sidonie muttered. She sat, piling pillows behind her. She shoved the sleeves of Jonas’s shirt up her arms.
“Maister said order the carriage when ’ee’s ready.” The woman still fussed around the room.
What?
“I… I don’t understand,” Sidonie said in a suddenly shaky voice that reflected her suddenly shaky heart. “Why would I want the carriage?”
Mrs. Bevan’s shrug was remarkably expressive for such a taciturn woman.
Because she wasn’t sure what else to do, Sidonie turned to the tea on the nightstand. Only after she’d filled the delicate china cup did she notice the bundle of papers tied with a blue silk ribbon on the tray.
Foreboding curdled in her belly. “What’s this?”
Mrs. Bevan cast her a disinterested glance. “Maister said give en ’ee.”
Sidonie’s h
and hovered over the packet as though it might bite. “Where is mais… Mr. Merrick?”
“Aboot.” With that uninformative answer, Mrs. Bevan left the room.
Whatever was in those papers wouldn’t give Sidonie what she wanted. She knew that to her bones.
She snatched the bundle. The papers were ragged and of irregular size. Frowning bewilderment, she ripped away the ribbon and unfolded the top document. She recognized Roberta’s round girlish hand. All the messages were simple. And listed increasingly large sums of money owed to J. Merrick above Roberta’s signature.
Her sister had lied to her.
Back at Barstowe Hall, the amount she claimed to have lost to Jonas had been appalling. The total of these promissory notes was astronomical. Beyond anything her sister could hope to repay. Beyond the value of everything William owned, even if he honored his wife’s reckless gambling.
“Oh, Roberta…”
Then like a hammer striking, the full significance of the packet became clear.
Jonas had set Sidonie free.
Chapter Thirteen
Sidonie had always claimed she stayed only to retrieve Roberta’s vowels. Jonas, with a magnanimity that should surprise her but didn’t, returned the vowels unconditionally.
Go. Run. Flee.
Her practical self insisted she seize this chance. She’d got what she came for. She was free. More to the point, Roberta was free. Sidonie could return to her real life, set plans in train for Roberta’s rescue and a new independent life for both Forsythe sisters. An independent life that unaccountably began to sound like bleak loneliness.
Nothing held Sidonie at Castle Craven. Nothing except the fleeting expression in a man’s eyes when he believed himself unobserved. Nothing except shared laughter, the sizzle of a man’s touch, and surcease from solitude that she only now realized had burdened her heart like shackles.
Nothing…
Perhaps nothing was what Jonas felt now.
Stubbornly she refused to accept that was true.
After a long, frustrating day, she feared she must accept it was true. By late afternoon, she recognized Jonas had no wish to be found. At least not by his houseguest.
Sidonie finally returned utterly discouraged to the comfortless great hall, wondering whether she’d neglected somewhere obvious in her search. In a shadowy corner, Mrs. Bevan swung a broom. Flying motes of dust caught the light through the narrow windows high above.
“ ’Ee may as well be gone,” Mrs. Bevan said with what Sidonie interpreted as satisfaction.
“No,” Sidonie said, even as she was tempted to preserve what remained of her pride and leave. After all, Jonas’s absence made his rejection clear, didn’t it? A sensible woman would read the writing on the wall and return to safety and the comforts of the familiar.
But she didn’t want the comforts of the familiar. The tragic fact was that she wanted Jonas. She wanted Jonas with every beat of her heart. By returning Roberta’s vowels, he’d changed everything between them.
She’d spent her life swearing that she’d never place herself in a man’s power. After witnessing the way masculine dominance destroyed both her mother and sister, she’d vowed never to surrender body or will to male tyranny. But somewhere in the last days, she’d recognized Jonas as the one man in a million who wasn’t a tyrant. She’d teetered on the brink of yielding for the last couple of days. His care and remorse last night had shifted the balance forever. And now that he’d granted her freedom by returning Roberta’s vowels, she was impatient to rip away all barriers between them.
Native caution derided her as just another fool woman, telling herself this time, this place, this man were different from other times, places, men. She ignored native caution. For once she intended to follow her heart rather than her head. She meant to become Jonas Merrick’s mistress with a wholehearted joy that would have astonished the girl who arrived at Castle Craven.
She might be too late to tell Jonas what she wanted.
Or for him to muster a shred of interest in her confession.
“If ’ee wants to reach Sidmouth afore dark, ’ee must leave soon.”
“I’m sleeping here,” Sidonie responded with an obstinacy that didn’t reflect the nerves bouncing around her belly.
“Please ’eeself. But maister said the young miss’d be away first thing.”
“Maister doesn’t know everything,” Sidonie snapped, perching on one of the oak chairs lining the walls.
“Maister be riding. Set off afore cock crow. Oft he be away days.” Mrs. Bevan delivered the overdue information, then paused in her housewifery to rake Sidonie with a disapproving scrutiny. “ ’Ee could sit till doomsday and he woan show to do eer bidding.”
“I don’t care,” Sidonie said, her heart sinking. What if Jonas was gone for days? She couldn’t linger as an interloper forever.
She’d worry about that when she had to.
Jonas thought she’d rush off the instant she got Roberta’s vowels. Why would he imagine anything else? But as she read uncharacteristic pity in Mrs. Bevan’s faded eyes, Sidonie couldn’t dismiss the depressing knowledge that she was making a complete fool of herself.
Again.
“Be ’ee still here, miss?”
At Mrs. Bevan’s question, Sidonie stirred from where she’d slumped in the hard chair. She stretched and winced as muscles complained after extended immobility against unforgiving surfaces. “What time is it?”
Mrs. Bevan’s lantern made the shadows loom darker. “Near eight. Be ’ee wanting supper?”
Sidonie had hardly eaten all day but her stomach churned at the prospect of food. “No, thank you.”
“I brung ’ee this.”
Shocked, Sidonie noticed that Mrs. Bevan extended a cup of tea in her direction. “Th-thank you.”
“Why don’t ’ee go up to bed? ’Ee can’t bide here all night. Maister may be away a week.”
“I don’t care.”
“ ’Ee be a stubborn wench.”
Definitely.
“If ’ee be set on waiting maister out, why not bide in the book room? It be warmer and I’ll set ’ee a fire.”
Some superstitious corner of Sidonie’s mind insisted that she must catch Jonas the moment he came inside or she’d miss her chance and find herself on her way to Barstowe Hall after all. She couldn’t explain this to Mrs. Bevan. Even to herself, it sounded irrational. “I’m fine here.”
The woman’s dismissive sniff indicated her opinion of that remark. “ ’Ee be mad as maister.”
Probably.
Sidonie lifted the teacup and took a sip. The warmth was welcome. With nightfall, the temperature had dropped uncomfortably low. She waited for Mrs. Bevan to return belowstairs but she continued to stare at Sidonie as if she gawked at an exhibit at a fair. Or more likely Bedlam, Sidonie thought with a grim spurt of amusement.
“ ’Ee mightn’t credit this but maister was the sweetest lad I ever beheld.”
Not just a cup of tea, but confidences. What was the world coming to? Still, Sidonie couldn’t pretend she wasn’t interested. “Have you been with the family so long?”
“Mr. Bevan and I joined the late viscount’s service just afore his wife passed. Sad days.
“The lad, maister he now be, were only two then. His old lordship were lost in a world of his own aften her ladyship went. Out of his head with grief, he were. Raising the lad fell to me and Bevan. O’ course, we bided at Barstowe Hall then. His lordship were always one for flitting hither and yon. Chasing dusty old books. Couldn’t see use of it meself. Mostly young maister bided home without his father, such a loving, sunny bairn he were.”
Sidonie had difficulty imagining dark, complicated Jonas Merrick as a sunny child. Especially as the picture Mrs. Bevan painted of his childhood was a lonely one.
“Then the lad were called baseborn and the bad times started. The world be cruel to bastards. There bain’t much sunshine in Jonas Merrick’s life since he were eight year old.”
/> “Did you go with the family to Venice?”
“Aye. Though I’ve no truck with furriners.”
Mrs. Bevan must know how Jonas had been scarred. Sidonie bit down the urge to ask. He’d hate to think she’d gone behind his back to find out. “Were you in Italy long?”
“Till his old lordship passed on, must have been ’17. Horrible smelly place Venice were. Water e’en where streets should be. Though I were right glad to be there when his lordship left for eastern parts afore young maister’s scars could heal. I wouldn’t trust furrin servants with the lad’s care. Doon’ like to speak ill of the dead but that were ill done of his lordship, to up and go like that. His lordship should have bided at least till the lad weren’t at death’s door no more, but after his wife passed on, he never could bear one place long.”
Horrified, disbelieving, Sidonie stiffened against her chair. She hardly believed it, especially after the loving way Jonas spoke of the late viscount. Had Jonas’s father left him to the care of servants after the attack? It seemed selfish to the point of devilry. And Jonas had been young when he was injured, she’d gathered from the few hints he dropped, no older than an adolescent. Hardly surprising Jonas was so determined to rely on nobody but himself, so sure that the world was likely to kick him in the teeth before it offered a greeting.
“Why are you telling me this?”
Mrs. Bevan shrugged and reached for the empty teacup. “Had an inkling ’ee might be interested. Had an inkling ’ee might have ideas of brightening maister’s life. Now, be ’ee off to sleep like a Christian?”
Sidonie refused to be drawn on the subject of brightening Jonas’s life. Mrs. Bevan was a cunning old vixen. She’d seen more than Sidonie had realized. “No, I’ll wait here.”
“Suit ’eeself.” Mrs. Bevan shuffled away after pausing to light a lamp on one of the wooden chests. “I bid ’ee good e’en.”
Sightlessly Sidonie stared into the darkness, her mind whirling with what she’d learned. She’d always known Jonas had led a difficult life. For heaven’s sake, one only had to glimpse his face to know that. But hearing he’d been set to grow up a completely different man made her heart contract with pity. Even more as she knew that the boy’s generous, affectionate spirit still lived inside him, much as he struggled against acknowledging its existence. She’d seen flashes of it, most recently last night after her wild dash into the storm.
Seven Nights in a Rogue's Bed Page 13
