Silver-Tongued Devil (Louisiana Plantation Collection)

by Blake, Jennifer

  Placing her hands flat against his bloodstained side, she put her thumbs over the rib. Being careful to avoid the broken skin, she pressed down with first one thumb, then the other. There was no movement, no obvious break.

  His lips parted for a hard, indrawn breath. She was hurting him. Yet he preferred to endure it rather than stop her.

  She released the pressure, but allowed her hands to rest on his flesh. His heat seeped into her. It seemed she could feel the surging of his blood, the fiercely controlled force of him. His chest fell as he exhaled, and did not rise again as he lay still and accepting under her hands.

  A soft exclamation left her. She snatched her hands away as if they had been resting on a hot stove. Drawing back, she watched him turn and sit up while she waited with dread for what he would say.

  He did not speak, but slid out of the bed and walked to the washstand where he moistened a linen cloth. Returning with it, he took her hand and began to wipe away the traces of his blood that stained her fingers. “Soiling,” he said then, in quiet reflection, “is a human condition, sometimes sordid, sometimes sublime. Still, it’s a melancholy thing to discover that you can’t, after all, avoid it.”

  At least he had not gloated. Without meeting his eyes, she said, “You will need to cover your wound.”

  “After my bath, yes. If it pleases you.”

  She let the words stand, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. Yet there was a strange allure in the feeling that he was content to depend on her for his needs and well-being.

  Finished with one hand, he took the other. His hold was loose, warm, without confinement. There was absolutely no reason to feel as if she were being pulled toward him. The brush of the wet cloth along her fingers was like a caress; the delving deep between them, the careful scouring of the hollow of her palm was incredibly intimate. Then he tossed the stained linen square aside.

  She knew, with a woman’s ancient instinct, the moment when his inclination settled and became purpose. She knew, and did nothing. Which was bad enough, but worse yet was that he was well aware of her foreknowledge. Regardless, there was only lambent light in his eyes, no triumph, no amusement bathed in irony.

  His movements were studied, unhurried. Lifting her hand that he held, he placed it on his shoulder and left it there. He encircled her waist, then, and drew her to him so she slid from the bed and was caught between the high mattress and his body.

  Memory was sly. It recalled what was valued, discarded what disturbed too much. She was assailed by comparisons to that other kiss. This one was the same: the mouth so firm and sure, the sweetness, the tempered questing and intemperate enticement.

  Yet, it was also different. His arms cradled her closer, his lips were more tender. He was as courteous but not quite as controlled as on that first night. His hand on her cheek cupped without force, testing the texture and softness of her skin. He explored the slender curve of her neck, and also the molding of her shoulder under her gown. Sliding his fingers along the turnings of her arm, he slipped them between elbow and rib cage to span the indentation of her waist. Then, unerringly, he smoothed his hand upward and closed it on her breast with the care of a gourmet taking hold of a perfectly ripened peach.

  Her lips parted to draw breath. He took instant advantage, slipping his tongue into her mouth. It was pure invasion, an intimate engagement of pebbled surfaces and warm, honey-flavored smoothness. He prolonged if inviting participation, inciting mindless acquiescence by the delicate friction of his lips on hers. Holding her in thrall, he closed his fingers on the tender nipple of the breast he held and rolled it gently back and forth until it formed a tight bud.

  Her thighs were against his with only thin layers of cloth between, their bodies were welded from breasts to knees. Drowning in her own unbridled and curious desire she was not responsible, nor did she want to be. It was his play, and she had, for the moment, a compelling need to see where it would take them.

  Nowhere.

  There came a knock and the door swung wide. Tit Jean picked up one of the cans of hot water he had set down while he announced his presence, then stepped inside. He glanced in their direction, then paused, blinking, as he caught the look of cold temper on Renold’s face.

  His gaze swept to the ceiling and remained there. “Your pardon, maître, maîtress, I beg. I have grown used to there being no need for care as there was no need for privacy. I will not trespass again.”

  “Be sure of it,” Renold said softly.

  It was not his own modesty Renold had been defending, Angelica thought, but hers. Tit Jean knew it also, for his glance only skimmed over her as he inclined his head. He said, shifting from one foot to the other, “Shall I return later?”

  Renold’s lips tightened, then he sighed. “No. You have permission to finish what you have begun, even if no one else can.”

  The big manservant made no reply, but moved to drag a lead tub from behind a corner screen and fill it from the water cans.

  With the release of tight muscles, Renold moved away from Angelica. Unbuttoning his close-fitting trousers, he shucked them down his legs. His underdrawers followed almost before she could draw breath. Turning his back on her, he stepped into the tub and eased down into the water.

  Steam rose in white undulations. Water splashed over the edge of the tub, glistening in the lamplight. The surface of the water gleamed silver and reflective as a mirror, throwing back errant gleams, denying visibility. Renold leaned back and relaxed, closing his eyes.

  Tit Jean moved to dump more coal from the scuttle onto the fire, then poked up the flames. He looked around, checking that toweling was laid ready to Renold’s hand along with a thick cake of soap, a dressing gown was draped ready over a chair arm, the draperies were drawn.

  Satisfied that his duty had been performed, he bowed himself from the room.

  Angelica retreated to sit on the side of the bed once more, contemplating her hands. Estelle had shaped her nails that morning and burnished them to a smooth sheen with a kid leather buffer, so there was nothing of particular interest there. It was, however, a safe place to look.

  The fire hissed. A lamp made a soft popping noise as it fluttered on its wick. The bed ropes creaked as she shifted a little for a more secure seat.

  “Thinking of running?” Renold said into the quiet.

  “What, in my nightclothes?” she said with a shade of bitterness. “Also, where can I go, barefoot and penniless as a nun doing penance, that I would not wind up worse than this?”

  “You consider there are positions less agreeable? In a ditch, possibly, with a drunk harboring lewd designs? How gratifying.”

  “What did you expect? Surrender without complaint? Trembling submission? I somehow thought you would have higher expectations.”

  “If I did,” he said meditatively, “I believe they could be met.”

  The smooth ivory of her skin took on a rose glow. “I am not used to — being so familiar with a man, but I don’t doubt that most any woman would respond to a man of your experience.”

  “Don’t you?” he murmured, with the brightness of silent laughter springing into his eyes.

  “Human beings must perpetuate themselves,” she said, frowning, “so it only makes sense that there be some reward for the effort. It doesn’t mean anything. It — wouldn’t mean anything.”

  His gaze lingered on her face. Sitting up, he reached for the soap and smoothed it over his body with brusque competence. He sluiced away the lather, then looked around for the washing cloth. Seeing where it had dropped to the floor beside the bed, he nodded toward it, stretching out his hand. “Would you mind?”

  She got down from the bed to pick up the cloth, then stood with it in her hands. To approach the tub close enough to hand it to him was clearly impossible. In the first place, she did not trust the look in his eyes. For the second, she was not sure her legs would carry her in that direction.

  He said, tipping his head as he watched her, “Just throw it, if it bothers you so
much.”

  Her lips tightened at the amusement that remained in his tone. With sudden decision, she marched to the tub and extended the cloth while holding his gaze.

  Admiration, unadorned and as gratifying as it was unexpected, joined the mockery in his face. He took the square of cloth, dipped it to wet it, and began to rub the cake of soap across it

  “If I should stay—” She stopped, stunned into silence by a decision made unnoticed. She was also fascinated by the moment of slippage, quickly recovered, when she saw blazing triumph behind the mask of his self-control.

  Renold studied her for long seconds. With firm encouragement, he said, then, “Yes? You were about to set conditions, I think.”

  “I won’t sleep with you.”

  “Then how are you to find rest? But no, you mean you will not indulge in carnal relations with me, your rightful husband. There are laws about that, though invoking them would be more embarrassing than either of us wants to endure.”

  “Yes,” she said with feeling.

  “Just so. Then you will, otherwise, share my lamentably monklike, unsullied bed?”

  “I don’t know. Fighting off unwanted advances every night would also be unendurable.”

  He was scrubbing his face with rough economy of motion. Pausing, he looked at her over the cloth that covered his grin. “I could always cease to fight.”

  “I was talking about myself, as you very well know!”

  “So could you.”

  Her eyes snapped as she glared at him. “Yes, but why would I?”

  A brow lifted above the smoky green of his eyes. “For the sake of — what was it? — my experience?”

  It might, in theory, be possible to light a candle at the fire atop the bones in her cheeks. “I believe,” she said, “that I can live without it.”

  “Can you? Then do, by all means.”

  The words were simple enough to understand, but they gave her no confidence. It came to her, then, that there had been no agreement in them. It was possible they even held a challenge.

  That problem was abruptly forgotten as he gathered himself and surged to his feet in a great, splashing fountain of water. He stood for a moment, oblivious, while rivulets ran down his chest and arms and along the hard lines of his legs. Glistening wet and rampantly naked, he stepped from the bath, then bent, twisting, to pick up the length of toweling Tit Jean had left.

  He really was magnificent. The lines of arm and shoulder, wide back and lean flank, were impressive in their strength, stirring in their symmetry, like a bronze sculpture of some godlike athlete of ancient Greece captured mid-effort and at the height of his glory. And yet, like many such recovered bronzes, he was irreparably damaged. The sight of those scars, and also the new injury, was an affront and also a source of distress.

  It wasn’t her fault. If she had not been there, Renold might still have leaped from the exploding vessel through live steam. If he had not been out on the streets in the midnight hours, he might never have been attacked.

  Yet he might also have noticed the danger to the Queen Kathleen sooner, could have jumped with less delay and for a greater distance, if he had been alone. He might not have been out so late if she had not kept him from the comfort of his bed.

  Of course, these possibilities were no good reason to permit him intimacies now. Still, it was not always possible to be strictly logical.

  He had straightened and was running the toweling along his arms while his considering gaze rested on her face. He was so near that she could feel the moist heat of his body. If she reached out, she could trail her fingers through the dark chest hair with its spangling of water droplets, follow the plumb line of it lower to where . . .

  No. Such wantonness was what he wanted, what he expected. She had given him cause by yielding to his practiced touch. So she must redeem herself, must deny him, even if it hurt to move, even if putting distance between them was like cutting a binding cord with jagged glass.

  Turning back to the bed, she smoothed the covers they had disarranged earlier. She discarded her dressing sacque before climbing to the surface of the high mattress and sliding under the sheet and coverlet. Lying on her back with the long braided rope of her hair drawn over her shoulder and her hands folded, she contemplated the ciel de lit above her.

  “You look,” he said, “like a sacrificial maiden, exalted and resigned. Even if inclined, it would be blasphemy to try rousing you to passion. I believe you may depend on sleeping undisturbed.”

  She was grateful, of course she was. It left her charitable. “To try,” she repeated in wry tones. “That was polite, I must say.”

  “Accurate, rather. And a craven attempt to prevent you from probing into the gash in my side while you mend it.” He wrapped the toweling around his lower body, then stepped to the fireplace and went to one knee, stirring the coals Tit Jean had put on the fire.

  “I forgot.” The words were bald. Realizing by grace of her excellent peripheral vision that he had covered himself, she turned to look at him.

  “I realize,” he said with a quick glance over his shoulder. “I’m now of two minds whether to apologize for upsetting you, or sing like the lark because I can.”

  Her lips tightened, but she ignored that for a point that was more troubling. “But where will you sleep?”

  “Did I mislead you? Infamous of me, but don’t be disturbed. I will be beside you.”

  “I wasn’t disturbed,” she said distinctly.

  “Good, then. It’s a matter of form and covenants, you understand. I did try to explain it before.”

  Her lips tightened. “I thought perhaps you had changed your mind.”

  “My mind is not as fixed as some, but you will discover that I know it, and my heart, with some exactitude. I may scheme and barter and even indulge in bombast, but what I say I will do gets done, and my promises are made to be kept.”

  “That is, naturally,” she said with acid in her tone, “a relief.”

  “It was meant to be.” Turning away, he moved to the washstand where bandaging supplies were stored. He removed the wooden box that held them and walked toward the bed. Mounting the steps, he sat down, then stretched out on his good side, facing her, and placed the box between the two of them.

  There was nothing to be done, then, except to execute the task given her earlier. She also kept her promises.

  It wasn’t easy, in spite of the fact that he said scarcely a word. He watched her, instead, his gaze steady and infinitely considering. It made her wonder what he read in her eyes when she met his by accident, what he thought of the stupid trembling that she could not prevent no matter how she tried.

  She was so irritatingly aware of him. She started when he lifted a hand, twitched when he blinked, found herself breathing in cadence with the steady rise and fall of his chest. His skin felt fevered under her hands and the fresh smell of clean male and soap scented with Caribbean bay leaves made her head swim as she leaned near.

  Once the heavy braid of her hair fell across his arm and shoulder as she reached over him to keep the length of bandaging smoothly wrapped. He picked it up, winding it around his hand. As he came to the end of the slack, she overbalanced, and would have fallen against him if she had not put out her hand to brace against his chest.

  Her gaze, wide and dark blue, flew to his that was just inches away. She could see the emerald facets in the irises of his eyes, see herself reflected, in double miniature, in the pupils. A pulse beat in the strong column of his neck, and his lips were parted. The pressure on her scalp slowly increased to a sting as his hand clenched on her braid. She made a soft sound of protest.

  Abruptly, she was released. His lashes swept down to close off access to his gaze. His self-control in place, he said, “Your pardon. My attention wandered.”

  She did not ask where it had been.

  When she had finished, he thanked her politely and left the bed long enough to put away the box and extinguish the lamps. His shadow, elongated by the low re
d light of the fire, swooped and slid around the walls, then climbed to the ceiling like a demon as he rejoined her. The sheets billowed with a cool draft as he settled under them. They lay then, watching the flickering firelight on the walls, listening to the soft popping of the flames and the night wind outside.

  Angelica’s heart was beating so hard that she could hear its feathery resonance in her ears. She counted the strokes while she lay with every muscle tensed, waiting for a movement toward her.

  The seconds and minutes thudded away into silence. There was not even a fraction of shift in position from the man beside her. Inch by slow inch, she let her guard down. Some time later, when the fire was no more than a pale orange glow, she slept.

  A scraping noise followed by a thud woke her. She came awake in a single moment and sat up in bed.

  “It’s nothing,” Renold said, “just a neighbor exercising his shovel.”

  Perhaps she was not as awake as she thought “What?” she said in confusion. “But why?”

  “He doesn’t trust his grown sons, his young wife, or any banking establishment. His shovel, on the other hand, doesn’t want his money, buries deep, and tells no secrets.”

  She stared at Renold, alerted by something in the bored sound of his voice. He lay with one hand behind his head, and was far too aware for a man supposed to have been asleep. She said, “But you know about it, and so could anyone else who followed the noise.”

  “Maybe, but he’s fairly safe. He’s on his own premises.”

  “If you say so.” The activity seemed closer, but she had discovered how well sound traveled in these back courts.

  He smiled in the darkness; it could be heard in his voice as he spoke. “So shall I croon you a lullaby to put you back to sleep? Or, like a kindly nursemaid, rock you after a nice dose of straight brandy enlivened with mother’s milk?”

  “I don’t think either will be necessary,” she replied with some austerity.

  “Too bad.”

  She waited, with more anticipation than she liked to admit, for what he would say next. He lapsed into silence, however. After a moment, she lay back down and closed her eyes.