The Beloved One

by Danelle Harmon

  And most of all, she thought fiercely, he needed to eat.

  Two minutes later, he came back in. "I think I will have that water in which to wash, now," he said, removing the banyan. "And then, if it pleases you, I will eat."

  "Oh, yes, it would please me very much, Lord Charles!"

  He smiled tightly. "I am only doing this for your sake, Miss Leighton. Not my own. I really have no appetite. But, you've gone to such trouble on my behalf, I feel obliged to repay your kindness."

  She took the banyan from him and draped it over a chair. "I hope you don't mean that."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "I said, I hope you don't mean that. I want you to eat because you need to eat. Because you need to regain your strength. If you don't do it for yourself, Captain de Montforte, then do it for your fiancée. After all, what would she think if we were to send you back to her all skin and bones?"

  "God knows what she's going to think as it is," he said cryptically. "But you are entirely correct, Miss Leighton. I will have some of that broth, for her sake — as well, of course, for yours."

  "And I will get that hot water for you," she said, springing up and hastening toward the hearth.

  "Please. There is no need to rush on my account."

  "Yes, but —"

  "Miss Leighton." He smiled grimly. "You may be your family's slave, but you are not mine."

  "I'm not a slave."

  "No?"

  "Slaves labor but don't get paid. Slaves are often mistreated. Slaves have no time to themselves, exist to serve the needs of others, and are not appreciated."

  "Yes. My point exactly."

  Amy cheeks burned with embarrassment. Though she was tempted to challenge the remark, and angrily at that, she didn't want him asking questions she had no wish to answer. Better that he didn't know the truth about her — then, at least, he'd continue to be kind to her, to talk to her, to treat her as though she was something precious and special.

  Besides, he was bound to find out about her shameful beginnings, anyhow. Ophelia and Mildred would make sure of it. Quietly, she went about getting him his hot water.

  "Miss Leighton?"

  "Yes?"

  "Have I offended you?"

  "No." And then: "But I'm not a slave, I have a nice home here, and I have nothing to complain about, so please don't make my business your own, Captain. Now here's your hot water, soap, and a towel, and when you're finished, I'll see you eat whether you want to or not."

  His elegant brows rose in surprise and amusement. "I beg your pardon?"

  Good heavens! Had she really been so rude? "I said, I'd like to see you eat something," she mumbled, embarrassed.

  "My dear Miss Leighton. I daresay I liked it better when you were snapping at me!"

  "I wasn't snapping . . . was I?"

  His lips curved in a smile; a real one this time, and one so rich and warm and wonderful that it made the sun shine like July in Amy's heart, warming her from head to toe. "You were," he said mildly, "and I must confess I much prefer your temper over your meekness. Snap at me all you want. And snap at your sisters, too. If you'd only turn some of that mettle on them, perhaps they'd treat you with the respect you deserve."

  She went quiet. Too quiet.

  "Miss Leighton?" he asked, plunging his hands into the bowl of water and then searching around for the soap. "Now have I offended you?"

  "No . . . but they will never treat me with respect, because . . . well, because I don't deserve any."

  "What an absurd thing to say! Why the devil do you think that?"

  "Can we please change the subject?"

  He sighed, found the soap, and bending his head toward the bowl of water, lathered his face, ears, neck and nape. "Very well, then. If that's what you want, I shall endeavor to keep my curiosity, and my protests, to myself." Gripping the sides of the washstand for balance, he lowered his head into the bowl, vigorously soaped both his hair and his shorn scalp, and reaching blindly out for the pitcher, poured the entire lot over his head. "However," he said, sputtering as water ran down his face and into his eyes, "I will warn you right now that I will not suffer things as cheerfully as do you."

  "Meaning?"

  "Meaning that if I perceive an injustice toward you, I will not let it pass unremarked." He straightened up, gingerly towelling his head and the still-raw stitches. "Now, if I might have some privacy?" He grinned. "The rest of me needs washing as well."

  Amy blushed. "Yes — yes, of course. Would you like me to fetch the tub?"

  "No, I can make do with this, until tomorrow. There's no need for you to put yourself to the trouble of hauling in a bath for me."

  "But —"

  "Miss Leighton."

  She sighed. "Very well then, Captain de Montforte. I'll just get you some more hot water, then — and a clean new shirt."

  "A heavenly suggestion, but I'm afraid that I only have the one."

  "No. You have three." She grinned and straightened the cuff of her short-gown as he turned toward her in surprise. "I did some sewing these past few days while you lay senseless."

  "What?"

  "I made you two new shirts, and by the end of next week, you'll have a waistcoat, a frock, and a second pair of breeches."

  He actually blushed. "Breeches? How did you . . . get the fit?"

  If he was red, Amy was even redder. "I um . . . measured your leg while you slept."

  "Did you now? Well . . . if I might have my original ones in the interim, it would make me feel a bit more . . . covered."

  Her cheeks were blazing. "Of course — I'll be right back."

  A moment later, she was handing him both a fresh shirt and the breeches that Will and Sylvanus had removed from his inert body, freshly cleaned and white once more. Hoping to save both of them further embarrassment, she quickly changed the subject as he placed the clothes on the floor beside his foot. "I hope you like the things I'm making," she stammered, trying to fill the awkwardness left by the recent turn of their conversation. "I know you're probably used to fine silks, velvets and satins, but homespun and various sorts of wool are really about all we have, I'm afraid . . ."

  "Miss Leighton."

  "Lord Charles?"

  He gave her that special smile that melted everything inside her. "You are an angel. And don't forget it."

  You are an angel. And don't forget it.

  If the smile had set her heart a-twirl, then a compliment like that was enough to spin her off her feet. Thank heavens he couldn't know how the simplest things he did and said, affected her! Leaving him to his ablutions, she slipped into the parlor, shutting the door behind her and leaning heavily against it. She tipped her head back and put a hand over her rapidly pounding heart.

  She was all out of breath.

  Beyond the door, she could hear him moving about. A curse as he bumped his elbow on something. And now, splashing. Pauses as he scrubbed himself. More splashing. Amy couldn't help it — her knees grew weak as unbidden, her mind conjured up deliciously wicked images of him, tall, strong, virile and — oh! — stark naked. Her blood went all hot and prickly at the thought and she put her palms to her suddenly warm cheeks. Stop that! she told herself. She shouldn't be fantasizing about Lord Charles; he already had a fiancée, and besides, he was so far beyond her reach that she might as well dream of touching the stars.

  Presently, the splashing stopped, and there was silence. She imagined him towelling himself dry. She imagined him feeling about, trying to find his clothes. And she imagined him donning his new shirt, the tiny stitches she had made, the fabric she had cut, lying so intimately against his clean, warm skin —

  "Miss Leighton?"

  She jumped guiltily and yanked open the door. There he stood, barefoot and bare-chested, clad only in his breeches and nothing else. With his fingers, he had slicked back his wet hair, and there was an apologetic little smile on his face. He was holding the damp towel in one hand.

  Amy swallowed and stared. Oh, please God, don't le
t me be thinking of him the way I'm thinking of him. Hhe has a fiancée who loves him; this is wrong, wrong!

  But she couldn't help the direction of her thoughts. Not with him looking the way he did. Stray bubbles of soap still clung to shoulders that were wide and powerful, clung to upper arms strapped with muscle, clung to the damp hair on his chest and now rode a trickle of water down his concave belly and toward his waistband. Amy's gaze followed the trickle, arrived at that waistband —

  And froze.

  "You m-missed some of the soap," she said faintly.

  "Yes, I know. Do you think you could wipe it off?" he asked, offering the towel.

  Amy hesitated. Now that he was awake and capable of feeling her touch, now that she knew he had a fiancée, and now that she had these — these thoughts about him, she didn't think touching him was such a good idea. It was one thing while he was unconscious and somewhat anonymous, but not now. Not now, with her body responding to him the way it was, not now with the knowledge that he had a fiancée who loved him. If she were Juliet Paige, would she want some other woman wiping soap off her man?

  Certainly not!

  "Miss Leighton?"

  "Y-yes?"

  He smiled in a pained sort of way. "My skin, perhaps because I am fair, is not as robust as the rest of me. It is sensitive to soap residue. Though I cannot see it, of course, I know that I haven't got it all off because I am starting to itch like the devil, and I'm afraid that if something isn't soon done about it, I shall end up looking as though I have the pox."

  Amy gulped. "Do you think Juliet will mind?"

  "Mind what?"

  "Well, the soap . . . my wiping it off seems to be a rather intimate gesture, and I don't want to do anything that wouldn't be right . . ."

  "Miss Leighton, what the devil are you on about? You've cared for me these past days and probably saw things no gentle maid should have seen, and now this? You're only wiping off soap, for heaven's sake, not kissing me —"

  "I've already done that as well."

  "What?"

  "Well, you kissed me, I should say. Quite without my knowing you were going to do so, and while you were half out of your head and thinking I was your Juliet."

  "I do not remember kissing you, so therefore, it doesn't quite matter, does it?"

  It matters to me. "Well . . ."

  "Miss Leighton?" He held the towel straight out. "Please. I am on fire. In another five minutes I shall be covered with tiny red spots. Surely, wiping excess soap from my skin is nothing more intimate than what you've been doing for me during the entire time I lay ill?"

  "Yes, but then you were unconscious . . . and then, I didn't know you had a fiancée."

  "My fiancée is not so jealous, or underendowed in confidence, that she would regard such a favor on your part as an intrusion or a crime," he said, beginning to sound impatient.

  Amy bit her lip. "Very well then," she said, and reaching out, took the damp towel. She dipped it into what remained of the clean hot water, wrung it out, and gingerly touched it to his neck.

  Suds glistened there, caught in the little grooves between tendons and muscle. He stood still and relaxed as she wiped them away, though Amy, racked by involuntary little shivers, was not so composed. He was just too close. He was just too handsome, especially with his wet hair slicked back and making the hawkish features of his face, with its aristocratic nose and those deceptively lazy, clearer-than-water, blue eyes, all the more pronounced. He loomed above her in a way that made her feel both protected and awed, and his nearness made her breathless, hot, and prickly with awareness. She clamped her knees together. Could he hear the way her heart was suddenly pounding? Could he feel the heat that must be coming off her? And oh, Lord help her, could he guess her wicked, sinful thoughts?

  Again, she dipped the towel in the bowl, wrung it out, and with trembling fingers, drew it out over his collarbone. She wiped down his shoulders and upper arms, her touch growing more confident, her gaze growing reverent, as she went. Oh, such muscles he had, sharp with definition and hard as marble, even at rest! Oh, how tall and very manly he was! She cleaned the frothy suds from the inside of his elbow, then pulled the towel down his forearms and out over his wrists. What would those arms feel like around her? What would the touch of those fingers be like against her cheek?

  Stop it, Amy!

  Somewhat belatedly, she realized that he was no longer quite so relaxed, his body tensing, his mouth going a bit rigid. Guilty panic filled her. Oh dear, she wasn't working fast enough; no doubt the soap was bothering him, and he was fighting to keep still.

  "Are you finished, Miss Leighton?"

  "I'm — I'm getting there," she managed.

  "Good . . . I am, er, growing itchy."

  Back into the water went the towel, and now Amy drew it down his chest, wiping up stray soap as she went. Damp gold hair sprang back in the wake of the towel, and she could feel his heartbeat just beneath her fingertips. Was it her imagination or was it pounding as rapidly as hers? And was it her imagination, or was he breathing just a little bit hard, like herself?

  Hurry up!

  Oh, God, it was an effort to make her respirations sound normal! She glanced up at his face, hoping he hadn't noticed, but he was still staring straight ahead, his firm, sensual lips so close she could easily have stood on tiptoe and kissed them. His jaw, which needed a shave, was only a few inches away. And his eyes . . . romantic eyes they were, of the palest shade of blue beneath long straight lashes, the outer corners slightly down-tilted and lending him a lazy, almost sleepy expression — though the clear, crystalline quality of their color banished any thought that the mind behind them was anything but sharp.

  Wouldn't you love for him to kiss you again, Amy? Wouldn't you just love that, you wicked little creature?

  Mortified, Amy tore her gaze away, rinsed out the towel, and ran it down his ribs. Only a few bubbles left, thank God. Only a few little trickles —

  And one of them was going straight down the trail of hair that led from his navel and disappeared beneath the waistband of his breeches.

  Amy, her hand and the towel on his stomach, froze at the same moment his hand shot out to grab her wrist.

  She might have been imagining his pounding heartbeat. She might have been imagining the rigidness of his stance. She might even be imagining that his breathing sounded raspy and harsh.

  But she wasn't imagining the huge bulge just beneath the waistband of those breeches, a bulge that swelled and strained the fabric and told her that everything she'd thought was imagination was not imagination at all.

  She gasped and dropped the towel, her hand covering her mouth.

  "I guess this wasn't such a good idea, after all," he said softly, bending to retrieve it.

  "I . . . guess not," she stammered, horrified.

  He offered a pained little smile. "Forgive me, Miss Leighton — I am only a man, and blind as I am, it is far too easy to imagine that your touch is that of another. I did not intend for this to happen. I did not mean to offend you."

  "N-no offense taken."

  For the sake of her modesty, he turned his back on her, quickly and discreetly ran the wet towel beneath his waistband to catch the trickle of soap, and then, turning, held it out to her.

  Amy stared at it for a moment, her cheeks burning as she thought of where that towel had just been; then she took it and put it in the bowl, everything inside of her shaky and feverish.

  "Miss Leighton?"

  She gulped, swallowed, and did not allow herself to look at him. "Yes?"

  "If you would be kind enough to hand me that fine new shirt you made me?"

  Her face flaming, she grabbed it and thrust it into his hand before leaping back, careful not to look below the level of his chest. It took him a moment to get it over his head and once he did, he quickly pulled it down, leaving it loose outside his breeches for reasons that were obvious to both of them.

  He smiled, the gesture both rueful and boyishly innocent. "
Shall we forget this ever happened?"

  "Yes, C-captain, I — I think that would be best."

  His smile broadened and he offered his arm with a casual, yet studied gallantry that melted what was left of her heart. "Good. Now, I think I will have some of that broth you promised . . . if the offer still stands?"

  Chapter 6

  He might've been able to easily forget it, but Amy couldn't.

  It was just as everyone had predicted. She had bad blood. Hot blood. Lustful, wicked, wanton blood. The sins of the father had come back to haunt her. She, like him, was a carnal savage. She, like him, was immoral.

  She was a horrible person.

  Oh, God, forgive me, please. I didn't mean to do what I did, I'm so sorry, I never wanted for that to happen . . .

  "Miss Leighton?"

  She led him to his chair, hoping he hadn't noticed her silent tears.

  He remained standing. "Miss Leighton, are you all right?"

  "Of course I am," she said briskly, hoping she sounded convincing. "Why wouldn't I be?"

  "I pray you are not upset by what just happened between us."

  "No, Lord Charles, besides it was my fault, not yours —"

  "Oh, for God's sake, it wasn't anyone's fault! A man is a man is a man, Miss Leighton, we respond to certain stimuli and there isn't a blasted thing we can do about it. It's a physical reaction, nothing more, so stop blaming yourself, would you?" He massaged the back of his head. "'Sdeath, if anyone's to blame, 'tis me. I should've known better."

  "Please don't be angry, Lord Charles —"

  "My anger is not with you. And please, call me Charles. Given that you're the poor soul stuck with the tasks of bathing, babying, and all but bottle-feeding me, we damn well ought to dispense with formalities, don't you think?"

  He looked annoyed. Disgusted. Deciding it was wisest to say nothing, Amy ladled out some broth from the stew, fetched the bread she'd kept warm in the oven, and brought both, together with a mug of hard cider, to the table on a tray.