He swung one long, booted leg back and forth restlessly. “She died of throat distemper.”
“Oh.” She swallowed, breathed, and wondered how things now stood between them. Did he mean to bring her with him into The Maine wilderness to be wife to his friend? Did she want him to? Nothing really had changed. She still yearned with an ache that was almost physical to get away from the misery of her life in Boston, to be given a fresh start somewhere, a chance to become respectable, to become a lady…
“An’ how old are these motherless children?”
“One is nine. The other’s three, I think.”
“Oh.” At least they weren’t babies. Delia knew nothing about taking care of children, though she wasn’t going to tell him that.
“What’s he like then, this friend of yers?”
“Nathaniel Parkes is more in the nature of a neighbor than a close friend, but he’s a good man, Delia. You needn’t fear that. He owns over two hundred acres of timberland and farms another hundred and twenty acres, although he’s only got about half of that cleared as yet. He’s built himself a good-sized house. You’ll have to work hard, but the Sagadahoc is a bountiful land and you won’t lack for much.”
“I’m not afraid of workin’ hard.”
“From what I’ve seen there doesn’t appear to be much you are afraid of.” He looked up at her and now his mouth twisted crookedly. She loved the way his smile transformed his face. His lips, she decided, did not go with the rest of his sharp, hawkish features. They were full and sensual, especially the lower lip. She wondered how it would feel to run her finger along it—
God, Delia, ye wooden-headed fool! D’ ye think he’d ever let the likes of ye get close enough t’ feel his lips, stinkin’ as ye do of a distillery?
“Do ye live there yersel’ then, at this Merrymeeting Settlement?”
“Most of the time.”
She wet her mouth, her eyes shifting away from his. “An’ are ye … are ye married?”
He said nothing at first and Delia cursed her flapping tongue. Then he pushed himself off the desk. It brought him right next to her, so close she imagined she could feel the heat of him. And smell him as well—leather and tobacco and something else that she couldn’t really describe except as a certain manliness. Yes, that was it, a manly smell.
“I’m not married,” he said abruptly. “But Nat Parkes does need a wife … if you’re still willing.”
For some strange reason his physical nearness had brought a rush of blood thrumming through her body, causing a rushing sound in her ears like breakers on a beach. She lifted her head to answer him and her eyes fell on his mouth, and the words died unspoken in her throat.
“I see you’ve changed your mind. I can’t say that I blame you,” he said. “It was a damn-fool idea anyway, and I told Nat as much on the day he hatched it. Still, I won’t let you go away empty-handed.” He thrust a pair of long, brown fingers into the pocket of his waistcoat. Reaching down, he took her by the wrist and pressed the coin from his pocket into her hand.
She looked down at the gold sovereign in her palm. It represented more wealth than she had ever in her life seen at one time, and it burned her flesh as if it were still molten from the coin press.
Her fingers closed around it, and she looked up at him. He was smiling at her, and she hated him. She hated him because she could use the money—oh, she could use it and now more than ever—and she hated him for knowing that, knowing she could use it, and for pitying her and thinking she’d be grateful. And she hated him because in some way that she only dimly understood she wanted him to like her, wanted him to want her, wanted him, and he could never be hers.
“I don’t need yer charity, ye bloody bastard!” she cried, and she flung the coin at his face.
It struck him on the cheekbone and bounced to the floor. She stood looking at him, shocked at herself, at what she had done, and then she whirled to run.
He grabbed her waist. She cried out as his arm wrapped around her bruised ribs. Something sharp seemed to stab right through her lung and a wave of pain washed over her, so intense that her vision blackened. Swaying dizzily, she bent over, clutching her middle, and moaned deep within her throat.
He had let her go immediately when she first cried out, but now he touched her shoulder. “My God, Delia, what is it? Are you hurt?”
She sucked in a deep, shuddering breath. “ ’Tis my ribs. I think they’re busted.”
“Here, can you straighten up?”
She nodded and straightened slowly, but the pain stabbed at her again and she gasped. He moved his fingers over her midriff, and she sucked in a sharp breath when he touched the sore spot.
“Has someone been beating on you?”
She bit her lip and nodded. “My da belted me a good one. He was the worse for drink.” “Take off your bodice—”
She gasped, backing away from him. “Oooh, ye men, ye’re all alike, ye are. I hate ye all!”
“For God’s sake, Delia, I’m a physician. I can’t examine you properly with your clothes on. If your ribs are broken, they’ll need to be bound up.”
She had done it again, made a fool of herself in front of this man. More than anything she wanted to be away from here, from him; away, away, so that she could forget all this had ever happened.
But he was a doctor, and he wouldn’t let her go until he was satisfied he had ministered to her needs. “All right, I’ll take it off,” she said reluctantly. “But ye have t’ turn yer back whilst I do it.”
His brows went up and she thought he was going to say something, but he didn’t. Instead he turned his back on her, going over to the gateleg table where his physician’s implements were laid out. He shook a few dried leaves from a jar and began to crush them in a mortar and pestle. As he worked, the muscles of his arms bunched beneath the thin shirt and his shoulders flexed, pulling the satin cloth of his waistcoat tight across his broad back.
“Take it off, Delia,” he ordered, not bothering to turn around.
Delia started guiltily and flushed as if she’d just been caught with her fingers in the honey jar. Her hand shook as she unraveled the laces of her bodice and pulled it over her shoulders, letting it drop from her bare arms to the floor. Then she pulled her shift from beneath the waistband of her petticoat, drawing it over her head. This, too, she let fall to the floor. She stood in the middle of the room, naked from the waist up, and though the fire still burned brightly in the grate, her skin tightened and pimpled as if with a chill.
Ty turned around, taking a step toward her. Then his eyes dropped to her bare breasts and for the briefest moment his step faltered.
She tried to cover herself with her hands, but she was too well-endowed. She had never felt more naked in her life. And she was more naked than she had ever been in her life, for she always slept in her shift and bathed in it as well.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” he said with an easy smile. “We physicians are trained to remain unmoved by the sight of the nude female body.”
“Ye weren’t so unmoved by such a sight earlier this night,” she said tartly, then instantly regretted it. Why did she want to go and remind him of that for?
Ty made a funny sound that wasn’t quite a laugh, but she couldn’t see his face for his head was bent and he was looking at her chest. He ran his hands over her flesh and bones, and she thought she had never been touched so gently. The brush of his palms and fingers across her skin seemed to soothe her pain. Goose bumps rose on her legs and arms, and a funny feeling danced down her spine. She actually had to clench her back teeth to keep from shivering. Then his forearm brushed her breasts and her whole body shuddered.
“Are you cold?”
“Aye.” She gasped. The skin around her nipples had tightened, drawing them into two hard points. She prayed he wouldn’t notice.
Ye wooden-headed fool! How can he help but notice, the way they ’re practically a-pokin’ him in the face?
Ty touched an old bruise, yellow now
and almost faded, just above her hipbone. He straightened and looked down at her, his brows drawn together in a frown. “Today obviously wasn’t the first time he’s used his fists on you.”
Shame filled Delia, so bitter she thought she could taste it. She was ashamed to expose her weakness to a stranger. Oh, especially to him. She was ashamed of her da’s drunkenness, but she was as much ashamed of herself. She was sure it was all her fault, that if she had managed to keep their home properly the way her ma had before she’d died, then her da would never have been driven to drown his misery in drink.
She couldn’t meet Ty’s eyes, so she spoke instead to the silver buttons on his waistcoat. “’Twas all my fault. I got his dander up with my sass.”
“Jesus Christ,” Ty muttered under his breath.
She glanced up in time to catch the look of anger on his face and thought it was directed at herself, and the shame blossomed until tears filled her eyes. She turned her head aside before he could see them.
“Your ribs aren’t broken,” he said, his voice gruff. “But they’re certainly badly bruised and they may well be cracked. To be safe, I’m going into the bedroom to get something to bind them up with. You won’t run off?”
She sniffed and surreptitiously wiped at the tears. “Like this? Not bloody likely!”
Ty was gone for only a moment and he returned carrying a long piece of linen. He wrapped it around her ribs, pulling so tightly that Delia wondered how she was going to manage to breathe when he was done. And still, still his touch was so incredibly gentle. Tears, hot and warm, filled her eyes and a sweet ache pulled at her chest. Then his hand accidentally brushed her sensitive breasts and the sweet ache turned into a quivering hunger that was more than a hollow feeling in her belly. It was a yawning pain in the region of her heart.
She looked down at his bent head, at the dark, thick waves of his hair touched with gold by the torchlight, and she knew that what she was thinking was wrong, could never, never be; that she was a fool to wish it and a fool even to think of doing what she was going to do; and that she would do it anyway…
She had known this man for only a few minutes. He was a stranger in every way except one—she had felt the healing touch of his hands. And she knew, somehow she knew, that he alone in all the world could heal her soul.
She knew. And it was enough for her to want to be where he was, live where he lived. She wanted to wake up in the morning and know there was a chance, even if only a small one, that she would see his face sometime that day.
She swallowed and drew in a deep breath. “Dr. Savitch?”
“Um?”
“Can I change my mind again?”
“I’ve been told that’s a woman’s prerogative.”
“Then ye’ll take me to the Merrymeeting Settlement, to be wife t’ yer friend?”
“If you wish. It’s either you or no one because, frankly, I’ve run out of time and the inclination to interview any more desperate females.” He tied off the binding with quick, deft strokes. “You can get dressed now.”
While Delia put her clothes back on, he went over to a lowboy on one side of the hearth where a pewter pitcher and cups had been set out on a tray. He poured wine from the pitcher into one of the cups and carried it to the gateleg table. He spoke while he worked.
“Look, Delia, whatever you decide won’t be irreversible, at least not until you and Nat actually marry. It’s easy enough to catch a sloop at Falmouth going west, except during the winter months, of course, when the bay is frozen over. If once you get to Merrymeeting you decide you can’t abide the place or you can’t abide Nat, or he can’t abide you, then you’ll be shipped back to Boston. At my expense.”
Delia made a face at his back. Lord, he made her sound like a piece of merchandise. Returned due to inferior quality.
Ty stirred the crushed leaves from the pestle into the cup of wine. He brought it over to her. “Drink this.”
She eyed the cup suspiciously. “What is it?”
“Something to make the pain go away.”
As she reached for the cup her fingers brushed his and she felt the jolt of it all the way down to her toes. But if he had felt anything as well, she couldn’t tell by looking at him.
She drained the cup and handed it to him. She started to wipe her mouth on the back of her hand, remembering not to only just in time. “Well…” she said, feeling suddenly awkward. “Uh, when—”
“Be here tomorrow morning at eight o’clock. That doesn’t give you much time, I know, but we should have left two days ago. It’s going to take us a good three weeks of hard traveling to get there.”
Three weeks! Delia hadn’t realized the place was so far away. Suddenly the thought of setting off for such a distant wilderness filled her with fear. But the lure was so tempting— the promise of a fresh start, a new life, a home of her own and a man to take care of her, a man who needed her and waited there for her, or someone like her—a lonely, desperate woman to be wife to him and mother to his two children. It all pulled her to Merrymeeting…
Her head was drawn up to meet the force of the doctor’s compelling eyes. She remembered the feel of his hands on her flesh where he had touched her. And him, a small voice cried out inside her, a voice she tried without success to squelch. Ye’re going because of him.
“Well … till the mornin’ then,” she said. She started for the door, but he stopped her by softly calling her name.
“What about your father? When you tell him you’re leaving, will he …?”
She smiled and waved a hand, as if brushing away his concern. “Oh, ye needn’t think he’ll come after me any more this night. Nay, he’ll be flat out on his tick by now, a-flappin’ the roof with his snores.”
He smiled back at her, and she felt a strange flutter under her bound-up ribs. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” he said. “Don’t bring any more with you than you can comfortably carry.”
She laughed at that, feeling suddenly happy and wonderfully free. “Go on with ye, doctor,” she scoffed. “I don’t own any more than I can comfortably carry.”
Tyler Savitch grimaced at the trencher of food before him. Salt cod drenched in a sauce of butter and eggs and heavily spiced with pepper. It was supposed to be the specialty of the Red Dragon Inn, but after one look and one whiff, his abused insides had risen in revolt.
He looked around the empty taproom, seeking someone who could take it away and bring him something bland, such as a bowl of samp or a piece of toasted bread. He was just about to get up in search of a servant when his ears were assaulted by loud bangs and a terrible squawking noise coming from the hall.
“Aooow! I told ye, ye damn idiot, that he’s expectin’ me!”
This was followed by a husky voice sputtering a string of cuss words bluer than any Ty had heard outside of a Sagadahoc lumber camp. He recognized the voice. How could he not, since he had tossed and turned all night while it haunted his nightmares?
The door to the taproom banged open and Delia McQuaid strode through. She had one hand on her head, holding down a battered straw hat, and from the other hand dangled a lumpy grist sack. She still wore the same muddy, rum-stained clothes from the night before, except she had added to the ensemble a moth-eaten woolen cloak that looked as if it had been plucked straight off the rubbish heap.
She plopped down on the bench opposite Ty, dropping the grist sack at her feet. He supposed its contents represented all the chit’s worldly belongings—it and the paltry rags she wore on her back. He thought with a repressed sigh that the rum-stained bodice was probably the only one she owned.
Still, now that she was closer he noticed she had cleaned herself up from the filthy wretch she had appeared to be the night before. In fact, to his surprise, she was actually rather pretty. Beneath that grayish grime had been flawless skin, pale as snow flowers except for two pink blooms of color on her cheeks and a slash of bright coral that was her wide, expressive mouth. Her ablutions had even extended to her hair—what he c
ould see of it beneath the floppy brim of the pathetic hat. Last night he had thought her hair to be the dull black of soot, but he saw now that it was shot with ruby lights, giving it a richness that seemed out of place on a tavern wench.
She sighed loudly, blowing a lock of hair off her forehead. “That damned porter. Ye’d think this was bloody Windsor Castle the way he’s a-guardin’ the front door.” She paused, looked at him for a long moment, then flashed a brilliant smile. “Mornin’.”
Ty said nothing. He drained his tankard of ale and rapped it down on the table. His eyes automatically fell on her breasts, which were straining against the tight lacing of her too-small bodice. It wasn’t only that damn sensual, husky voice that had haunted his dreams last night; those breasts had been in there, too.
It bothered him, this prurient interest he had in this girl’s body, this wretched, pathetic waterfront brat. His patient, for God’s sake. It was so unprofessional, so unlike himself. Hadn’t he always prided himself on his self-control? He decided the fault was all in the fact that he had fallen into bed last night half-drunk and in a state of aching unspent lust. A state which was entirely the fault of the abject creature now sitting across from him.
He scowled at her from beneath the brim of his cocked hat.
“Ye look a bit bilious this mornin’,” she said.
“A man of such refined tastes as myself,” Ty intoned, “should never indulge in rum that has been debased with arrack, tea, and lemon juice.”
“Huh?”
“I drank too much of that god-awful punch at the governor’s assembly last night. My head feels like a pumpkin that’s been kicked by a mule. And you banging around and yowling like a pair of fighting cats doesn’t help matters any.”
“Ye were lit last night?” She was staring hungrily at his trencher of salt cod, and Ty thought that if she were a dog she’d be drooling. “Ye could’ve fooled me, ye could, because ye certainly didn’t show it. I can always tell when my da’s had a tot or two, right off. Are ye goin’ to be eatin’ that?”
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