The Unraveling of Lady Fury

by Shehanne Moore

  “All right. Sit forward.”

  “I’d sooner have the scratch.”

  He slid and ducked his head under the water. Of course. This morning in the garden had been everything she remembered of Flint. No lingering looks. No endearments. Only straight, thank you ma’am sex, which even with Flint sizzled still so hot and sweet it bound her to him more. So she shouldn’t rise to this bait.

  He didn’t like the cream, fine. It hadn’t actually been used for what he thought. Susan had bought it for her in the market, the first time Thomas couldn’t. And he blacked her eye.

  But Flint sticking his head under the water reminded her of every slight she’d suffered on the Calypso. As if, for all she had sex with him and had his child, she wasn’t fit to spit, at a distance, on his boots.

  She knew, she understood, he didn’t love her. Yesterday was an aberration. Must he be so cruel though, when she stood this close to the edge? All she’d wanted to do was examine his back. He was obviously suffering. It was something she understood.

  “No. Believe me, you wouldn’t.”

  Water cascaded from his face. “We agreed no touching.” He shook his hair out of his eyes.

  “You think I want to? Even with a pair of fire tongs, given what probably made that scratch?”

  “Aren’t you getting hell of a fussy about yourself there.”

  “I am not fussy about myself. We must just hope the Beaumont heir doesn’t take after its cowardly father.”

  “Fine.” He tilted his jaw in that cold, glaring way. “But I’m telling you now, it’s a scratch.”

  Fury almost swallowed the soap. Dear God, Flint, the great and mighty wasn’t going to comply was he? She acknowledged the effort it took was probably greater and mightier. Flint’s pride being greatest and mightiest of all.

  “Well, if it’s a scratch you wouldn’t keep”—he sat forward and she strove to keep her voice steady—“wincing.”

  “All right. So it’s a mess. You satisfied now why I don’t want you touching it?”

  He lied, of course, about sparing her fingers. But that fact was marred by what crisscrossed his back. Silver wheals, which had no doubt been red and seeping like the one marring his shoulder blades. She edged her gaze downward. No wonder he winced. It looked to her as if as fast as one sore had healed another had been inflicted.

  Her throat dried. This was a business transaction. This morning, despite everything, he’d taken control. It was to his credit he had. She should do the same. But the slight trembling in his body undermined her.

  Before he could stop her, or she could stop herself, she placed a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t move.”

  “That’ll be difficult. Don’t we have another session to go?” He offered a lazy smile.

  She ignored it. “Not now, we don’t. Tilt forward. I’m going to clean it properly, as someone should have done weeks ago. Pass me the sponge.” Clearing her throat, she held out her hand. “Now.”

  Flint sat stone still. If he gave up that sponge, he gave up his self-control.

  Like hell he did. He was a very self-controlled man. Water. Lotion. Rude to refuse but he’d reinstated the rules earlier, keeping his thoughts focused on what was important. No questions asked sex. No questions asked sex wasn’t as easy as he’d have liked. It wasn’t so hard either. He’d had a lot of it in his day. So he was in a position to know. Sitting down to breakfast after had been nice. This, he was less sure about.

  He suspected that was why he trembled a little.

  Reaching over, he offered the sponge. “There you go.”

  “Turn.”

  He didn’t take this kind of treatment from women as a rule. But it was only water, wasn’t it?

  “No, Flint. I mean this.”

  All the time when growing up he hadn’t had anyone he could remember wanting to mend anything for him. Just whatever drunk Ma turned tricks for to survive, wanting to break him, as well as Ma herself, letting him know how sorry she was she’d ever let him be born. Especially the way his daddy had walked out.

  He bent his head, his hair fanning his face.

  “So, Flint? Lady Celia.”

  He jerked, and it had nothing to do with the sponge pressed to his skin. What was she mentioning her for?

  “You never told me how you knew her.”

  Wasn’t this just— He shrugged. Anything to break the dripping silence.

  “Because you never said what she was doing in your daddy’s inn.”

  He braced for the face-full he was sure to get. What she did next made his heart bang like a hammer. She ignored him, in favor of dipping the sponge in the water and squeezing it out on his back.

  His trembling increased, his eyes focusing harder on the tub rim. Tiny rivulets trickled over his skin. Their coolness made him aware of just how hot his blood burned.

  She went again, this time edging the sponge against his skin. Standing up would look churlish. The beatings she’d had from that damned Thomas. And she’d kept Storm. The thought was one he shouldn’t think now. But coolness iced his back.

  Hell. It was only water, wasn’t it?

  “You know this probably needed a stitch?”

  “Probably. But there wasn’t much point when Malmesbury was just going to lay it open again.”

  She shifted her knees on the floor. “I asked you a question.”

  He didn’t want to answer, but the room fell very still. Just the drip of water. And this stroking made him feel he was drowning. Made him feel that he couldn’t see through the mist and fog.

  “Celie had a passage on the Calypso from Martinique. She was related to the governor. I was doing some work for him. That’s how I got to know her. All right?”

  She stilled her hand, and he realized how much he craved it not to, and at the same time he thanked Christ it had. What sweated on his forehead, it was like she peeled bits from him.

  He needed to get out of here. He didn’t just guess her mouth had dropped open. He edged his gaze and caught it. The silence was disconcerting. It had nothing to do with the fact he never let her do this on the Calypso. Or that he’d blurted these words. Gritted them rudely.

  If he didn’t edge his gaze back…

  If she didn’t lower hers…

  She put down the sponge.

  “I guess you’re an expert…at this.” Recollecting himself, he made a stab at normality. After all, when he thought about this morning and the necessity of putting things back, it wouldn’t do to let her think he was the awkward one. “With things Thomas did.”

  She shrugged. “No, Susan’s actually the expert. Not me. I don’t know where I’d be without her, the things she’s done for me.”

  He’d be happier if she didn’t sigh and ponder.

  “This—this cream isn’t… Susan got it for me. She bought it after Thomas started getting impossible. It will cool it. Now I’ve done this much, I think you should let me finish.”

  What should it matter, if she went away and he never did anything with her again? Nothing really. So why did unease grab his gut? When he was a man of iron control?

  “All right.”

  A man should know—he should know when he was beaten. And as this morning had proved, he wasn’t.

  “Yes, of course.”

  Although he did wish she wouldn’t hesitate and it didn’t take an eternity to unscrew the jar lid.

  “It won’t take a moment.”

  A further eternity to set the lid on the floor. Christ only knew how long before she dipped her fingers in. So each second’s delay, before his yearning flesh felt her fingers begin working their magic, prolonged his agony.

  Down she went and down, smoothing, kneading, rubbing. Gentle. Never hard. She bent so close, her cool breath brushed his skin.

  What did it matter, if she went away and he never did anything with her again?

  He turned his chin. Everything, he thought, staring at her pretty red mouth. Nailing her this morning hadn’t done any damned good. Not with th
e strength of the currents here.

  He just wasn’t going to fall for her, or anything. Was he? How could he?

  He already had.

  “I shouldn’t have said it, right? About the cream. It’s just me. You’re actually very nice there.”

  “What?”

  No doubt an insult would be preferable. And no doubt if he now made love to her, as he was going to do, properly, not like this morning, he couldn’t reconstruct this.

  But she shouldn’t have touched him, because he didn’t care about the consequences.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Madam?”

  Dear God, must Susan trouble her now, when her head throbbed? And her stomach… Bending over, Fury retched into the ceramic chamber pot. Despite the fact she’d already emptied her stomach in the same way not ten minutes ago, the retching was uncontrollable.

  “Madam, don’t you think you should see a physician?”

  “What for?” She dabbed her mouth with the back of her hand. Her stomach heaved again before she could stop it. “Empty that, for me, will you? If you can’t, I’ll do it. It’s just—” Straightening, she tried to gain control of her shaking knees. “It’s just this won’t stop.”

  “Fury!”

  She broke off as Flint’s voice sailed up from the garden. The last thing she needed. Mustering herself, she set the pot aside on the bed and staggered to the open shutters.

  “In a minute. I’m not dressed.”

  Her stomach gave another heave. She released the curtain drape.

  “Madam, I don’t understand why, when it’s so obvious what this is, you don’t tell him.”

  “Is?” Fury didn’t understand why she didn’t tell him either. Well, she did. She just preferred not to.

  “Because it might be anything.” The room swam in waves around her. “The fish I ate last night for supper. I must be sure first. Nothing can be left to chance.”

  “And yesterday?” Susan’s eyebrows rose. “And the day before?”

  There was one thing and one thing only that was responsible for this, and it wasn’t any fish eaten for supper. Or breakfast either.

  “Last time I was fit as a fiddle. I wasn’t sick once.” Fury grimaced as she walked across the floor. It was why she hadn’t noticed for so long she was late. “Maybe it’s not. I can’t send him away on a whim.”

  She eased down at the dressing table. Of course, she knew. She was late. It was time to go home to England. The heir was conceived.

  So she hadn’t understood three days ago, when nausea first struck, why she felt so awful. Not about the nausea, although, of course, the nausea was bad enough.

  She couldn’t possibly feel that way, when something was so right, that it was wrong. Yet she hadn’t told Flint.

  This was a business transaction. The last two weeks since she’d told him about Storm, she’d undertaken a walk on a very different tightrope. A rapturous journey across some dazzling peaks and wanton valleys of pleasure.

  It had never been less than safely undertaken. Because in her heart she knew that was all it was and thanked God her children had the same father and she would always keep that bit of him. So this did not make sense.

  “All pregnancies are different, madam. The thing to go by—”

  “Yes, yes.” Fury reached for the perfume bottle and spilt a little on her warm wrists to cool them. The heady fragrance made her stomach heave. It was her favorite too. She would need to find another and hope he didn’t notice the reason. The color of the walls was quite offensive too. But she could not afford to paint them.

  “Madam, it’s not like it’s something you can hide. Not like the last time anyway.” Susan gestured at the chamber pot. “You’ve just been lucky he hasn’t caught you being sick.”

  “He’s not living here, is he?”

  “And you’re going to go on pawning…what? This place is getting bare.”

  Fury sighed. Another thing. But when she weighed that against having Flint beneath her nose, in her bed, living back here at the villa, she understood the logic of it. What burned in her might have raged out of control otherwise.

  “Of course I’m not, Susan. I just don’t like the way Malmesbury treated him. I’m sure he doesn’t want to go back to that.”

  As if. Flint would take off the moment he found out. The hurt that thought caused her wasn’t something she wished to consider here.

  “Malmesbury has ships, madam. Maybe he’d allow James to work for him on board one, seeing as he’s a seagoing man. You still have your book, remember.”

  “But, of course.” Why did Susan have to have a helpful answer for everything? Fury set the perfume bottle back down and reached instead in the drawer for her lily of the valley cologne.

  James, the seagoing man, and Malmesbury. That would last all of two minutes.

  “Madam, he is Storm’s father, isn’t he? Only you said that day, that day on the dock, Captain Fl—”

  Fury dragged her chin up. She didn’t want to be reminded of that. “What on earth makes you think that, Susan?”

  “Intuition. You know him too well.”

  “Do I?” She supposed she did. She had never thought about it like that. “Let me assure you that doesn’t mean I like him. Just because he…he—”

  “Gives you ecstasy?”

  So, Susan had heard.

  “—can be read like a book, does not mean I know him. On the contrary, it just makes him readable.”

  “Just think.” Susan chuckled. “Both your children will have the same father. Lady Margaret will be delighted.”

  “Children?” Flint’s voice cut in, and not from the garden.

  Fury almost dropped the perfume bottle. How long had he stood there? How much had he heard? And with Susan clutching the chamber pot. Fury rose so swiftly she felt she was at sea and the choppy waves threatened to throw her as she advanced across the floor. He swam into her vision, but she set her lips in a curve.

  “James.” She always called him that in front of Susan. The pretense was ludicrous or Susan wouldn’t smirk, as she closed the door behind her, thankfully taking the chamber pot with her.

  “You didn’t come down, so I came up.”

  “I was going to in a minute. I was just washing and dressing.”

  She took his hand. They had sometimes taken breakfast on the table in the garden. They had once done other things too, she recalled with a flush.

  She wanted to offer him more than her hand. But she realized, with a little shiver, that speaking of coming up, she had vomited. The taste and smell would be on her breath. She edged her tongue forth. On her lips too.

  “Dressing?” He curved his lips into a faint smile. Desire was, of course, the normal state for him to exist in, making it helpful to have chosen him. Only there were times she realized, as he leaned toward her, she wished she hadn’t.

  “Yes.” She turned away. “So I could come down to breakfast.”

  “What’s this? More rules?”

  “What? Me dressing for breakfast?” She reached down for her shoe. “No, there is no rush surely? We have all day.”

  That much was true, although she didn’t know how she’d manage through the whole one, the state she was in. The floor didn’t just come up to meet her as she bent, it swam. She thought she would be sick on it.

  “But you’re not dressed. So…”

  True. He took a step closer and she straightened. He was going to kiss her. He hovered over her, and he probably stood close enough to see the tremors that racked her frame.

  Time to tell him, wasn’t it? And release him from the necessity of having to make love to a woman he despised. After all, hadn’t she felt his hesitation at times?

  Felt? She had witnessed it that day at Frau Berthe’s.

  This was something he did for Storm. No matter what he’d said about Fury being nice in certain places, it was folly to believe he meant it with any more sincerity than he thought a whore was also nice in those same places.

  He
should know.

  She scarcely needed another day on the tightrope. Certainly not in her present condition.

  But even after all he had done, perhaps because of it, some foolish part of her wasn’t quite ready to gaze at a horizon upon which dust didn’t even linger.

  “Of course, Flint, if you want, we can go to bed now. I just—need to clean my teeth first.”

  “Hmm.” Wrinkling his nose, he drew a breath. “Lily of the valley.”

  “Yes. The jasmine was finished.”

  Turning on her heel, she hurried to the washstand. What the hell was going on here? That was what he was asking himself, wasn’t it? It was probably not too dissimilar to her own thoughts. What the hell was he breathing her scent for?

  He might even be doing mental calculations. Standing there in the bright band of sunlight that shafted through the open shutters, he probably was.

  Across the room, his gaze met hers and narrowed, as if he knew she watched him. For a moment she stared across the top of the screen, and then she lowered her gaze again.

  All she wanted was the heir. But the strange thing about life was that all was never enough. Now she just wanted to keep this a little longer.

  “When you’re ready, then, sweetheart.”

  She wasn’t, but he had ambled to the bed. Amiably. Which if he was doing mental calculations, he wouldn’t. So she wasn’t going to say. She rinsed her mouth and stepped from behind the screen.

  The irony was his mother would probably have told him some cure for this God-awful sickness, but she couldn’t very well ask him. Still, it was a triumph to walk across the floor, when she felt her legs had been replaced with stumps.

  “Well, I am ready.” She climbed onto the bed. “Then afterwards I can lie here, while you go and do whatever.”

  “Breakfast. Unless you want me to stay here with you this morning?”

  The way her stomach heaved had nothing to do with that notion. The thought of food perhaps. But he reached for her and she grinned.

  “Of course you can. But aren’t you hungry?”

  “Absolutely.” He ran his hands up her bare arms. “Don’t you want breakfast this morning though? See, if you do, I can wait till you’ve eaten.”