How ironic that on their previous sea adventure he’d nursed her; now she was looking after him. She could finally repay him for the kindness he’d shown her as a young girl.
She gazed adoringly at her patient. Her heart fluttered at his beauty, yet she paused in her contemplation. The trip home from Greece seemed so long ago, a different age. She’d grown up, and Alex, well, she arched an eyebrow. He’d turned out to be something of a conundrum.
Four years ago, once they’d arrived back on English soil, he’d been so different from the man he’d been on board.
Lord Pembroke had greeted Alex with a hero’s welcome. Alex stayed with the family for several weeks, and it was clear to Hestia that her father and Alex had formed a strong bond. The earl came to think of Alex as the son he’d never had.
Even though she was an only child, and rarely had her father’s attentions, she wasn’t at all jealous of the interest her father showered on Alex.
She encouraged it.
She’d hoped her father would come to love Alex as much as she did. Alex was, after all, a marquess and would become a duke; how could her father not approve of a match with him? Of course she was sixteen and too young to marry, but within two years she’d be eighteen and there’d be no impediment to their nuptials if her father agreed to the match.
Yes, she’d had it all planned out—the happily ever after. She’d fulfill her promise to her mother and marry for love.
Her whole body tightened from a shot of pain to her ankle as she remembered that back then, naïve as she was, not for one moment had she considered Alex did not feel the same way or that her father would object.
Her tapestry all but forgotten, her heart clenched in her bosom at how it had all gone horribly wrong.
The rawness of her ordeal at Murad’s hands meant her father, her Aunt Eliza, and all the household staff had hovered over her, treating her as if she were made of glass, trying to swathe her in bales of wool. The overprotectiveness was stifling, especially for a young woman on the cusp of her first romantic foray. She’d romped about freely on Alex’s schooner, no one to keep her in check, but now that she was home, she was consigned back to drawing room etiquette. Her aunt, concerned at the scandal her abduction had created, ensured she followed every society rule to the letter.
Alex, sensing her frustration and taking pity on her, had helped her escape the endless fussing. Perhaps having had a similar experience, been released from enforced captivity, he could empathize with her reluctance to be penned in. Each morning, accompanied by a groom, he would take her riding along the cliff tops on the estate.
Her heart had soared as she rode across the rolling acres, the sky wide and clear above her, the wind whipping the tendrils of her hair about her face, and the most gorgeous man alive by her side. She always challenged Alex to race her to the cove. In her innocence, Hestia had not recognized Alex’s gallantry: he always let her win, and she’d thought, at the time, it was her superior horsemanship.
As they’d ridden, he’d entertained her with stories of his family’s estate in Bedfordshire.
To a young girl in the throes of her first budding romance, was it any wonder she’d fallen hopelessly in love with him? The idea of living at Bracken Park, enveloped in the bosom of his large family…She had been so lonely growing up that his tales of how he filled his sister’s shoes with frogs, or how he’d been fox hunting with his brothers and fallen in the stinging nettle, made her yearn to become part of his family.
At the end of what was to be their last ride together before Alex departed, she’d been so fixated on his strong, warm hands as they lifted her from her saddle that she’d not noticed her father riding up behind them. She’d gazed in rapture into Alex’s mesmerizing fresh-as-a-summer-meadow green eyes and couldn’t hide how she felt; she let her love pour out.
Hestia hadn’t missed how his hands lingered on her waist, even though her feet were firmly on the ground. She’d held her breath, certain he was going to kiss her. Then her father had called his name and the spell had been broken.
Alex left Cresselly House that afternoon, without saying goodbye. It had broken her heart.
She wrote to him but he never returned her correspondence.
Alex never at any time appeared at Cresselly House over the following eighteen months, although she knew he’d written to her father, and her father wrote back. She recognized the handwriting.
Finally, a year later on her first outing of her first season, she’d sought him out at Lord Warrington’s ball. He was polite but very formal, as if they’d never had an adventure together. He did not even request a dance. Where was the Alex she’d known on the voyage home? Where was the man she’d fallen in love with?
She’d followed him about the ballroom shamelessly all night, heedless of everyone’s smirks. She was too angry and hurt to care about society’s niceties. Hestia seethed as the women fawned all over him, in particular a busty young widow named Lady Chester. She’d had a chest all right, and had displayed far too much of it.
Alex had charmed, flattered, and flirted with all the women at the ball except her. He’d avoided her as if she would give him the plague by just being in her presence.
During one of the few times she allowed herself to be swept onto the dance floor, she’d lost sight of him. As the young man, her dance partner, whirled her around the floor for a minuet, Hestia realized with a frown that Lady Chester was also missing.
Determined not to give up on her man and let the witchy woman sink her claws into Alex, she’d slipped away from the ballroom in search of them. It had been raining so she knew they were unlikely to be in the garden. She’d stopped on the landing and concentrated on where they might be. Her eyebrow had arched. The library.
Hurrying up the carved wooden stairs, her pulse rising with each step, she didn’t stop to think of the audacity of her actions. All she could think of was saving Alex, who was about to be taken advantage of. She had to help him. She’d gone after him driven by her painful, adolescent ardor.
Arriving before the library door, she’d stopped, taken a deep breath, and listened for any sounds. She’d heard one muffled groan and immediately flung open the door, hands on hips ready to do battle for her man.
She’d never forget the sight that greeted her.
Alex had Lady Chester pinned against the far wall, his cravat, jacket, and waistcoat discarded. His white shirt hung loose from his shoulders, revealing his golden chest. His black breeches clung to his lean hips as Lady Chester with her skirts hitched up fumbled to undo the buttons of his falls.
At Hestia’s dramatic entry, he’d looked over and held her shocked gaze for a second.
“Damn, I should have locked the door.”
She still remembered the mocking smile that followed those words, but before she’d slammed the door and fled, she caught the smoldering look in his eyes as he drank her in while she stood there, mouth agape, eyes wide.
Now, as she sat in Alex’s cabin looking back with more experienced eyes, deep in her heart she understood—he wanted her, not Lady Chester.
Hestia shook her head, unable to understand why he’d not fought for her. His desire was visible whenever he looked at her. Yet he made no move to pursue her. In fact, he played the infamous rake to the hilt over that period, his reputation for pleasures of the flesh becoming notorious.
Hestia bit her bottom lip. Knowing all this, why did her heart still yearn for him so?
Because every now and then he teased her with glimpses of the man she’d come to know on that voyage home.
During her first season, while shopping on Bond Street one day, she’d spied Alex speaking angrily to a hackney driver for whipping an underfed, overworked horse. When the scoundrel told him to mind his own business Alex demanded to buy the horse and replace it with a fresher one. Then there was the time she’d caught Alex playing with his cousin’s three young children in the park. Once he’d left she’d quizzed their nanny. Apparently he made time at least
once a week when he was in London to visit with the children. Not many men of his standing would bother.
He liked children. It made her long to provide him with sons, beautiful replicas of their father. They could become such a happy family.
Her tapestry dropped from her lap, jerking her out of her wistful remembrance. Bending to pick it up, she scolded herself; she was supposed to be caring for him, not daydreaming. However, as ashamed as she was, Hestia couldn’t miss an opportunity to study the man before her.
What went on in that head of his? What secrets did he hold tight in his heart?
She rose from the chair and hobbled to his bedside.
Dim candlelight from the washstand sculpted his high cheekbones in shadow. She stroked his cheek, raspy from a day’s growth. His lips looked soft and plump, and the dramatic angles of his face had softened in his sleep.
She swept her eyes down his body. His chest was like polished marble, except for the sparse sprinkling of hair, rough like the bit of marble surface exposed to the elements. But his skin was warm under her touch, not cold and unmoving like a statue.
His muscled torso was chiseled and defined, not bulky, but rather superbly athletic. His arms looked powerful and she shivered with a longing to know the feeling of them wrapped around her. His waist was flat, but defined. The muscles of his abdomen were like ripples on a pond, racing away beneath the sheet covering the area she was most interested in.
She’d never seen a naked man before. Was she bold enough to take a peek? Would she be disappointed? Looking toward heaven as if asking God to forgive her, she turned her attention back to Alex’s covered groin and gingerly took the sheet between her fingers, then lifted it far enough to satisfy her curiosity.
The ladies of the ton were right, she decided with a private smile. Every inch of him was quite perfect, although not as big as they’d made out. She recalled some gossip doing the rounds that indicated he was tremendously well endowed. That part of his anatomy didn’t look that intimidating from here.
Hestia froze. Her cheeks turned crimson. As if hearing her insolent thoughts, his member began to thicken. It engorged to an incredible size, both in length and in girth, and stood to attention underneath the upheld sheet.
She dropped the sheet as if it were on fire. It tented over his groin. She slowly raised her eyes back up his body to meet compelling green eyes smoldering under his heavy-lidded gaze.
A raspy voice, seductively sending shivers down her spine, said, “So, my angel, you’ve come to torment my dreams once more. Even when injured I can’t seem to rid you from my thoughts. You can see the effect you have on me. My desire for you is very strong.”
Sweet heaven. She had seen that look before in men’s eyes. Want, need, primitive male lust. She should be ecstatic to see the desire burning in his eyes, but with a deep sigh she understood he could be dreaming of someone else. Besides, he was in no condition to act on it. Even worse, it was probably his insensibilities talking. Actually, more like screaming.
She would try to ignore his aroused state. Wryly she admitted that would be difficult, given the sheet’s height over his groin.
With pure will she turned her gaze to his upper body, and her heart melted. He looked so lost, dazed, and confused. She tenderly cupped his cheek and whispered, “Would you like something to drink, Alex?”
“Even in my dreams you aren’t mine. If a drink is all I’ll get from you, so be it.” He tried to sit up and let out a low groan.
“Are you in dreadful pain?”
“Not from my injury, my darling. Seeing you, smelling you, hearing you, but not being able to touch you, are far worse agonies.” He raised his hand and ran his thumb seductively over her lips. “This dream is more real than anything I’ve previously experienced. Would you taste real?” He dropped his hand and sighed. “But you’re not real, just a figment of my imagination. A dream of you is not what I want. I crave the real thing, to feel your soft curves beneath me, to plunge into your hot sheath and make you sob with ecstasy. And that I can never do, you’ll never be mine.”
Hestia smiled. He had no idea she was real, alive, just a hairbreadth away from him and also ablaze with longing. Perhaps it was better this way. Perchance, in his drug-induced state, she’d find out the truth. Did he have feelings for her? What would those feelings be? If he did, why did he hesitate to claim her?
She raised a glass of brandy with a drop of laudanum in it to his parched lips and let him drink.
Once he finished, Alex slumped back against the pillows, his body half sitting up, leaning on his uninjured side. Hestia couldn’t resist tenderly pushing his soft locks off his gorgeous face.
She’d wait a few minutes for the laudanum to work before she attempted to change his bandages. Anything to delay the inevitable, the coward that she was; she couldn’t face hurting him while he was still so awake.
Soon the drug took effect and his words turned to mumbles and then quiet.
Then she set about changing his dressings as quickly and carefully as she could.
Chapter 13
Over the following two weeks as they sailed south Alex’s wound started to mend nicely and Hestia’s chivalrous knight grew restless. He seemed to loathe being confined to bed and glared at anyone who entered his cabin, cursing them when they would not let him rise. The fact that he was champing at the bit to get up and about, yet his men could so easily subdue him, only reinforced how weak from the blood loss he actually was.
During the day he was unbearable. Hestia could hear him yelling a constant stream of commands at Jacob, who would stomp off around the ship cursing the “bloody patient.”
At night she still sat by his side as he slept. Although Jacob said Alex didn’t need the laudanum, she continued to give him the one drop each night. He might fool the men, but she could see the small pain lines around his eyes and mouth every time he tried to move. Her conscience wouldn’t allow him to suffer any more pain on her behalf. With all her heart, she vowed to protect him from further harm.
His sleep was fretful, the light sheet covering his body often tossed aside by the power of his strong thrashing legs. He’d taken to wearing drawers for modesty, but the fine linen did not hide much.
She blushed with shame, remembering how long she took in pulling the sheet back up. She loved to gaze upon the lean, hard length of him. His beauty stirred all her latent feminine instincts. She grew moist between her thighs and her heart raced at the primal sight of him. He was perfect.
He grew more restless during the dark hours as he healed. She enviously wondered who filled his thoughts and made his dreams so potent. Most nights the sheet tented.
Tonight Alex was in a foul mood when she arrived. Jacob was arguing with him.
“If we can capture the sloop, we have an advantage. We won’t have to keep looking behind us.”
“Every day we delay heading to Greece, the greater the chance Fredrick’s men find the earl first.” He cursed at himself. “Don’t make me get out of this bed.”
Jacob laughed. “You’re healing, that’s true, but you are still not at your full strength.”
“I will be by the time we get to Greece.”
“You will be by the time I capture the sloop.”
They glared at each other. It was a testament to the relationship the pair shared that Jacob was not backing down.
“Compromise then. We can stop at Corfu and meet with our contact to find out what, if anything, they’ve learned of the earl, and see if the sloop is still with us. Once we learn more and hear news of the earl, I will reappraise the situation.”
“And what of—”
Upon seeing her, Alex shook his head. “How long have you been standing there?”
Jacob turned to her and snapped, “See if you can talk some sense into him. He’s like a lion with a sore paw tonight. I need some fresh air before I slit his other side,” he said, and stormed out of the cabin.
“I’m in charge here, don’t forget,” Alex yel
led as the door slammed behind her. “What do you want? I don’t need a nursemaid, I’m perfectly all right.”
At the sound of Alex’s deep, angry voice, she lifted her head and gave him a considered look. He did look much better.
Then he tried to sit upright and his grimace brought a hint of a smile to her lips. Why did men have to be so stubborn? How they hated to show any kind of weakness. Familiar longings rippled through her. She wanted to cradle him in her arms and kiss away his hurt, but he’d never allow that.
“I will sit with you until I’m told otherwise by Mr. Foxhall. He is the surgeon.” She crossed the room to take the armchair at the end of his bed.
“I see your ankle has mended; you aren’t hobbling any longer.”
Hestia glanced at him warily as he lay back against the pillows, his slashing brows knitted in an auspicious line.
“Yes, it is much better, thank you for asking. How are you feeling tonight? It would appear your temper is not improving as quickly as your health.”
His brows furrowed further. “If everyone would stop fussing over me I’d be a lot better,” he growled at her.
Ignoring his scowl, Hestia asked, “Have you slept at all today?”
“Good God, woman, I’m not a child.”
Hestia bit back a retort about how he was certainly behaving like one. “You need rest to recuperate. The longer you fight David’s orders, the longer it will take you to get on your feet again.”
His face turned dark and a rumble similar to thunder sounded low in his chest. He began to move.
With a gasp Hestia uttered, “What on earth are you doing?”
“I’m getting on my feet again.”
He made to swing his long, lean legs over the side of the bunk.
“But you’re not dressed.”
He is feeling better, Hestia thought as his face broke into a wickedly seductive smile.
“I’m not forcing you to look. Turn away if the sight disturbs your sensibilities, although I believe as you’ve been nursing me these past weeks I’m sure I have nothing further to hide.”
Addicted to the Duke Page 14
