by Candace Camp
Picking up the medical kit, she returned to James’s room. Demosthenes, who had remained standing at the door, flopped down across the doorway after she entered and laid his head on his paws, closing his eyes. Apparently he had decided it was safe to leave James in her care. Laura shut the door softly behind her and tiptoed across the floor.
“You needn’t sneak,” a voice said from the dark. “I’m not asleep.”
“May I turn on a low light?”
“Whatever you like.” James eyed her bag suspiciously. “What is that?”
“Instruments of torture.” She was pleased to see his face had recovered a bit of color.
“Ah. Good to know.”
“It’s what my father took with him when he visited a patient.” She pulled out a bottle and poured some of the contents into a glass, adding water. “This isn’t laudanum; it’s from willow bark, good for headaches.”
“Your father dabbled in folk medicine?”
“He wasn’t one to discount a remedy merely because it was old.” She slid one hand beneath his head to lift it, and he raised up on his elbows.
“I’m not helpless.”
“I’m sure you’re not. Drink this.”
He sipped and made a face. “That tastes terrible.”
“Of course it does—it’s good for you.” She gave him a teasing smile and laid her palm over his forehead. “Now drink the rest of it.”
James complied, then lay back down and watched her as she moved about, pouring water from the pitcher into the bowl and dipping a rag into it.
“You feel a trifle hot,” she commented. She feared that was the reason for the color in his face. “Are you feverish?”
He shrugged. “Perhaps. I’m no longer sure what I am.”
Laura wrung out the rag and bathed his face. He closed his eyes, his features relaxing under her hand. She rewet the rag to cool it and returned to his bedside.
He watched her warily. “Clearly you have some need to nurture someone, but I am not—”
“Oh, for—why do you make such an effort to be obnoxious when you are feeling so ill?” She began to wash his face again.
“I don’t like being fussed over.”
“It’s unfortunate you didn’t think of that before you married me,” Laura retorted. “I am a doctor’s daughter, and I have been in the habit of helping sick people all my life, even those who are annoying. You will simply have to get used to the fact that I’m not going to stand about watching you suffer and do nothing about it.”
“I should have known you’d turn out to be a despot,” he muttered, closing his eyes. “Graeme has a weakness for overbearing women.”
A chuckle escaped Laura. “Insulting to the end, I see.” She was pleased to see that his lips curved up in response.
“Will it bother you?” he asked softly. “Being so close to Graeme here? Seeing him frequently? He’s bound to come over when he gets back from London.”
Laura glanced at him, startled. “No, of course not. I told you—”
“But you must . . . when you see him . . . you surely feel . . .”
“Friendship,” Laura said firmly. “That’s all.” She poured the contents of a bottle into the water and dipped the rag into it. A pleasant scent stole through the air as she wrung out the cloth and laid it across his forehead.
He took a deep breath. “It smells like you.”
Laura glanced at him, surprised. “It’s lavender—soothing for a headache.” She thought he looked a little better. “Will you be able to sleep now?”
He snorted. “I never sleep.”
“I hear you walking about at night.”
“I get restless. It’s madness to be so tired and yet unable to sleep.”
She perched on the bed beside him. “I would have kept you company, but you didn’t seem to want it.”
He slanted a look over at her. “You mean I was rude as the devil.”
“Yes. But I expected that. I wasn’t sure, though, whether company would make you feel worse or you were just being unpleasant.”
He snorted. “I have yet to see you let either of those things slow you down.”
She shrugged. “I spent all my life managing a man who took no care of himself.”
James scowled. “You’re saying I remind you of your father?”
Laura laughed. “Goodness, no. My father was a kind man. A good man.”
“Very different then.” There was a hint of a smile on his lips. Laura was aware of a peculiar desire to trace her finger across them.
“He was too busy looking after others to take care of himself. I’m not sure why you neglect to do so.”
“I take care of myself. Most would say I am my greatest concern.”
“Perhaps. I don’t know you well enough to say. But you refuse to let anyone help you.”
He stirred, turning his head away. “It’s obvious you don’t know me well. I have a great many people who help me.”
“You pay them to work for you; that’s an entirely different thing. What you won’t do is allow someone to give it to you freely.”
“You’re daft.”
“Am I?” She curled her legs up on the bed, positioning herself more comfortably.
James frowned. “What are you doing? Are you settling in for a cozy chat?”
“I don’t see why not. I’m wide-awake, and you say you never sleep. We might as well talk to each other.”
“What if I don’t want to chat?” His tone was so close to that of a petulant child that Laura had to smile.
“Then I suppose I shall have to do all the talking, won’t I?”
“You probably would.” But he turned toward her.
“Why won’t you tell your family that you are ill?”
“What do you expect me to do? Stand up at dinner and announce I shall die soon? I’m sure they have figured it out by now. Nobody wants to speak of it.”
“Your mother doesn’t realize it. She thinks that marrying me shows you’re expecting a long life ahead of you.”
“Mother likes to be happy. She doesn’t want shadows or lurking demons or anything but fine clothes and a pretty reflection in the mirror. And ample men to admire her.”
“But what about when you—when it happens?”
“You see?” He quirked an eyebrow at her. “Even you have trouble saying it.” He rubbed his hand over his face, knocking the cloth askew, and Laura leaned over to adjust it. “Don’t worry yourself over my mother. She will have a grand opportunity to emote. Throw herself across the casket and weep. She has perfected the art of crying without damaging her looks.”
“James!” Laura was shocked. “What a horrid thing to say. Do you really believe your mother won’t grieve for you? That she doesn’t love you?”
“Oh, she cares. Just as she cared for my father. Or Aunt Mirabelle. Or—” He broke off with a shrug. “But she dearly loves the drama of it all, as well.”
Laura studied him for a moment. His thick, dark lashes shielded his gaze from her. He appeared to be intent on the path his fingers took as he traced the pattern on her brocade dressing gown where it spread across the bed coverings.
She wondered if she ought to cease questioning him, but it seemed to her that conversation, even his irritation at her probing, distracted him from his pain.
“If you know that your family has surmised you are ill, why do you try so hard to keep them from seeing it? Why do you hide your tiredness? Your pain?”
“My weakness?” He looked up at her then, his mouth twisting in a mockery of a smile. “Well, one cannot let down the side, can one?”
“What side?”
“I’m not sure,” he admitted, the smile falling away. “Very well, if you must know, I cannot bear to have my mother indulge in her tragic role. Crying and bemoaning and asking me every two minutes how I feel. Handkerchief always at the ready, reminding me of every tender moment in my life, real or imagined, pleading with me to be strong and not leave her. It’s exhausting.”
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“I see. But what about the others? Your brothers and sister, their spouses.”
“Them?” His jaw tightened. “I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.”
“So they are the other side.”
“Mm. I suppose the other side is everyone except myself.”
“You’re wrong there,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice, reaching out to turn the cloth over so that the cooler side lay against his forehead. “I am your wife. So whether you like it or not, I am on your side.”
His eyes flew to hers, an odd spasm of emotion so fleeting she couldn’t identify it flickering across his features. “I don’t need your pity,” he told her roughly.
“Maybe not. But you could certainly use my help.”
He turned his eyes back to his forefinger tracing a whorl on the brocade. After a moment, in a low voice, he said, “I’m losing my mind.”
“What?”
He wet his lips. “I couldn’t tot up a column of numbers today. It wasn’t just my stupid hand shaking. I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t remember how to add them. It was hopeless.”
“Don’t fret over that. Someone else can do it. I’ll check them for you if you like.”
“Yes, but that’s not the point. I’ve always been good with numbers. I understand them. They’re fixed, certain. But now . . .” He turned his hand palm up, flexing his fingers as if grasping at air. “I’ve lost them.”
Laura took his hand. “You haven’t lost them. They’re still there; they still mean the same things. They’re just as constant as they were before.”
“Yes. It is I who’s not.” He stroked his thumb idly up and down hers. Sad as his words were, it was the intense heat of his skin that worried her. He was growing more feverish. “I sometimes see . . . things that aren’t there.”
“What do you see?”
“Nothing important. The other day I saw Mother’s cat. Only it died years ago. Last night I dreamed my—I saw Sir Laurence beside my bed. I remember the occasion; I was seven and had a fever. Years later my mother told me they had been afraid I was about to die, too, as my brother Vincent had.” His hand tightened on hers as he looked up into her face. “I am not given to imagination or mystical thoughts, Laura.”
“I’m sure you are not.” Laura’s throat burned with tears, but she managed a smile. She had not realized he had had another brother, but this was scarcely the time to question James about Vincent or his death.
His eyes drifted closed, though his thumb continued to slide along her skin. After a moment, it, too, stilled, and his grip loosened. He was asleep. Laura felt a small moment of triumph.
She considered pulling her hand from his and leaving him to sleep, but she feared the movement might awaken him. Her position, however, soon grew tiring, and her eyes kept closing. Finally she moved, and his hand tightened on hers. Her eyes flew to his face; he was still asleep. After a moment, she lay down on her side, curled in a ball in the lower quadrant of the bed, her hand stretched up to his.
chapter 12
Laura dreamed she was lying beside the fire, its heat strong against her back. She drifted awake, hot and vaguely confused. She lay stretched out on her side, an arm thrown across her, and she was enveloped in heat. Her eyes flew open as she jolted into full awareness. She was lying next to James; it was his arm that curled around her, tucking her into his side.
She went still, scrambling to pull her thoughts together. She had fallen asleep, and sometime during the night, she had shifted around until she now lay next to him. Her face flooded with color. Even with the bedcovers separating their bodies, it was an intimate position. What would James think if he awoke and found her cuddled beside him as if . . . as if they were lovers?
She sat up abruptly, pulling out of his arms, and turned to look down at James. She didn’t need to feel his forehead to know he was feverish. She had only to look at his flushed cheeks, the rosy color of his lips. The fever had momentarily given him the mask of health.
He opened his eyes and smiled at her in a lazy way, his eyes bright silver, warm and beckoning. Laura stared, remembering how his lips had felt against hers when he’d pretended to kiss her in the garden the other day.
“Laura . . .” His voice rasped. James laid his hand casually on her thigh. “Why are you here?” He frowned, puzzled, as he slid his hand up her leg. “Not that I mind . . .” His voice drifted off as his eyes closed. His hand slipped from her leg.
Laura stared, shocked by the way her body had reacted to his touch, his smile. For a moment she had wanted to lean down and kiss him, to feel his arms around her again, his heat pouring through her.
Impatiently, she shook off the image. James was obviously burning up with fever. He was delirious. Snatching the damp cloth from the pillow where it had fallen, she wet the rag and wrung it out, then began to wash his face and throat. Draping cool cloths around his wrists and across his forehead, she poured out another dose of the tincture. Laura slid her hand beneath his head, lifting it, and held the drink to his lips.
“Take a sip.” He opened his eyes. They were still that combination of hot and hazy that did peculiar things to her stomach. Obediently he swallowed, then screwed up his face and turned his head away. “No, James, now drink it.”
“Don’t wa—” As soon as he opened his lips to speak, she poured the rest of the liquid in. He swallowed, then pressed his lips tightly together and glared at her.
Laura hid a smile. Who would have thought that the lordly James de Vere could pout like a ten-year-old? She continued to wet the cloth and bathe his face, but his temperature remained stubbornly high. He mumbled, tossing and turning in the bed, and his words were usually unintelligible. But once his eyes flew open and he called her name sharply.
When she turned to him, he reached out toward her, saying hoarsely, “Put it out! Can’t you see it? Your hair—the fire—can’t you see it?” He swept his hand roughly over her head.
As suddenly as he’d awakened, he pulled his hand away and dug his fingers into his own hair, his face contorted in pain, muttering, “Stop, damn it, stop.”
He threw off his covers. His shirt was soaked through with sweat, clinging to his body. Laura opened the top few buttons of his shirt and moved the cool rag down over his throat and into the V of his shirt. Finally she simply unbuttoned it all the way, pulling it from his waistband, and bathed his whole chest.
The sight of his bare chest brought up more of the restless, twisting feeling inside her. He was too thin, his ribs pressing against his skin, but there was something about the broad set of his shoulders, the ridge of his collarbone, that made her vaguely warm and unsatisfied. And when she slid the cloth across his chest, the heat licked higher in her.
Laura was beginning to suspect she was wanton. Even as concerned as she was about James and his fever, she enjoyed stroking him this way. It was stirring and somehow exciting, and when he opened his eyes and looked at her, hunger flaring in her eyes . . . well, she enjoyed that even more.
He clamped one hand around her wrist, stilling it, then pushed her hand downward, leaving the cloth behind. She sucked in her breath, her eyes going wide with astonishment as she felt him move beneath the cloth of trousers, hard and pulsing. James made a low noise and sank his other hand into her hair, pulling her head down to his. Laura didn’t resist.
His lips were velvety soft, as hot as she had imagined them, and more aggressive and insistent than his gentle kiss the other day. His mouth moved against hers, opening her lips to his questing tongue. Laura jerked in surprise. This was wrong, surely. This was fierce and hungry, not at all loving. This was . . . delightful.
He no longer held her hand against him, but Laura found she had no desire to pull it away. She moved her fingertips lightly over the buttons of his trousers and felt his flesh surge in a primitively gratifying way.
His hand wandered up her body, hot as a flame wherever it touched. He slid in beneath the lapel of her dressing gown, flesh searing through the thin cotton of h
er nightshirt, and settled on her breast, and though that, too, was a surprise, she did not flinch. She was growing accustomed to these new and pleasurable things he was doing, and now she waited for them with anticipation.
James groaned and turned, pulling her beneath him. His body was heavy on hers, pressing her into the soft mattress. His mouth left hers to roam down over her throat, and a shudder shook him. Suddenly he let out a low moan of an entirely different sort, a sound of loss and desperation. “No . . . no . . . don’t go.” He buried his face in her neck, his hand clenching into the sheet beneath them. His breath, already hard and fast, came in pants. “I won’t . . .”
He shivered and rolled away from her, throwing his arm up over his eyes and muttering to himself. Laura sat up shakily, struggling to pull her tattered composure into order. He was delirious. She slipped off the bed, straightening her dressing gown and retying the loosened sash.
It was more difficult to pull her thoughts together. She sank down onto the chair, putting her head in her hands. She was a doctor’s daughter. She had long been aware of what went on between a man and woman. Or at least she had thought she understood. Clearly the mechanics of it didn’t begin to explain what actually happened.
She sat back, leaning her head against the chair, and took a calming breath. Eleven years ago Graeme had kissed her a few times—sweet, stolen kisses that had made her pulse quicken and promised a rosy future.
But it had been nothing like the fierce way James crushed his lips to hers and invaded her mouth. The way his hands roamed her body. She closed her eyes, remembering his palm cupping her breast, his thumb teasing at her nipple through the cloth. His ragged breath as he rolled over, pinning her to the mattress beneath him. The thickened flesh beneath the cloth of his trousers and the way it pulsed against her hand.
Her cheeks flamed at the memory—not just with embarrassment, but with another kind of heat altogether. For however unexpected his kisses had been, they had not been as astonishing as her own reaction. Her entire body had simply burst into flame. She’d wanted to press her body into his; she’d reveled in the weight of him on her, the intensity of his passion.
