Danice Allen (7 page)

“I have ascertained a great deal already, but why don’t you tell me what happened, Rob?” said Julian, folding his arms across his chest, standing with his feet slightly spread. “Bore me with every detail, if you please.”

When Rob was finished, Charlotte said, “Oh, Lord Serling, isn’t it a dreadful business?” She looked up at Julian with a sincerely despairing expression in her soft green eyes, which were a lovely complement to her auburn hair. “What can have happened to him? I’m so afraid he’s met with …
foul play!”
Her voice trembled on those last words, and her eyes grew misty.

Julian was touched. Though he disapproved of many of Jack’s actions, his younger brother’s engagement to Charlotte Batsford was a delightful surprise. Despite the appalling example her mother set her and the ineffective blusters of her father in trying to control his domineering wife, Charlotte Batsford was a female in possession of some fine qualities.

Before Charlotte, Julian had watched with tried patience as Jack lost his impetuous heart and squandered his money on a dozen ladybirds in half as many years. He refused to take a lesson from his older brother and conduct his
affaires d’amour
with dignity and discretion. Jack used to laugh and accuse Julian of being a block of English ice. Then he’d clap his brother on the back and offer to buy him a brew.

In the war, Jack had been a courageous officer, never asking the enlisted men he commanded to do anything he wouldn’t do himself. He was sent home from the peninsula when he received a serious injury to his right knee. It took him several months to walk without a cane, and even now, he sometimes limped when he was tired or overtaxed.

Jack was generous to a fault, fond of practical jokes, and addicted to flirting. But above all, he was just and honorable.

In looks, as well as in many facets of their personalities, Julian and Jack were as proverbially different as night and day. Julian was as fair-haired as a Viking, and Jack was as swarthy and dark-haired as a gypsy. But they were as loyal to each other as two brothers could possibly be. Affection for Jack ran deep and powerful beneath the placid surface of Julian’s elegant facade, and he resented Lady Batsford’s insinuation that Jack was ducking his duty and putting them all in a fret just to avoid the nuptial knot.

Julian knew Rob had been about to imply—with that adroitly delivered unfinished sentence—that Jack was regretting his betrothal. Self-interest was involved here … he was sure of it. Rob wanted Charlotte for himself, though why he supposed she’d ever have him or her parents would ever allow her to marry such a worthless fellow was beyond Julian’s comprehension,

Maybe Jack
did
regret his betrothal. Maybe he had admitted as much to Rob. But as Julian said himself, Jack wouldn’t jilt Charlotte even if he were as soused as a pickle. Like Charlotte, Julian very much feared that Jack had met with foul play … or some sort of unforeseen misfortune. It was the only explanation for his strange disappearance.

“I won’t trifle with your feelings and offend your intelligence, Miss Batsford, by telling you not to worry,” said Julian. “We have every reason to worry.”

Charlotte grew more pale, and a single tear escaped the comer of her eye. Embarrassed, she turned away and surreptitiously used her handkerchief to wipe away the evidence of her distress. Julian liked her better for trying to control her emotions. He detested female watering pots. It was plain that Charlotte’s grief, though restrained, was absolutely genuine.

“Why frighten the girl, Serling?” said Rob through gritted teeth, throwing Julian an accusing glare as he sat down beside Charlotte and reclaimed her hand. “I’m sure Jack will turn up,” he told her soothingly. “He’s like a bad penny, you know,” he added, in an attempt to lighten the mood.

Charlotte tried to smile at Rob’s witticism, but her gaze lifted to Julian’s face. “You say we have reason to worry, my lord … but might I at least
hope
that all will be well in the end?”

Julian smiled, the warmth of his approval meant for Charlotte alone. “I’m counting on your hope
and
your prayers, Miss Batsford. I’m worried, but I’m by no means hopeless. In fact, I’m quite determined to find Jack no matter where the ramshackle fellow has disappeared to.”

Her relief was visible. It was obvious Jack’s little bride-to-be had confidence in Julian’s determination. She slipped her hand out of Rob’s grasp and offered it to Julian. Rob scowled as he watched Julian lift her hand to his lips and lightly kiss it.

“I’ll leave first thing tomorrow morning, at cock’s crow,” said Julian, businesslike and brisk after he’d released Charlotte’s hand. “Every nook and cranny of this great island shall be scoured, if need be, starting in West Sussex.” He bowed. “I’ll keep you informed, Miss Batsford,” he promised her.

“Is there anything I can do, my lord?” asked Sir Thomas, stepping forward with an anxious expression.

“Nothing at present, Sir Thomas. Thank you for the offer,” Julian returned, coolly polite. He bowed again, punctiliously including Lady Batsford in his departing salute. She merely sat there, silent and ashen-faced.

Julian was glad the shallow woman had held her slanderous tongue during his short visit, or he might not have been able to refrain from humbling her with one of his famous snubs. To Lady Batsford, Jack’s disappearance meant a social embarrassment and the necessity of sending out hundreds of notes that night to announce the indefinite delay of the wedding. She didn’t care whether or not Jack was lost, dead, or shanghaied to China.

But Julian cared. He cared very much indeed.

Chapter 4

“Behind you, Evans! Blast it, man, look behind you!
Nooooo!”

Amanda woke up with a start. She was disoriented at first, and her eyes darted anxiously about the room till everything came back to her in a rush: her spontaneous trip to Thorney Island, the accident, the handsome stranger, the doctor.

She sat up abruptly. The single candle she’d left burning beside the stranger’s bed had extinguished, and the room was dark except for the embers of the fire. Around midnight, still fully clothed, she’d laid down on the cot to doze a little before rechecking the stranger’s temperature and had fallen sound asleep!

She quickly snapped open the watch locket pinned to her bodice and leaned toward the dim glow of the fire to ascertain the time. It was three o’clock in the morning!

“You had too much faith in me, doctor,” she muttered under her breath as she rose to her feet. “You said I couldn’t do anything wrong. Well, I’ve just ignored my patient for three hours, and heaven knows what condition he’s in!”

Amanda quickly crossed the cold floor to the stranger’s bed. She could hear him moving about and hurriedly lighted another candle and set it on the bedside table. She was shocked at her first clear view of him; he’d changed from looking as pale and still as a marble effigy atop someone’s tomb to looking flushed and restless.

His black hair was damp and wildly tumbled on the pillow from turning his head from side to side. His lips looked parched, and the front of his shirt was soaked through with sweat. He mumbled unintelligibly and shouted exclamations that plainly revealed that he was delirious and reliving horrific experiences of some battle.

Riddled with guilt and the fear that she may have neglected her duty just long enough to guarantee the stranger’s death, Amanda set to work with a vengeance. She threw back the bedclothes, determined to follow the doctor’s instructions down to the letter even if it made her blush crimson. He’d clearly said that if the stranger developed a fever, she was to strip him down to nothing.

Amanda bit her lip as the man’s long, muscled legs were revealed below the hem of his long shirt, the tail of which barely covered his private parts. She knew now that the gentleman did not embrace the practice of wearing drawers. But soon it wouldn’t matter, anyway. She had to take his shirt off, and then he’d be as naked as a babe … but with the developed body of a mature man.

Swallowing nervously, trying to be as objective as a nurse might be in the same situation, she unbuttoned his shirt with trembling fingers. There were a great many small slippery buttons, and she had to lean close to his body to see what she was doing.

With his shirt half open and a glimpse of his chest impairing her concentration, his right arm suddenly lifted and curved around her shoulders, flattening her upper body against him. With her nose buried in crisp curling hair, and a hard nipple pushing into her cheek, Amanda braced her hands against the man’s chest and tried to straighten up.

“No, Laura,” said the man in a thick voice. “Don’t go, love. I need you….”

Then, just as suddenly as he’d grabbed her, he let her go. Amanda straightened immediately and worked faster on the buttons, worried that he might take another notion to pin her down to that hard, broad chest.

Chastising herself for being so unforgivably carnal as to admire his physique when she needed all her concentration to save his life, Amanda pulled off the shirt without stopping to think or look or register any sort of emotion. The shirt turned out to be much easier to take off than his jacket, particularly since he was constantly moving and lifting his arms instead of lying still.

The shirt was off and on the floor, and Amanda walked to a little chest of drawers where she had a basin of vinegar water and a cloth ready and waiting. She dropped the cloth in the water, carried the basin to the bedside table, then set it down.

She hesitated for a few seconds as she tried to convince herself that she could sponge the gentleman off without allowing her eyes to stray to “that part” of his anatomy. She wondered if perhaps singing a hymn would help her thoughts remain chaste while she worked to get his fever, as well as her own alarmingly warm thoughts, under control.

She wrung out the cloth and began by pressing it to the stranger’s hot forehead. He immediately responded with a sort of grateful gasp. And when she began to sing in a breathless, barely audible voice, she sensed a general calm wash over him.

Could it be possible? she wondered, amazed and flattered. Could she really be a comforting influence to this strange man? Thinking that perhaps the words of the song were what comforted him, she sang a little louder. She decided that perhaps he was a respectable, religious man after all if he could be soothed by a hymn.

She slid the cloth over his face, along his jaw—scratchy with the beginnings of a black beard—over his dry lips and down his neck. It was a strong, tightly corded neck that curved into broad, brown shoulders. She dipped her cloth again and bathed his shoulders and chest, circling self-consciously around his small wine-colored nipples.

At this point, she had to stop singing for a moment to swallow hard. Then she resumed her song in a stronger, more determined voice. This time she was singing entirely for herself … trying to bolster her own wavering courage as she approached that part of his body she’d been trying to pretend didn’t exist.

But it did exist, and with a freshly dipped cloth making its way down his taut, flat abdomen, she was forced at last to face reality.

Amanda’s song caught in her throat. Naturally she’d never seen a naked male body before, but once, when she was looking in her father’s expansive library for a medical book that would explain some of Prissy’s arthritic symptoms, she had run across a volume that diagrammed both male and female forms. So, while she was not entirely unprepared for what she saw, seeing it in the flesh, so to speak, was rather stunning. She looked … fascinated and not the least bit properly repelled.

“Gretta?”

Amanda jerked guiltily when the stranger spoke.

“Why are you stopping, Gretta?” he asked in a weak, plaintive voice. “I like it when you bathe me, sweetheart.”

In his delirium, he seemed to bounce from the battlefield to the bedchamber in the blink of an eye. Amanda wondered what had happened to Laura, whom he had mentioned only moments before, and decided that perhaps she’d been precipitate in bestowing him with a religious nature. Theo’s conjecture, that he was a rogue, was probably much closer to the mark.

Amanda ran the cool cloth down both long legs. She discovered a thick, ugly scar on his right knee that made her wince. She could imagine how serious the wound had been when it was fresh. She thoroughly dampened down every inch of his body, then started at the top again and repeated the exercise several times. After an hour of these intimate ministrations, she noticed that his skin felt cooler and had returned to a more natural color. Glancing in a mirror near the bed, however, she observed that her own complexion was exceedingly rosy.

But how could it be otherwise? She had just attained a thorough knowledge of the physique of the male sex and a detailed familiarity with one very masculine body in particular. Every significant mole, every angle of bone and curve of lean muscle was etched on her memory forever. As long as she lived, she’d never be able to erase from her mind the image of this stranger stretched out naked on the bed.

Like a guilty pleasure, the sight of him was stirring and disturbing at the same time. She knew she had no choice but to look at him … but she
enjoyed
looking.

It was a long night for Amanda. Once she got his fever down, however, she was grateful to be able to cover him up again. He continued to be restless and to talk in his sleep, naming several more females. In connection with these names, there was sometimes a fleeting smile on his lips, a bawdy suggestion, or a soft-spoken endearment. Amanda could no longer ignore the obvious; whether he was married or not, the stranger was definitely a lady’s man.

Near dawn, the stranger seemed to fall into a more natural sleep. Instead of lying flat on his back in a funereal pose, he actually shifted onto his side, drew his knees up, and tucked his hands against his chest. Feeling much more at ease about his condition but still worried that he might have a relapse, Amanda drew the rocking chair near the bed and sat down.

She had been sitting only a very few minutes when she realized how cold the room was. She got up and threw kindling and a large log on the fire and stoked the embers. When she returned to the rocking chair, she drew her feet up under her skirt and wrapped herself in the quilt but she was still cold.