Regency Rogues Omnibus (122 page)

“All the way in,” Arabella instructed Darth moments later, when he returned to her side with the bucket of cold water. She lifted Billy’s arm carefully as Darth supported Billy’s back with one hand and used his other hand to position the bucket.

“Miss? Miss? Peter the oxen keeper, over here, believes his arm is broken. Can you help? He’s in an awful lot of pain, Miss?” Arabella swiped a hand across her brow and called out. “Yes, I will be right there.”

Then she dared to look at Darth for the first time — who look as if he were Satan himself, with black soot covering his face and emphasizing his scarring. It was impossible to tell his temperament. “This water should be kept as cold as possible, Darth. Changing it every five minutes would not be out of order. Billy might get sleepy on you because I have given him something for the pain.”

“I will see to it,” Darth murmured, and with this reassurance Arabella rose fearlessly and went to see about the man named Peter with the broken arm. “Thank you, little dove.” Darth’s voice sounded out of the darkness behind her, and Arabella sighed in relief as she hurried forward. It appeared her dark master was not furious with her. She wondered fleetingly whether this could be a change in their unusual relationship. Perhaps soon she might be able to tell Darth about Nicholas?

When she arrived by Peter’s side, he proved to be a man of considerable weight and breath with a disagreeable nature and an aversion to letting women help him. “No, wee little split-tail, whit men’s breeches on is going to touch me er do any good!” he declared right away as Arabella pursed her lips looking up at the brawny brute.

Indeed,
Arabella thought, he was probably right, by the looks of it his shoulder was dislocated, and while she could have set it, he was simply too big. Still, she allowed him the gruffness because he was in obvious pain.

“I could give you something for the pain,” she suggested. “That would not be touching you.”

“Well, I don’t know, little split-tail, whiskey would do me fine ... Ah!” Peter suddenly wailed, because Darth had appeared at Peter’s side, laying a hard grip to his injured arm.

“What did you call her?” Darth hissed as Peter turned white beneath Darth’s glare and tightening grip.

“I-I!” Peter yelped.

“Apologize, to the lady,” Darth hissed angrily. “Then thank her for even offering to help the likes of you.”

“Darth, it is all right...” Arabella began, only to be silenced by his glare. He truly did look like a black ghoulish avenger with all that soot, she thought.

“Please, me lady. Please be excusing me manners, er me words. It is the pain I’m thinking,” Peter whined.

Darth dropped Peter’s arm and stepped toward Arabella saying, “This man can suffer, until the doctor arrives.”

Arabella considered that it was fine with her. She had not liked being called a split-tail, it sounded crude, however she was not really certain what the words meant. Yet the gleam in burly Peter’s eyes on his last quote of it was enough to warn her it was likely very inappropriate.

“Yer, lordship, I truly regret...” Peter stammered behind them, as Darth guided Arabella away ordering over his shoulder.

“Shut up!”

“Was it truly that bad, Darth, what he called me?” Arabella questioned, in all innocence.

“It was,” Darth growled.

His anger had not gone away, but merely been constrained by his willpower. However with Arabella’s query, her pure innocence struck him again and visions of how vulnerable that innocence made her blazed the way inside him, forging fierce protectiveness. He would do well to remember that Arabella was not from the more jaded English culture. Being bought and sold as a bond’s maid lent one to believe of more worldly knowledge on Arabella’s part. But such was not the case. He had been privy to it enough now, in their short time together, to know Arabella’s inexperience was true and a fact.

“I-I, should check the injured again, Darth,” she said, interrupting his thoughts. “I hope the doctor comes soon. I am only a simple healer and some of these people need so much more.”

“You have saved lives,” Darth assured her as she turned and he followed discreetly behind her, ready to help her if need be.

Chapter Fifteen

Several hours later, found Arabella still standing vigil beside the young Billy McFarden with the severely burned arm. It had proven to be the most serious injury of all the people injured that night and Darth stepped inside the cottage having just spoken to the boy’s father outside. But for a moment he moved no further into the room, instead standing silent as he watched Arabella.

She sat speaking softly to the boy’s mother, reassuring her, promising to come by tomorrow. The doctor had told Darth that Arabella’s quick actions concerning the boy saved his arm. It would be scarred, but the blessing was the boy would live. Darth hated that sequence of words. “Would be scarred, but the blessing is to live.” It was as if one should be grateful for the life. A natural assumption that anyone should be grateful to live no matter what the circumstances.

Not that he’d ever wished for his own death, except perhaps for seconds during the darkest ravings of pain. Nay, he was thankful to be alive. Life continually offered some type of hope. He simply questioned the quality of life such a statement threatened. It was, he’d decided many years ago, a rather pompous statement to come from anyone who was not actually the afflicted.

But within his morose thoughts, Darth recognized how tired he was. So he shook his thoughts away and brought his attention back to Arabella, who was looking at him while he had been unaware of the fact. He wondered how long she had been poised so. Not many people would engage in such a perusal of him. He could not think it was pleasant. Yet, Arabella did it, and she did it as if it were normal.

He noticed with pleasure her smile, more endearing for the smudges of soot across her pretty nose. Then without any outward show of hesitation, he held his hand out to her. His heartbeat lifted as she came forward to take hold of his hand. She did it as naturally as if they had been doing it for years. Then together they took their leave holding hands. It took him only a few moments to notice that she was walking strangely. Glancing down it became apparent why and without further thought to the matter, he swept her up into his arms to carry her to the manor. She squealed his name in surprise, grasping his shoulders, as he said simply. “You have no shoes on and what in the world is it that you are wearing?”

Arabella appeared flustered with sudden wariness in her flaxen eyes. “Darth, I …” she began haltingly, and then she hid her gaze over his shoulder.

“It is very inventive, Arabella,” he said quickly as he tightened his arms around her. “I am impressed.”

She peeked at him, trying to judge his words and his actions, so he smiled, in truth because it felt good and he knew that Arabella needed it. Then she sighed and buried her face into his neck. “I am so glad you are not mad at me,” she whispered.

Darth entered the hall and instead of going upstairs as Arabella had expected, he turned toward the kitchen. She thought fleetingly that he could have set her down now, but she was glad that he did not. Being carried in a man’s arms was a memorable experience. She was not sure if she ever wanted to be anywhere else but hugged up against Darth’s broad chest.

Darth entered the kitchen, taking Arabella over to the counter by the basin sink and pump. He was reluctant to let her go, but he had a purpose. So he set her on top of the counter, facing him. The height put them nearly at eye level as he stood in front of her. The honeyed colored warmth in Arabella’s eyes stopped his words for a moment as her hands stayed on his shoulders and his hands pressed into the slimness of her waist. It did not escape him, the subtle changing in their relationship.

“You have hurt your feet,” he stated, brushing aside his thoughts for more important concerns. Then he began to pull the sock gently off Arabella’s foot, to examine the bottom. His concern grew into irritation at himself as he looked at the cuts and scrapes marring the soft flesh on the sole of her foot. If he would have allowed her decent clothing this would not have happened.

“It does not hurt very much. It cannot be that bad,” she offered to his look of concern as he guided her foot over the edge of the basin. He took the other sock off as gently as the first, and then he worked the pump, until a steady stream of water came out of the spout.

“It will be cold, little dove,” Darth warned as he stuck Arabella’s feet under the water and he began to carefully wash them. “Do you have any salve for cuts and scrapes in that treasure satchel of yours?”

Arabella smiled brightly, looking enchanting, despite the black soot smudging her oval face. “Oh, I have thyme and yarrow, which would do nicely. But then I think I have run out of the salve for cuts.” She lifted the strap of the satchel off her shoulder and set it in front of her to look inside. “I could make some though, but I am nearly out of nightshade. I wonder if I can find the plant here to replace it. England is so much colder than Jamaica. Have you ever heard of nightshade growing around here, Darth?” Darth barely shook his head as she continued. “Cowslip will do in a pinch and I have some of that.
Oh
, and here is some of the salve for cuts, there is still a little in the jar.”

Darth chuckled — his little dove was animated about these herbs and remedies she carried. She came into full blossom as he listened attentively to her enlivened discourse. Her feet were washed and the salve rubbed into the scrapes, with the socks returned, the whole while he learned of herbs whose names he would never begin to remember. But he kept nodding his head as if he understood everything Arabella said, completely enjoying the sound of her rich voice.

Finally, he caught her taking a breath, and he quickly interjected. “Are you hungry, Arabella?”

She seemed to suddenly realize that she’d been rambling, caught up in her verse and a blush lightly tinted her cheeks as her mouth clamped shut. Then she murmured rather demurely, “Yes, Darth, I am very hungry.”

Darth snorted trying to hold back his laugh. “You are a treasure, my little dove,” he pronounced.

Arabella ducked her head, seeming unsure, as if he might be laughing at her and he grasped her calves, swinging her around to face him as his hand caught her chin, lifting the daintiness of it upward. “I am very interested in your herbs and would listen at any time that you care to go on about them.”

“Darth!” She shoved at his chest with a laugh of her own.

“Now truly, Arabella, besides my teasing I am interested in anything that interests you.” The arch of Arabella’s auburn eyebrow told him that she was unconvinced, as he stepped backward to pull his soot-stained buckskin shirt off. “We will have to wash up down here because we are not likely to get a bath out of Chicery till morning. Can you pump the water for me?”

Arabella’s answer was to go directly to the task, and while she pumped the water, Darth bent over the basin dunking his entire head.

“Do you want some soap, Darth?” she questioned.

“I suppose that I had better, this soot is not coming off very easily.” Darth’s hand reached out and a cake of soap was placed into it. “I only have the jasmine here, Darth.” Darth plied it to his hair vigorously. “I will enjoy smelling of jasmine, little dove, it reminds me of one of my favorite things.”

Arabella was immersed in the pleasure of watching Darth washing his hair and never really heard his words. It seemed that all she could concentrate on were his broad shoulders, which were bunching and stretching in a sinewy way as his upper arm muscles ballooned outward with the motions he used to wash his hair. She felt an intense urge to run her hands over the muscular bulge of his upper arms, to feel them flex beneath her palms. He exuded power and strength throughout his tall frame and once again she found herself feeling thrilled at looking so intimately at his hard masculine body.

“Is the soap all out?”

Arabella had to bring herself around from her preoccupation, feeling highly flustered. “Y-Yes ... Darth.”
Oh, her voice wavered
.

Darth threw his head back and water sprayed her as he shook it once again like a great powerful animal. His gray eyes locked onto hers as a slow smile spread across his severed lips. She knew that smile and she bit her bottom lip, feeling captured beneath the heat of his gaze. Then his gaze traveled unerringly to her breasts, with heated scrutiny, and she could feel the buds of her beaded nipples rubbing against the coarse material of Darth’s shirt.
Could he see them
, she wondered, afraid to look down or even away from him?

“Now it is your turn to wash.”

Darth’s voice was low and smooth and all the memories of earlier came flooding back as a slow burn centered in between Arabella’s thighs. The pulse at the base of her throat was throbbing as Darth took a wet cloth to her face, before she knew what he was about. She welcomed the cool wetness to her fevered cheeks.

His task was worked at carefully as he pressed his body forward, until she had no choice but to open her legs, which left his lean bare stomach planted firmly between her thighs. Then the wet cloth was beneath the open collar of her shirt, sliding wetly over the tops of her breasts as her hands finally did find the tight muscular brawn of Darth’s upper arms. She held on for dear life as Darth moved the cloth lower, to scrub over her sensitive nipples beneath the shirt.