Seductive Wager (21 page)

“You were shot a week ago. We’ve been here for six days.” She could understand his feeling of surprise, but the foulness of his curses brought a flush to her cheeks. Worn down by lack of sleep, continual worry, and a feeling of guilt, her temper rose quickly, and before she could stop to think, she blurted out, “I’m sorry you’ve been inconvenienced, but I couldn’t arrange for you to get well any faster. If I’d known it was so important, I could have spoken to Martin and he might have shot you sooner. Maybe you should hand around a schedule of your engagements next time.”

He blinked at her, bewildered by her sudden outburst, and immediately Kate was sorry. Her hand flew to her mouth, and she jumped up from her chair and stumbled over to the window, her finger between her teeth and wishing it had been her tongue before she spoke. Would she never learn to control her temper? Would she always speak in anger before she thought about the consequences?

“I’m sorry,” she stammered. “That was rude and I don’t know why I said it. I guess I’m a little tired.”

Brett looked at her as closely as he could from his position. “Maybe you ought to take some of my medicine and he down for a while,” he suggested. He didn’t understand what was bothering her, but he was feeling too awful to be able to cope with her problems now.

“I don’t feel tired, I don’t want to lie down, and I certainly don’t need any medicine to keep me calm,” Kate replied promptly, turning around to face him. “You shouldn’t have started cursing me. I’ve spent six days and nights in that chair laboring over those vile poultices, pouring medicine down your throat, and worrying myself sick wondering whether you’d get well or if your death would be on my conscience for the rest of my life. Then the first thing you do when you wake up is curse me.” She turned her back on him again and busied herself straightening up the table next to her chair.

“I wasn’t cursing you,” he said in a tired voice, “rather the dilemma I find myself in because of this illness. I didn’t mean to say anything to upset you, particularly not after you’ve worked so hard to save my life.”

Kate sniffed, slightly mollified, but she didn’t seem ready to forgive him.

Brett shook his head; she was going to be difficult, and he was too weak to think about it right now. He’d talk to Valentine later and see if she could explain this girl to him. There wasn’t much about young girls Valentine didn’t know.

For now, however, just looking at her was arousing his senses and he was in no condition to endure the frustration of teased and unfulfilled excitement. Even now he could feel his body tensing. He closed his eyes and forced himself to think about his wound. “I think I’ll take a short nap. Wake me when it’s time to eat.”

Kate turned to face him, but he had thrown off his sheet and she was brought up short by the blatant signs of his arousal.
That man is worse than a mating bull,
she thought angrily.
All he has to do is clap his eyes on a female, and he’s ready to devour her without a by-your-leave.

“Lunch will be served in about an hour, but I will not make up any part of the menu,” she informed him and sailed out of the room.

Brett smiled dreamily. She was not only beautiful, but she had spirit, by God. And some day she would learn to be
proud
of what her beauty could do to a man, not frightened by their arousal or filled with prudish inhibitions. It would be a pleasure to teach her how to respond to a man, how to tease and tantalize, to drive him nearly insane before giving him pleasure beyond words. And he would teach her, that he swore, before either of them grew much older.

A satisfied smile spread across Brett’s lips and he drifted off to sleep.

Chapter 12

Brett had company for lunch. Valentine announced she was tired of dining by herself while Kate ate in Brett’s room, so a table was brought in and lunch was laid for three.

“You don’t think I’m going to eat this slop, do you?” Brett complained, scowling at the chicken broth and barley water which constituted his lunch.

“You’re going to eat what the doctor ordered,” Kate stated firmly, “or I’ll give you enough medicine to knock you out. Then I’ll pour it down your throat.” Valentine and Charles exchanged uneasy glances, but Brett simply looked amused and surprised them both by eating his unappetizing lunch without further argument. He then took a short nap and spent the rest of the afternoon closeted with Charles.

“What do they talk about for so long?” Valentine demanded of Kate for the twentieth time. “Young girls telling secrets are not so bad. They have been locked away for two hours, and still they do not finish.”

“When we left Ryehill, Brett said he had to be in France in two days. That was seven days ago. Maybe something important has happened since then.”

“What can he know when he has lain like the dead for five days?”

“He could have known something was
going
to happen without actually being there to see it.”

“Il est possible,”
Valentine admitted reluctantly, “but he should tell us, too. Here nothing ever happens. Even the tiniest bit of news would be better than to hear of Emilie Crecy’s new baby or the progress of the wheat crop.”

“That does sound a little dreary,” Kate agreed, “but rather reassuring. Nothing
ordinary
has happened to me since I left Ryehill.”

“And whose fault is that?”

“I don’t know. Probably as much mine as Brett’s, but he won’t listen to anything I suggest. He’s sure I’m utterly stupid and incapable of doing anything for myself. I feel like a prize to be handed out to some unlucky winner.”

Valentine eyed her skeptically. “You
are
a great prize, you know.” She laughed at the anger in Kate’s eyes.
“Mon Dieu,
do not fight it so. Mind you, I was a great beauty. Still, I would give five years of my youth to look like you. Your features are perfection and still you are not insipid. There is life, color, and an energy in you that should not belong to anyone who is not French.” She read the look of disbelief in Kate’s eyes.

“Mother of God, girl. Do men not stare at you with their mouths open? And Brett, did he not make advances?” Kate blushed. “I thought so, the old
roué.”

“Mr. Westbrook told me several times he found me attractive and that, uh … he had difficulty, uh … behaving himself.”

“Humph! That Brett Westbrook ever behaved himself I do not believe, not since he was old enough to steal his first kiss
certainement.
That he would attack you is more likely. But what of other men? Do not hundreds of them sent you
billetdoux?”

“I never had any beaux.”

“C’est impossible!”

“Martin wouldn’t take me anywhere. Those men at his card party were the first I had seen in months. We didn’t even have a stable boy. The youngest manservant in the castle was old Ned, and he’s a grandfather at the very least.”

“But how do you live?”

“I found things to do.”

“But not to have seen a young man in four years!” Valentine crossed herself. “What kind of man was
votre frere
to have done such a thing? There must be demons in his head.”

“Martin hated me, and I grew to dislike him nearly as much. I kept to my room when he was home.”

“Blessed Virgin, how it is possible to stay in one room and not lose the mind?
Pauvre enfant.
You have been cruelly used.”

“I didn’t like it much, but Martin was gone most of the time. The only person who bothered me then was the housekeeper.”

“The housekeeper?”

“Martin’s mistress. If he cared for anyone, it would have been Isabella.”

“Il est un bête!”
Valentine declared with feeling. “It must have been terrible.”

“It
was
lonely. I couldn’t even go to church. I read a lot until Martin sold the books.”

“Quelle horreurs!”
Valentine gasped. “Do the English do this often?”

“I don’t think so,” Kate replied with a laugh. “There were never very many guests when I lived with my aunt, but she seemed to take pleasure in the visit and the visitors. I know I did. Even though most of them were older, I was always anxious to meet anyone new. Do you realize I’ve seen almost as many new faces in this last week as I’ve seen in my whole life?”

“Incroyable!
I am surprised I do not cry just thinking about it.”

“Please don’t,” Kate begged. “I seem to be crying all the time, and if Brett finds out I’ve been making you cry as well, he’s likely to wring my neck. I don’t want to try his patience too far. He might leave me here, and I haven’t a farthing to pay my passage back to England.”

Valentine didn’t want to add to Kate’s discomfort, but she wanted to know more about her relationship with Brett. She was sure it was more than just a cousin being escorted to Paris. She doubted they were related at all. “Brett will not leave you here. He is taking you to Paris and the
vieille tante, n’est-ce pas?”

Kate regretted her thoughtless words, especially since she wasn’t prepared to tell anyone the whole truth. She had intended to ask Valentine to help her escape, but she still hadn’t come up with a plan and she was unwilling to disclose her awkward situation before she had worked out exactly what she meant to do.

“Don’t listen to me,” Kate said, producing a facile laugh. “I’m so tired I’m saying foolish things. I don’t know what changes this accident will make in Brett’s plans, but I’m certain he will take me to Paris.”

Before Valentine could pursue the subject further, Charles entered the parlor carrying several thick letters and wearing a heavy frown.

“Mr. Westbrook wants these posted right away,” he said.

That broke up the conversation. Valentine went away to see about dinner, and Kate went to see how Brett had survived the session. She found him looking very tired and enduring a stern lecture from Dr. Burton with ill grace.

“Tried to do too much, didn’t you?” the doctor chided. “First time you open your eyes and you spend the whole day writing letters and arguing about knotty problems. Now you’re weak as a babe and feverish besides. I never knew a young buck who had sense enough to lie back and let himself get well. You’re always trying to rush things.” He pulled the new dressings tight enough to make Brett wince. “You make sure he takes his medicine,” he said to Kate. “At least he’ll sleep through the night.”

“I’d prefer not to be drugged,” Brett said, trying to keep a rein on his temper.

“When I want your opinion, young man, I’ll find a subject on which you’re an expert. Medicine’s my business, and I’m damned good at it. You’ll swallow your usual dose, or I’ll pour it down your throat.”

“That’s the second time today someone has threatened to use force on me,” Brett said, grinding his teeth in fury. “No one has succeeded yet.”

“But I have you at a disadvantage, don’t I?” countered the doctor, undeterred by Brett’s rudeness. “In a few days it’ll be a different tale, but right now your strength would give out after a short struggle, so you might as well try and mend your temper. You won’t get anywhere with me by being churlish, and I know Miss Vareyan’s not afraid of you.”

Kate’s weak smile did nothing to lighten Brett’s mood. He closed his mouth tightly and would say no more. The doctor filled the void with inconsequential chatter, and admonished Brett to “be less irascible. Tension retards the healing process.”

Left alone, Kate and Brett glared at each other like two cats. What did she mean by staring at him as though he were a child to be reproved for bad behavior. He was unaccustomed to females who didn’t defer to his wishes, and he was tired of putting up with this bumptious, mercurial girl. She’d been trouble from the first time he set eyes on her.

The recollection of that evening launched a different train of thought in his mind, and in seconds the heat of his anger had turned to a very different kind of warmth. He remembered her in the candlelight, skin like ivory satin and hair of corn-silk gold, a generous mouth demanding to be crushed in a torrid kiss. His eyes traveled down the white column of her, throat to the youthful thrust of her full breasts and he felt the heat begin to course through his veins.

He thought of a certain countess whose voluptuous body had provided him with many a pleasure-filled evening and wondered how he could ever have been attracted to such overripe beauty. He compared her lush charms to the slender, clean lines of Kate’s body and discovered it was like comparing a broodmare to a racing filly. There was lithe grace in Kate’s movements, her flesh was firm and cleanly molded to her bones and she was filled with all the fire and determination of a young and vibrant animal lusting for life, willing to take it by the throat, willing to risk all to gain everything. That was his own attitude toward life, and to see it in a young and beautiful woman filled him with a passionate need to possess her, to claim her body
and
soul as his own.

Kate broke in on his pleasurable meanderings as though she had been reading his mind.

“Before your burgeoning lusts put you beyond the reach of rational conversation, I’d like to talk to you about my future.” She fixed him with a baleful eye. “My honorable future!”

“Can’t that wait a while?” Brett asked, reluctantly tearing his eyes from their contemplation of her body. “No one in England knows where you are, and no one here knows
who
you are.”