The Danger of Desire (9 page)

When Timmy was done and exhausted from the efforts, he allowed the captain and her to lead him back downstairs, to a pallet the captain must have had made up on the kitchen floor. The poor boy was out like a rush light in less time than it took to pull the soft blankets over him. Meggs would have slept there, too, right beside him, but a strong hand came to her elbow.

“Come, you have to see to yourself.”

“I’ll stay with him.” She was too weary, too bone tired to do anything else. She ached everywhere, now that she stopped to take inventory, not just in her hand and head. But the captain managed to haul her to her feet despite her protests. And he kept hold of her arm, propping her upright.

“You’re in no shape to see to him. God knows how you’re even standing after what we washed out of your hand,” he growled, all angry complaint. “And you ought not to sleep after that bump on your head. What you need is a little nourishing food. Obviously, a very little. And a full bath,” he muttered under his breath.

“A bath?” Jesus, what was she getting herself into, sounding all hopeful like that? But a bath? A real bath, with a tub full of warm water? God help her, it had been forever.

“A hot bath.” He nodded at her, all grim determination. “You smell like a ... stable. And God knows what other passengers you’re harboring under that grime.”

“I wash regular-like. I ain’t got cooties.”

“
Haven’t
got. But that remains to be seen. Your clothes are filthy.”

“Yeah, well, them’s all I got.”

“All I
have,
” he corrected.

“Yeah, that, too.”

“Nevertheless—a bath. You’ll take it, or I’ll
give
it. Your choice.”

Something strange and liquid-feeling uncoiled and stretched deep in her belly. Probably just the thought of food. She hadn’t eaten in a day, and she hadn’t had anything that hadn’t come off a cart in quite some time before that.

“I don’t need no help. I know ’ow to take a bath.”

“
Any
help.” He looked her over again for such a long, still moment and with such focused intensity, she couldn’t remember what she was supposed to think. Or what to hope. When he looked at her like that, as if he could see
inside
her, she wanted to hide. Inside him. Inside the strange generosity of his unwavering focus.

What in thunderation was she going on about? Clearly now, it was
she
who was well and proper dicked in the nob.

“In here,” he directed.

The room at the end of the hall beyond the kitchen was nothing but a laundry. There were wooden drying racks suspended from the ceiling, and it smelled homey, of vinegar and starch and ... verbena. How funny. Hadn’t smelt that in years.

Oh, but a large copper tub stood in the middle of the slate floor, and beyond it, a fire glowed in the hearth. Meggs was drawn closer to the lodestone of the tub and let her fingers find the water. “Oh! It’s hot!” Her hand was already at the buttons of the shabby, oversize shirt. It had been so long, so very, very long, since she had had the simple luxury of hot water. Her skin felt scaled and itchy in anticipation.

But he would never understand. He was nothing but gruff command. “It won’t kill you. You’re to wash all over,” he instructed grimly. “From the top of your head, down to your toes. Under your arms and ... all around.” He turned his head away and pulled a thick, dry cloth off one of the racks. “Keep that bandage dry, or you’ll answer to me. I’ll find you some clean clothes to change into.” He turned on his booted heel and slammed his way out of the room.

Once the door was closed behind him, Meggs skibbled over, quick-like, to check the lock and throw the bolt. Still, what was there to fear at this point? The captain seemed truly to be on the up and up. If he hadn’t taken her when she was out cold and couldn’t fight, chances were he wasn’t going to try now.

And a bath. It was too much temptation to resist. She might risk nearly anything for a bath. And Himself, the captain, didn’t seem at all interested in her person, so to speak. Seemed disgusted really. As if he feared he’d catch some dread disease.

That thought sent her good hand up to her hair. And back down to her buttons. It was something like hard labor to peel off her raggedy clothes, especially the tattered breeches, with only one hand, but slowly she got the job done until she was exhausted, bare to her skin, and teetering into the tub.

Lord, it was so hot her toes felt as if they might burn right off her feet, but it felt good, too, to lower herself slowly into the steam. Oh, Lord, she hadn’t felt anything this warm in forever. She sat for a long, dreamy moment, luxuriating in the sublime feel of the water covering her skin. And the soap. It wasn’t anything all perfumed and pretty, but it was clean smelling, like the wind after a snow. But warm. And clean and fresh.

She took up the heavy bar and began to slowly wash. In just a few minutes of one-handed application, she was exhausted but feeling cleaner than she had in years.

The pain in her head abated a bit, and the ache in her hand subsided to a dull echo of its former self. Meggs leaned her head back against the rim and closed her eyes, for just a moment, to savor the heat and warmth and freshness. She knew she ought to make sure about the money—make sure it had gotten to Mr. Levy’s—and see to Timmy, but she would tend to that next.

Soon. Just as soon as she had a chance to rest.

Hugh tapped lightly at the door, listening for the tranquil, liquid sound of water from the tub, but the laundry was quiet. Too quiet. He keyed open the lock noisily, wanting to warn the girl and not take her off her guard. She didn’t seem to treat very well with surprise.

“Miss Tanner?” It seemed a bit ridiculous to call a career criminal “Miss.” The boy had called her “my Meggs.” An outstanding piece of luck, that—the boy showing up. Hugh could use the boy instead, if the girl didn’t heal, or couldn’t use her hand even when she did. He didn’t have the luxury of time to wait and find out. “Meg?”

Still, there was no answer. God’s balls. He had left her alone too long. Dr. Pervis had warned it was a bad thing to leave a person to sleep for too long with a concussion of the magnitude she had obviously suffered. And Hugh’s guilt at having helped cause said concussion, however inadvertently, was acute enough to make him vigilant.

He moved quickly to the side of the tub, already wondering if he ought to call the surgeon back, but his mind abruptly stopped functioning at what he saw.

A sleeping, naked girl. A wet, naked, pink-and-white-skinned girl, now all the accumulated grime had been scraped off. Except for her forearms, where the skin was not pale and white, but tanned. And from her neck up as well, her skin was slightly darker and wind-reddened.

Just like his.

But he was a man, a professional, an officer of his king and country. And she was only a scrap of a girl. She ought to take better care of herself. She ought not to have such stark evidence of having been out so long in all kinds of weather. She ought not to be sleeping, concussed and naked, pink and desirable, in his bath.

“You need to wear gloves,” he whispered for no reason other than his need to say it.

“No gloves,” she dictated from her stupor. “Interferes with the touch.”

Well. She had a point. And domestic servants had rough, tanned hands. And he needed her to be a servant. Certainly she should look the part of a scullery maid. There was no need for gloves. There was no need for concern.

And she was at least semiconscious. Perhaps she was not so badly concussed as he had feared. Still, he was standing there ogling her like the callowest youth. “Wake up. I can’t have you sleeping all night in a bath.”

With that, she seemed to come to, her dark, sooty lashes battering against her lids, realizing exactly where she was. And exactly where he was. She squinted and focused on him, and sharpened up. Immediately, she curled herself into a little protective ball, her arms wrapped around her knees. “What do you want?” She tossed her little chin at him and his eyes were drawn to her full, almost pouty lower lip.

“To make sure you’re clean and awake,” he answered mildly. “Be careful of that hand.”

She ignored his advice. “Why?” She wasn’t in the least bit coy or pouting, only blunt and straightforward, belligerent and frightened.

He did her the courtesy of understanding her meaning. “To prove to you a point. That I do not have
nefarious,
” he repeated her word, “intentions for either you or your brother. You are quite safe from me. You are here only to steal. This will be a purely professional relationship.”

“That how you act professional, then? Barge into me bath? For your information, professional thieves do not share baths.”

“They share everything. It makes no difference to me that you’re naked. I couldn’t care any less.” It was, however, a trial to keep his gaze steady on her black eyes when he had much rather look elsewhere. “The point is, there will be no secrets between us. I have to be able to trust you. And you need to trust me and understand I have absolutely no interest in you other than your nimble hands.” He didn’t have to try to sound aggravated—he
was
aggravated. And tired. It had been a damn near thing with her hand. It might well prove to be a nearer thing yet. He scowled at the offending appendage.

“Yes, your hand, which I have gone to considerable trouble to save from having to amputate this evening. So keep that bloody bandage dry!”

The girl lifted her hand up immediately and set it well away from the water. She swallowed whatever saucy reply she had thought to make. “That who that man was, then?” she asked with difficulty. “He’d come to ... ?”

“Yes,” he answered with all the bite of his unreasonable anger. But at the blanching of her face, he strove to adopt a more reasonable tone. Hugh knew her fear. He’d had to face it a time or two himself, most recently when he had awoken near sick to his stomach with pain in the surgery bay of a ship outbound from Acre. “Mr. Pervis is a surgeon. A former acquaintance from the navy. He came over from the Royal Hospital, here in Chelsea.”

She cloaked her fear in sullen stubbornness. “Never seen a surgeon in my life. Damn carrion crows.”

“Well, you were damned
lucky
to have a man so skilled, so near, to be able to see to you. Perhaps you think I should have simply let you continue to rot yourself to death?”

He wouldn’t let her break his gaze during the long silence, watching that uncomfortable truth sink into her face until she finally said, “I’m sorry. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Now, put your head forward. I’m going to wash your hair.”

The sullenness came swiftly back. “I can wash myself.”

“Not with one hand. Now put your head down or I’ll dunk you.”

She obeyed but watched him out of the corner of her eyes. He upended a ewer of warm water over her head in as impersonal a manner as possible. “Put your head back.” It was easier this way, giving blunt commands. And when he growled, she stayed all curled up in the ball, not open and pink like she had been when he’d first come in. It was better this way. More impersonal, more professional.

He took up the bar of soap and worked the lather through her hair. He was as gentle as could be, mindful for snarls and the concussed spot, but also wanting to make sure she wasn’t carrying any lice. But she looked clean enough. Under the foam of the soap, her hair appeared to be a dark sable brown, shot through with richer, brighter colors. It was long and slick straight, flowing at least halfway down her back in a dark fall of wet silk.

And truth was, he wanted to wash her hair because he simply, impossibly, wanted to touch her again. Back in the kitchen, he hadn’t been ready to let her go.

He settled into an easy massaging rhythm, sliding his fingers through the silky mass, and soon enough she tipped her head back and closed her eyes, the very picture of simple bliss. Her plum-colored lips parted slightly as the water sluiced down the long slide of her back, down over the rounded curve of her flanks into the temping cleft of her sweet little arse.

God’s balls. He’d remained celibate for far, far too long. Grime, dirt, potential lice. That was it. No thought of derrieres.

She held her bandaged right hand out, over the rim, but as he massaged her skull and worked his way around the tender lump on the back of her head, she relaxed, straightening her long, lean, muscled legs and letting her left arm slip down into the water as well, giving him an unimpeded view of her wet, glistening breasts.

And he felt his cock harden at the sight. He stepped away instantly, but he did not look away. He could not. She stretched her hand up to her head to continue the massaging motion.

With her eyes closed, not snapping at him with a gutter full of accusation, he could look his fill. He could feast his eyes on the pale, white shape of her breasts with their pink crests, the slide of her belly down to her long, coltish legs and the sweet triangle of dark hair at the apex of her thighs.

Hugh felt his mouth go dry and his own skin begin to prick with awareness. He’d known she was a woman. He’d seen her trim ankles and pushed-up bosom out on the street. But he hadn’t expected this—this confounded, consuming attraction to her. She wasn’t his type at all. She was nothing but grit and sinew, not a soft curve on her body. No place to find rest. Well, her breasts were curved, but her skin was not soft. It wasn’t dewy and fresh. Even scrubbed until she was nearly red, he had felt years of St. Giles under his palms. A roughness caused by years of degradation, layers of endlessly worrisome work and toil. And somehow, it touched him in a way he couldn’t explain. It touched him deep in a place he had hidden away within himself. So deep he had forgotten its existence.