Tiger's Eye (11 page)

Just because he was the handsomest man she had ever seen in her life was no reason to lose her sound common sense, she scolded herself. Even were she not married, he was not for her. The gulf that separated them was far too wide. She was a lady of the
ton,
a countess of noble parentage. He was … what? Certainly he was not of her ilk.

Isabella was beginning to realize that she had been sheltered too long at Blakely Park. In the six years since her marriage to Bernard, she had seen few people besides the servants, and no attractive men whatsoever. She was a normal young woman, after all, and perhaps her attraction to Alec merely meant that she was starved for compatible company. It was possible that Pressy and the servants and her animals weren’t enough for her. Perhaps what she needed was someone of her own age and kind, to talk with and laugh with and experience life with a little.

Maybe Bernard had known that, and that was why he had so inexplicably summoned her to London.

Although Bernard, in the years she had been wed to him, had never showed the slightest degree of perception where she was concerned.

A knock at the door interrupted her thoughts, and despite the sudden surge of alarm she felt—after all, with Alec and Paddy and Pearl all in the dressing room, who was left to knock at the door?—she was glad to have them interrupted.

The knock sounded again, more loudly this time. Isabella stared at the door. What should she do? She couldn’t answer it—it might be someone who would do harm to Alec.

Quickly she got out of bed, padded to the dressing room door, and tapped on it. The door opened, and Paddy looked out at Isabella inquiringly.

“Someone’s at the door,” she mouthed, pointing.

Paddy looked over his shoulder, and frowned. “Pearl, if you’d let Alec be, he might recover faster. Anyway, there’s someone at the door.”

There was a rustle of cloth, and then Pearl was beside Paddy, going on tiptoe as she reached up to tweak his cheek. “You’re getting to be a regular spoil-sport, aren’t you, lackwit?”

Paddy apparently took no offense at the mocking nickname, because his frown faded as he looked down into her face. Isabella was struck by something that flashed briefly in his eyes. Was it possible that Paddy was attracted to Pearl, and deferred his interest to Alec’s prior claim?

This intriguing notion was interrupted by a banging on the door that defied anyone not to answer it. Isabella, suddenly recalled to a sense of her dishabille, scurried for the bed and clambered in.

Paddy swung to face the door, his hand reaching for his pocket where Isabella assumed he kept his pistol. Pearl shook her head at him.

“ ’Tis Mr. Heath, the sawbones,” she said, and Paddy relaxed as she went to open the door.

Mr. Heath was not quite as tall as Pearl, and he was so rotund that he gave the appearance of being nearly as wide as he was tall. Despite the chill of the day, he was red and perspiring, the floridness of his complexion extending clear past his face to his balding pate. Scant strands of ginger hair were combed back into a skimpy tail. His coat and waistcoat were unfastened, his shirt was crumpled and looked as though might pop its buttons at any moment, and his breeches were stretched to the limit. All in all he was not a figure to inspire confidence in any who might be his patients, but Pearl greeted him blithely and hustled him inside, carefully locking the door behind him.

“And how is the Tiger?” Mr. Heath asked, referring to Alec in what Isabella could only think of as a reverential tone. He had spared not a glance for Isabella, who assumed that she was his patient as much as Alec, and felt a small degree of affront, as she was not used to being ignored. But clearly, to Mr. Heath, it was the Tiger who mattered.

“He says he is much recovered, and won’t stay abed,” Pearl reported, leading the way to the dressing room.

Mr. Heath frowned. “So I feared.”

With that he was ushered into the dressing room. Paddy and Pearl disappeared with him, and the door was closed on Isabella’s interested eyes.

Mr. Heath remained in the dressing room for some three quarters of an hour. The only clue Isabella had to what was transpiring within was Alec’s shout of “I absolutely refuse to be blooded by this money-grubbing leech!” halfway through the proceedings. When Mr. Heath emerged at last, accompanied by Pearl, he looked flustered, and his florid face was even redder than before.

His subsequent examination of Isabella was cursory, and after he replaced the bandage covering her wound with a smaller one, he pronounced her well on the road to recovery.

“ ’Tis fortunate that the bullet only grazed you, young woman. You’ve nothing more than three inches or so of skin gouged out of your back. Had fever not set in, I daresay you would have been on your feet again within a day or two. But then, fever often accompanies these cases. I’m glad to see that my powders have brought you to the right-about.”

“I’ve been giving ’em to her just like you said,” Pearl asserted virtuously, although so far as Isabella was aware, Pearl had done no such thing.

“Good, good. Keep her in bed for the remainder of the day, and then by tomorrow she should be able to begin sitting for an hour or so in a chair. It doesn’t do to hurry these things, you know. The renewing of the body can’t be rushed. Though try telling that to him in there.” This was accompanied by a rolling of Mr. Heath’s eyes in the direction of the dressing room. Pearl responded with a sympathetic murmur, and ushered Mr. Heath to the door.

“Remember, tell no one,” Pearl said to Mr. Heath at the door. She pressed a large wad of pound notes into his hand.

“As if I would betray the Tiger,” Mr. Heath responded, very much on his dignity as he pocketed the money. Pearl smiled at him, and opened the door so that he could leave. Once the door was locked again, Paddy emerged from the dressing room.

“How is he?” Pearl would have pushed by Paddy to see for herself, but Paddy stopped her with a hand on her arm.

“Grumpy as a badger. You know how he gets. We’d best let him alone for a bit.”

“Like that, is he?” Pearl made a face. “Well, I have some things I need to see to downstairs. Let me get the breakfast trays, and I’ll get out of here.”

She went into the dressing room, and emerged in a few minutes grimacing, tray piled with empty dishes.

“Told you,” Paddy said with equal parts humor and sympathy.

“Well, at least he gets over it quick,” she sighed, and came to get Isabella’s tray from where it had been removed to the bedside table. “Can I get you anything before I go downstairs?”

“If you have a brush and some pins, I would tidy my hair.”

“I can manage that, I guess.”

Pearl set down both trays and crossed to the wardrobe. Rummaging within, she came up with a silver brush and comb set, some pins and a mirror, which she dropped on Isabella’s lap.

“That do?”

“Yes. Thank you, Pearl. You’ve been more than kind, really.”

Pearl, pausing in the act of picking up the trays, looked surprised. Then she laughed. “That’s certainly the first time I’ve been called
that,”
she said, and grinned at Isabella. Then, her spirits apparently restored, she took herself out of the room. Paddy followed, carrying the crockery-piled trays.

As Isabella brushed out her hair, struggling with tangles she feared might be permanent, she was all too conscious that she had been left alone with Alec. Only the closed dressing room door separated them, and she half expected him to emerge at any minute. She didn’t know how she would deal with him in a temper, and the thought made her jumpy.

But he didn’t emerge, and she at last managed to get her hair tamed into a semblance of obedience. After twisting it up and securing it with pins in a soft roll at the back of her head, she studied her reflection critically.

She was even paler than usual, which made the scattering of freckles across her nose seem more noticeable. She was thinner too, which made her mouth look wider than ever and put shadows beneath her cheekbones and collarbone. But the lavender eiderdown encircling her neck did wonderful things for her eyes. Always before they had been just a plain, gentle blue. Somehow, though, they seemed to have picked up the bed jacket’s color, and the soft blue sparkled with lavender lights. Her hair looked better too, probably because it had not yet had time to straggle. But it seemed softer and fuller around her face, framing it with light brown waves.…

The dressing room door opened without warning. Isabella looked up to find Alec standing there frowning at her. Hastily she put down the mirror, embarrassed to be caught staring so raptly at her reflection. Bright color flooded her cheeks at the idea that he might think her vain.

“Where’s Pearl?” he demanded without preamble, his brows coming together over his nose as his eyes moved over her.

“She went downstairs.”

He was shirtless, his broad shoulders filling the opening, the white bandage around his chest the only thing that kept him from being completely naked above the waist. As always, he seemed totally unconcerned about his lack of proper clothing. Isabella only wished that she could be as blasé as he was about his immodest display. Her color deepened as she averted her eyes from his chest.

“She did, eh?” His eyes raked over her again, then he turned to go back into the dressing room. It was then that Isabella noticed a new bandage wrapped around his elbow.

“What happened to your arm?” she asked before she thought.

He glared at her over his shoulder. “Pearl and Paddy between them managed to talk me into letting that damned sawbones bleed me. Now I feel as weak as a puling infant.”

“Maybe you should stay in bed,” Isabella offered, trying not to smile as the reason for his grumpiness became clear.

“To hell with that,” he growled, and went back inside the dressing room, shutting the door behind him with an audible bang.

Left to herself again, Isabella put the toilet articles aside and reached for the book on the bedside table. She had done no more than look at the title when the dressing room door banged open again. Alec stalked into the room, still clad only in his breeches, and stopped at the foot of her bed to glare at her. Isabella looked up at him with a question in her eyes, at a loss to think of how she might have offended him.

“Is ought the matter?”

“The knot in this damned bandage is coming untied. Does it come off, if I know Paddy and Pearl, they will have the bloody sawbones to me again. ’Tis just like Pearl not to be around when I need her, while the rest of the time she sticks to me like day-old porridge.”

“Would you like me to retie it for you?” It was all she could do not to smile at the note of aggrieved complaint in his voice, but she feared that an inauspicious smile might provoke him to an explosion of wrath.

“You?” He looked down at her in disbelief.

“I assure you I can tie a knot,” Isabella answered, her chin lifting haughtily.

“Getting on your high horse, are you, Countess? I warn you I’m in no mood to put up with fancy airs from a wet-behind-the-ears miss.”

“I’ll try not to subject you to any,” Isabella said sweetly, when what she really wanted to do was chuck her book at him. “Do you want me to retie it, or not?”

Thus adjured, he came around and seated himself on the edge of the bed, his back to her. Isabella looked at that strong back with its satiny bronze skin, and felt her skin heat. He was within touch of her hand.… She would have to touch him, were she to retie his bandage. And, as he had said, the knot was on the verge of working itself loose.

“Are you going to tie it or not?” he demanded impatiently, frowning over his shoulder at her.

Isabella drew on all the calm, good sense she’d ever had in her life to reply in a cool voice, “Certainly I am, if you will but hold still.”

He held still. She reached out and unraveled the failing knot, careful not to allow her fingers to touch him. But she was so close that she could see the smooth texture of his skin where it stretched over the indentation of his spine. Further up, his shoulders at close quarters were so wide and heavy with muscle that they took her breath.

As she fumbled with the knot, her fingers grown suddenly clumsy, she felt in truth the wet-behind-the-ears miss he had called her. No matter that she was a countess and he a commoner, or that he was surely no more than ten years her senior, if that. He was so much her superior in worldly experience that, compared to him, she was a mere babe. He sat calmly waiting for her to tie the knot of his bandage, no more affected by her nearness than he would have been by that of Mr. Heath. While she—she could scarcely draw breath, because when she did she inhaled the musky scent of him. She felt as though her bones would melt as the heat of his body enveloped her in waves.

Tugging at the ends of the knot to make sure it was tight, her knuckles brushed his skin. Immediately she jerked her hands away.

“All finished?” He slewed around to look at her, apparently not the least aware of her discomposure. Those golden eyes met hers. Helplessly, horribly, she felt herself turning a fiery shade of red.

His eyebrows snapped together, and he got off the bed. “Why do you blush every time I set eyes on you? You’re not shy, I’d swear.”

Terrified that he was about to ferret out the shameful effect he had on her, she snapped up her chin and looked him full in the eyes. “Perhaps ’tis just that I am unused to gentlemen who take such pleasure in flaunting their … persons … before a lady. Indeed, I have rarely seen you fully clothed, and I admit that I find such immodesty discomposing.”

His eyes widened on her face as the sense of that sank in, and his lips compressed. “Since you are a married woman, Countess, I wouldn’t have thought that you would find the sight of a man without his shirt so ‘discomposing.’ As you do, I’ll do my best not to offend you until you can find some other, more gentlemanly fellow to shelter you from your murderous relatives.”

As he finished biting off the last words, he turned on his heel, stalked into the dressing room, and slammed the door in earnest. Isabella was left to her book, which she determinedly picked up and opened. A considerable time passed before she realized that, of what she read, she had not comprehended a single word.