“No one needs to hold me down, ma’am,” he declared.
“Good. I commend you on your fortitude.” She advanced toward the side of his bed. Stained with blood, the pillowcase was already beyond salvaging. As was his shirt. His jacket, however, might be saved. “Violet, help me get Lord Sheffield out of his jacket.”
His face closed into a cold mask. He tried to raise himself up on his elbow, gasped, and collapsed back. The muscles at the corners of his lean, long jaw bunched. He clearly hated this.
His reaction seemed excessive. No one could fault a man who’d been knocked unconscious for being weakened by the event, except someone who had been rendered powerless before and learned to loathe the state.
She guessed it then, the roots of his abhorrence. He must have looked just so twenty-some years ago, when his father had dragged him from stance to stance to communicate with his dead sister, ruining his family’s fortune and name, while all young Grey could do was watch, helpless and infuriated and incapable of preventing it.
Her gaze softened, and she looked away lest he see it. He would hate even more being pitied. She had learned that the other evening when Hayden had told them of Grey’s past and she had masked her sympathy and won his involuntary look of gratitude.
“No, ma’am,” Violet declared, breaking the tension of the moment with a mulish refusal. “I’m a respectable girl and a virgin, and I got principles, and no one ought to ask a virgin to ’elp a man get nekkid. You wouldn’t ask Miss Amelie and you oughtn’t to ask me.”
“Violet,” Fanny said, trying to find her patience., “I am not asking you to bed—”
“Don’t never say no more!” Violet squeaked. “It ain’t right and I ain’t doin’ it.”
“At least ask Ploddy—”
“Ploddy ain’t much better ’round blood than Lord Hayden. I’m thinkin’ he’s pukin’ his guts out right now after ’elpin’ His Lordship once already. Why’d ya think he left Her Majesty’s army with the colonel? No one else would ’ave ’im. Ye’re on yer own.”
“Violet, be reasonable.”
“I am bein’ reasonable. You ain’t in the market for a ’usband like I am, ’less’n it’s McGowan, and ye’d ’ave a better ’ope of landing Prince Edward, in my opinion. I gots a reputation to think on.”
Heat erupted in a scalding wave up Fanny’s throat. “That will be enough, Violet!”
But Violet wasn’t through yet. “I’ll ’ave Ploddy fetch His Lordship a fresh shirt, but as fer the rest… You’re a widow. You’ve seen nekkid men afore. You do it.”
And with that, Violet lifted her nose in the air and stalked from the room.
Chapter 27
Fanny wasn’t sure why she should be dumbstruck. Violet had acted completely in character: argumentative, incompliant, and outrageous. Behind her, Grey laughed. She faced him. At least Violet’s overblown sensibilities had restored his humor.
“A witch who practices politics more shrewdly than many an M.P., and a scullery waif with as strict a sense of decorum as the Queen herself. Quite a fascinating household you run,” he said.
“There’s no ‘running’ about it,” Fanny grumbled, eyeing him with trepidation she prayed didn’t show. She was the only one left to get Sheffield cleaned up, stitched up, rested up, and out of here. And from the amusement he didn’t even bother to hide, he knew it.
“I don’t mind a little blood on my shirt, Fanny,” he said, his tone gentle. “Or a scar. Really.”
Had he challenged her, mocked her, or even dared her, she would have had grounds to leave him in his blood-soaked shirt, but his consideration undid any hope of that. She couldn’t repay kindness with priggishness. And Violet was right: She had seen a naked man before. Just not one built like Grey.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” She advanced toward him and set the tray containing the water, sewing basket, and bandages on the bed beside him.
“First, I’ll stitch that cut.” She unwound the bandage from around his head and blotted away as much of the blood as she could. Throughout it all, he didn’t flinch. His breathing didn’t even alter its rhythm. Bless Grammy and her tea. Then she carefully clipped away the black, charcoal-streaked curls from above his ear, exposing the four-inch gash. “This will sting.”
“No more than your tongue, I expect,” Grey replied.
She upended a bottle of iodine onto a cloth and dabbed gingerly at the wound. Again, Grey remained stoically immobile. She blew out a deep breath and picked up the needle and threaded it. She took another breath and stepped behind him.
She’d never actually sewn flesh together. Perhaps it wasn’t necessary. A second look destroyed this hope. Without stitching, the cut would reopen under the slightest provocation.
“I’ve been stitched up before,” he said calmly. “Just go one stitch at a time. And really, the procedure will cause you more discomfort than me.”
The unexpected reassurance melted some of her tension. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Fan.”
It was the second time he’d called her Fan. She liked it. She liked the way he said it.
She positioned the fingers of her left hand on either side of the cut and pinched the edges together. Then, biting down hard on her lip, she stuck the needle into the skin. The skin resisted. She pushed harder and still got nowhere. Tears sprang to her eyes.
This was horrible, far worse than she’d imagined. How could he just sit there like that?
“Tough, isn’t it?” Grey asked conversationally.
“Pardon me?”
“Skin. It’s a most extraordinary material: self-mending, waterproof, elastic and durable.” He was talking to distract her. He was, she recognized, comforting her.
With a forceful thrust, she pushed the needle through the opposite side and pulled the stitched skin closed, tying a little knot and clipping it off.
“Indeed it is.” She had to set the needle down for a second and close her eyes, thanking heaven she stood behind him, where he couldn’t see how much she was shaking.
“I nearly fainted the first time I was sewn up,” he said.
Blast the man for a mind reader.
“You’re lying,” she answered.
“Well, yes. I was hoping to bolster your confidence. After all, it’s my skin you’re impaling, you know.”
She picked the needle up and, setting her jaw, took another stitch. Two down. The room began to wobble on its axis. She wasn’t above asking for help. “Speak to me. Please.”
“About what?”
“Anything. Please.”
“Why did you marry him?” Grey asked.
“Marry him?”
“Brown.”
Of all the things he might have said or asked, that was certainly the most unexpected.
“Because he said he loved me.” She waited for a scathing reply. None came.
Rather than mocking her, he remained silent while she took another stitch, and then murmured, “I suppose. Yes.” Then, “You must have been very young.”
“Sixteen.”
“Your parents agreed to the match?”
“No. Oh, no. We eloped. Alphonse was not the sort of young man a parent is proud to acknowledge as a son-in-law, and my family is a very proud one.”
“Then why would you marry him?”
“Well…” She snipped off the thread. “I didn’t know he wasn’t a desirable sort. Daughters of the gentry don’t generally go looking for a husband who’ll bring shame to their family name.”
She pulled the skin at the crest of his cheekbone more tightly together. “Certainly, I knew Alphonse was not as well educated nor as gently raised as I. But I thought he was atypical of his upbringing”—like me—“and misunderstood”—like me—“and unvalued. I didn’t know any better. I hadn’t been anywhere. I’d lived my entire life in the country until I met Alphonse.”
She’d never spoken of this to anyone before. It was odd she should be doing so here, now, in these circumstances and with
this man. And so casually, so easily, as if they always shared such things without fear of recrimination or judgment.
“Did you know, right from the start, his plans to hoodwink people with his spiritualist fakery?”
“Of course not,” she said, taking another stitch.
“Again, a girl doesn’t set out aspiring to a criminal career.”
“But you knew soon after, and yet you remained a willing part of it?”
“Is that a question? I thought you knew all the answers.”
He didn’t reply, but he didn’t need to; she wasn’t going to go mute now. The words, bottled up for so long, the secrets held so close, the explanation she’d never been asked to give, poured out. “I knew it was all a fake. I knew it was rubbish, lies. I knew nearly from the first. Or soon enough after as made no difference.”
“Why did you go along with it? Money? Notoriety?”
Of course, those would be the most likely reasons. They had nothing to do with hers, however. “I went along with the charade because I thought Alphonse believed his claims himself, and I didn’t want him to be disillusioned.” She waited for him to evince either incredulity or confusion. Once more, he disarmed her by exhibiting neither.
“You must have loved him, too.”
“I loved who I thought he was.” She could have added, And I loved him for loving me as I was. But that had proved not to be true.
“But you must have soon recognized the deceits he practiced,” Grey prompted. “You must have wondered why he would contrive the nonsense with the violin and the disembodied voices if he really thought himself supernaturally gifted.”
“At the time, I believed he had convinced himself that he was simply providing palpable evidence to aid his clients in believing what he knew to be true. You of all people should appreciate how much self-delusion a person is capable of when something is important to them.”
He fell silent.
After a moment, he asked, “But you knew you possessed no otherworldly powers?”
She hesitated, filled with an inexplicable urge to tell him that she did possess supernatural abilities. But that would mean trusting him more than she already had, and this time with the truth of not only who she was, but what she was. She had once trusted Alphonse in the same way. And look how well that had worked. She would never make that mistake again.
“A person is capable of a great deal of self-deceit when it is important enough,” she finally answered.
“But—”
“There,” she said, cutting him off as she snipped the last stitch and standing back to look over her handiwork, noting that the bleeding had stopped. She also noticed a myriad of other scars on his face, small ones: a crescent-shaped silver line at the corner of his eye, a raised welt of shiny skin beneath the point of his chin, a crosshatch of faint hieroglyphics beneath one dark brow. How had the son of a marquess come by so many scars and, from the look of them, from so many different times?
What matter? It was no concern of hers. All she needed to do now was wait for his new shirt to arrive. Which, knowing Ploddy, might be some time yet. Still, she couldn’t let him lie there in his bloody shirt.
“Now then,” she said brightly, “let’s clean you up a bit, shall we?”
“You sound like a nanny suggesting a nappy change,” he said dryly. “Just prop me up a bit on some pillows and I’ll do the rest.”
“Nonsense, let me help.” She’d leaned over him, preparing to slide her arm behind his shoulders, and reeled back in a shock of recognition as her skin met his.
“Is something wrong?”
“No. No,” she muttered, leaning forward and slipping her arm behind him. He was very broad and very warm and heavy. And that indefinable scent cloaking his skin inspired all sorts of heated images to flicker through her imagination.
“Are you really trying to move me?” Grey asked. “Because if so, you ought to commence a regimen of strenuous exercise at once. You’re as weak as a kitten.”
His words broke the spell holding her. She hauled him upright with a bit more force than necessary and shoved a towel over the pillow behind him. Weak she might be, but only in the head. Her arms were strong enough.
She picked up her scissors.
“You’re going to cut my shirt from me?”
“The shirt is a lost cause. This will be easier.” She didn’t wait for permission, but angled the blade beneath his collar and began snipping, pulling away the sticky material as she went, carefully avoiding looking up, all too cognizant of his exotic blue-green eyes on her.
Her skin tingled and her bones felt rubbery. This was ridiculous. She was performing an act of charity. If she stayed very close and kept her gaze focused firmly on the scissors rather than on the muscular torso revealed with every snicker of the blade, she could keep it that way.
Grey didn’t utter a word. Finally, she finished and tugged the ruined shirt from under him. There. That hadn’t been so bad. She straightened, smiling victoriously, and her view of him, until then made up of disconnected snatches and glimpses, coalesced into a sudden, overwhelming whole. The sight hit her like a cricket bat.
He took her breath away.
She’d once thought of him as Ares, the Greek god of war. She hadn’t known the half of it. The body she’d revealed had been fashioned on the anvil of time, tested and mended, knitted and reknitted of ever harder material.
This was no sleek youngster. His musculature was lean but dense, nothing superfluous padding the skin cloaking sinew and muscle that curved and bulged with each movement of his chest. His shoulders were broad, capped by thick muscles, his biceps prominent even when relaxed, his belly hard and flat. Silky-looking black curls covered his chest, thickening to a dark line that disappeared beneath his waistband.
“You don’t look anything like Alphonse,” she blurted out. “At all.”
Grey, who’d been trying without success to reach the basin of water, glanced up and snorted. “I should hope not. Unless he worked driving spikes for the rails before he took to chatting up ghosts.”
“You laid down railroad tracks?” she asked incredulously.
He laughed. “No. Not quite, though thinking back, it might have been the wiser choice.”
“I don’t understand.”
His smile faded a bit. “I boxed.”
“Boxed.”
“I fought in fisticuffs matches.”
“Fisticuffs?” she said, amazed. The memory of the felling blow he’d dealt Alphonse flashed into her mind. No wonder he’d made it look so effortless. And his comportment, the striking amalgam of gentleman and ruffian, now made sense. “Why?”
“Money.” At her astonishment, he continued, “You can’t make a fortune in the ring, but you can make enough. If you win.”
“Enough for what?”
“Enough to pay for my schooling.”
“But—”
“Come, Fanny, Hayden told you,” Grey said, disconcertingly gentle. “My father bankrupted my family in his mania to find my dead half-sister in some spirit world.”
She looked away, the old guilt surfacing on a tide of self-loathing. How many families had been similarly affected by her and Alphonse’s actions?
At the time, it had seemed innocuous. She’d even convinced herself it was charitable to offer comfort to those in mourning. Later, she realized the devastation caused by realizing that one’s hopes were illusions. Like the illusion of her marriage. “Whom did you fight?”
“Carriage drivers, stevedores, farriers. Anyone who challenged me and whom I thought I could beat.” Again, he lifted his shoulders, and the muscles bulged in response. “For the proper incentive.”
“That’s terrible,” she said, searching his hard, supple form for signs of former abuse and finding them in a knot in the line of a rib, a star of scar tissue beneath his collarbone.
He laughed. “I agree. I must have been mad. As soon as I could do so, I stopped.”
“Because you had a proper income
?” she asked.
“Not entirely,” he admitted. “I managed to track down the man primarily responsible for my father’s financial ruin and sue him. He’d become quite wealthy, and I recouped much of the family fortune.”
She nodded and began wiping the dried blood from the broad span of his shoulders, swiping his neck, then moving quickly on to finish off his upper torso.
And it was here she came undone.
She could feel the animal vitality of him coursing straight through the towel, soaking into her palm as it rode the even rise and fall of his magnificent chest, magnifying the heavy rhythm of his heart. She imagined it was like petting a lion, smooth and supple, but with readied power coiling effortlessly beneath the skin.
Her ministrations slowed, the dabs becoming strokes, the strokes, caresses. Beneath her touch, his belly muscles jumped and contracted like corrugated steel and sent a rush of light-headedness through her.
There. Finished. She began to step back, but spied a place she’d missed. A trickle of blood had followed the stepped ladder of his ribs toward the hollow inside the jut of his hip bone.
She swallowed. Gently, diligently, she traced the route. His breathing, so even and calm when she’d stitched him up, grew ragged and heavy. He shivered. Her mouth went dry. She was fascinated by the sight of tightening male nipples, his flesh pebbled and taut.
She ignored the powerful acceleration of his heartbeat, his bunching pectoral muscles, the sudden swelling of his biceps, and another heavy swelling lower, below his waistband. Completely ignored them.
“You don’t really want McGowan, do you?” His voice was a purr, a husky sneer.
McGowan? Who was McGowan? She struggled to gather her scattered thoughts.
“Tell me.”
“What?”
“That you don’t want McGowan.”
His voice was thick with satisfaction. And why shouldn’t it be? She’d been ogling him like a starving cat did a bowl of cream. She struggled to find a shred of pride.
“Want? Of course I don’t want McGowan. One doesn’t want a person like one wants an ice cream,” she said. “One wishes to further one’s acquaintance— Oh!”
So Enchanting Page 22