Her eyes shot open. “Camdyn, what are you—”
She did not get to finish, as something cold and wet brushed against her skin. Camdyn had retrieved a fresh cloth from the basin stand beside the chaise, and had dipped it in the cool water, before pressing it to the perspiring curve of her neck
“I’ve learned a thing or two from watchin’ ye, lass,” he said, sweeping the cloth seductively up her throat. At least, it felt seductive, as his teeth curled back his bottom lip for a moment, and his Adam’s Apple bobbed as though he, too, was finding it hard to swallow. “Ye looked feverish, and ye told that serf lass earlier that cold water would take away the heat of it.”
His gaze met hers, his umber eyes tender with concern, yet fierce with something akin to longing, all at once.
Frightened by the fluttering in her abdomen, and the resumed quickening of her breath, she took the cloth from his hand and laid it across her forehead. “I will be well momentarily. Perhaps, you could go and speak with Genevieve, and ask for our luncheon to be sent up.”
I cannot have you in this room, or I will never catch my breath again.
He was already leaning much too close toward her, one arm lying around the back of the chaise, mere inches from her head. Truly, she worried she might suffocate if she did not have a moment alone to gather herself.
Camdyn nodded. “Aye, I’ll do that.”
He got up and walked away, his battle-hardened calves flexing with every step, cutting deep grooves through his skin that Victoria wished she could trace with her fingertips. He paused in the doorway, as though there were something more he wanted to say. Evidently, he thought better of it, for he disappeared into the hallway without another word.
Victoria lunged forward as soon as he was gone, and gasped frantically, holding onto her sides as she urged air to flow into her lungs. Had he stood there one minute longer, she was certain she would have lost consciousness.
You are dangerous, Camdyn McKay. More dangerous than I thought.
She turned and splashed her face with the icy water from the basin, using it to shock her lungs into cooperating. As she sat back, face dripping, a more worrying thought struck her.
And yet… I do not want you to go.
Chapter 10
Camdyn had watched Victoria with awe, all throughout the morning. She did not stop, and she did not waver at sights and afflictions that would have made others turn up their noses in disgust. She never judged, or made remark upon the hygiene of anyone who passed through her door, and treated each with the same focus and care.
Even he had found it difficult to look at the abdomen of a stinking drunkard, covered in vesicles and weeping pustules. But Victoria had tended to him kindly, cleaning him up, and listening to his story of how he had ended up the way he was. A dead wife, murdered children, and no hope left in his life, he had sought solace in the bottom of a bottle instead.
She’s nae so bad for a Sassenach.
As he headed down the stairs to the drawing room, where he knew he would find Genevieve, he could not stop his mind from roiling with thoughts of Victoria. The way she had moved about the room, as fluid as a dancer. And the way her bosom had heaved after the exertion of setting the leg of an injured crofter, a sheen of perspiration making her glow in the morning sunlight.
Ach, lass, what are ye doin’ to me head, eh?
He had not meant to trail that cloth across her throat, but impulse had made him reach for it, and before he had known what he was doing, he was daubing the sweat from her hot skin. Never in his life had he wished to be a cut of fabric more. If she had not snatched the cloth from him when she did, he had the unnerving feeling that he might have kissed her neck, or let his fingertips whisper across that swanlike curve.
“Ah, Mr. McKay.” Genevieve’s voice knocked him out of his thoughts, and not a moment too soon, for he had begun to feel a stirring in his loins. One he had been fighting to suppress all morning, whenever he had lingered too long on Victoria’s hourglass silhouette, or the inadvertently sensual gasps of her breaths when performing a difficult task, and especially when her plump lips curved up in a smile of relief.
Camdyn hoped the older woman could not read the desire upon his face, in case it caused confusion. “Victoria is askin’ for her… uh… luncheon.” The word sounded strange, and much too English, coming out of his mouth. “I’d say she’s earned it after the mornin’ she’s had.”
“You know, you are supposed to refer to her as ‘My Lady’ or ‘Her Ladyship,’ don’t you?” Genevieve scolded mildly, as she came to join Camdyn in the entrance hall.
He shrugged. “She’s never corrected me. Anyway, ‘lass’ is me own way of showin’ dues.”
“Is that so?” Genevieve chuckled. “Will you be dining with Her Ladyship?”
He hesitated. “Aye, I reckon so. She is nae feelin’ too grand, so I wouldnae want to leave her on her own.” He peered behind Genevieve to see if there were any more patients waiting in the drawing room. Fortunately, there did not seem to be any. “Does she always work so hard?”
Genevieve nodded. “Every day she can. I believe it helps to… distract her. There isn’t much for a widow to do in Inverness, and it’s not as though the English lords and ladies invite her to their gatherings.” She mustered a sad smile. “My dear girl is always somewhere in the middle of things.”
“How do ye mean?” Camdyn frowned. Victoria had mentioned that she was not well acquainted with the English invaders who had claimed wealthy homes in Inverness for themselves, but she did not seem to be out of place.
“You might as well come and get Her Ladyship’s luncheon yourself,” Genevieve said, as she began to walk down one of the side hallways, which led to the kitchens. Camdyn followed, hoping he might glean more about Victoria if he did.
“It might not seem like it to you, Mr. McKay, but she’s lived a harder life than you might think,” Genevieve continued, while they walked. “When I say she is always in the middle, I mean… well, to begin, she comes from a family who were neither wealthy nor poor. Her father worked in trade, but they were not titled. She married a much older gentleman to support her family, but he was unkind to her, and when he was not unkind, he was ambivalent.’’
“She was brought here to Scotland because her husband wished to pursue a… political agenda, and when he went off to do as he pleased, she was left alone in this house. When he died, she was left lonelier still, and now she is a wife with no husband. Then there is her work. She may be one of the finest physicians in the country, but no institution will credit her as one because she is a woman.” Genevieve sighed. “That is what I mean.”
Camdyn lowered his gaze. “Where is her family now?”
“In England, but her father passed about five years ago. She has her mother and a younger sister, who rely on the money she is able to send back even more, now her father is gone,” Genevieve explained, as they reached the kitchens. There, two bowls of soup and two hunks of crusty bread were waiting on a tray, almost as if the cook had already known Camdyn and Victoria would be dining together.
“She doesn’ae want to go back?” Camdyn kept his voice level, though the thought caused him some unexpected disappointment. If Victoria left Scotland, he knew he would never see her again. Before he woke up from his injuries, he would have hoofed her over the border himself. But now… he supposed he had grown used to her company, and he did not want to find out how he might feel if she left.
I’d miss her, I reckon…
Especially as there was so much more he wanted to learn about her, and so many mornings he still wanted to spend watching her.
Genevieve picked up the tray and handed it to Camdyn. “It’s not a matter of want, Mr. McKay. Do you think she would survive the journey, as a lone woman with no one to protect her?”
“If ye were with her, ye’d scare off any robbin’ bastards on the road,” he teased, needing levity to reduce the heaviness of his heart. He had never expected to find any similarities between
himself and Victoria, but it appeared they both knew what it felt like to be displaced.
I cannae go home, neither.
Genevieve gave him a light shove in the arm. “I ought to box your ears for that.”
“Ye’d have to get an apple crate in order to reach ‘em.” Camdyn smiled, sizing her up. “Maybe two.”
Genevieve cackled. “Ah, you’re a wicked one, and no mistake. Now get that tray up to Her Ladyship before it goes cold, and you make sure she gets a good rest before the afternoon horde descends.”
“Aye, I will.” Camdyn turned, his head busy with thoughts of what Victoria had endured before he had come to this place, and carried the luncheon up the stairs to the woman herself.
Who’d be unkind to such a lass as her?
He could not fathom it. Though he had been on this Earth for thirty-six summers, he had never had the chance to find himself a wife. He had indulged in fleeting liaisons in his youth, when he had wandered Castle Venruit as a veritable cock of the walk, but he had never been tempted to wed any of his lovers. And they had never thought of him as a serious prospect, despite his station in the castle.
Still, despite all of the hardship and the endless skirmishing and fighting he had gone through since he abandoned Castle Venruit for the sake of Scotland’s pride, he had held onto an idealistic hope that, if he were ever to marry, he would treat his wife with all the passion, respect, and loyalty that she deserved. For a man to show his wife ambivalence and unkindness… it negated the entire point of marriage, in his opinion.
Though maybe that’s because I got to see Laird Young and Bernadine together.
Even after three children and twenty-one years of marriage, they behaved like newlyweds, always sneaking a grope of one another’s backsides when they thought no one was looking, or sneaking into a darkened corner to indulge in one another. It was partially why Camdyn had always knocked whenever he went into a room, in case he saw something he should not.
“Lass, I’ve got ye—” Camdyn stopped short as he beheld the crumpled figure on the floor, her rattling breaths chilling him. Practically throwing the luncheon try onto a nearby side-table, he tore across the floor and skidded to his knees beside Victoria.
“Lass, what’s the matter with ye? Lass?” He pulled her up into his arms, observing the troubling blue tinge of her lips and the delirious flutter of her eyelids.
She lolled in his embrace, clearly unable to talk back. Panic-stricken, Camdyn cradled her in one arm while he checked her with his free hand, as he had watched her do with her patients. She did not feel warm to the touch. Indeed, she felt the exact opposite—cold and clammy beneath his fingertips.
Next, he pressed his fingertips against her skin, where the bone of her jaw connected to her neck, and waited to feel the subtle kick that would let him know her heart was still beating. He did not quite understand how the two things could be connected, when her heart was in her chest, but he trusted more in her knowledge than his own. Sure enough, he felt the gentle pulse of life beneath his two fingers.
She’s alive… but what’s wrong with her?
Suddenly, he remembered a story that Bernadine had told him once, of how she had pretended to faint at a ball in London. The same gathering where she had met Donnan Young for the first time.
“Ladies faint all the time, dear Camdyn. They are like trees during felling season, and all because of these.” Bernadine had tapped the hardened corset beneath her gown. “Our stays are too tight, and the whalebone is, frankly, suffocating. Sometimes, we simply cannot catch a proper breath, and so… we faint. Donnan caught me, of course. I do believe that was the first moment I knew I might love him.”
“She cannae breathe,” Camdyn rasped, as though he was also struggling to draw in air.
Without hesitation, he delicately unclipped the cameo brooch at her throat and set it to one side. He knew she would be cross if anything were to happen to it. As for the rest, he did not care if she scolded him for ripping her clothing, as long as she survived this.
“Stay with me, lass.” He tore open the seam that ran down the back of her casaquin, and lifted her higher in the crook of his arm, so he could lean her against the front of the chaise-lounge.
Maneuvering her gently, he took out the dirk that he always kept in his boot, and cut down the back of her stays and the shift beneath. The corset sprang open, no longer held by the lacing that brought the two halves together.
He wrenched the entire undergarment off her and flung it aside, too overcome with worry to steal a look at her breasts, as the shift collapsed beneath them. Though he did make admiring observation of her bare back, the skin so creamy and pale that he could not resist running his hand up the length of her spine. He stopped where he felt the indents of her ribs, and gently began to pat her on the back, hearing the echo in the chamber of her ribcage.
All of a sudden, Victoria gasped violently, her hand shooting out to grab Camdyn’s thigh. He flinched as her fingernails dug into his flesh, for though he was reaching the end of his road to recovery, some of the scrapes and bruises he had suffered were not quite yet healed. But he would have allowed her to pummel him with all her might, if it meant she was breathing again. It was the least he could do, after all she had done for him.
“Lass?” he whispered thickly.
She gripped his leg harder as she lurched forward, coughing and spluttering desperately. He watched the brutal contractions that tangled up the tautened muscle of her slender back as she fought for air and took decisive action.
Wrapping his arms around her, he pulled her against him until her back rested flush to his torso. For the sake of her dignity, he covered her swollen breasts with his forearm, while his other arm encircled her narrow waist.
Dinnae think of her soft skin against ye. Dinnae think of her breasts against yer arm. Dinnae think of her like that, ‘til she’s well again, he told himself, though it was hard not to think of himself, with her, in a more pleasant embrace. One in which she turned to face him, and her breaths were ragged for an entirely different reason.
“Lass, I need ye to breathe with me,” he urged, casting any lusty thoughts out of his mind. “Can ye do that?” He took in a deliberate, deep breath, so she would feel the movement against her back.
For a moment, she continued to gasp in fits and starts, clearly panicked by her collapse. But he persevered, breathing in and holding his breath for several seconds, before breathing out again.
“Lass, come on. Breathe with me. Breathe when I breathe in, breathe when I breathe out.” He pulled her closer to him, and continued the pattern of slow, deliberate drags of air.
A minute later, she began to copy his movements, though her hand remained gripped on his thigh, as if for support.
Sitting there on the floor of her personal study, they breathed as one, their inhales and exhales in perfect unison, as she slowly began to relax in his arms. He tilted his head to one side so he could get a better look at her face, and felt relief wash over him as he saw some color return to her cheeks and her lips. He never wanted to see that bluish tinge again, for he had seen it often enough on the corpses of fallen warriors.
“Th-thank you,” she whispered. “I d-do not know what h-happened. I c-could not c-catch my breath, and I could not undo m-my stays to open up m-my chest.”
She slumped back against him, now breathing on her own terms. He felt the rise and fall of her chest as it lifted his forearm up and down, pushing her somewhat hardened nipples against his skin. He suppressed a groan, knowing it was not appropriate, but the way she was sitting, pressed up against him, her backside shuffled up to his loins, his arms enveloping her bare flesh, her head turned askew to reveal that kissable neck… It might have been the hardest battle he had ever fought, not to press his lips to her skin.
“Are ye well now?” he asked, reaching for the blanket that lay in a twisted mess upon the chaise. In moving forward, her body bent with his, her spine molding to his torso in a way that sent a jolt of fire
through him.
Ye’re goin’ to have to pull out yer best resources, Camdyn, he warned himself. Grasping the blanket, he forced himself to think of Genevieve, so his member would not harden against Victoria, and cause her any alarm.
He continued to think of the older woman as he wrapped Victoria up in the blanket, protecting her modesty. Soon enough, the partial swelling of his member ebbed and wilted, allowing him some clarity as he carried on holding Victoria to him. And without her bare breasts pressed to his forearm, and his other hand gripping her waist, he could gather himself as though the passion had never risen through him at all.
Victoria nodded. “I can breathe again.”
“Let’s get ye on the… whatever that’s called.” Camdyn shifted onto his knees and put his arms beneath Victoria, lifting her up and carrying her to the chaise, where he lay her down. She buried herself beneath the blanket, with just half of her face poking out of the top, like a nervous maiden on her wedding night.
Highlander's Fallen Angel : A Steamy Scottish Historical Romance Novel Page 8