by Goodman, Jo
Christian finally loosened Jenny's grip on his robe, but before he could raise himself, she landed two hard blows on his chest and neck and scored his cheek with her nails.
Christian's exit from the tub was as ungainly as his fall had been. He sat heavily on the floor, out of breath and soaked to the skin. Dipping one hand in the water, he caught Jenny by the collar of her nightshift and roughly jerked her upright. "Stay where you are, Mrs. B.," he said tiredly as the housekeeper advanced in his direction to help. "This she-cat will pull you in as well. You can't imagine how strong she—owww!" Christian withdrew his hand sharply as Jenny's teeth sank into the fleshy ball of his fist. "Mad little bitch," he said. He regarded the half moon impression her teeth had made in his flesh as he rose to his knees. She had not drawn blood but not because she hadn't tried. "I've a good mind to bite you back."
Shaking as if with ague, Jenny merely regarded him blankly.
"Oh, Jesus," he swore softly, pushing aside several thick strands of hair that were plastered to her cheek and neck. "What is to be done about you?" He glanced over his shoulder at the housekeeper. "Mrs. B., be so helpful as to get one of my nightshirts. We have to put her in something dry. There are some towels in the dressing room. Fetch those as well." Christian slipped his hands under Jenny's arms and dragged her out of the tub. He pulled her against him, and she stayed there without protest, fitting the contours of his body as if she belonged there. She was stiff and cold and reminded Christian of nothing so much as a fledgling chick. As for himself, he thought he was behaving in the finest tradition of a mother hen. The soggy sleeves of his robe even resembled wings as he wrapped her in his arms. His legs were splayed, and Jenny's trembling body slipped comfortably in the cradle of his thighs. He had the absurd notion that he was meant to wait for this egg to hatch.
Christian rubbed Jenny's back while he waited for Mrs. Brandywine to bring the towels. "I suppose the bath wasn't such a good idea," he said. "Let me see your hands and feet."
There was no response from Jenny, and Christian really hadn't expected one. He lifted each of her hands in turn, examined them, and then pressed them together between his warmer ones. Nudging aside the hem of her nightshirt where it covered her feet, Christian saw the tiny cuts had stopped bleeding. He supposed that removing the slivers of glass would have to wait until she could understand what was being done to her. He could imagine touching her with a pair of tweezers and having her react as if he were stabbing her with a knife. There was no telling what manner of torture had passed for treatment at Jennings.
Christian covered her feet to keep them warm. His chin rested against the crown of her head. His mouth set in a grim line as he stared at the fire. "Do you have a bit of the devil in you, Jenny Holland?" he asked softly. He released her hands and folded one of his arms around her, slipping it just under her breasts to keep her warm as well as upright. He nearly came out of his skin when he felt her place his palm over her left breast.
"There," she said dully. "That's what you like."
Her voice was so low that Christian had to dip his head to hear her. When he did, he felt the press of her mouth just below his ear. She didn't bite him, but her words had the same effect. Christian pulled back sharply and cursed under his breath. "Mrs. B.! Hurry, will you? I cannot be held responsible for what I do to this woman if you—"
"I'm here," she said breathlessly, skittering to a halt in front of Christian. "There were towels all over the floor in there and no fresh—"
"No explanations, please. Just give me one for her hair. You can start stripping her out of her shift."
"Oh, but—"
"I'm not in the mood to listen to tittering objections. Will you please do as I say?" He reached up and caught the corner of one of the towels that the housekeeper held. He yanked it out of her hand and began patting down Jenny's hair. "I'm not going to ravish her, but I am not so certain I can vouch for her intentions toward me."
Mrs. Brandywine snorted. "If you would show a moment's patience you would know that I wasn't going to say anything of the kind. I merely wanted to point out it would be easier to remove her shift if you would put her on the bed."
"Oh." He raised sheepish eyes to Mrs. B. and held her rather pointed stare long enough to let her know he had been chastised.
The housekeeper reflected that some things hadn't changed in the thirty years since Christian's birth. He had been manipulating her with penitent expressions from the cradle onward. "Go on with you," she said. "I know when my leg's being pulled. Put her on the bed."
Christian finished drying Jenny's hair before he moved. Flinging the towel over his shoulder, he got to his feet, carefully supporting Jenny as he did so. He grasped her by the upper arms and hauled her up. She was still curled so tightly that her feet actually left the floor. "She's not making this easy," he muttered as he swung her into his arms. It was more the ungainliness of her position than her actual weight that made everything awkward for Christian.
"Should I get help?" Mrs. B. asked anxiously. "One of the men—"
"I'm fine," he said, cutting her off.
Mrs. Brandywine held her breath as Christian's bare feet slipped in a pool of water. He caught himself, paused, and then continued. The housekeeper threw down a towel and began mopping water with the toe of her slipper.
"Leave it for later," Christian said. "I need your help here." He dropped Jenny on the bed and used the towel that was hanging over his shoulder to briskly rub her down. "Did you find one of my nightshirts?"
Mrs. B. held it out to him. "Take it. I'll get her out of this wet thing."
Jenny moved restlessly, moaning softly as she felt the hem of her shift being lifted past her calves, over her knees, then sliding along her thighs. Billy had promised he wouldn't make her undress. She didn't want him to see her. Touching was unpleasant but tolerable. If she let him see her, she would never feel clean. "No," she protested. Tears gathered under her eyelids. "Nooo." Her head moved from side to side. "Please, no."
Christian sensed what was going to happen before Mrs. Brandywine. He tried to move the housekeeper out of the way, but his timing was off by a single beat. Jenny's knees came up and rammed into Mrs. Brandywine's bosom as the housekeeper bent over her. Mrs. B. was thrown off balance, first by Jenny, then by Christian as he pushed her out of the way. She stumbled away from the bed and sucked in her breath, trying to fill her lungs with air.
"Don't, Christian!" she gasped when she saw him take Jenny's wrists in a rigid, painful grip. "She didn't know what she was—"
Christian was only marginally aware that Mrs. B. was speaking to him. It was one thing for Jenny to bite, kick, and scratch at him, but when her madness turned on Mrs. Brandywine, rational thought abandoned him. He jerked her upright, caught her by the shoulders and shook her roughly. "Don't you ever, ever hit her again—"
"Christian," Mrs. B. pleaded, tugging at the soggy sleeve of his robe. "She can't even hear—"
Neither could Christian. Jenny had become a wild thing in his arms, fighting him with a strength that was suited to a man half again her size. "Oh, no you don't," he said as she began to flail at him. "Not this time." He pushed her back hard on the bed, and this time when he straddled her it was not at the hips. He slid over her chest and pinned her upper arms to the mattress with his knees. Jenny's hands and fingers went numb almost immediately. They fell uselessly above her head. The attempts she made to unseat him were unsuccessful. Her legs, with nothing but air to push against, gradually stopped kicking. There was a droplet of blood on her lip where she had bitten it. She had nothing left to move except her eyes, and for a while they darted frantically. Exhaustion, not surrender, finally closed them.
"Mr. Marshall," Mrs. B. said gently after several highly charged minutes had passed. "She's done in now."
Christian exhaled slowly and nodded. He eased off Jenny and turned to Mrs. Brandywine. "Are you all right?"
"Yes," she assured him.
His eyes made a careful study of the ol
der woman until he was satisfied that she was speaking the truth. "I was afraid she hurt you."
"Winded a little. I'm fine now."
"I'll take it from here," Christian told her. "Nothing good can come of you trying to help." His head gave a slight jerk backward toward the bed, indicating Jenny. "She's completely unpredictable."
There was a whimper from that quarter, and Mrs. Brandywine looked around Christian's shoulder as he pivoted to face the bed again. Jenny was sitting up now, her knees pressed to her chest. Her back was stiff and straight against the dark headboard. She looked at them, at the room, and finally regarded herself with helpless confusion.
"It happened again, didn't it?" she asked huskily, speaking more to herself than to her audience. Her fingers plucked at the wet sleeves of her nightshift and she blinked rapidly, stemming the tears that threatened to flow. "Perhaps they were right after all. I may well be mad... I can't even..."
Both Christian and Mrs. B. leaned forward, straining to hear what Jenny was saying. Her voice trailed off into nothingness and they were no longer privy to her thoughts. Without warning her body went limp, unfolded, and she fell on her side away from them. The only evidence they had to suggest she was crying was the intermittent shuddering of her shoulders. A pillow smothered her sobs.
"Poor thing," Mrs. B. said sympathetically. "Let me go to her, Christian."
He hesitated before nodding and stepping back. "See if you can't get her to change her wet gown. I'll clean up." Christian closed his ears to the soothing, cooing noises Mrs. B. showered on Jenny. He dragged the tub into the dressing room, changed his own wet clothes, and mopped the floor with the towels that Jenny didn't need. "She may as well sleep there tonight," he said, stretching out on the divan when he was done pulling glass splinters from his feet. "There's not another room prepared or one warm enough for her."
"Where will you sleep?" Mrs. Brandywine asked. She was sitting on the bed with Jenny's head in her lap. Her fingers gently stroked Jenny's hair and cheek. Jenny's eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted, her breathing even.
"Right here," he said, patting the cushion.
The housekeeper looked skeptically at Christian's bare feet, which were hanging over the edge of the divan. "You won't be comfortable. I'll take her to my room."
"How? She's finally sound asleep, and I'm not going to carry her to the other wing. My feet still feel like pincushions."
"Then I'll sleep here with her and you can spend the night in my room."
"Mrs. B.," he sighed. "I won't let you be alone with her. There's no telling what she might do, and you simply haven't the strength to restrain her. Take yourself off to bed. You're not the only one falling asleep where you are."
What he said was undeniably true. Still, she couldn't leave without voicing her objections. "It's not proper, Mr. Marshall."
Christian cut her off before she could warm to her subject. "There, you've made your token protest. That's all I'm going to allow you. What the rest of the staff doesn't know won't hurt them. Off to bed, Mrs. Brandywine."
It was futile to go on and she didn't have the energy. "Very well. But let me get you some blankets first." She eased Jenny's head off her lap and back onto a pillow.
"To bed," Christian said, pointing toward the door.
"At least let me stoke the—"
"Bed."
"Tyrant."
"Busybody."
Mrs. Brandywine turned the handle on the door. Her tender smile disappeared as she yawned hugely. "Good night, Mr. Marshall."
"Good night, Mrs. Brandywine."
Chapter 5
Christian couldn't sleep. He had been exhausted when Mrs. Brandywine left and now that he was alone—almost alone—he was bone weary and restless. Somehow it did not seem a contradiction. The divan was hopelessly inadequate for his needs, but Christian knew better than to think that was the reason for his wakefulness. She was to blame. He couldn't sleep for watching her.
Turning away from her didn't help. Jenny's pure profile confronted him no matter where he looked, no matter if his eyes were open or closed. He decided it made more sense to look at her than not. Christian sat up and threw his legs over the side of the divan. Resting his elbows on his knees, he supported his chin on his fists and studied Jenny's face.
It had been a long time since he had looked at a woman's face with an artist's eye to line and form. The first thing Christian found himself considering was the reason Jenny Holland had awakened his interest. There was no single feature that engaged his attention, yet the whole of her face, especially now while she was at peace, was a work of striking beauty.
Her expression was serene and untroubled. The traces of tears had been wiped away. There were no lingering lines of tension at the corners of her mouth, her eyes, or her brow. Had Christian not seen her earlier, he would not have guessed that she had ever known terror. The shadows in the faint hollows beneath her cheeks and below her eyes were caused by the firelight, not apprehension.
Through thoughtful, narrowed eyes, Christian studied the line of a jaw that was often determinedly set, yet undeniably feminine. The bones of her face were too finely drawn to lay any claim to masculinity, yet there was unquestionable strength there that Christian associated with his own sex not hers. Jenny's dark eyebrows curved in an elegant, feathered arch. Her thick lashes framed expressive eyes when she was awake and fringed delicate, blue-veined lids when she was asleep. Her pared nose was not so much as a centimeter off center, but her mouth was a shade too wide, the bottom lip too full for Jenny to be acknowledged by society as a conventional beauty. Jenny's mouth gave her an erotic sensuousness that was clearly lacking in the refined lines of her other features.
Again and again, Christian found his eyes drawn to the curve of her mouth. When her lips parted on a sigh, and she unconsciously wet them with the tip of her tongue, Christian sucked in his breath. It was not strictly carnal arousal that he felt. Though he did not deny that was part of his reaction, what struck him with all the force of a physical blow was his desire to paint her, to capture on canvas the face whose features were a contradiction of purity and voluptuousness.
Christian stood, agitated. He did not know what to do with his hands. There were no pockets in his nightshirt to jam them in. His robe was still wet. His fingers folded and unfolded. He lit a lamp on the table by the rocker, and then paced the room restlessly, stopping periodically to poke at the fire or add more coals.
The contradiction he saw in Jenny's face existed in her character as well. He did not appreciate Scott handing him this particular female puzzle. According to his friend, Jenny was a virgin. Christian had seen enough to know she was innocent. He had observed her almost painful shyness when she had come upon him in his bath, and she had seemed genuinely distressed when his language turned salty.
But how did that fit with the fact that she had approached him with the shamelessness of a whore?
He could not find a satisfactory answer. He particularly could not accept that Jenny Holland was mad or that two disparate personalities existed within her. The notion seemed as absurd as believing in demons and devils and possession. That left him to believe there was something he was overlooking, some vital missing piece. If he could discover it, the mystery of Jenny Holland would be solved.
All the time Christian had been contemplating Jenny he had studiously avoided looking at his writing desk. Now he approached it, unable to hold himself back. Quietly sliding open the desk's only drawer, he withdrew a single sheet of paper and one charcoal stub.
The pool of light from the lamp erased the shadows on her cheeks. Christian's eyes traced the contours of her face and found his starting point in the strand of hair that outlined the gentle curve of her ear. His grip on the charcoal stub loosened and he made a sweeping line, hardly touching the bit to the paper. He made the same motion several times before the charcoal touched down and produced the exact arc, angle, and curve he wanted.
Christian worked quickly, against t
ime, against his fear that the vision in his mind's eye would dissolve. He caught the smooth planes and hollows that defined her cheeks and forehead, the exact arch of her eyebrows. He used the side of his little finger to smudge the charcoal and suggest the color of her dark brown hair. He found the sharp edge of the charcoal and created each lash individually.
His picture was beginning to take form when the image he held began a subtle metamorphosis. On the bed Jenny continued to sleep, the serenity of her repose unchanged, yet Christian's perception dramatically altered. He was not aware it was happening. The full line that was her mouth became a gaping hole in her face, and a silent scream seemed to erupt from the paper. The bones of her cheeks were accentuated so that the hollows below were deeper. The effect was a certain emaciation that bordered on the skeletal. She looked starved, half-dead, and still she was screaming. He redrew her eyes and opened them this time. They were opaque, without light. They held nothing but death.
By slow degrees Christian began to see what was happening, and when his vision cleared he threw down the charcoal as if it were a hot ember in his hand. His chair scraped harshly against the floor as he pushed away from the desk. He grabbed the drawing, crumpling the haunted death mask that was Jenny's face in his fist. He went to the fireplace and pitched the paper into the flames. It vanished in a brief flash of heat and light. Limping, he returned to the divan and sat down, cradling his head in his hands. His shoulders heaved once as a shudder too powerful to be contained rippled through him and hot tears scalded his eyes.
It was the grating sound of the chair being pushed against the floor that woke Jenny. Her sleep-filled vision cleared in time to see Christian throw something into the fireplace. Watching him through the feathered fan of her lashes, she bit the soft inner side of her lip to keep from making any sound. This was a private moment, and she was an intruder here. His despair was profound and something she was never meant to witness. Yet here she was, unable to turn away because what she saw touched a chord in her heart. She wanted to cry for him. She wanted to comfort him.