He swung his head to look at the ladder. "Can't. Tired... so tired."
"Jon," she said sharply. She grabbed his head in her hands and looked into his eyes, trying to find some spark of understanding. "You have to. For me."
She could see him straighten, gathering himself, finding some hidden reserve of strength. "For you." He grasped the ladder and lifted his foot to the lowest rung.
It was laborious going, inching up with the slow motions that seemed to be the only ones he could manage. Once he stopped and clung to the ladder, marshaling his strength so he could move again. Finally, he pulled himself through the hole and collapsed on the loft floor.
CHAPTER 19
Yellow moonlight, nearly as warm and golden as the sun, streamed through her window. Bennie's sheets were tangled around her legs, her night rail damp and clinging to her too warm flesh.
It must be nearing the middle of the night, she thought, yet it was still so hot. She'd tossed and dozed, then turned again, trying to capture just a hint of coolness. It had to be nearly unbearable in the stable loft.
After Jon had managed to make his way up the ladder, she'd rapidly dragged up the rest of the supplies and made a pallet for him. He'd crawled onto the bedding and collapsed on his stomach, out like a candle snuffed by a brisk October wind.
Bennie had stabled the customers' horses and spent most of the afternoon with Jon, watching over him, as if that would somehow assure his health. He'd slept the rest of the day away. Near evening, she'd managed to awaken him and get a few swallows of thin broth down him, but he'd been unfocused and nearly incoherent.
She had to go check on him again. The combination of heat and worry was making sleep impossible anyway. Snatching a thin, dark cape, she tossed it around her shoulders, more to cover the bright white of her gown than for any need of its warmth.
Her bare feet glided over the smooth wood of the stairs, making no noise as she descended and slipped out the front door. The scent of the summer night was heavy in the still, hot air, thick with growing herbs, fermenting ale, and the heady fragrance of vibrant blooms.
Dry grasses prickled the soles of her feet, and she wondered when this unusually warm, dry spell would finally end. Opening the door to the stables wide, she let in a bit of the moonlight, enough to make out the dark, familiar shapes. A horse snuffled quietly. Just inside the entrance, tucked along the wall, they kept a lantern, and she scooped it up before heading for the loft.
Jon's breathing was harsh and labored. Filled with sudden, icy trepidation, she ran to him. She fumbled with the flint and steel before managing to light the lantern; dangerous to do in the loft, where a spark could ignite the dry hay, but at this moment that wasn't her primary concern. She set the lantern down close enough to Jon so she could see him clearly, the golden light illuminating the sharp angles and hollows of his face.
He moaned, moving restlessly, his features twisted into fierce agony. Oh, God. Was he in so much pain?
"Damn... don't die!" he muttered hoarsely. "Hang on!"
A nightmare, she thought, wondering what nightmares he'd been through since the last time she'd seen him. He'd obviously been shot twice. What else had happened to him? Something to cause this kind of anguish. He groaned again, and she reached for his shoulder to shake him awake. At a touch, she snatched her hand back.
He was blazingly hot, far too warm to attribute it simply to the temperature in the loft.
She laid her palm against his brow, hoping to find it moist with sweat, but his skin was bone dry, hot as metal left out in the noon sun, and she knew he hadn't just been having a nightmare. He was in the grip of a raging fever.
A sick ache settled into her belly. Lifting the lantern high, she edged up the bandage covering his back and peered under it. The skin around his wound was puffy, mottled with dark splotches that she knew in the full light of day would prove to be angry red.
There wasn't time to think. Bennie worked quickly, pawing through the jumble of patent medicines she'd taken from Brendan's shop. She tilted bottles towards the lantern, trying to read their labels.
Elixir Vitriol. She vaguely recalled her mother giving that to her brothers when they'd had various fevers. But how was she going to get it down Jon's throat?
"Jon."
No response.
"Jon. Wake up!" she said sharply into his ear, hoping that once again she could get through to him for just a moment or two. His condition was so much worse than it had been the past morning.
"Beth?" he murmured groggily.
"I've got something for you to drink."
He grimaced. "Flip?"
"No, no flip. Medicine. You have to take it." He was still sprawled on his belly, and it made administering the elixir more difficult. She couldn't just prop him up into a sitting position.
His face was turned toward her. She pried his mouth open, and poured a good swig of the liquid into his cheek. "Swallow!"
She watched his throat until she saw his Adam's apple slide up and down. She got another swallow into him, eyeing the length of his body. He was so big. Once more, for good measure.
Waiting for the medicine to take effect, she stroked his face, feeling the sharp rasp of his unshaven beard. Unable to resist, she slid her hand to the strong hollow of his throat and over the curve of his uninjured shoulder. Despite the temporary weakness caused by his illness, it was so easy to feel the strength contained in his body. He was made of solid muscle and thick sinew wrapped in smooth, polished skin, and she couldn't quite suppress the glimmer of heat that rippled through her at the pleasure of touching him.
He began to shiver, and she realized that despite the almost overpowering heat in the loft, he was chilled. The medicine hadn't done its job; the fever was still rising. As much as she wanted to give in to the temptation to warm him and make him comfortable, she knew it was more important to get the fever down.
She ran from the stables to the well and hauled up a bucket of water. In the quiet night, the creaking of the rope seemed unusually loud, and water poured back into the depths of the well.
She filled her own bucket, the small bits of metal that held the oak slats together cooling almost instantly as it was filled with the cold water. Their well was deep, one of the coldest in town.
When she returned to Jon's side, she dunked a rag in the water and began to wipe him down. He jerked away from her touch, mumbling under his breath; to him, it must feel as if he were being stroked with ice. The toweling quickly grew lukewarm, and she plunged it in the bucket again, grateful for the water's smooth coolness against her wrists.
She wiped every part of him that was bare; his forehead, his cheekbones, the smooth column of his neck, the broad panes of his back. The moisture didn't evaporate into the humid air, so his skin glistened with it, reflecting the rich, golden light from the lamp.
He began to talk again, feverish murmurings that made no sense, fragmented snippets of battle, senseless splinters of his childhood.
Again and again, she ran the cold cloth over him, twice returning for a fresh bucket of water when the one she had became too warm. The night took on a rhythm of its own, as she glided the cloth repeatedly over his heated skin. Her back began to ache, but she kept on, doing the only thing she could, the steady back-and-forth motion soothing her, and, she hoped, him. His restless stirring diminished slightly, and she watched shiny beads of water run down the swells of his back and settle in the hollow at the base of his spine.
His ramblings were more coherent now, no longer jumbled by the violent shudders of his body. He spewed out a long row of sentences.
Bennie frowned. It made no sense. He was feverish, perhaps delusional. And yet...
She leaned closer, listening carefully to the words tumbling from his mouth. As her hands continued to cool him, her brow furrowed in concentration.
Finally, so slowly she at first thought she'd imagined it because she was so hoping for it, his body began to cool. When she touched the back of her hand to his fore
head, it no longer felt as if it would burn her own skin.
Wearily, she tossed the rag into the bucket. Through the tiny window, she could see the first graying of the sky. She'd been at it half the night, but if she'd been asked, she might have thought it days; the hours had all run together, a seamless blur of his skin under her hands.
Unfolding a fresh linen sheet over Jon's legs, her own limbs felt drained of all energy. Climbing down that ladder once again seemed like an almost overwhelming task.
Her cloak was spread out beside her and, with a sigh, she lay down on it, slipping her hands under her cheek. She needed to rest, just for a moment, needed to gather her strength. She could scarcely even manage to think. There was something she was supposed to be thinking about, she remembered vaguely, but she couldn't quite manage to catch hold of the thoughts.
***
Why was he so hot? Jon swam dizzily through vicious, heated blackness. Slowly, he became aware of bits of reality: the scratching of a rough blanket beneath his cheek, the damp stickiness of sweat on his body, and a steady, strong ache in his upper back.
Struggling to recall what had happened to him, he tried to force his eyes open. His thoughts were fuzzy, and it frustrated him that he couldn't think with his usual clarity.
The light that met his eyes was dim and diffuse, thick with dust and humidity. A bit of straw tickled his nose, and he huffed it away.
Beth. Not more than three feet from him, resting peacefully on her side, looking like an innocent child, her hands tucked underneath the smooth curve of her cheek. For a moment, he stopped struggling to make sense of it all and allowed himself the pure pleasure of looking at her.
Her skin was flushed with the heat and sheened with perspiration; her hair was a wild tumble of curls the color of the straw and sunlight that surrounded her. He realized he'd never before seen her with her hair completely free.
She was wearing a voluminous night rail that was made of a fabric thin enough to flow and dip over her wonderful soft curves. It was twisted around her body, tight over her breasts, and he wondered whether in enough sunlight the gauzy cloth would hint at the dark tips of her nipples.
She frowned in her sleep, her high forehead furrowing. What worries disturbed her rest? He shouldn't let her have any worries.
And she was much too special to be sleeping in hay. What was she doing here? He managed to take his eyes off her long enough to look around at his surroundings.
Familiar. It was the loft where they'd...
Oh, hell. He remembered going to the rendezvous, only to find it had all gone bad. Somehow, his enemies had been there waiting for him. He'd made a run for it, and then there had been that fiery pain in his back.
He'd weakened so quickly. He'd had no place to go, no one he could turn to. He remembered reaching the stable and pitching head first onto the nearest pile of straw. The memories were fragmented after that, oddly distorted. There was a ladder and the awful, impossible task of climbing it. Beth had been there, twisting in and out of his memories, her hands cool and soothing upon him, her voice penetrating the fog in his head.
And there'd been nightmares. He couldn't really remember them, but he knew he'd had them. There was only a residual blackness; emptiness, violence, and the terrible certainty that, somehow, it was all his responsibility.
Her eyelids fluttered open, sable lashes sweeping up over eyes an even richer brown. Hazy awareness settled into them.
"Morning, Beth."
"Jon." Her lips curved into a sleepy smile, and he felt a sharp pang of regret that he'd never seen her awaken before. She was unconsciously sensual, settling slowly into wakefulness with an easy, natural stretch of her limbs. What would it be like, if he had the right to reach for her, making love to her in the morning when her body was still lethargic and damp with sleep? He imagined himself entering her slowly, while she leisurely arched beneath him and rubbed her cheek against the rasp of his morning beard.
He watched consciousness come over her. She sat up and pushed her hair back, the motion tightening her gown across her breasts, and he couldn't help watching the play of cloth over skin.
He dragged his gaze back to her face. The welcoming look she'd given him upon wakening had been replaced with distance and alert wariness. Her eyes were dark, the color of the best, freshly made coffee, liquid and shimmering—and impossible to fathom.
He'd spent a lot of time learning to look beneath the surface, trying to read the emotions she hid so well. He'd gotten quite good at it, but now, he found, he couldn't see anything at all. She was closed to him.
Well, why not? he berated himself. He was her enemy. In all likelihood, he'd shot at some of her family. He was lucky she hadn't killed him herself.
"How are you feeling?" she said slowly, as if choosing her words with great care.
He flexed his left arm experimentally, relieved to find it still functioned. The movement sent sharp pains shooting through his shoulder and down his back, and he ground his molars together against a groan. So it hurt. At least it worked.
"Hurts... a little. Not bad."
"You had a fever." She frowned a bit, then knelt beside him, tucking her gown between her knees, and dropped a hand to his forehead. "It seems to be gone now. Are you hungry?"
"A little."
"I'll bring you something later." She stared at him, her expression carefully controlled, showing no emotion at all. He was oddly piqued, just a bit. He'd have thought she'd be at least slightly happy at his recovery.
"Feel sticky," he said, conscious of the sweat and dirt clinging to him. He didn't want to be soiled in her company, at least not on the outside. He couldn't do much for the inside.
"I'll wash you." She fetched a white enameled washbasin, filling it with a steady stream of water poured from the wooden bucket. As always, her motions were competent, graceful in their confidence and strength. This wasn't a woman who fumbled.
She dipped a cloth in the water, wringing it out with a strong twist of her wrists. He sighed in pleasure as she began to wash him, welcoming the cool cleansing, but her touch was distant and impersonal, as if she was simply a hired nurse caring for a tolerated patient.
"What happened?" she asked.
"Battle. Got shot."
"I didn't hear about any battles near here."
"Small one."
"Small one," she repeated slowly, her hands stilling on his back. "That's all?"
"All I remember." He tried a smile on her. This time, she didn't smile back.
Her hand went back to the pan, wetting the rag again. She was watching him intently.
"Don't you want to tell me anything else?" she asked flatly.
She was certainly acting odd. She had the right to be angry with him, considering what had happened between them. Yet, he didn't think that was the problem. There was something else, something that made her wary of him in a way she'd never been before. He saw another emotion, carefully hidden but simmering just beneath the surface. What was it?
"What?" he asked carefully.
"Oh, I was wondering what you've been doing since you've been gone."
"Missed you?" he tried.
He didn't see it coming. Water cascaded over his head, filling his open mouth, sluicing over his shoulders, soaking his bandage, pouring onto the blanket under him.
She'd actually dumped the wash water over him! Sputtering, he shook his head to clear his eyes. With his good arm, he pushed himself up slightly and stared at her.
It was anger. She towered over him, her gown swirling around her calves. Her eyes snapped with fire.
"You... you . .. How could you? How could you, you lying, deceptive, unprincipled—you're no more of an idiot than I am. No, I'm the idiot, for never having seen it in the first place!"
His tongue felt too big for his mouth. Damn! He'd spent three years in this role, and no one had ever seemed to catch even a glimmer of the truth. Now it was shot to hell, all because he'd done what he'd known from the beginning—oh, yes,
he'd known—he shouldn't do: get involved with this woman.
Her foot was already on the first rung of the ladder.
"Where are you going?"
She glared at him. "To turn you in!"
He lifted an eyebrow. It was almost a relief, not to have to control every gesture. "In your nightgown?"
She glanced down, as if she'd forgotten what she was wearing. "Lord," she muttered, and her head disappeared below the floor of the loft.
She popped up again a moment later. "The horse is still there."
Bennie strode across the loft, chaff flying around her, and stopped in front of the window, mumbling under her breath something he couldn't quite catch.
"What horse?"
"My mother's."
"So?"
Pursing her lips, she spared him another searing glance. If she were a man, she'd make one hell of an army officer; all she'd need was that look and insubordinates would cower before her.
"So she's still here. So she hasn't left for Adam's yet. So I can't go back to the house or she'll see me like this."
"Oh." The strain on his shoulder was beginning to tell, and he lowered himself back to the blanket. She wasn't leaving him yet.
CHAPTER 20
She wanted to kill him. She'd spent a whole day and night, slaving away to save his worthless hide, and right now she felt fully capable of stripping it from him, inch by miserable inch.
How had she missed it? She took a quick peek at him; his eyes were blazing with intelligence and intensity. How could she not have seen it? All the vagueness was gone from his face, replaced with absolute control and concentration.
There was only one explanation. She'd been blinded, too bedazzled by that gorgeous face and body to bother with looking deeper. There'd been hints—oh, yes, there had been, and she'd ignored them. She'd pushed them away, writing them off as her imagination, or bits of the "past Jon" showing through, because she'd liked him as he was, now accessible and accepting.
He'd always been gorgeous, even with that deceptive vagueness on his face. Now, with his features sharpened, his eyes alight, he was absolutely devastating. And he looked entirely too calm.
Law, Susan Kay Page 21