Captive Scoundrel

by Annette Blair

  By morning his fever raged. He kicked off his blankets and tore at his nightshirt. Faith removed it, and his grateful look nearly undid her. He couldn’t drink the water he craved faster than it passed through his skin in perspiration—perspiration which did not cool him. She needed to lower his temperature.

  Barley water did not help. Neither the Cinchona bark, a newly-discovered fever remedy Jenny brought from the apothecary in the village. It seemed nothing helped. If it were winter, she’d cover him with snow.

  A memory surfaced—her as a child at Aunt Lizzie’s, where they enjoyed ice chunks in August. Where she lived, in Arundel, squares were cut from the river Arun’s frozen surface and stored underground between layers of hay for use later in the year.

  Faith asked, and Jenny confirmed that an icehouse stood near Killashandra.

  “Have ice fetched immediately…three, no six large chunks.”

  Two hours later, to Faith’s shock, Hemsted, Vincent’s man of affairs, brought buckets of chipped ice, introducing himself as he entered. Faith had no time to answer his inquiries, and after a glance toward her patient, he went on his way.

  She covered Justin with a blanket and placed the ice atop. Tiny chips, she placed on his tongue to quench his never-ending thirst. And through chattering teeth, he begged for more. The ice melted against his fevered body so fast, Faith had it broken into larger pieces the next morning.

  Again, Hemsted delivered it. Again, Faith dismissed him.

  Justin’s fever raged for three days. On the fourth, though still elevated, it no longer seemed life-threatening. When Faith poured that morning’s ice over him, Justin just about jumped from the bed. With a sweep of his arm, he sent ice skittering and shattering in every direction. “Blast it, Faith, if you want to freeze me for posterity, wait till I’m dead!” And she laughed. His temperature may not yet be normal, but she discontinued packing him in ice, though he devoured all the chips he could get.

  Her next step was to bathe him with cool, sudsy water. Then she exchanged the oil-cloth beneath him for clean sheets and covered him to his waist. Bare-chested and clean, he slept like a babe for the whole day, giving her a chance to bathe her smelly self, and spend time with Beth.

  That he survived the raging fever, Faith believed was certain proof that Justin would recover. But that evening, icy tremors seized him once again, and he opened his arms to her. That he trusted she would warm him with her body was the first sign he could trust at all. She wondered if he would later remember it as progress or weakness. When she climbed beneath the blankets, he pulled her against him and held her as if in letting go he would be lost. She derived as much comfort from him as he from her. Only night turning to day, and day back to night, augured the passing of time.

  Faith bathed, ate or changed, when Justin slept, which to her relief happened more often. The cycle repeated itself, yet as the days flew, each lessened in duration and strength. By the fourth week, each lasted hours, rather than days. The phases between became longer, more restful, followed by periods of near-wellness.

  When lucid, Justin watched her. And the more intimately she tended him, the angrier he became. Her bathing him, in particular, called upon his disdain. As now.

  Faith sponged him feeling the tension in every cord and sinew of his body, and she sought his distraction in words. “How old are you, your grace?”

  He frowned as if he couldn’t believe what he heard. “You call me Justin when you lie in my arms.”

  “And you call me many things, none of which I would like you to make a habit of using.”

  He nearly smiled. “I want you to call me Justin. Please.”

  She nodded. “Justin. How old are you?”

  “Thirty-four. You?”

  “Twenty.”

  “My God. A babe. I am forced to depend on a child.”

  “A child who has been caring for you, lifting you, feeding you—” Faith saw his horror. “I am simply saying that I am an adult, certainly no child.”

  “You’re right, of course. I am the child. Cannot even piss without help.”

  For the most part, she ignored him when he was coarse. But not today. “No, not a child; an old man. Doddering. Feebleminded.”

  She laughed at his consternation. “Don’t begin a word game you’re not willing to lose,” she said. “You scored not one hit with those singular verbal darts you toss.” She nodded in satisfaction. “And your bath is finished.”

  The next time he became ill, as had become ritual, she asked if he wanted his medicine.

  “I’ll not take the foul potion. I cannot.”

  “Just a bit.”

  “Blast it, Faith. I would rather be alive and in pain, than trapped in hell…alive.”

  The picture his words painted so moved her, Faith’s heart nearly broke, and she squeezed his hand. “I’ll not ask again.”

  He lifted their clasped hands to his heart. “Finally. It took you long enough. You’re so persistent, so resolute. No matter how often I said no, you—”

  “Were I not tenacious and unyielding, I would still dose you twice daily, at eight precisely…and you might not be bullying me now, you might be six feet under. Did you ever think of that?”

  He crossed his arms. “No. I did not.”

  “If you think to intimidate me—flat on your back, me towering over you—think again. You had best recover your strength and stand looking down at me, if you intend that I should shudder in my slippers.”

  He touched his lips to her fingertips, and the look in his eyes as he watched her above them, made her soar inside , as she savoured every nuance.

  He lowered his arms to his sides, still holding her hand, and gave her one of his wistful smiles. “I’m glad you’re persistent and resolute. And stubborn. And determined. And hard-headed—”

  “That’s quite enough.” This was as close as Justin Devereux would ever get to a thank you or an apology. And if he said one more word, she would cry. She cleared her throat. “Let’s celebrate.”

  “What?”

  “You know. A celebration. Because you’re off the medicine.”

  Justin suspected his nurse was touched, but he’d humour her. “Certainly.” He bowed—as well as he could in a bed. “May I have the honour of partnering you in this dance?”

  Her laugh brought an odd need, a longing for something fringed with danger…and still he yearned.

  She stopped laughing, and bristled at his silence, her brows furrowed with worry. Lord, he was tired of her disquiet. He wanted her to laugh more. “You’re right. A celebration is in order. Open yon windows. All of them. As wide as you can.”

  She gave him a head-tilt, a humour-the-idiot look, and he laughed. They were trying to humour each other. So be it. But she was smiling again. Confused, yes, but delighted. She opened several windows. “There you go. Plan to catch yourself a bird?”

  “Wider still, if you please.”

  She threw open the casements, inviting the warm summer breeze in, a hint of honeysuckle on its wings, and stood waiting.

  Honeysuckle. He liked the scent. And something akin to contentment filled him—odd considering his circumstances. Circumstances that might be deadly were it not for Faith Wickham. How had he managed without her? How would he go on if she left?

  Justin supposed that if he worried about the future, he must be less concerned that his death was imminent. Which must be a good thing.

  He caught her concern again. “Why so quiet, my faithful nurse?” He chuckled at his pun. “This is a celebration, remember?”

  He raised a vial of medicine and gave his nurse a calculating smile, his famous smile, the one that, over the years, felled many a white-clad virgin, scandalizing her doting mama in the process.

  But Faith’s return grin was just as deadly.

  Justin realized that grin had the power to slay him and his humour changed. “To hell with foul medicine!” He threw the vial. But it bounced off the sill and landed with a thud at her feet.

  �
��You missed,” she said.

  He tried to recover his light mood. “Ah well, I threw it symbolically, if not actually, out the window.”

  Faith’s eyes widened and she blushed.

  “Good God, did you think I was aiming at you?”

  “I…I didn’t know.” Her eyes began to sparkle. “But now I do.” She retrieved the vial from the floor. “To hell with sleep,” she said and tossed it out the window.

  His reaction to her enjoyment turned physical, so Justin thought his heart might fail, and he decided not to fight her, but to enjoy her. For as long as he dared.

  She went to the bed stand and took up several bottles, tossing them as one. “To hell with death.”

  Clink, clink, clink! The vials hit the elm by the window, and a cacophony grew, squawking, flapping, as a swarm of rooks took flight from its leafy depths. And amid the bustle, one misguided avis entered and circled the room…then as quickly flew back out again.

  Faith turned to him wide-eyed, and they burst into laughter.

  She tossed several more vials, sending to hell every manner of evil, including a childhood foe whose ears should grow so big, he should trip over them and break his fool neck.

  Justin was captivated.

  She fell laughing beside him on the bed. They wrapped their arms around each other to catch their breaths. Lord, he liked having her here. This, friendship, this esprit de corps was heady stuff. He had never experienced anything like. Daunting, to be sure, yet uplifting. “You kept some of the vials. You won’t try to pour them down my gullet while I sleep will you?”

  She chuckled against his neck where she fit so nicely. “If Harris finds us an apothecary to determine the ingredients, we might need them as samples.” She yawned.

  He’d ask her about the samples another time. “Go to sleep.”

  Moments later, he could tell from her breathing that she obeyed him. He closed his eyes to savour. He liked her here. He liked her.

  Dangerous, he knew, and perhaps when he put distance and time between him and her nurturing heart, her laughter nothing but a fond memory, he might remember she was a woman like all the rest. But for now, he would enjoy these rare moments.

  He pulled her close, inhaled the scent of her—violets. Tested the feel of her—silk. He saw images…of her leaning against a window berating God for letting him suffer. By all that was holy, he’d never heard of anyone giving hell to God.

  He could almost feel her hand rubbing his back as he’d writhed in agony, her tears warm on his shoulder. He’d watched those salty drops trail down his arm, and he became so moved, his own tears fell.

  In his mind’s eye, he saw the memory of moonlight revealing Faith in his arms, sharing the warmth of her body with him, taking his icy hands and sliding them into her bodice. She’d gasped at his touch. He’d pulled his hands away, but she took them back, and blushed, he knew, because her face had warmed his neck, a temperature for which he had been supremely grateful.

  He saw her fear as she removed his nightshirt when the heat emanated from him in suffocating waves. Then her look of profound relief as she’d packed him in ice, her hands so cold she’d wrapped them in towels to keep her fingers from freezing.

  He was too tired, suddenly, to separate one image of Faith from the other. The forms mingled. And within them shimmered the angel who had come to him while he suffered in hell. The angel who had set him free.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Bittersweet, ripe with orange berries and opening yellow pods, lined the stable drive. Summer neared its end. Harris should be back by now. Possible reasons for his tardiness seemed too alarming for Faith to contemplate.

  She helped Justin to the opposite side of the bed so she could cover the near side with an oilcloth for his morning bath. Then she poured hot water into the basin and gathered towels and razor.

  “Your wages must be extravagant to inspire such dedication.”

  The better Justin got, it seemed, the nastier he became. But Faith was in no mood for his irascibility this morning. “Speak not one word of payment for your care, else I’ll throw the chamber pot at your thick head.” She had even less patience for his arrogant smile. “Yes I became your nurse for the wages, and as to whether they’re generous, I cannot say. But were they tuppence or guineas per quarter, I would give the same care. Now get your lazy self back to this side. You need the exercise.”

  “You, Miss, are being paid to tend me. See that you do.”

  Like her first morning at Killashandra, she was being bullied by an arrogant duke. “You are exactly like your brother.”

  “That’s a bloody spiteful thing to say!”

  If she’d thought him provoked previously, it was nothing to this. She shouldn’t have mentioned Vincent, considering Justin’s vow of vengeance.

  “What, pray tell, do you know of my brother?”

  “The benighted man harped on the subject of my wages using the same acerbic tones…as if I should grovel with thanks for his generosity.”

  Justin scoffed. “Vincent is never generous. If he pays you well, he has something to gain by it.”

  Faith helped Justin wishing he hadn’t confirmed that suspicion. “Nevertheless…should I, a stranger to you both, have said, ‘No wages necessary. I shall be pleased to care for such a nasty, disagreeable man from the kindness of my heart?’”

  “You couldn’t have described me so. I was unconscious.”

  She poked her finger into his hard, unmoving chest. “Correct! And would still be, if not for me.”

  He frowned at her poking finger.

  She removed it and attended to dipping the washcloth in hot water. “I didn’t know yet what a chuckle-head you were.”

  To erase Justin’s scowl, she washed his face with undue vigour, ignoring his oath. In like manner, she washed his neck, shoulders and arms. “It seems to me, did I nothing to earn my wage, you would be correct to complain. But there is no lack in the care I give you.”

  “You nearly killed me with your care!”

  “You had accomplished the near-dead state before I arrived.” She rolled him over. “I earn every brass farthing.”

  “I cannot agree, as I do not know how much you earn.”

  “And you never shall!” As she washed his chest, his interest became pointed and disquieting, and she became self-conscious.

  “You missed a spot,” he said.

  She looked up, to see if he was serious. “I beg your pardon.” His probing eyes sparkled and Faith wished he would turn his avid examination from her face. Would that she could bathe him and forget it…but the lout must bring it to both their attentions.

  “I said, my dear, you have missed a spot.” Even his voice had gained strength in the last weeks.

  She had no doubt that he took pleasure in fanning the embers of her discomfort. “Where?” she asked.

  He pointed obscurely, somewhere below his belly. “There.”

  “Where!”

  “Your vocabulary seems to have taken wing, your wits along with it. I indicate your lack because I am uncomfortable, and would like to be washed more thoroughly. More zealously.”

  Lord, his words shivered her in the most incredible places.

  He raised a brow. “Surely the procedure is not abhorrent to you. Because, my dear, you look as if you have taken a disgust of your work. And with the lavish wages my brother is paying you.”

  Faith shut her mouth and lathered the cloth zealously. Perhaps if it was thick with suds and she washed his…parts with speed, the procedure wouldn’t seem so intimate. She gathered the courage to work her way toward that dreaded triangle of mystery.

  “Surely mine is not the first man’s body you’ve seen?”

  “Certainly not.” How could a voice she’d prayed so long to hear, infuriate her so? Of course she’d never seen another man’s body. Papa had washed grandfather, and Justin looked different from little Andy’s.

  Hands shaking, determined to finish, Faith arrived at the dratted location he indic
ated, making certain a thick layer of suds covered him. She did a thorough washing, scrubbing around and under parts she yearned to examine at her leisure. She lowered her chin to hide her colour. Examine at her leisure? Really? She scrubbed harder.

  “Bloody hell!” Justin pushed her hand away and nearly doubled over cupping himself.

  That area was softer than she expected. “Did I hurt them?”

  “I wanted to be washed not castrated.”

  “Cat’s what?” she asked.