Page 7 of The Marquess Wins a Wife
There was a scrabbling sound, a muttered curse—and then a pair of eyes crested over the edge of the bed, framed by a disheveled tangle of dark hair. “You’re—you’realive.” That voice—the very one that had haunted his restless dreams. In the sun streaming through the window, he glimpsed a queer glimmer of moisture in her dark eyes.Tears?
“No thanks to you,” he snarled, struggling to force himself up to a reclining position.
With a sharp gasp, she popped up, laying one hand across his naked chest. “Don’t,” she said. “You’ll pull your stitches.”
“Stitches!” Bloody hell, she’d taken a damnedneedleto him? The wound ought to have been cauterized. He knew the pressure of her palm was gentle, light—but he couldn’t even work up the strength to throw it off. “Water,” he snapped. “And be quick about it.” His throat was drier than a desert. And where the hell had his clothes gone?
As she dashed for the water pitcher, he lifted his fingers to his arm—such a smallwound to have caused such trouble. Only three neat, precise stitches closed it. His fingers trembled with the effort simply to brush across the spot where the ball had entered. It was angry and red still—but the flesh was knitting. Which meant he’d been here for some time.
Had she thought to pull the ball from his flesh? He turned to ask her, and felt the corresponding burn on the underside of his arm—more stitches, he supposed. Which meant that he mustnotbe carrying a ball of lead around in his body. A small relief, then.
Christ, he’d been awake only minutes and already fatigue settled over him like a low-hanging cloud. Weak as a kitten, he settled back against the pillows and closed his eyes once more.
An arm slid beneath his neck. A glass pressed against his lips. A familiar softness—the gentle pressure of her breasts against his shoulder as she lifted him. His eyes flashed open, and so did his mouth, to upbraid her…except her brows were drawn in concentration, and there was a cool trickle of water sliding down his throat, chilling the heat of the angry words he’d wanted to say.
She had done this before for him. He could remember it, in the way that one remembers a fading dream. An understanding, an impression; afeelingmore than anything else. He had woken this morning with her hand clutched tightly in his own, her face just beside his on the adjacent pillow. And for just a moment, there had beenreliefin it.
Until he had remembered what she had done. Until he had perceived his weakness, his aching body. But before that—relief.Comfort. Peace. Startling, unfamiliar sensations he’d not known in years.
She drew the glass away at last, having managed it so skillfully that nary a drop had gone astray. And as she set the empty glass aside once more, he shoved aside the confused feelings that arose and drew up the deep well of his anger.
“Get out.”
She jerked, her brows lifting toward her hairline in surprise—and not a little fear. Her face, already rather wan, went paler still. “My lord—”
“Damn you,get out!” He didn’t know from whence he had managed to summon the bellow, but it served its purpose well enough. Another slight jerk, as if the sound had assailed her like a blow. And she fled, tripping in her haste to escape.
The door closed behind her, not with a mighty slam, but with only the soft clickof pressure against the door jamb—as if even in her terror, her haste to absent herself, still she had sought not to disturb him.
∞∞∞
Luke wasn’t aware of falling back to sleep, but he was most certainly aware of waking anew. It happened with the jarring crash of a door slamming against the wall, and then the thud of heavy boots stalking into the room.
Nother—Lizzie, as the ruined sister had called her, if recollection served. But the old man who had assisted in his abduction, a scowl ironed into his jaw with such severity that Luke doubted it would ever ease. He carried a tray in his gnarled fingers, which he dropped on the bed with such force that the watery, pale liquid contained within a chipped bowl sloshed over the side.
“Breakfast for ye,” the man snarled, his voice every bit as ornery as his face.
“Give it here, then.” With some effort, Luke managed to extend his arms, even though the right hurt like the hell.
That scowl deepened, wrinkling the sour face still further. “Should ye like me to feed it to ye as well, m’lord?” But he nudged the tray up anyway, and Luke managed to rouse himself enough to hook one finger around the lip of the tray and drag it closer still.
“Insolent.” He’d never had a servant speak to him in such a manner before. “I require clean clothing,” Luke said, because there was no mistaking the fact that he was bare as the day he’d been born beneath the bedclothes. He frowned down into the tray. “And what the hell is this?”
“Breakfast,” came the surly grumble. “And ye’ll get no clothing until ye can be trusted with the wearing of it. Bled straight through three sets of sheets already, ye have, and I won’t have Miss Lizzie scouring shirts of bloodstains like she’s had to scrub the linens.”
There was a wardrobe just there, in the corner. It would take the man no more than half a minute to glance through it to findsomethingthat would suit.
“Ye need a bath first, besides,” the man continued, turning up his hooked nose. “Ye stink to high heaven. Don’t know why Miss Lizzie even gave ye a bed.”
Probably playing upon his sympathies, which were largely nonexistent. Luke gave a dismissive wave to the tray. “I want bacon,” he said. “And coddled eggs. Toast and jam. Plum cake. Coffee as well.”
“Ye’re to have porridge and beef tea,” the man sniffed. “Miss Lizzie’s orders.”
“Miss Lizziecan go to the devil. You’ll bring me what I asked for.”
The dark eyes set deep beneath bushy white brows hardened. “Or what, m’lord? What’ll ye do, frail as ye are?”
The audacious retort took Luke momentarily aback—butcursethe man for beingright. What would he do? Not a damned thing in his condition. He could barely do more than lift the spoon, and evenitfelt unnaturally heavy within the shaky clasp of his hand.
