Page 11 of When a Duke Loves a Woman
She closed the door with a quietsnick. Strange how different her apartment felt, as though the stranger’s presence had seeped into every aspect of it, every corner. It made her uneasy, mostly because she realized how absent of company and comfort her life was. She’d been so hell-bent on making a success of her tavern she hadn’t made room for much else. Even time spent with her family had dwindled in recent years. She saw her brothers when they stopped by for a pint. Every couple of weeks she checked in on her mum. She’d usually see her sister, Fancy, then—if she was about. If she wasn’t, she didn’t go out of her way to try to find her. Fancy was only seven and ten. Not only did the years separate them, but so did the fact that they were very different people, destined for different lives. Mick—determined Fancy would marry well, an aristocrat if he had his way—had paid her tuition to a posh school where she’d learned refinement and the art of being a genteel lady and managing a household. While no one expected Gillie to marry, even if she’d been willing to hand over her tavern. No gent was going to marry a woman who refused to be viewed as property, not that any man had ever eyed her as though he might be considering making her his helpmate. She appealed to men as little as they appealed to her. If she were to have a man in her life at all, she had to accept the relationship would lead only to a tumble, nothing as respectable as marriage.
With some surprise, she realized while all these thoughts were swirling through her mind, she’d made her way to her bedroom. The man was asleep, the sheets a tangled mess around his hips and legs as though he’d wrestled with them a bit. One long arm rested along the side of his face, crooked over his head, the other hand curled near his groin. It was an exceedingly masculine pose, and if she weren’t so certain he was beyond reasoning, she’d think he’d set himself up like that on purpose, just to set her womanly instincts on edge. She’d worked so hard not to be attracted to men, and in the space of a single day, she was discovering all her efforts had been for naught. She could become unraveled by the sight of a lovely chest covered lightly in hair that arrowed down and disappeared beneath the coverings where something even more masculine resided.
With a groan and a quick flick of her wrists, she snapped the sheets back over him. She considered waking him for a bit of broth, but he appeared to be in a deep sleep, and his body probably—in order to properly heal—needed that more than what she was going to offer. Best just to leave him be. Still she pulled the sheet up to his neck in order to hide that distracting chest and brushed her fingers lightly over his jaw. His stubble was thicker, darker. If he went much longer without using a razor, he’d have a beard like Mick. It would be a shame to hide that strong, chiseled chin with an abundance of facial hair.
And there she was, once again, spending too much time pondering him, when she needed to get a bit of sleep herself. He took up most of her bed, not that she’d entertain the notion of lying beside him. He caused her womanly parts to riot enough as it was. If their proximity to him were any closer, they’d keep her awake with a longing she’d managed to keep in hibernation for a good portion of her life. However now that it had been disturbed, it seemed starving for sustenance. A good rest should send it back into submission.
She considered the sofa in her front room, but settled for the large plush chair beside the fire in this chamber, so she’d be certain to hear him if he called out in distress. Besides, she’d fallen asleep there many a night while reading. Over the years, it had begun to retain her shape, and when she sank into it and it molded around her, it was like coming home. In no time at all she was lost to slumber.
Awakening with a start from a deep sleep, she stared groggily at the man flailing about in her bed, kicking at the sheets as though they were irons dragging him down. Disoriented, she couldn’t quite figure out what he was doing there, why she would have a man so near—
Then everything came rushing back. Shooting out of the chair, she glanced toward the window. Darkness had fallen. She’d slept the day away, obviously more tired than she’d realized. With the speed of a racehorse, she arrived at the bed, focusing on the stranger’s face rather than the fact he’d successfully rid himself of any covering, leaving everything of importance exposed. She placed her palms on either side of his face, surprised by the heat that greeted her, a heat that could easily singe a babe’s bum. “Shh, pet. It’s all right. Calm down now.”
He opened his eyes; there was a fever to them, a wildness, a desperation in them. “Have to find her.”
She didn’t like the kick to her gut, the phantom pain, she felt with the knowledge a lady, clearly one extremely important to him, resided in his life, that she might have unwittingly acquired the answer to her question regarding why he’d been in a dangerous area of London at an even more perilous time of night. “You will find her, but first you must heal, regain your strength.”
“Step... aside.” He tried to shove her away, made a move to roll out of the bed, but she stood her ground, clamping her hands over his shoulders, digging her fingers into firm muscle, striving to avoid causing the wound in his shoulder to bleed again.
“You’re no good to her dead, and you will be if you don’t mend.”
He continued to struggle against her hold, endeavoring fruitlessly to push her away, but getting into tussles with four brothers had taught her how to cling, how to leverage her weight to put herself at an advantage. Mustering all her strength, she gave him a hard shake. “Thorne!”
She’d not addressed him by his name before. It somehow seemed intimate, made him more to her than he was. “Don’t fight me or I’ll be done with you.” Her tone, the one she used when ousting drunkards from her establishment, was designed to break through the thick fog of confusion that sometimes addled men’s brains when they were viewing the world through a haze of alcohol.
He went still, so still, his breathing labored, his eyes the shade of Guinness boring into her. For a heartbeat, he seemed suddenly aware, his expression intense. “Don’t let me die.”
Then his eyes closed and he sank back into the softness of the mattress, once again lost to the world, lost to her. She brushed the hair back from his fevered brow. “You won’t die, pet. Not if I have a say in it.”
Since he was in her bed, she had a good deal to say about it. Reaching down, she brought the sheet back over him. He reacted not at all, lost in a deep sleep, possibly unconscious. She rather hoped for the latter as it would make tending to him easier, would prevent him from experiencing what was bound to be more than a bit of discomfort.
She began by redressing his wounds, adding a tart-smelling salve Graves had given her to ward off infection. The areas were red, but she couldn’t see any signs of putrification. One of her brothers had nearly died from a wound becoming poisoned, so she knew what to look for. She also knew what had to be done to clean it out. She preferred to avoid that unpleasant task, assumed her patient would welcome not having the procedure visited upon him.
Her patient. What a fool she’d been to send the nurse away. Not that she regretted it, not really. She enjoyed tending to this man’s needs, wiping a cool cloth over his brow once she was finished tending to each of his wounds. He was fevered, that couldn’t be denied, but he didn’t seem delirious or out of his mind. She’d take what little victories she could.
She could hear some of the revelry from belowstairs. Strange how it didn’t call to her, how she was able to ignore it. She trusted Jolly Roger to take care of it, but it was more than that. For the first time in her life, something seemed more important than pouring ale. Even without conversation, he was more interesting than the chaps who ambled up to her bar and stammered a few words of greeting. Perhaps it was because he was a mystery. A well-heeled gent in this part of London that time of night, concerned with her reputation—
“Who are you?”
The question asked in a low, raspy voice mirrored the one she’d been asking herself about him. Slowly she lifted her gaze from his neck, where she’d been wiping away the dew, to his eyes. She’d told him before, but perhaps he’d been in too much pain to pay attention or to remember. “Gillie.”
His head moved slightly from side to side as though the answer were inadequate or made no sense. “More. Tell me more about you.”
No gent had ever cared to learn more about her. Perhaps he just needed a distraction from his discomfort or some noise to tether him to this world. “Broth first.”
With a strength to his fingers she’d not expected, he wrapped them around her wrist, stilling her attempt to leave the bed. “Won’t be able to keep it down.”
“You should at least try.”
Again, that slight movement of his head. “Talk to me.”
She gave a nod, and he released his hold on her wrist, trusting her not to go back on her word, an action that caused something inside of her to swell with longing, the way it had when she’d been a small girl and seen a doll, dressed more finely than she, in a shop window at Christmas. Every day she’d returned to the shop to see it, had wept the day she discovered it no longer there. As though she would weep to find him no longer in her bed. She dipped the cloth into the bowl, wrung it out, and patted the dampness from his neck where it flowed into his chest. “I own the tavern downstairs.”
“Name?”
“The Mermaid and Unicorn.”
A corner of that beautiful mouth of his hitched up. If he weren’t so weak, she suspected he’d have given her a blinding smile. “You threw the mermaid at me.”
