A Wild Yearning (4 page)

"You've got it upside down."

Hot color flooded her cheeks, but she thrust out her chin. "I know how t' read. Some. Anyways, the advert never said nothin' about knowin' how t' read."

"No, it didn't.... What's your name?"

"Delia. Delia McQuaid."

He beckoned to her with one languid hand. "Well, come closer, Delia McQuaid—"

Delia's whole body went rigid. "I don't know what ye're after, mister, but one thing ye ought t' know right off, I'm not intendin' t' lie with no man, leastways not till the 'I do's' are spoken."

One brow flared upward, and his mouth twisted into a crooked smile. "Thank you for warning me. Now come here so I can get a better look at you. Come, come. I won't bite."

She came right up next to him.

A spasm of disgust crossed his face. "Jesus, you reek like a distillery. When was the last time you bathed?"

Delia was mortally insulted. "I'll have ye know, ye nosy bastard, that I bathe once a month."

"We must be nearing the end of your thirty days then. Open your mouth."

"Huh?"

He seized her chin and pried her mouth open.

She jerked it out of his grasp. "Here now! There's no call t' be lookin' at my teeth. I'm no horse ye're thinkin' of buyin'."

"At least your teeth are cleaner than the rest of you."

He hooked the leg of the wainscot chair with the toe of his boot, pulling it around so that he could lean against the hearth with one foot braced against the seat of the chair, his shoulders pressed into the mantel, his thumbs hooked into his waistcoat pockets. He let his gaze move over her, studying her the way he had back in the bedroom. It made her uncomfortable to be looked at like that, yet she was acutely aware of his decidedly masculine pose and how he was making her heart thud loudly against her chest.

At last he drew in a deep breath, letting his foot fall as he straightened. "Well, now, Delia McQuaid, you'll not thank me for it, but I'm afraid the—"

"Is it her—that Priscilla person? Is Priscilla the one ye've picked for the post of wife then?" Not that Delia blamed him, for though the woman was perhaps a mite old for him, she was not only beautiful but also rich by the looks of her. And she obviously knew her way around a bedroom.

His laughter was a throaty rumble that brought another blush to her cheeks. "I haven't picked anyone else. I was going to say I'm afraid the post—if you can call it that—is yours. If you want it. I've got to have somebody by tomorrow, and you're the best of a bad lot."

Delia suspected she was being insulted again and her head jerked up with immediate defiance. "An' what's that supposed t' mean?"

"It means that you're young and hardy and your wits are all there, although how sharp they are remains to be seen..."

Delia's mouth fell open.

"And though your virtue is undoubtedly questionable, you don't appear to be suffering from the great pox yet, although—"

Delia's mouth fell open even wider. "Aooow!" she screeched, so loudly that he winced. "Ye filthy-minded bastard! I'll have ye know that just 'cause I work in a grog shop, it don't mean I'm a whore. I haven't said yes t' the post yet, no, nor will I now. Nay, not if ye was the last man on earth, would I marry ye, ye—ye—"

He looked taken aback. Then he threw back his head and let loose a hearty laugh. Delia searched the room for something to hit him with. Nothing appeared lethal enough, except perhaps for the fire poker...

"Delia, Delia," he said, laughing still. "Something tells me Merrymeeting Settlement would never be the same again with you around. And Nat would probably want to nail my hide to his barn door for landing you in his lap."

"I don't understand ye," Delia said through stiff lips. She wanted to burst into tears.

His laughter died down, but the amusement remained to give his eyes a mischievous glint. "I'm not the one in such desperate need of a wife. Heaven forfend."

"But ye said... The newspaper..."

"I placed that advertisement at the behest of a neighbor who lost his wife two months ago. With two young daughters and a farm to run, he needs a woman's help. But there's a sad dearth of eligible matrimonial material in The Maine," he said, naming the vast wilderness territory that lay northeast of the New Hampshire Colony. "I was coming to Boston anyway to hire a preacher for our settlement, and Nat prevailed upon me to find him a spouse while I was here. I told him he was off his fool head."

Delia felt a knot of sick disappointment forming in her stomach. She should have known such a man as Tyler Savitch —so handsome and fairly oozing masculine charm—wouldn't need to stoop so low, nor would he ever be so desperate that he would advertise for a wife. What a wooden-headed fool she'd made of herself, first spying on him in that awful, shameful way, and now this... She imagined herself as he must see her in this moment, standing before him in all her ignorance and dirt, and she wanted to die.

She forced herself to meet his eyes. "What happened t' her, yer friend's wife?" She thought it probably behooved her to ask, for if she were to go gallivanting off to The Maine and marry a perfect stranger, it would be nice to know how the man's first wife had died. What if he had done the poor woman in?

Ty hitched his hip onto the edge of the desk. He looked down at the hands he had clasped in his lap. Delia looked at them as well. They were a gentleman's hands, long and fine-boned. There was no dirt under those nails.

He swung one long, booted leg back and forth restlessly. "She died of throat distemper."

"Oh." She swallowed, breathed, and wondered how things now stood between them. Did he mean to bring her with him into The Maine wilderness to be wife to his friend? Did she want him to? Nothing really had changed. She still yearned with an ache that was almost physical to get away from the misery of her life in Boston, to be given a fresh start somewhere, a chance to become respectable, to become a lady...

"An' how old are these motherless children?"

"One is nine. The other's three, I think."

"Oh." At least they weren't babies. Delia knew nothing about taking care of children, though she wasn't going to tell him that.

"What's he like then, this friend of yers?"

"Nathaniel Parkes is more in the nature of a neighbor than a close friend, but he's a good man, Delia. You needn't fear that. He owns over two hundred acres of timberland and farms another hundred and twenty acres, although he's only got about half of that cleared as yet. He's built himself a good-sized house. You'll have to work hard, but the Sagadahoc is a bountiful land and you won't lack for much."

"I'm not afraid of workin' hard."

"From what I've seen there doesn't appear to be much you
are
afraid of." He looked up at her and now his mouth twisted crookedly. She loved the way his smile transformed his face. His lips, she decided, did not go with the rest of his sharp, hawkish features. They were full and sensual, especially the lower lip. She wondered how it would feel to run her finger along it—

God, Delia, ye wooden-headed fool! D' ye think he'd ever let the likes of ye get close enough t'feel his lips, stinkin' as ye do of a distillery?

"Do ye live there yersel' then, at this Merrymeeting Settlement?"

"Most of the time."

She wet her mouth, her eyes shifting away from his. "An' are ye... are ye married?"

He said nothing at first and Delia cursed her flapping tongue. Then he pushed himself off the desk. It brought him right next to her, so close she imagined she could feel the heat of him. And smell him as well—leather and tobacco and something else that she couldn't really describe except as a certain manliness. Yes, that was it, a manly smell.

"I'm not married," he said abruptly. "But Nat Parkes does need a wife... if you're still willing."

For some strange reason his physical nearness had brought a rush of blood thrumming through her body, causing a rushing sound in her ears like breakers on a beach. She lifted her head to answer him and her eyes fell on his mouth, and the words died unspoken in her throat.

"I see you've changed your mind. I can't say that I blame you," he said. "It was a damn-fool idea anyway, and I told Nat as much on the day he hatched it. Still, I won't let you go away empty-handed." He thrust a pair of long, brown fingers into the pocket of his waistcoat. Reaching down, he took her by the wrist and pressed the coin from his pocket into her hand.

She looked down at the gold sovereign in her palm. It represented more wealth than she had ever in her life seen at one time, and it burned her flesh as if it were still molten from the coin press.

Her fingers closed around it, and she looked up at him. He was smiling at her, and she hated him. She hated him because she could use the money—oh, she could use it and now more than ever—and she hated him for knowing that, knowing she could use it, and for pitying her and thinking she'd be grateful. And she hated him because in some way that she only dimly understood she wanted him to like her, wanted him to want her, wanted
him,
and he could never be hers.

"I don't need yer charity, ye bloody bastard!" she cried, and she flung the coin at his face.

It struck him on the cheekbone and bounced to the floor. She stood looking at him, shocked at herself, at what she had done, and then she whirled to run.

He grabbed her waist. She cried out as his arm wrapped around her bruised ribs. Something sharp seemed to stab right through her lung and a wave of pain washed over her, so intense that her vision blackened. Swaying dizzily, she bent over, clutching her middle, and moaned deep within her throat.

He had let her go immediately when she first cried out, but now he touched her shoulder. "My God, Delia, what is it? Are you hurt?"

She sucked in a deep, shuddering breath. "'Tis my ribs. I think they're busted."

"Here, can you straighten up?"

She nodded and straightened slowly, but the pain stabbed at her again and she gasped. He moved his fingers over her midriff, and she sucked in a sharp breath when he touched the sore spot.

"Has someone been beating on you?"

She bit her lip and nodded. "My da belted me a good one. He was the worse for drink."

"Take off your bodice—"

She gasped, backing away from him. "Oooh, ye men, ye're all alike, ye are. I hate ye all!"

"For God's sake, Delia, I'm a physician. I can't examine you properly with your clothes on. If your ribs are broken, they'll need to be bound up."

She had done it again, made a fool of herself in front of this man. More than anything she wanted to be away from here, from him; away, away, so that she could forget all this had ever happened.

But he was a doctor, and he wouldn't let her go until he was satisfied he had ministered to her needs. "All right, I'll take it off," she said reluctantly. "But ye have t' turn yer back whilst I do it."

His brows went up and she thought he was going to say something, but he didn't. Instead he turned his back on her, going over to the gateleg table where his physician's implements were laid out. He shook a few dried leaves from a jar and began to crush them in a mortar and pestle. As he worked, the muscles of his arms bunched beneath the thin shirt and his shoulders flexed, pulling the satin cloth of his waistcoat tight across his broad back.

"Take it off, Delia," he ordered, not bothering to turn around.

Delia started guiltily and flushed as if she'd just been caught with her fingers in the honey jar. Her hand shook as she unraveled the laces of her bodice and pulled it over her shoulders, letting it drop from her bare arms to the floor. Then she pulled her shift from beneath the waistband of her petticoat, drawing it over her head. This, too, she let fall to the floor. She stood in the middle of the room, naked from the waist up, and though the fire still burned brightly in the grate, her skin tightened and pimpled as if with a chill.

Ty turned around, taking a step toward her. Then his eyes dropped to her bare breasts and for the briefest moment his step faltered.

She tried to cover herself with her hands, but she was too well-endowed. She had never felt more naked in her life. And she
was
more naked than she had ever been in her life, for she always slept in her shift and bathed in it as well.

"Don't be embarrassed," he said with an easy smile. "We physicians are trained to remain unmoved by the sight of the nude female body."

"Ye weren't so unmoved by such a sight earlier this night," she said tartly, then instantly regretted it. Why did she want to go and remind him of
that
for?

Ty made a funny sound that wasn't quite a laugh, but she couldn't see his face for his head was bent and he was looking at her chest. He ran his hands over her flesh and bones, and she thought she had never been touched so gently. The brush of his palms and fingers across her skin seemed to soothe her pain. Goose bumps rose on her legs and arms, and a funny feeling danced down her spine. She actually had to clench her back teeth to keep from shivering. Then his forearm brushed her breasts and her whole body shuddered.

"Are you cold?"

"Aye." She gasped. The skin around her nipples had tightened, drawing them into two hard points. She prayed he wouldn't notice.