Louisiana History Collection - Part 1 (129 page)

“Mam’selle!” she cried, throwing herself forward to take Félicité’s hand, clinging to it. “I have been out of my mind with worry.”

“It’s all right,” Félicité said, a catch in her voice.

“Those men, they set upon me in the dark, threw me in here and shut the door. I heard you call, but could do nothing. Tell me what has happened. What has M’sieu Valcour done now?”

In a few short phrases Félicité told her, not even stopping to feel surprise that the maid should guess the attack was her brother’s doing.

“You say the colonel was injured? Was it bad?”

“He says not,” Félicité answered in a suffocated tone, “but there is a great deal of blood.”

“Where is he? We must see to him.” The maid slipped past Félicité, glancing back as she did not follow at once. Her face changed then. “Why, mam’selle, you are wearing your dressing saque, and your hair — your hands—”

“It — it was a mistake.” The words were unplanned. Why she should attempt in any way to exonerate Morgan she could not have said.

“Are you hurt?” Ashanti demanded, searching her face, her eyes dark with concern. “Tell me what that one has done to you, that monster of cruel pleasures? What has he dared to do?”

“The colonel thought that I was a part of the attack against him. He—”

“The colonel, not M’sieu Valcour, has made you look so?” The maid came close, a frown drawing her brows together.

Félicité lifted a hand, rubbing at her face in distress, massaging the bruised place on her temple where she had struck the staircase earlier. As difficult as it was to find the words, her maid would have to know. She sighed, letting her hand fall. With a slow nod, she began to tell Ashanti what had happened.

The maid touched her arm in a gesture of sympathy when she understood. “Come then, mam’selle, and let us go upstairs. I will make a tisane for you and put you to bed.”

“But the colonel is there.”

“If it is as you say, he will not harm you,” Ashanti said soothingly.

Félicité sent her a swift glance. “I am not afraid of him! I only want him to go, and he will not.”

“Perhaps—” the maid began, then paused before going on with a rush, “Perhaps it would be better if he stayed?”

“Why? What are you saying?” Félicité demanded, staring at the other girl in the dim light of the wavering candle in the room behind them.

“Never mind. Come, let me tend you.”

She was so weary, so sore. The splattering of the blowing rain was slowly wetting her dressing saque. The wind through the thin material was cool to her fevered flesh, and she shivered, drawing it around her. “All I want is a bath.”

“You shall have it,” Ashanti promised, and, turning, led the way back toward the stairs, waiting there to allow Félicité to ascend them before her.

Morgan had donned his breeches, though nothing else. He stood scowling before the mirror of the dressing table with one hand holding a pad of cloth to his wound while with the other he tried to wrap the trailing ends of the roll of bandaging around his shoulder. He was not having much success. As Félicité came to a halt in the doorway, he threw her a glance, but did not speak. She moved a few feet into the room, permitting Ashanti to enter.

The maid sent Morgan a long stare, then lowered her eyes. Her face shuttered, she went to the curtained recess where the small copper-lined bathing tub was kept and drew it out into the room. From the washstand she took a linen cloth, a small, precious cake of soap, and a glass box containing scented starch. Placing these on a ledge molded in the tub, she turned to the bed. With a few quick movements, she stripped the soiled sheets from it and, bundling them under her arm, left the room again.

Félicité hesitated where she stood just inside the door, torn between the need to repossess her own private quarters and the urge to turn and flee, leaving them to Morgan McCormack. How strange it felt to see him there, to see his boots lying beside her bed and his waistcoat and shirt thrown across a chair, as if he had a perfect right to strew his things about. It was irritating, and at the same time disquieting, especially when coupled with his refusal to leave, his hint that he might take up residence.

The dressing saque she wore had a ribbon tie at the neckline, but the edges of the front opening merely came together without lapping. Catching them close in one hand, Félicité moved to the window. The rain had nearly stopped. In the courtyard below, Ashanti had appeared to fling the sheets she carried into the laundry room. She must have released the young maid and the cook from the room they shared, for they came from the kitchen, talking, waving their hands, as Ashanti moved into that room to stoke the fire, preparing to put water on to heat. The maid was taking the change in her mistress’s circumstances very calmly. There was no point in hysterics, of course; still, such fatalistic acceptance was not quite what Félicité had expected. It was almost as if the girl had no objection, as long as the man was Colonel McCormack.

Ashanti had tried to warn her. Félicité could not quite bring her words to mind, but she had stressed a need for caution, almost as if she had a presentiment of what might happen. That was all well enough, but given the situation, Félicité did not see how she could have behaved any differently. Her eyes bleak, she leaned out to catch the shutter, pulling it in to latch it.

Behind her, Morgan cursed under his breath and tossed the roll of bandaging to the top of the dressing table. As she turned he was holding the blood-soaked pad he had taken from his shoulder in his hand, looking for a place to dispose of it.

“There in the bowl,” she said, indicating the china ewer and matching washbowl that sat on the washstand.

He stepped to cast the pad into the bowl, sending her a dark glance from the corner of his eye as ‘he moved back. “I don’t suppose you would have a needle and thread close to band?”

“Why, yes.”

“This damned gash needs something to hold it together. Every time I raise my arm it parts and starts bleeding again.”

“You mean to sew it up?” she asked, her gaze flicking to the oozing cut across his chest before flicking away again.

“No, my sweet, I mean for you to sew it.”

Her startled brown eyes met his bright green gaze. “I couldn’t.”

“Oh, come,” he mocked, “I would have thought the prospect of poking a needle in me would have delighted you.”

“You have a strange idea of my character, colonel.”

“I am willing to be enlightened,” he said, his tone soft.

She lifted her chin. “Are you now, when you refuse to believe a word I say?”

“Deeds, they say, speak louder than words.”

“So they do,” she answered, allowing herself a small smile. “What then do yours say of you, Morgan McCormack?”

“I did offer an amende honorable,” he reminded her.

“You cannot have wished, or expected, me to take it!”

“You think not?” he queried.

The emerald brilliance of his stare was difficult to sustain. She dropped her gaze to his chest. “You are bleeding all over everything,” she snapped. “I’ll get the sewing box.”

When she returned, she set the basket on the dressing table, but did not remove her hands from the handle. “Don’t you have a surgeon who came with you from Spain to deal with things such as this?”

“A man came with us, yes, but I would as soon have a gravedigger attend me. So far, nearly every man he has touched has died with gangrene. Besides, he never bathes.”

“That is another thing — do you think you should cleanse your wound?”

“Sword cuts are usually clean. More than that, it has bled enough to purify anything. I once knew a one-legged pirate who recommended treating injuries with applications of brandy both inside and out, however.”

“Would you like a dram to bolster your courage?” she inquired in dulcet tones.

“Not I,” he said easily, “but I have no objection to waiting until you have fortified yourself.”

“That won’t be necessary.” Her face cold, Félicité released the basket and stepped to the washstand, where she tipped water from the ewer into the bowl to wash her hands. The liquid was soon red, though more from the pad Morgan had discarded than from the stains on her hands, Emptying the contents of the bowl into the slop jar, she rinsed her hands, then turned back to the sewing basket.

“You will need to sit down,” she said over her shoulder.

“I would as soon stand.”

“Possibly, but though it may give you satisfaction to show how stalwart you are, I won’t be able to reach the sword cut without standing on my toes.”

The asperity of her tone seemed to amuse him. She could have sworn there was a smile curving his lips as he swung toward the only chair, removed his clothing from the seat, and sat down with one leg thrust out before him. “I am at your service,” he drawled.

With black upholstery silk, the strongest thread she possessed, threaded in her needle, Félicité stepped into the salle. There was cognac in a decanter on a side table in that room. Splashing a little into a glass, she dropped her needle and thread into it, then carried it back into the bedchamber. At the dressing table she took up a pair of embroidery scissors and the candle. The shadows in the room wheeled around the walls as she turned toward the man in the chair.

“Can you take this?” she asked, pushing the brass candle holder at him. “I will need the light.”

For an answer, he held out his hand. She approached warily, surrendering the holder, stepping around to his right side. This close to him, with the light failing directly on his chest, she could see the long angry red streaks where she had raked him with her nails. The sight gave her no joy; if anything it made her slightly ill. She turned her attention with determination to the deep slash torn in his chest.

“Look out.” He shot out his hand to catch a golden strand of her hair that spilled over her shoulder as she leaned toward him. She started, recoiling, before she saw that he had only been trying to prevent her from getting singed by the candle flame. He did not release her hair. She was held by its shimmering length. His green eyes were dark as he watched her, gently sliding the silken tress he held between his fingers.

By slow degrees Félicité neared him once more. His steady regard was so unnerving that she lowered her lashes. “Are you certain you want me to do, this?”

“Positive.”

“It will hurt.”

“Undoubtedly.”

She was not sure she could, not for him, not now. She was aware of a faint trembling that seemed to come from inside her, growing more obvious as it traveled along her limbs, becoming its worst when it reached her fingers. She felt both hot and cold at the same time. Compounding her problems was the fact that it was impossible to keep the front of her dressing saque closed, as she bent over Morgan, if she had to use both her hands for the task she must perform.

“Only think,” he recommended, his voice soft, “of how you felt toward me half an hour ago.”

She sent him a look of loathing, drew in her breath, and fished her threaded needle from the cognac.

The first stitch was the hardest. The tough resilience of his skin was a surprise, as was the difficulty of judging the thickness of it. Morgan, his gaze on her face, did not flinch, gave no sign that he could feel the piercing thrust of her stitches. She flicked a glance at him after a time to see that his attention had wandered, drifting downward to the parted edges of her dressing saque. Her lips tightened, but there was nothing she could do; she needed both hands just then to cut the thread from the last knotted stitch.

The instant it was done, she stepped back, straightening, turning. The cut was still oozing blood, and she moved to place her needle and scissors on the dressing table, picking up the bandaging and forming a pad. She was just pressing this, moistened with cognac, to the wound when Ashanti returned. The maid glanced at what she was doing, then, her face impassive, poured the cans of water she carried into the tub.

“Your bath is ready, mam’selle.”

There was an awkward pause. Félicité, holding the bandage with one hand and the front of her saque with the other, stared from her maid to the man who had invaded her room. As much as she longed for cleanliness, she could not remove her clothing and step into the tub in the presence of Morgan McCormack.

Morgan surveyed her, his green gaze resting on her pale face for a long instant, before he looked at Ashanti standing stiffly to attention beside the steaming bath. His features hardened, then abruptly he heaved himself to his feet. “I will wait in the other room.”

Gratitude was a strange thing to feel just then. Félicité pushed it from her. He was halfway to the door when she realized she still held the bandage pad in her hand. “Wait. Your shoulder, I — I will bind it.”

“Allow me, mam’selle,” Ashanti said, gliding forward.

“Yes, perhaps that will be better.” Félicité came to a halt. Ashanti was good with illnesses and injuries.

The maid took the candle from Morgan and set it beside the tub. Touching him lightly on the arm, she indicated the salle, where a candelabrum, lighted moments before, showed a steady glow. Morgan stepped into the other room.

And yet somehow, as the maid picked up the roll of linen and followed the colonel from the room, closing the door behind her, Félicité was not pleased with the arrangement.