Moonlight Surrender (Moonlight Book 3) (10 page)

“Here, on the stand.” Beth gestured toward it.

The young man was still standing in the doorway, gawking at her as if she was some sort of eighth wonder. “The water—“

“Jacob, mistress.” He inclined his head, waiting to hear her repeat his name. “My name is Jacob.”

Beth had laid the back of her hand against Duncan’s
cheek. It was hot. “The water, please, then, Jacob. And hurry.”

She needn’t have bothered adding the last words, for
he had dashed off before she was done, the sound of his
name on her tongue providing the wings beneath his feet.

The bowl safely on the table, Amy held the tray
against her wide bosom. “Leaping around like a puppet, you have him,” she noted, with no trace of envy or mal
ice. “The other one, too.”

Beth looked at her, confused. Which one was she re
ferring to? “The other one?”

“Hank. His brother.” Amy jerked a thumb at the doorway through which Jacob had disappeared.

She was talking about the taller one, Beth thought, the one who had given her his knife. She wondered if her presence threatened the woman.

“I mean to have no one leaping,” Beth told her. “I only want to pay my debts and go.”

Amy was silent for a moment as she weighed the import of Beth’s words. “Do you, now?”

Beth guessed at the woman’s thoughts. The slight smile on her face reached her eyes, but there were many in Virginia society who laughed and smiled into your eyes while they readied a dagger to use on your back. The world was not as simple a place as her mother believed or her father would wish.

“Yes,” Beth said firmly. “I do.”

Beth was weary beyond words. She needed to be off, to find her father and bring him home. She longed to have this whole business behind her. Instead, here she was, sitting in a darkened room—a man’s sleeping chamber, no less—ministering to him while a parade of his servants came by, one by one, to look at her.

Amy cocked her head. “You look tired.” Any fool
with half an eye could have seen that, she judged. Why
hadn’t Samuel? “I can send Tommy in to sit with Duncan and watch him. Tommy’s my son,” she added proudly.

So the boy actually did belong to someone. Beth shook her head. “No, that’s all right. I’m not tired.”

The bloody hell she wasn’t, Amy thought. She made up her mind about Beth. A warmer smile rose, creasing into the folds of her cheeks and transforming her round face into a beatific one.

“My name’s Amy. Mind you eat that.” She indicated the bowl with a short, stubby finger. “It’s better hot, but not so bad cold.” With that, Amy shuffled out of the room. There were still things to do before she could see to her own needs and Tommy’s.

“I’m sure,” Beth agreed absently.

The woman was forgotten before she even left the room. Beth feathered her hand across Duncan’s brow again. It was too warm, much too warm to please her, even for such a warm night.

Beth sat back on the bed, her eyes skimming over Duncan as if she hadn’t seen him before. He was lying on his covers, stripped to the waist with only the bandage she herself had applied to divert the eye from a chest that undoubtedly had many hearts beating fast. It
was smooth and hard, and as she passed her hand lightly
over it, urged on by curiosity, she felt a tingling sensation cross her palm.

Of course she was unaffected by such things, Beth
thought stoically. She saw him only as a human being in
need of aid, nothing more.

“Nothing more,” Beth whispered under her breath, as if to reinforce the sentiment in her mind.

Still, she thought, as the tips of her fingers glided along a muscular ridge, it would be a pity to see any harm come to him on her account.

“I brought the water.”

Beth sucked in her breath, startled. She instantly dropped her hand to the bed, upbraiding herself that it had a guilty appearance to it where none was warranted.

She drew a breath to steady her voice. “Thank you, Jacob.”

The basin he carried was the same one she had used to wash Duncan’s wound. He’d filled it to the brim and somehow managed to carry it up the stairs that way.

“Set it here.” She pointed to the opposite night stand.
There were still strips left from the rented sheet she had
used for Duncan’s bandages. She took one up now and rose to wet it.

Jacob twisted his hands together. “Will there be any
thing else?”

She smiled at him as she drew closer to reach the basin. Jacob didn’t step back. “No, thank you, I can manage from here.”

He took a deep breath and thought he could smell something sweet, like flowers. He could stand here near her all night. “I could stay, spell you, perhaps.”

She appreciated his offer, but she truly wanted to be alone right now, to go about her task and gather her thoughts.

“Thank you, but I’m fine.”

When he didn’t move aside, she gently nudged him away from the basin.

Jacob nearly tripped over his own feet, attempting to get out of her way, yet remain close. “Need someone to talk to?” he asked hopefully.

She didn’t want to be rude. He had been helpful, but she did want him to leave. “I’m too tired to talk.”

He raised his brows comically in one last attempt. “To sit in silence with, then?”

“Thank you, but no,” she said firmly. Her words all but pushed him out the door.

With a huge, reluctant sigh, Jacob withdrew, easing the door shut behind him.

Finally.

Relieved, Beth soaked the strips of sheet in the basin.
Carefully, she placed the first on Duncan’s forehead and then tied the other two about his wrists, hoping to lower his fever. Later, perhaps, if he was awake, she’d coax a bit of liquid between his lips, but for now it was best if he slept.

Impulsively, Beth cupped her hand to his cheek. A
bittersweet sensation she took to be fathered by guilt flittered through her.

“You can’t die on me, Duncan Fitzhugh. I can’t have you on my conscience.”

He remained sleeping.

With a sigh, Beth rose. She turned her back on him, not seeing his eyes flutter open.

Renewed restlessness rushed through her. Beth wandered to the trunk and opened it. Temptation had her re
moving one of her simpler dresses, something her mother hadn’t deemed suitable for traveling. Beth, ever headstrong, had brought it with her nonetheless.

As she held the light blue garment against her, she re
membered the last time she had worn it. She’d been in
the garden at home, discussing her father’s proposed trip
with him and silently imploring him with her eyes not to leave.

But he had.

And now she was here, in a foreign country, nursing a stranger in his bed. Beth glanced toward Duncan as if to assure herself that this was real, and not some fanciful dream.

But there he lay, in the grip of a fever.

Because of her.

She sighed and stretched. The dress she wore felt
scratchy against her tender skin. Grime, blood, and dirty
rainwater had stiffened it until it felt like the bark of a tree, rubbing against her.

Beth bit her lip, debating.

In all likelihood, it would be a long time before Dun
can regained consciousness. And she did ache to rid
herself of this filthy garment. If she moved quickly, she
could have another on in a matter of minutes.

She glanced toward the bed again. There was no movement. She made up her mind.

Swiftly, with sure fingers, she undid the lacings at her back and shed the dress. It fell to the floor like a leaden
weight. Stepping gingerly out of it, she kicked it aside.

She felt dirty down to the very core, but there was no remedy for that now. Fresh clothes would have to do until such time as she could adequately bathe herself. Hands flying, she unearthed undergarments and spread them out for herself.

Duncan, unable to move, not at all convinced that a heated delirium hadn’t seized his addled brain, still had the good sense to bite back the groan that rose to his lips as he watched the woman in his room begin to peel her clothing from her body a layer at a time.

Chapter Ten

He had died.

There was no question in Duncan’s mind. He had surely died and gone to heaven.

Or perhaps this was hell, with temptation pricking him, being just a hairsbreadth out of reach.

Heat consumed him.

God knew he was burning enough for this to be hell.
There was a fire on his brain and another burning in his
shoulder.

But neither was a match for the one he felt flaming in
his loins.

He made not a sound, afraid to breathe, lest she vanish like smoke into the night; vanish like the apparition she was.

His eyes were fastened to her as if they had been cre
ated that way. Though she moved with grace and speed, he saw all that she did transpired slowly.

The chemise she wore left her torso, then floated down like a leaf in the summer breeze, until it touched the floor beneath her shoeless feet. The petticoats, the ones, he vaguely recalled, she had ripped for him, slid down from hips that made his mouth water. She wore no corset, no stays to reinforce a waist that was hardly
more than a whisper and a prayer. Stockings followed,
exposing calves that were whiter than milk.

She wore nothing now but a thin, translucent under
garment. White pantaloons, and something equally as thin covering her breasts. She was so close, he swore he could see the rigid profile of her nipples straining against the fabric.

Time hung suspended on a spider’s single thread.

Would she remove these last articles as well?

Please God, I’ve been good
. Well, fairly so, he
amended, praying fervently that this dream that pulsed
through his brain would not end abruptly, depriving him of the last look, the last bit of paradise.

And then, with her face turned toward the fire’s glow,
the angel within his room carefully slipped the last of it
from her body, first the pantaloons, then that last shred
covering her breasts.

She was nude.

Her limbs were golden, gleaming invitingly in the fire’s light. Fresh perspiration rose on Duncan’s brow. As she turned now to reach for the garments she had
spread out, he greedily filled his gaze with her. His loins
pulsed as if they would burst. She was the most beautiful woman God had ever created.

The moan had Beth starting. She snatched up the last garment she’d cast off, pressing it against her. It did a woeful job of covering her.

Turning wide, accusing eyes in Duncan’s direction, she saw that his were still closed.

He was still asleep, she thought in relief. It was just the wind, she realized. Only the wind moaning mournfully.

Beth tossed the garment on top of the heap of discarded clothing and stretched. There was a horrid ache in her neck, in her very body.

Duncan pressed his lips together, barely able to withstand it as he saw her thrust her ripe breasts forward through slitted eyes. It was as if she was offering herself to him.

And he longed to take the gift.

His eyes traveled slowly, longingly over the length of her body and he ached.

Haze began to blot out his mind again, creeping in like a low-lying fog at sea. If this was the netherworld, he was glad to be here, even if there was to be no fulfillment. Just to gaze on her was enough.

But the next moment, she was slipping on accursed clothing, hiding her supple body from him, and Duncan knew that he had been pitched headlong into hell, deprived of that which he sought most desirously.

Within a heartbeat, he slipped back into the arms of Morpheus.

Beth dressed as swiftly as she could, afraid that at any moment Samuel or someone else in his stead would be knocking. Or worse, walk in unannounced. She hastily kicked aside the clothing she had shed, then thought better of it. Gathering it up in her arms, she deposited the soiled, stained garments in her trunk. She would wash them when she found the time.

Or perhaps, she mused, as she drifted once again to the casement and gazed out, she would merely set them outside in this accursed rain. It was falling in sheets now, blotting out the very land from her view. It gave no sign of ending soon.

Murmuring a lusty curse that would have turned her mother’s hair white, Beth crossed to Duncan’s bed. With a light sweep of her hand, she removed the compress and then touched his forehead. She hesitated, then leaned over and pressed her lips to it in her hand’s stead. It was still hot.

She shook her head, knowing that she was being anx
ious and getting ahead of herself. Fevers didn’t vanish instantly, they ran a course and his had just begun. Dipping the compress into the water, she then rung it out and placed it upon his head once more. Though it was useless and foolish, she silently wished his fever away.

With a sigh, she settled into the chair, determined to
wait out the night at his side, should he wake. The soup
remained where it was, forgotten.

“Mistress.”

There was a persisted buzzing about her head, an an
noying fly that refused to go away.

Beth’s eyes fluttered open.

Disorientation greeted her as it had each morning she
had been on this journey. A moment later, she remembered where she was. And why.

Duncan’s room.

An ache speared through her shoulders, working its
way to her neck. She had fallen asleep, she realized rue
fully. With a sigh, she ran her hand through her hair. It loosened from its pins, tendrils raining down at will.

As her eyes cleared, she saw that Samuel was hovering over her solicitously. Instantly awake, she sat upright. “Duncan?”

Had he taken a turn for the worse? Had she slept through the night and not heard his cry?

Samuel smiled, his lips exposing faintly yellowed teeth and reddened gums.