Underground Captive (26 page)

Underground Captive
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
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"Uh...nay, mum'zelle.  O' course I willa do ye biddin'.  Please enter." Angus stepped aside to let Nicollette in.  "Mary!" he called.  "Mary Douglas!"

    
             
Mary Douglas appeared almost immediately.  She stared wide-eyed at Nicollette. "Why, Angus McDiarmid, 'tis a bonny lassie."

    
             
"Thank ye, Mary Douglas.  I kenned wha' it 'tis.  I jus' dinna ken wha' tae do aboot it."

"Why ye be 'ere, lassie?" Mary Douglas asked.

    
             
"Are you both feeble-minded?" Nicollette asked with exasperation.  "I'm here to bring
Monsieur
Fleming's four servants back to Crescent Wood with me."

    
             
"Is there some sor' o' problem wi' Master Jared?" Angus asked the question that had plagued him since Nicollette's arrival with her request.  Despite everything else she'd said, the lass had yet to volunteer that wee bit of information to them and he doubted she would without his asking.

    
             
"Master Jared? Are...are you slaves?" Nicollette asked with innocent surprise, ignoring Angus's question, realizing Jared had spoken the truth about the other man being his servant.

    
             
"Nay, lassie," Mary Douglas answered with pride.  "Master Jared dinna own slaves.  We ge' a wage fer our work."

    
             
"Oh! I didn't know.  Than you are one of his servants?" Nicollette asked, eyeing Mary suspiciously.

"Aye, lassie."

Nicollette remembered Angus's question when he cleared his throat. 

Underground Captive
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
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"
Monsieur
Fleming has been grievously wounded.  He's at Crescent Wood because he's not strong enough to travel the distance back here.  He regained consciousness for a few minutes and asked for his servants, Angus," she explained in a rush of words.  Jared's time was running out.  With the fever he had, he couldn't live much longer.  She felt sure of that.

Angus took over from there.  Summoning Hugh and Robert, the four of them immediately followed Nicollette to the coach that awaited them with Odessa in it.

    
             
Nicollette drove in silence, angry with herself for ever doubting Jared's loyalty.

    
             
When she arrived at the manor, Sophie met her and the small group on the veranda.

    
             
"Mam'zelle, the masta's feva is worse from when you left him," Sophie told her.  "I don' think he gonna make it too much longa."

   
             
"Hurry behind me, Odessa," Nicollette ordered.  "Bring your bag with your healing herbs."

    
             
Without bothering to see if Jared's servants followed her and not caring if they did, Nicollette ran up the stairs with Odessa trailing her heels.  They stopped in the doorway of his chamber.  Jared lay covered to his chin on the immaculately clean bed.  He was as still and white as the linen on which he laid.

    
             
Nicki gasped, her hand involuntarily going to her mouth at the sight of him.  He looked like death warmed over.  "
Bon Dieu
, be merciful," she whispered, making the sign of the cross.

    
             
Suddenly, Nicki recalled Sophie's words: 
'I don' think he gonna make it too much longa'
, and a wave of nausea rose in the pit of her stomach.

    
             
"He must not die," she whispered hoarsely.  Shaking off the numbness stealing into her, she walked over to the bed and placed her open palm on Jared's forehead.  The fever raged on. "
Mon Dieu
!"

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She stripped the covers off the bed, then unbandaged the wound.  With only his breeches on, Jared laid naked from the waist up, his shoulder an angry purple mass.

    
             
"Ye canna do that! Ye dinna ken wha' ye're doin'! Ye must let the doctor minister tae 'im!"  Angus, who'd followed Nicollette and Odessa, grabbed Nicollette by her arm and started to lead her from the room.  "Ye'll surely kill Master Jared!"

    
             
"Look at him, Angus," Nicollette said.  "Does it look like he is going to live?  Does he look like
monsieur
docteur
helped him at all?  Please, give me a chance to see if I can help him.  I can't make matters any worse.  At least let me try." Whatever motivated her to plead to help save Jared's life consumed her.  "Please."

    
             
Angus looked at her through saddened eyes and saw fear and sincerity gazing back at him.  "'Ow can I 'elp ye, lass?" he asked finally.

    
             
"Oh,
merci
, Angus.  You and Odessa must go out to the ice house and quickly bring as much ice up here as you can.  Send Zeke and Daniel up also."

    
             
"Nay, I canna do tha', lass.  Master Jared wouldna wan' slaves tendin' 'im.  Hugh, Robert, Mary Douglas, and meself willa do whatever 'tis necessary tae save our master's life."

    
             
"Does he hate blacks that much?"  She relented when she saw the stubborn set of Angus's jaw.  "Very well." 

    
             
After having several slaves help him and Odessa bring ice to Jared's room, Angus and the slave woman hurried inside and found that Jared had been stripped of his breeches with only a towel covering his manhood.  Hugh and Robert labored over him, wiping him down with damp cloths.  Still, Angus didn't question what he saw.

  
             
"Odessa!  Quickly!"  Picking up the slave's medicine bag, Nicollette pushed Odessa toward the bed.

    
             
Odessa looked gravely at Jared then at Nicollette.  "I help.  He no die, mam'zelle," she said.  "I need hot water for my potion."

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"Nay," Hugh cried, his eyes wide, "she willa no' use gris-gris."

    
             
"She'll use any means possible to save his life," Nicollette snapped.  "But to put your mind at ease, my slaves don't practice Voodoo.  The potions Odessa uses are medicines that really work.  So stop complaining and let us get on with it!"

    
             
Angus gave Hugh a reassuring pat on the back and nodded to Nicollette, before he and the other servants looked from one to the other.  They all loved Jared and were apprehensive for his life.  The lad's wound had obviously been worse than he'd led them to believe, Angus realized.  The doctor hadn't done enough to help Jared because the wound had festered and his fever raged out of control.  Mayhap, he would die from whatever Nicollette would let Odessa do to him.  But without any effort to help, his demise was a certainty.  So when Nicollette barked orders to cover him with the ice and wrap him with a sheet, Angus saw to it that they did it without question.  Throughout their ministrations, Jared was in and out of consciousness.  When Odessa concocted a strong, bitter smelling liquid, it took fifteen minutes for them to get Jared to swallow half a cup.  Not long afterwards, Jared lost consciousness completely.

    
             
Odessa mixed a pasty salve, spread it liberally and thickly over the wound on Jared's shoulder, then covered the wound with camphor leaves and bound it with a clean white cloth.  "He be fine, mam'zelle.  He be hongry when he wake up, him.  Give him chicken broth when he do," she instructed.  "Apply more salve and put more clean cloth on the wound in a couple hours.  If he wake up by then, give him more of my liquid, you."

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"Thank you, Odessa," Nicki said, her voice shaking.   "Master Jared thanks you.  We must leave.  Evening is nigh and I must get you back on Rue Dauphine before nightfall.  Please, remember when my father arrives there in two or three days don't tell him I was in the city.  Instruct the others to do the same.  Come."  She went toward the door, trusting implicitly Odessa's words that Jared would be fine.

18

    
             
Arriving back at the manor, Nicollette found that Jared still hadn't regained consciousness.  Assuring Jared’s servants that she’d look after him personally, she sent them all off to their respective quarters.  Then, she stood at the side of the bed, studying Jared’s still form. 

Some of his color had returned; so, too, had some of the warmth returned to his hands.  Nicki placed her hand on his forehead.  He was still warm, but not the angry furnace that boiled only hours earlier.  Folding the covers down to his waist to check his wound, she saw the same bandage that Odessa had applied.  Taking it off, she cleansed the wound and spread more salve on his shoulder, put fresh camphor leaves on it, then rebound it with fresh bandages.  The wound had lost some of its discoloration and she felt so relieved she could have shouted in joy.  But since he still hadn't moved nor had he awakened, she wouldn't become overly relieved.

    
             
Finally, she sat down in the armchair and looked at him.  Curly, copper colored hair spread across the broad expanse of his muscular chest.  The hair traveled further down his flat abdomen and disappeared beneath the sheets to where she knew the essence of his masculinity lay.  Though yearning to see what it looked like, she blushed hotly at the mere idea of his manroot just beneath the covers.  The pit of her stomach tightened and she closed her eyes, imagining Jared healthy, holding her as he’d held her in the gazebo.  Only, they were both naked.  And they were in bed, kissing one another with a fierce passion, exploring one another’s body with shameless scrutiny.

Nicki sighed and opened her eyes, her nipples tight, her femininity moist.  Jared would never allow things to progress as she wanted between them.  He’d never allow her to see his nude body.  He had initiated a kiss between them but once, and, then, at his own detriment.  Initiating a kiss with Jared was one thing.  Initiating lovemaking with him was something else entirely.  She hadn’t the slightest idea of how to express how he made her feel, how badly she wanted to feel her body against his.  Unless she looked at him now, she would never see him nude.   Her decision made, she slowly rose from the chair and reached for the blanket.  Jared stirred.  Mortified, Nicki scrambled back to the chair and stared wide-eyed at him.   Her face flushed a deep red.  He stirred a second time and she thought he might be awakening.  However, he didn't.  He lay quiet once again.