The Duchess (Montgomery/Taggert 16)

Within minutes Oman was back with a pitcher of hot water and Claire began to wash Trevelyan’s face and neck. She pulled back the cover and removed the belt that held his plaid in place. Carefully and with some reverence, she unpinned the laird’s badge that bound the plaid about his shoulders and placed it on the table by the bed.

Trevelyan was sleeping the sleep of the dead and she didn’t think anything in the world could wake him. He didn’t so much as stir when she pushed him and got the plaid from under him. His linen shirt was soaked with his sweat. She unbuttoned it partway down and ran the clean, hot, wet cloth over his skin, which was covered with dried sweat.

It was when she reached his collarbone that she saw the first scar. She didn’t know why this body scar should surprise her, especially when his face was so scarred, but it did. She unbuttoned his shirt farther and there were two more scars. No longer trying to be discreet, she unbuttoned his shirt the rest of the way and looked at him.

His chest was lean but there was a great deal of muscle on him. In spite of his weakness now, he was obviously a man who had spent a lot of time in strenuous exercise. But what interested her were the many, many white scars over his ribs. She ran her fingertips over first one, then another. It was her guess that they were knife wounds. What had been done to him? she wondered. The scars ranged from an inch and a half to three inches long. They didn’t look as though they had ever been very deep or life threatening, but that there were so many of the pale scars was what was so unusual.

She stood back for a moment and tried to imagine what could have caused such scars. She’d heard of the dreadful treatment English boys endured in their sadistic all-boys’ schools, but she’d never heard of anything like this. Suddenly, she wanted to get that shirt off of him and see what else had been done to him. She called Oman to her. “Help me undress him,” she said and didn’t meet the man’s eyes. Let him think this was common practice among American girls, she thought.

Trevelyan groaned as Oman, with Claire helping, managed to get the shirt from Trevelyan’s big body. There were more scars on his back. There were four of them, in rows, curving from his spine up and over his left shoulder. They looked like claw marks, as though some great animal had attacked him and torn into his back. She could understand these marks more than she could the ones on his ribs. Her father loved to hunt and he had often come home from a trip to the wilds of the American West with horrifying stories about men who got too close to a bear or a mountain lion and had been clawed.

But what puzzled her about these marks was that she had seen no evidence that Trevelyan liked to hunt. There were no skins of animals about his room as there were wherever her father went. Her father liked to remember every animal he had slaughtered, liked often to relive the event both in retelling the story and remembering it. But, she reminded herself, Trevelyan was in hiding.

She sent Oman from the room and washed Trevelyan’s chest and back, then went to a trunk by the window and found another shirt for him. It was an odd shirt, made of fine cotton but printed with little brown and white figures that were, she assumed, meant to be people. She struggled to get him into the shirt and had only just succeeded when he began shaking again. Without a thought, she climbed into bed with him and held him close to her, stroking his brow and trying to soothe him as he thrashed about.

Trevelyan woke slowly. He had trouble focusing and trouble remembering where he was. For a moment he thought he was again in Pesha and that the canopy overhead was Nyssa’s bed.

But as he turned his head and saw the stone walls and the heavy oak of the bed—no gilding—he remembered all. For all that he had trouble remembering where he was, he knew that his head rested upon a firm, female breast. He turned to look up to see Claire holding him against her ample bosom, and he could feel his body between her legs. She was sleeping, but at his movement, she opened her eyes and smiled at him.

And as naturally as day follows night, he put his hand on her breast and kissed her neck.

Claire closed her eyes for a moment, feeling his lips on her neck. Without having any idea what she was doing, she moved her legs and Trevelyan rolled on top of her. She could feel the hard maleness of him on her body. He had changed from a sick child to a hungry man in an instant.

His lips moved up her neck to her ear. He took the lobe between his teeth and Claire arched her neck as his hand caressed and massaged her breast.

His hand moved down her side to her waist, over her hip, to her thigh.

Then suddenly, his hand came up again. He roughly took her chin in his hand and turned her to look at him. It was as though he were demanding that she know who he was, that she see him not as a friend, not as a sick child, but as Trevelyan.

She was not up to the challenge. She was not up to what she saw in his eyes. She turned her head away. “No,” she whispered.

Without a word

, Trevelyan rolled off of her and Claire got out of bed. Her hands and body were shaking. I have to get out of here, she thought. She started for the door.

“How long have you been here?” he asked.

She stopped at the far corner of the bed. “Two nights and one day,” she answered, not yet able to control her shaking.

“And you have taken care of me by yourself?”

“Oman has helped.” She took a deep breath to calm herself.

“And what have they said in the house of your absence? Harry must have been upset.”

She knew what he was doing: talking of everyday matters to keep her from leaving. “No one knows I haven’t been in my room. My sister has told them all that I am very, very sick and can’t be disturbed. I think she’s told them I have something akin to smallpox and cholera combined, but that whatever I have is very, very contagious.” She looked at him for the first time. She’d never noticed what thick eyelashes he had.

He smiled. “What an admirable person you are and what a lovely sister you have.”

“She didn’t do it for free. She ‘borrowed’ Oman’s emerald for three days and she sent word through him that I was to give her my ruby bracelet.”

“And did you?”

“Of course. But the truth of the matter is I didn’t mind. I don’t like rubies. They look like blood. I much prefer emeralds. They look like green things growing.”

He closed his eyes and lay back against the pillows. “Thank you.”

She couldn’t help herself, but she looked at him. She could still feel his lips on her neck. “I think you’ll be all right now. Oman says these spells of yours come and go and that you’re all right after them. I must go.”