Never Kiss a Rake (Scandal at the House of Russell 1)

She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out but a harsh croak, and she realized she needed water quite desperately. The tiny sound had woken him, though, and he sat forward, his feet hitting the floor as he looked at her.

“You’re awake, then. Obviously. What do you need?”

“Water.” It was so raw and garbled it was amazing he recognized the word, but he nodded, rose, and crossed the room. A moment later he was back with a tall glass of barley water. He sat down on the bed beside her in a matter-of-fact manner, slipped his hand behind her neck and pulled her up to drink, holding the glass against her mouth.

It was cool and refreshing, flavored with lemon and mint, and she drank it gratefully until Kilmartyn pulled the glass away. “Don’t overdo,” he said. “You’ll end up throwing it all up and I don’t fancy changing my clothes again.”

He set her head back on the pillow, slowly, and his fingers lingered as they pulled away from her neck, offering a quiet, soothing stroke before leaving her. “Did I throw up on you before?”

“You did not.”

She tried to shrug, but her left shoulder didn’t work, strapped down as it was. “One can only hope.”

His soft laughter was like a puff of springtime. “You are the most refreshing female I’ve ever met. There are not many women who would lie in my home, recovering from a gunshot wound, and insult me with such equanimity.”

“I didn’t insult you. I just said I wouldn’t have minded throwing up on you.”

“You said you hoped you’d thrown up on me. A very slight difference, I grant you, but a difference nonetheless. How are you feeling?”

She could think of several terms she’d heard in the stable but Kilmartyn was not someone to bandy curses with. “Words fail me.”

“One can only hope.”

She was surprised to find out she could laugh. It hurt, and she groaned in the midst of her chuckle, and she could feel unexpected tears fill her eyes. With luck he wouldn’t be able to see them, but luck had hardly been with her recently, and he’d already proved to be far too adept at seeing in the dark. Like a cat, she thought. Not a tame tabby, but one of those long, sleek jungle creatures she’d seen in books.

“Do you remember what happened?” he asked in his indolent fashion.

She tried to think. “You said I’d been shot,” she said after a moment. “But that’s impossible.”

“Since I watched Dr. Brattle dig a bullet out of your arm I assure you it’s not impossible at all. Did you happen to see anyone when this happened?”

“No one,” she managed to say. “I don’t even remember it happening. Did you shoot me?”

For the briefest moment she saw shock in his eyes, but he covered it quickly, and there was a faint flash of a grin in the darkness. “Now that would be a terrible waste of female flesh.”

It was wasted anyway, she thought with a trace of self-pity, her eyes filling with tears. She was young and strong and her body would wither and die without ever being touched, loved.

It was the laudanum, of course, making her maudlin, and she tried to ignore it. She really didn’t want anyone touching her.

She closed her eyes again, drifting into the pain. She could feel the tears slide down her face, and her misery only increased. She didn’t want to cry in front of him, be it from pain or weakness or both, but she couldn’t ev

en blink it away. She was alone, abandoned, and she hurt, and the misery encircled her like a cocoon, smothering her.

“Poor darling girl,” she heard his voice, a lilting, gentle croon, and the tears kept flowing, just as she was hoping to regain control. She didn’t want him being kind to her. She couldn’t accept pity from him, not from him.

The mattress dipped, and she distantly realized he’d climbed onto the bed with her. She should order him away, but her tears only came more heavily as she felt him slide one arm underneath her, so carefully that she barely felt it in her trussed arm. He put his other arm around her waist, and instead of trying to pull her against him he simply wrapped his strong, warm body around hers, tucking her head against his shoulders. He was wiping her tears away with something soft, but there were always more coming, and he whispered to her, words she didn’t understand. She didn’t need to. They were words of comfort, and he called her his darling, his love, his sweet, precious girl, and the colors swirled down around her once more. He had put laudanum in her barley water, she realized belatedly, feeling the last bit of her mind slip away. His long fingers were on her cheeks, brushing the tears away, and at the very last, just as she was sinking into sleep once more, she opened her eyes to see him looking down at her, such honest emotion in his eyes that it stripped the lies from her.

“Did you kill him?” she whispered.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

HE SLEPT BESIDE HER, a fact that astonished him. It was far from a comfortable position, half wrapped around her body. Dr. Brattle had tethered her arm to a board that was strapped to the side of the bed, to keep her from reopening the wound, and he’d simply had to move around her, arranging himself carefully. Her final words had been the ultimate mistrust, though they’d come as no surprise. She thought him capable of the most heinous crimes, of murder and embezzlement, of leaving his former business partner’s daughters destitute. With his wife’s bloody disappearance she might very well think him capable of even worse.

His mind should have been a whirl of questions, and instead he’d simply held her, offering her the warmth of his body, the strength of his arms, the shelter of his protection, and the comfort of his…

He wasn’t sure what he was offering her. Certainly nothing more than temporary surcease of pain and despair. And he expected he would be handsomely rewarded eventually. If he were a decent human being he would be lying beside her with only caring thoughts in his head, the wish to provide comfort for one in distress. Unfortunately he was a very bad man, his cock had been hard for so long it ached, and it was all he could do to keep from sliding his arm up to rest against her small, lovely breasts.

And they were lovely. He could remember from the shadowy kitchen, when she lay stretched out in front of him, ready for him, hot for him. Tipsy, and a virgin. And he’d been a damned gentleman for once in his life, the ultimate act of stupidity. He wouldn’t make that mistake again. He’d have to wait, of course. It would be all the lovelier when she was awake, alert, and bared herself to him knowing what she was doing. He’d never been fond of unconscious partners.