Jade Star (Star Quartet 4)

“Can I have a bath, Michael?”

“I’ll send Lydia up,” he said, and left the bedroom, gently closing the door.

He felt a spurt of rage to see Bunker Stevenson waiting for him in his surgery. He still wasn’t certain that Bunker hadn’t been one of the men at the Crooked House. He said shortly, “I’ll be with you in just a minute, Bunker.” He pulled Lydia into the hall. “No one is to know she’s here. Can you help her bathe, Lydia? I’ll figure out what we’re going to do.”

Lydia looked at him sharply. “Bunker wasn’t one of those men, was he?”

“I’m not sure,” Saint said tersely. “I can’t very well ask him, I suppose.”

“I’ll see to the child.”

Child, hell, Saint thought as he walked back into his surgery.

7

“It’s jasmine,” Lydia said as she poured a bit of liquid into Juliana’s bathwater.

“Anything would be better than what I smell like now.” Gentlemen like this scent, my dear. But don’t use too much. It’s very potent. When he’d turned away, she’d poured nearly the entire bottle on her shoulders and chest and the skirt of the gown. She’d thought he would strike her, but he hadn’t. He’d pulled the gown to her waist and bathed the heavy musk from her body.

The girl’s words were true enough, Lydia thought. She wondered if Jules had been raped, but didn’t ask, of course. She helped her out of Saint’s nightshirt and into the porcelain tub.

“You need more flesh,” Lydia said.

Jules winced, remembering all the food Wilkes had tried to tempt her with. “Yes,” she said in a clipped voice, but it didn’t occur to her to try to cover herself. He’s changed me, she thought. She wasn’t at all embarrassed that Lydia was helping her, seeing her with no covering but her hair.

“You’ll need some clothes,” Lydia said as she helped Jules lather her long tangled hair.

“Yes, Michael said he’d get me some.”

“Michael?” Lydia asked, a brow raised.

Jules smiled a bit at that. So he was still closemouthed about his given name—Ulysses Michael. “That’s his real name, at least part of it.” When he’d told her his name one afternoon so long ago, she’d announced that she preferred “Ulysses” and burst into gasps of laughter. “Michael,” she thought now. Such a kind name, a full name with depth and complexity. “Does everyone call him Saint?” she asked Lydia.

Lydia smiled. “Yes, and I’ll just bet I can blackmail him now. You see,” she continued at Jules’s puzzled look, “everyone wants to know what his real name is and he won’t tell. Nor will he tell anyone how he got the nickname Saint.”

“I know,” Jules said. I’m acting normally, she thought. I’m sitting in a bathtub in Michael’s house in San Francisco, and I’m acting like nothing at all happened to me.

“Well, if you decide to tell me, I’ll doubtless become a rich woman by selling that tidbit,” Lydia said. “Here, dear, let me rinse your hair.”

When Juliana was tucked back into bed, she said to Lydia, “Michael told you about me?”

Lydia heard the shame in the girl’s voice, and patted her hand. “Yes, he did. I hope you don’t mind, for I’ll never tell a soul. Saint will take care of you, my dear, you mustn’t worry. He is a very responsible, thoughtful man.”

“I know he is,” said Jules, and closed her eyes. She wasn’t worried. My family believes me dead, she thought. And Kanola’s children have no mother now, her husband no wife. All Wilkes has is a broken jaw. She felt hatred, pure and raw, flow through her. She was so locked into her private misery that she didn’t hear Lydia leave the bedroom.

She fell asleep and dreamed. Wilkes was laughing, watching her intently as she drank some wine. Then she began to feel heavy, and dull, and very strange. She saw him lean over her and kiss her breast.

“No!”

She heard her own scream, and jerked upright.

“Jules!”

“No!” she screamed again, seeing a man striding toward her. She scurried frantically to the far side of the bed.

Saint stopped cold. He’d been outside the bedroom when he heard her cry out. He drew a deep, steadying breath and said very quietly, “You had a nightmare, Jules. You’re with me—Michael. Do you understand?”

She stared at the wall, mute. She swallowed convulsively as her mind cleared. She whispered, “He made me drink some wine and he touched me and kissed me and . . . fondled me.” She gulped, hating him, hating herself, hating her shame. His mouth was cold and dry and alien.