An Unmistakable Rogue (10 page)

At the back door, Matt got Stealth to kneel again and put a stool beside him. Getting Reed off was easier than getting him on. He swore less, perhaps because he saw the little ones watching. She and Matt helped him into the kitchen, where he sank onto the bed with a moan. Pain etched his colorless face and compressed his lips.

He smiled at her, but the pain never left his eyes.

“Mark,” Chastity said, “see to Stealth, and give him some extra oats and molasses for his hard work. Feed Breezy and Smokey too. Children, dress warm and go help Mark to give Reed some privacy. Stay in the stable and out of the rain. I’ll call when you can come back.”

Matt herded them out, throwing a last concerned look Reed’s way. “He’ll be all right, won’t he, Kitty?” He waited for her promise before he left.

After he did, she set a pan of water to boiling and tried to give Reed a cool draft to sip. He pushed it away. “Brandy.”

Chastity lifted the bottle of amber liquid to his lips once again. “You’re going to be inebriated.”

Reed chuckled and swore. “Hurts to laugh.” He took the bottle into his own hands, winced, and drank until she reclaimed it.

Blood matted his hair and stained his hands. He must have grasped his side, and then shoved his hand through his hair, as he was wont to do, unless he had a head wound as well. She checked to be certain but found no other injury.

She removed his shirt and washed his broad shoulders, his muscular arms. Her hand slowed as she moved the washcloth through the whorls of dark hair on his chest and found his nipples hidden in the thatch. She had never seen a man’s body before and could barely take her eyes from the sight.

Neither did Reed remove his gaze from her perusal, she was disconcerted to realize. His dimples gave away the smile he tried to hide. Injured, and still he beguiled her.

She might have gone up in flames, if he’d remained awake. If he ever mentioned this, she would tell him he must have been dreaming.

After he slept, she took her time washing his upper torso, appreciating every inch of male perfection.

“Chastity, love, if my side didn’t hurt so bad, I’d show you how much I like what you’re doing.”

Chastity slapped her hand to her heart. This drifting in and out of consciousness, the way he was doing, was going to give her a seizure. “What did you say?”

“Could we do this, again, in a few weeks?”

“Certainly not.” She rinsed the cloth with efficiency, ignoring his smile and her disquiet. She had put off removing the arrow for long enough. She could delay his pain no longer. For the moment—a short moment, unfortunately—he was as comfortable as could be.

She rubbed lye soap against a fresh clean cloth and despite her trembling fingers gently cleansed around the wound. Then she forced herself to tend the worst of it.

She placed a hot cloth, around the arrow’s shaft.

“Damnation!”

“If you did not feel the burn, you would be dead. Be quiet and thank your Maker for the small favor.”

“Told you; He and I do not keep company.”

She rinsed the cloth and repeated the process.

“That’s too damned hot!”

“I know how hot it is,” Chastity said. “My hands are on fire, but I have to clean the wound as best I can with the hottest water you can stand. Then I’m going to pour brandy over it.”

Reed remained conscious and glaring. “Put in a good word for me with your Maker, will you?”

“I have been, Reed, since Matt came to find me.” Wherever life took them, she would pray for this man until she could no longer pray. God knew she would never forget him. She wiped his brow. “He might like to hear from you, though. Give it a try.”

Reed’s eyes closed, and she did not know if he heard. She pressed the back of her hand to his brow. No fever. She set another log on the fire, and opened William’s medical bag for supplies.

She would not lose Reed, too.

When she found what she needed, she put everything back—powders, shears, tonics, even a packet of yellowed documents. She checked the scalpel’s blade and washed it with hot water and lye soap.

“What are you doing with that ... weapon?”

“Washing it. I worked with a doctor who was ridiculed for believing in clean surgical procedures, but I think he was right. When it’s clean, I’m going to cut a slash about this long.” She marked the length with two fingers. “On each side of the arrow’s shaft. I can tell where the head is widest by the shape of the wound.” She examined him as she spoke. “I’ll cut just enough to remove the arrow’s tip without causing more damage. The angle’s bad, so it’s going to hurt.” It would hurt
both of them
, she did not say.

“Where the devil did you learn such torture?”

“I was a nursing sister. Did I not say so?”

“But you looked at my body as if you’d never seen—”

“I nursed children. You’re my first man.”

“I wish.”

“No, really.”

“When I
am
your first man, you will smile when you say it.”

Chastity straightened when she caught his implication, prickles skittering through her body like branches sprouting everywhere. Ignoring him, she picked up the knife. “Pray you recover, and—”

“Kiss me for luck.”

Chastity fit her lips to his, and Reed kissed her in a way that made her suddenly aware of herself as a woman, almost as aware as she was of
him
as a man.  

They stared into each other’s eyes for too long afterward.

“Do it,” he finally said.

Chastity nodded, took a breath, and grasped the arrow’s shaft. Shutting out his gasp, she made the first slice into his flesh, keeping strict control over her trembling hands, and her knowledge of who she cut.

Beads of sweat formed on his upper lip and brow, even as Chastity blinked to clear the sweat from her own eyes. Night sounds invaded the silence—wind, rain, children playing; Matt trying to distract his brothers and sister.

Reed passed out, and after wiping her brow with her sleeve, she made quick work of the opposite cut, where the arrowhead’s second wing lay deeper beneath his skin.

Reed swore when she tugged the projectile free, then he went limp. Chastity swallowed against a rising nausea, and held clean padding to the wound, applying pressure to stem a fresh flow of blood. She took the bloody arrowhead and tossed it in the fire, where it hissed and crackled like a serpent.

Allowing her knees to buckle, she knelt by the mattress, keeping the padding against the wound. The gash was smaller than expected, including the cuts
she
made.

Blood did not soak the padding, which encouraged her to remove it and stitch him up. Mother Superior used to say that her samplers could not hold a candle to her surgical stitches. For that, Chastity had never been more grateful.

After she stitched, she sprinkled basilicum powder over the wound to keep it dry and help it heal. Then she bound him with a wide bandage to hold the clean padding secure.

Reed roused, his voice thick with pain. “You’re white as the ghost I met that first night.”

“You’re just a hint shy of green, yourself.”

Reed’s chuckle ended in a moan. “Do not make me laugh. I do not feel well.” He shifted and grimaced. “I hate to bring this up, you being a nun and all, but would you remove my trousers?”

CHAPTER TEN

Reed looked to be as uncomfortable with his request as she.

“I would not normally ask,” he said. “But my trousers are pushing against the wound, and it hurts like the devil. If you’re afraid, can you unbutton the placket at least, and ease them down a bit?”

“I am not afraid; I am appalled that
I
did not think of it.” Biting her lip, taking care not to touch anything
questionable
, her fingers trembling and clumsy, Chastity unfastened his placket, astonished that beneath the fabric, a generous endowment of male parts seemed to spring to
life.

“Dreams
do
come true,” Reed rasped, his words slurred, “with God-awful timing.” His gentle snore allowed her to release her breath.

Blessedly free of his probing gaze, she slid his trousers down his legs, refusing to examine him
at length
, despite a strong temptation to do so. The male body may not be precisely new to her—there were the boys—but she found Reed’s a good deal more daunting than she expected.

She turned her attention, praise be, to removing his boots with a steady hand, lest she cause more pain.

Finally, she divested Reed of his trousers and dropped them on the floor.

She replaced his wet socks for dry ones, shocked at the size of his feet, and covered him with extra blankets, all with barely a peek at his man parts.

His snores, not always soft, filled the kitchen. He did not rouse during supper, not even when the children giggled, not when they outright argued about going to bed. With all of them worried about the growling grizzly in the kitchen, she led her surly troop up the stairs.

“Who would want to hurt Reed?” Mark asked.

Wanted to?
“Did you not consider it a hunting accident, Matthew?”

He tilted his head, considering. “We yelled loud for them to stop, but those arrows kept coming.”

“Perhaps the hunter stood too far away to hear you? I cannot imagine anyone wishing Reed harm. An accident, I’m sure. Pray for him to get well quickly.” But the worry seed had been planted in her.

After good-night kisses, two of them were asleep before she quit the room.

After such a day, Reed’s nightly tub of hot water would be especially welcome, but alas, sticky with blood, she washed in a scullery basin.

Afterward, feeling exposed in her modest white nightrail, she slipped into the violet brocade dressing gown for propriety’s sake, allowing the garment to comfort her as his arms might do. Her fear and exhaustion came to an end when he began thrashing about. Afraid he would open his wound; she went to him and whispered calming words. No fever, she gratefully realized testing his cheek, finger-combing the hair from his brow.

“Thirsty,” he rasped, eyes closed and sipped greedily from the cup she held to his lips.

Encouraged, Chastity ladled soup into a bowl. “Reed can you hear me?”

He opened his eyes. “I like you smiling down at me, but waking to you beside me would be better.” He raised his arms to her, but they fell to his sides as if they were weighted.

“You’ve slept the better part of the evening. Eating will help you regain your strength. I warmed some soup.”

He groaned.

“You need not be sour-faced. The children loved it.”

“
They
will eat anything you set before them.”

“Yes, and they’re grateful too. You, sir, could take lessons from them in the matter of manners.”

He chuckled and groaned. “Manners? From them?”

At her chiding look, he swallowed two spoons of soup, then he promptly went back to sleep.

After hours in a hard-backed chair, Chastity gazed with longing at the empty half of Reed’s makeshift bed.

She should not, she knew, but what harm? Reed would never know.

Chastity cautiously positioned herself straight as a board beside him, and as she grew sleepy, he caught her hand in his. In that way, she let exhaustion overtake her, the warmth of him beside her, lulling her.

The pain in Chastity’s arm, it being tugged from its socket, woke her. Amid a heap of tangled blankets, their clasped hands skimmed a hairy leg, her pinned against him. Heat penetrated her sleep-fogged brain—waves of heat emanating from his fevered skin. She needed to sponge him down with cool water to lower his temperature, but she must first extract herself from his grasp, and his bed, without hurting or waking him, please God.

She attempted first to reclaim her hand, but Reed held tight. She tried easing from his embrace, but it was useless. “Stubborn damn man,” she whispered, “even when you’re sleeping.”

Luke’s giggle announced his presence beside the bed. Despite the trace of a smile on his face, his eyes were red. He wiped them with his sleeve when she noticed. “I have an idea,” he whispered, making a tickle-bug with his fingers and going for Reed’s ear, an impish light in his eyes.

Reed tossed his head to evade the nuisance, and Luke’s tickles followed, until Reed released Chastity to swat at his ear.

Luke’s delight made Chastity chuckle inwardly as she scooted from the bed. With a finger to her lips, she beckoned the child to her side. Luke must have been too worried to sleep, and as she embraced him, his tears burst forth. When he calmed, she led him from the kitchen.

In the foyer, moonlight cast a path across the tiles, as if directing the way to the stairs. Chastity kissed the boy and urged him up the first step. “If you do not get some sleep, you will not be able to help me tomorrow, and I will need you, Luke. Honestly.”

“I love him, Kitty.”

And that she understood
.
“I know, Sweetheart.” She finger-combed his hair. “He’ll be fine. Thank you for helping me just now.” She made a tickle bug of her own, so Luke scurried up the stairs and out of range.

Chastity ran a cool cloth over Reed’s face and neck, his upper body. Throwing the quilt aside, she continued down his torso. When she got to that very male part of him, she stopped, for she had never seen the like. That was no little thing,
nothing like
the boys. Reed was huge, breathtaking.

Once again, he made her think of a mythical god, though perhaps all men looked the same
there
, though the breadth of William’s shoulders had not matched Reed’s, so perhaps not.

Reed’s blatant masculinity, hard muscles, and sturdy build reminded her of a magnificent purebred stallion. What, about this man, had stirred her at first sight and made her yearn for things her husband had not?

Chastity no longer hesitated but continued his fever-cooling bath by moonlight, noting that where she bathed, he pulsed.

“Siren.” His husky voice sluiced through her in waves of hot embarrassment ... or exhilaration. So many emotions churned in her, Chastity grew almost dizzy.

“Are you all right?” he asked

“No. Yes.” She looked away. “I do not know how to be a siren, but if you show me, I’m certain I could learn.”

“Wonderful time for that to come out,” he said, “with me, weak as kitten.” He tried to rise, failed, and fell back, closing his eyes with a chuckle, his breath short.

“What exactly would you like to learn?” he asked a moment later.

“You.”

From his groan, and the light in his widening eyes, he liked the idea.

Seconds passed, and neither spoke. And if one more log fell before he broke the silence, she might have to scream.

“I’ve ached to teach you
everything
,” he finally said. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Chastity nodded. “Why did you call me a siren?”

“You are, you know. You call to me like a siren’s song calls a sailor to the sea.” He smiled ruefully. “Forgive me if I’m not up to beginning your lessons.” He closed his eyes. “To my deep regret.”

As she settled the blanket over him, she found
that
part of him no longer as magnificent as a moment before. “Reed, your man part is shrinking, and I do not know how to fix it.”

His eyes flew open, humor lighting them. “Oh, yes you do.” He chuckled and winced. “Chastity, sweet, had I not been felled by an arrow, your first lesson would already have begun. My male pride has taken the worse beating, but none of my man parts are in danger. When I’m better, you shall have lessons aplenty. Come, sit beside me. You’re upset and I can do nothing to help. I’m sorry. Truly.”

She placed her hand in his. How good it had felt to fall asleep that way. “I’m worried about you,” she confessed.

“Thank you,” he said. “For once in my life, I’m glad I’m not alone. I never thought the day would come.”

“Does it not seem odd?” she asked, trying to forget his body and her reaction to it, “that you were alone, I was alone, and the children were alone. All of us, the house included, were once abandoned, but here we are, together.”

Reed shook his head as if she did not comprehend some basic tenet. “Chastity, do you not see that you are never more alone than when you are with others but you do not belong?”

“Oh, Reed, you do belong, perhaps not forever, but for a time. Do we not make you feel a part of us?” She cleared her throat. “I hoped we did.”

“You and the children are a family, and I stand off to the side, here to help for a time, never to be a part of. It is not my lot, and I am content.”

Chastity wanted to weep, but he would not appreciate her feeling sorry for him. She pulled her hand from his and touched his brow. “Sleep. You need to heal.”

The next morning, Reed burned with fever and never fully woke. Cool baths helped. The children fretted and fought, sometimes right beside his bed, but he reacted to none of it. Chastity feared they would lose him.

He swore every time she changed his dressing and applied a fresh poultice. The wound festered. His fever climbed higher. He spoke her name, something about roses and rain, and kissing raindrops from petals.

She made no sense of it.

The second night, after the children slept, she bathed him and spooned soup into him, but worried about his restlessness. So she decided to wash quickly, beside the stove fire, to be near if he needed her.

She kept her back to him and washed under her gown. At his indrawn breath, she turned. He’d raised himself on an arm, trembling with the effort, his expression rapt. “Every time I wake, you find a new way to torture me.” He fell back, exhausted from the effort.

Chastity tested his cheek. “Not as hot. Good.”

His gaze, however, scorched and stroked her. “Burning hot,” he said. “I am an inferno.” He raised a hand—to touch her cheek, she thought—but slid it in the vee of her gown, to cup a breast and finger a nipple.

Liquid lightening, wild and writhing, licked at her belly, her womb, places she did not know were connected.

In a bid for self-preservation, she grabbed his wrist to still it, then arched and filled his palm with her aching breast. His look of torture and need must mirror her own. She closed her eyes to escape it.

When she opened them, he slept.

For the rest of the night, Chastity could not get his anguished look from her mind. God help her, she craved his touch, yet sanity told her to deny it. He would be gone soon, she told herself. Nothing could come of succumbing to this attraction between them.

The next day, Chastity let Luke sit by Reed, while she made dinner and he read aloud about DaVinci’s flying machine. Matt and Mark did chores upstairs; Bekah undoing them.

“Kitty,” Luke said. “Look at this.”

“How’s our patient?” Chastity asked. “Has he stirred?”

“Naw, he just keeps sleepin’.” Luke flattened a piece of paper. “Chastity what does H-E-I-R spell?”

“Heir.”

“What does that mean?”

“An heir is someone who inherits money or an estate. What have you got there?”

“It says, “You are the miss-ing St. Yves, Earl of Bar-ring-ton, heir to—”

“Sunnyledge,” she finished absently, sitting beside him. “Where did you find that?”

“Here by Reed’s bed. Must’a dropped from his clothes. What’s it mean?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe it’s not Reed’s.”

“Ask him?”

“When he’s better. For now, let’s keep it to ourselves, until we know what it means.”

“Sure, but why don’t you ask him now?”

“Because he’s unconscious.”

“Yeah, but he answers neat questions. He says you’re beautiful and lots’a mushy stuff like that.”

“Watch your matchmaking young man, or I’ll be the one to make you eat mouse’s tails and hedgehog toes.”

Luke’s eyes widened until he remembered to look innocent.

Chastity ruffled his hair. “Go tell your brothers and sister that supper’s nearly ready.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” The boy bolted.

Chastity went to her room to see if William’s note was missing, but it was there, and identical to the one Luke found. She had suspected there were two because of Reed’s claim. But it would serve nothing to tell Reed, and the fact remained that if she did, it would come out that William was her husband and Reed would know she was not a nun. Now more than ever, until she was certain something lasting could exist between them, she must use her vows as a shield.

The vows
had
existed once; she’d simply omitted the fact that they were no-longer binding.

When she checked Reed’s fever, he shoved her away. “An arrow! Matt!” He looked right at her. “Matt wants a man’s influence.”

“I know, Reed. You’ve been good for him.”

“Not me. It cannot be me.”

She could have wept as she kissed his cheek. “Sleep.”  

He urged her down, against his good side, despite the pain that accompanied his movement. She hated to fight him, and liked where she found herself, so she stayed for a bit and kissed his cheek. He stroked the small of her back, played with the hair at her nape, and sighed in contentment. “Sweet Chastity Somers,” he whispered, stroking the side of her breast. “What have you done to me?” he whispered ... and slept.

She pulled away. “Rest now.”

Reed opened his eyes and saw Chastity asleep in the chair beside his bed, a veiled virgin, minus the veil—the woman he lusted after, more fool he.

He must have slept again, for this time when he opened his eyes, an apparition of Satan stood looking down at him, in the benighted form of a woman. Black-rimmed eyes, wild gray hair, uneven red lips, bright red cheeks. Hideous smile. The cloying odor of lilies, of death, clinging to her.