Read My Favorite Countess Online
Authors: Vanessa Kelly
My Favorite Countess (8 page)
He leaned over her, fighting despair over her gray pallor and the dusky blue of her lips. Her eyes had become swollen slits, a slash of green barely visible under heavy lids.
She was awakeâif one could call her delirium thatâand she was babbling about her husband again. After three days listening to her terrified ramblings, John wished the bastard was still alive so he could beat him into a bloody pulp for all the pain he must have inflicted on his wife.
He wrung out a cloth in the basin of cold water Boland had left by the bedside. Washing Lady Randolphâtrying to bring her fever downâhad been torturous. At one point, the fever had spiked so severely that he and Boland had been forced to immerse her in a cool bath. She had wept, shaking in Boland's arms as he swiped a wet cloth over her slender, beautiful back. His heart had twisted with anger and pity that he was forced to expose her body to his gazeâa body that should have been flushed with the heat of passion, not with the infection that was killing her.
John tenderly wiped her face and neck, then rested his hand against her overheated cheek. If the fever didn't break soon, her chances of survival were slim. And that left him feeling despondent and furious. Almost as furious as when Becky died in childbirth.
But Becky was his sister, and he barely knew Lady Randolph.
He regretted the loss of any patient, but this was different. In the dark watches of these past few nights, he had gradually accepted a sense of responsibility for the countess. He hated that, but he hated even more the feeling that her death would leave a gaping hole in his heart, a heart he had been careful to shield from distracting emotionsâespecially when it came to women.
But this womanâinfuriating, prickly, and oh-sovulnerableâhad blown his defenses to smithereens.
She stirred, nuzzling her cheek into the palm of his hand.
“My lady,” he said. “Can you hear me?”
Her eyes flew open, and for one painfully joyous moment he thought she recognized him. But the dull glaze sheeting the normally bright green told him otherwise.
“Reggie, is that you? Why did you come back? I told you I didn't want to see you!”
John gritted his teeth. He didn't know if he could stand another minute of her tortured ravings about her husband.
He stroked her wet forehead. “No, my lady. It's Dr. Blackmore. There's nothing here to frighten you.”
Her eyes widened, her mind still trapped in a past he now understood had been one of lonely anguish. Her ramblings had rarely made sense but one thing had been perfectly clearâher husband had been a paranoid monster who suspected her of every kind of licentious behavior. One who took a sick pleasure in punishing his wife.
“Reggie, no!” she wailed.
“Shh. You're safe,” he murmured, smoothing back her hair.
She flinched, as if someone had slapped her. “Stay away from me.”
She struggled against him, strong in her delirium as she tried to leap from the bed. It killed him to do it, but he grabbed her and held her down as she thrashed underneath him. Finally, she subsided, weeping quietly. Lifting her head, he held a glass to her lips and gave her a sip of cool water. She spluttered, still weeping a bit. A few minutes later she slipped into a heavy doze, and he laid her back down on the pillows.
He stood, gripped his hands behind his back and pulled down on his arms, stretching as he studied the figure huddled under the covers. A thousand times he had ransacked every bit of knowledge in his brain for a way to save her. He had tried everything. Now it seemed her life was in God's hands.
Unfortunately, God seemed remarkably callous toward those who most needed His help.
The door opened, and Boland bustled in with another tray in an endless line of trays. This one held a pitcher of barley water and a desiccated loaf of bread.
“What in hell is that?” he asked.
“Good Friday bread, sir.”
John raised an eyebrow. Boland was a woman of few words. When he wanted information, he usually had to pry it out of her mouth.
“Well?” he prompted.
“It's baked on Good Friday,” she explained, “and then hung to be preserved. Tradition says it has the ability to heal the sick.”
He gave a snort and she sighed. “I know, Doctor. Cook found a loaf in the back of the pantry. She had forgotten it was there. She felt certain it would cure her ladyship, and almost every servant in the house agrees. It didn't seem right to insult them.”
John tapped the loaf. It made a hollow, drumlike sound. He looked at Boland's suspiciously rigid features and let out a rough laugh. Her mouth eased into a reluctant smile. He welcomed it. God knew they had few reasons to smile.
He watched her bustle about the room, folding towels and making things tidy. A comfortable silenceâborn of their shared burdenâfell between them. He loathed breaking it, but compulsion forced him to.
“Boland.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Did Lady Randolph's husband beat her?”
She gave him a startled glance. “Why would you ask me such a question?”
He gazed steadily at her and her face flushed. They had both heard Lady Randolph's mutterings, even though Boland had done her best to hush and soothe her mistress into silence.
He waited her out.
She reluctantly parted her lips. “I never saw any evidence that his lordship laid a hand on her in that way.”
There was more. He knew it, and had to confirm it.
“Go on,” he said, injecting a note of command in his voice. Boland had come to trust him and his commands, and he hoped she would respond to him now.
She drifted over to the bed, gazing down at her mistress. Her hands clutched the starched white towel she had tied around her waist.
“I never saw a mark on her, Dr. Blackmore, and she never said a word that he ever lifted a hand to her.”
She looked up and met his gaze. “But Lord Randolph was a cruel man . . . a villain,” she spat. “My lady suffered, worse than you can imagine. I may burn in hell for it, but I thanked our Creator the day the man broke his neck in a carriage race.”
She gasped and clapped her hand over her mouth. “I . . . I beg your pardonâ”
He cut her off. “Boland, you may always say whatever you wish to me. You have my complete trust and confidence.”
She flushed and ducked her head.
“Why don't you bring something for her ladyship to eatâbeside the, er, bread,” he said, taking pity on her. “Broth might do more good than our mystical loaf.”
“Yes, sir.”
Once she left the room, he allowed the fury he had been tamping down to flood through him. Randolph might not have beaten his wife, but he had abused her nonethelessâin ways he suspected would mark Bathsheba Compton's soul forever.
“Dr. Blackmore.”
The rasp of her voice jerked him around, and he strode to her bedside. She stared up at him, awake and obviously in her right senses.
He felt her cheek and forehead.
Still hot.
“It's good to see you again, Lady Randolph.”
He slid an arm around her shoulders and lifted her up, bringing the glass of barley water to her lips. She drank a few sips before she gasped and weakly turned her head.
He didn't lay her back down, instead cradling her against his chest. Hardly professional behavior on his part, but he couldn't resist the impulse to hold her. She nestled into his embrace with a whimper of what sounded like relief.
“How do you feel?”
She didn't answer.
“Lady Randolph?”
“I'm going to die, aren't I?” The hopeless finality of the question wrenched his heart.
“No, dear lady. You are not going to die. I won't let you.”
She made a soft, mocking sound and stirred in his arms. He tightened them, fighting an irrational fear that she might try to escape.
“You can't know that. You're not God.”
“No, but I'm the next best thing. I'm a doctor. Now stop talking and rest.”
She laughed weakly and huddled against him, turning her face into his chest. For a few minutes she rested, and he was more than content to hold her sweet body in his arms.
“Sometimes . . .”
He had to bend his head to hear her soft voice. “Yes?”
“Sometimes I think it would be much easier to just let go.”
An ill-defined but scorching emotion blazed in the vicinity of his heart.
“Don't talk such nonsense. It doesn't become you.” He sounded harsh, but he couldn't allow her to give upâto stop fighting. She lay poised on the knife's edge as it was.
“But I'm so tired. And few would miss me. Matthew and Boland, perhaps Raâ” She bit off whatever she had been about to say.
He shifted her around. Tapping her chin up, he forced her to look into his face.
“Matthew and Boland would be lost without you,” he said. She started to speak, but he laid a finger across her lips. “And I, too, would miss you, more than I care to admit. You mustn't think of leaving us. I won't have it.”
Her eyes grew round and tears gathered on her spiky lashes, little diamonds enhancing her emerald gaze.
He brushed away one drop that fell to her cheek. “I know you are troubled. I know you feel sick to your very soul. But you must trust me, Bathsheba. I will help youâwhatever it is, I will help. And I will not allow you to die.”
She stared at him, then burst into great racking sobs that shook her small frame. He let her cry, rocking her in his arms until she started to cough. Then he shushed her, rubbing her back until her breathing eased. She eventually quieted and he laid her back down on the bed.
“Sleep now, sweetheart,” he said, stroking her brow. “All will be well. I promise.”
She gave one sad little sniffle and closed her eyes, hiccupping a few times before she drifted off.
After a half hour's vigil, he realized she had fallen into a natural sleep, her breathing steady and even. She slept for hours without stirring, deep in a slumber that for once seemed untroubled by nightmares.
Later that evening her fever finally broke. John slumped in the chair beside her, overcome with weary relief and a tangle of unfamiliar, conflicting emotions. As he gazed at the sleeping beauty slumbering so peacefully in her rumpled bed, he wondered how the hell he was going to convince her that life was worth living.
And if he did manage to save the bewitching Lady Randolph from herself, what, exactly, would that mean for him?
Chapter 5
Bathsheba tilted her head back to capture the delightful warmth of the sun on her face. She stretched, sighing as she snuggled into the plump cushions of the chaise the servants had carried onto the terrace. Boland had created a peaceful outdoor retreat for her, complete with a small table and set of chairs, a stack of books, and some needlework.
Just off the library and partially shaded by a welter of creeping ivy and an old oak, the terrace looked east over a broad lawn and the Compton home woods. The foliage was sadly overgrown, but everything was gloriously green and fragrant, the serenity of the morning interrupted only by the call of the lark and the hum of the worker bee. Bathsheba had forgotten the verdant beauty of Compton Manor on a midsummer day.
She cast off her chip bonnet, eager to absorb the sunshine. It would surely bring out her dreaded red freckles, but for once she didn't care. It felt so wonderful to loll about in the welcoming heat, like the estate's barn cat that rolled around on the stones of the garden path a few feet away. Boland would no doubt scold, fearing she would return to London as brown and freckled as any country miss, but Bathsheba could always resort to her Denmark Lotion and cosmetics to restore her complexion.
Besides, Blackmore had ordered her to sit in the sun at least an hour a day. Who was she to argue with the man who had helped her cheat death?
At the thought of her handsome savior, she gave a little shiver, and not one generated by the horrendous fever that had plagued her for three long days. The memory of his powerful arms lifting her, his strong hands moving over her body as he tended to her, still left her breathless. Not even the shame of knowing how vulnerable she had been could take away her unexpected longing to feel his touch once more.
“My lady!”
Boland's sharp voice made her jump in her seat.
“Good God. You half frightened me out of my wits,” Bathsheba grumbled. “Why must you sneak up on me like that?”
“Because that's the only way I can find out if you're following the doctor's orders,” her abigail retorted.
“I am following doctor's orders. He told me to spend at least an hour a day in the sun. What does it look like I'm doing?”
The other woman bustled up to the chaise, her arms loaded down with extra pillows and some woven throws. Ever since Bathsheba had been allowed to leave the sickroom, her companion had fussed like an old hen, barely leaving her alone for an instant. As much she found comfort in Boland's unstinting devotion and care, she was beginning to find it a tad stifling.
Boland glared down at her. “You took off your bonnet. And you need another wrap.” She threw a voluminous Norwich shawl over Bathsheba's shoulders. “The doctor said you had to keep warm.”
“I am warm, Boland. It's August. It's in fact bloody hot out here, which is why I took off my bonnet. And you know very well that Dr. Blackmore doesn't believe in overheating a patient. He would laugh to see me bundled up like an old spinster.”
Boland refused to back down. “You're barely well, Miss Bathsheba. And he may be the doctor, but I've been taking care of you since you were a girl. I think I know what you need and what you don't.”
Bathsheba sighed. Boland had objected to Blackmore's direction that she take the sun and fresh air, and their disagreement had threatened to turn into a full-blown argument. She had been forced to intervene, speaking more sharply to her abigail than she intended. But she was tired of being smothered, and sick to death of feeling like an invalid.
“I know, Boland. But I'm fine now. You must stop making a fuss.”
The other woman looked at her, and Bathsheba was stunned to see tears in her eyes.
“You almost died, my lady,” she said, her voice hoarse with emotion. “I almost lost you.”
Something clutched in Bathsheba's throat, and she had to struggle to swallow. She had spent the last few days trying to forget that terrifying fact. Hearing Boland say it made the nightmare come rushing back.
She sat up and tossed aside the blanket draped over her legs.
“Well, I didn't die, and I have no intention of doing so any time soon,” she replied in a cool voice. “What time is it? It must be close to lunch. I'm famished.”
She wasn't, but she didn't want to talk about her illness any longer. Ever again, if she could help it.
Boland stiffened and put on her best offended servant's face. “Luncheon will not be served for another hour, my lady. I'll bring you some tea and biscuits. If that wouldn't be making too much of a fuss,” she finished, sarcastically.
As guilt shafted through her, Bathsheba caught the other woman's calloused hand. “I'm sorry, Boland. It's a wonder you've put up with me all these years. I don't know how you do it.”
Boland clucked disapprovingly, but her cheeks pinked with pleasure. “Never you mind, my lady. You're just tired, that's all. I'll be back with your tea in a trice.”
She turned to go, and then stopped. “Oh, and Dr. Blackmore arrived a few minutes ago. He's looking at the burn on Cook's hand, then he'll be out to see you. Would you like me to set a place for him at lunch?”
The butterflies in Bathsheba's stomach took flight, as they always did when someone mentioned his name. Forcing herself to smile, she prayed Boland would mistake the blush on her cheeks for color brought out by the sun.
“I'm sure Lord Randolph would be pleased to have the doctor stay for lunch.”
Boland disappeared into the shadows of the library as Bathsheba wobbled to her feet.
Blast!
She still felt weak as a kitten, but she'd be damned if Blackmore found her lying on the chaise like a sickly old widow. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she smoothed her hands over the bodice and skirts of her cream-colored gown of French muslin. She knew how ridiculous it was for a woman of her age to wear so girlish a color, but she loved the simplicity of itâthe way it set off her auburn hair and drew attention to the curves of her figure instead of to the gown itself.
A firm step sounded on the squeaky floorboards of the library, then Blackmore emerged from the house into the glare of the afternoon sunlight. He paused, blinking to adjust his vision. She eagerly grasped those few seconds to study him.
He didn't dress like a doctor, at least not like any doctor she had ever seen. He dressed like a Corinthian, his tall, lean form set off to advantage by buckskin breeches and shiny black topbootsâall that leather enhancing the muscled beauty of his legs. His broad shoulders strained through the expensive fabric of his dark green coat, and his gray waistcoat did nothing to obscure his powerful chest.
She knew the solidity and strength of that body. God, how could she ever forget it, after he had held her in his arms that night she had sobbed out her fears? She flushed again, discomforted by the reminder of that moment when he had stripped her emotions bare. But something else lurked underneath that humiliating memoryâa growing desire to feel those powerful arms about her once again.
He stepped forward and smiled, making her a respectful bow.
“Lady Randolph, it is a great pleasure to see you up and about. I hope, however, that you are not overexerting yourself.”
Bathsheba stiffened, the answering smile fading from her lips. Apparently, they would be observing all the formalities today.
Stung by the social barrier he had unexpectedly erected, she gave him a distant nod in return.
“Doctor,” she said in a chilly voice.
He grinned, suddenly looking as wicked as any rake she had ever met. His eyes gleamed as he swiftly ran an appreciative gaze over her body. Her heart leapt in response, stuttering with a funny little beat she was beginning to recognize.
“Don't starch up, my lady,” he said. Those amazing silver eyes laughed at her. “I didn't mean to sound like a stuffy old matron, but you surprised me. I haven't seen you in two days, and you look as pretty as a girl just out of the schoolroom. No one would ever suspect you were so ill just a short time ago.”
As far as compliments went, she had heard betterâmuch better. But she still blushed, at once ridiculously pleased by his attention and irritated that he could read her so easily.
“Won't you sit down?” she asked, trying to reclaim some dignity.
He moved, looming over her. His eyes half closed as he lowered his head close to her hair.
“Wh-what are you doing?” She couldn't keep a little quaver out of her voice.
“Mmm, you smell delicious.” The husky note in his voice made her limbs weaken and tremble. “Like sunshine and rosewater.”
“Don't beâ”
His eyes gleamed at her from under heavy, sensual lids. “Foolish. I know. But you wore a different perfume the first time I met you. It was very lush. Beautiful, but heavy. I like this better.”
She had to put some distance between them before her heart pounded out of her chest. Backing up awkwardly, she half sat, half fell onto the chaise.
“I can't wear it anymore. Not since I've begun to recover. It's too strong. I tried to put some on this morning and it made me cough.” She sounded like a babbling fool, but she couldn't help it.
He instantly came alert, looking every inch the doctor. She blinked at the sudden transformation.
Sitting next to her on one of the chairs, he took her wrist, feeling for her pulse. She submitted, knowing it was useless to struggle.
“Your lungs are still sensitive,” he said. “Perhaps in a few weeks you'll be able to wear it again.”
She shook her head. “It doesn't matter. I'm not very fond of it, anyway.” And it was deuced expensive. Unless she found that rich husband of hers very soon, she wouldn't be wearing French perfume.
He nodded absently as he brought a cool hand to her cheek and forehead, then extracted the ever-present wooden cylinder out of his pocket and listened to her chest. She stared up at the branches of the oak tree, trying not to look at the silky dark head so close to her breast.
He straightened. “Your lungs sound clear, but your heartbeat is a trifle accelerated. We don't want you succumbing to a relapse. This afternoon, you're to take a long nap. I don't want you leaving your room until dinner.”
Just like a baby
, she thought pettishly. “I'm fine. Stop fussing. You're as bad as Boland.”
, she thought pettishly. “I'm fine. Stop fussing. You're as bad as Boland.”
He grunted, running his eyes over her again. But this time, there was only the assessing, dispassionate gaze of a physician. She found it immensely annoying. How could he distance himself so easily, when her nervesâher awareness of his potent masculinityâwere stretched as tight as the strings on a violin? One look from him and her knees turned to jelly, while he seemed unaffected by any emotionâsexual or otherwise.
Well, perhaps she would see about that.
Curling her legs up on the chaise, she draped one arm suggestively over the back of the bolster. The movement thrust her breasts up, straining over the top of her gown.
“Perhaps I am feeling a trifle agitated,” she said, giving him a seductive smile. “But there's a reason for it. Would you like to know what it is?” She allowed one hand to drift down the front of her bodice to rest in her lap.
He sat bolt upright.
Finally.
She slid a hand over to touch his sleeve.
She slid a hand over to touch his sleeve.
“Stop that,” he ordered.
She jerked her hand back. “Stop what?”
“That. Playing the wanton. It's unbecoming, and you don't need to do that with me.”
Her mouth dried up, as did any words she might have thought to respond with. Only by sheer willpower did she stop herself from gaping at him.
His smoke-gray eyes were cool, even remote, as he studied her. Even though her throat and face prickled with heat, she refused to drop her gaze. How dared he reprimand her? She was a countess, while he was . . . the man who had saved her life.
“I know who you are. At least I think I do,” he mused, his voice now reflective rather than angry. She didn't know which was worse.
“You play the jaded aristocrat, but it's not your true nature. You're not the woman the gossips say you are. You're not a bitch and you're not a wanton.”
She gasped at his brutal choice of words, but he was unrelenting.
“Why do you allow the world to believe those things about you? What purpose does it serve?”
She stared at him, unable to even blink. He sat quietly in his chair, one leg crossed over the other, totally at ease. His eyes studied her intently but objectively, as a scientist might study an exotic insect or animal.
Anger flared deep in her gut, even as she acknowledged the truth of his words. She wasn't a wanton. She was something worseâa coward, too afraid to let herself feel love or passion, or to allow any man to hold sway over her again. Since Reggie's death she had taken lovers, but only when her financial situation forced her to. She had tried to be discriminating but need often trumped desire. Only her last lover, the Earl of Trask, had stirred her to passion. Even then, she had never loved him.
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