The Duke's Governess Bride (21 page)

But having Jane there made it different. Was she still fearing for him, he wondered, still frightened?

And in that half-second that he let his concentration wander, he felt the blade slice across the back of his wrist and his own blood spill out, not deep enough to sever any muscles, but more than enough to snap his attention back to where it belonged.

Falsely confident, the first man raised his sword high to strike again. Before he could, Richard struck first, catching the man beneath his upraised arm. Richard felt the blade cut through the rough cloth of the man’s coat and shirt and then sink into his flesh, stopping only when it hit and glanced off a rib.

The thief cried out with pain and surprise and slid off Richard’s sword to fall to the paving stones. Clutching at his side, he babbled to his comrade in anguished Italian, and to Richard, too.

‘Misericordia, misericordia!’
he cried weakly, begging for mercy.
‘O, Jesu!’

To Richard’s surprise, the man dropped his sword and rushed to his wounded friend. He pulled the man to his unsteady feet and half-dragged him away as swiftly as he could, back into the shadows of a nearby alley.

‘Richard!’ Jane flung herself at him, wrapping her arms tightly around his waist. ‘Oh, Richard, Richard, if anything had happened to you!’

‘Nothing did, sweet, nothing at all.’ Awkwardly he sheathed his own sword and wrapped his arms around her. ‘It’s over now, Janie, over and done.’

She turned her face to gaze up at him, her cheeks wet with tears. ‘You can—cannot know how I feared for you, Richard,’ she sobbed. ‘I know we’ve vowed to live each—each day as it came here in Venice, but if—if I’d lost you—’

‘But you didn’t,’ he said softly. ‘Come, let me take you home.’

Once again he glanced past her to where the thieves had vanished, with all that remained was a ragged dark trail of blood. So much blood, thought Richard wearily, still breathing hard himself. Now that the excitement of the fight had passed, his hand hurt like the devil. He felt exhausted, and worse, he felt every bit his age. He hadn’t intended to kill the man, but his blade must have slipped deeper than he’d intended. Hell. It had been undeniable self-defence, of course, but he’d no wish to squander his final days with Jane here in Venice becoming embroiled in some sort of public inquiry.

He led her away, back towards the safety and the light of the busier piazzas, and it was then she saw the gash on his hand.

‘Oh, dear God!’ she cried softly. ‘They did hurt you! Hurry, hurry, we must fetch a surgeon!’

‘It’s nothing, Jane,’ he said in the way of all wounded men. Self-consciously he wrapped his dark cloak around his hand, as much to hide the blood and his crimson-stained cuff from her as to bind up the cut, and offered her his other arm. ‘Besides, it’s my own fault. I let my thoughts wander, and this is the result.’

Her face still wet with tears, she ignored his offered arm. Instead she’d drawn out her own handkerchief and reached for his wounded hand, briskly undeterred by the blood.

‘That’s foolishness,’ she said, tending to him with her usual efficiency. ‘I saw how
determined
you were. What could possibly scatter your thoughts in such a situation?’

‘You,’ he said. ‘I thought of you.’

Chapter Twenty

J
ane was always at her best when she was busy, and the more things she had to manage, or arrange, or settle, the better. So it was that night near the Ridotto once she’d realised that Richard had been wounded. Once she’d seen that Richard needed her, that she’d things to
do,
she’d been able to put aside Signor di Rossi and the ambush and everything else that had so frightened her this evening. Instead she could simply be capable Miss Wood.

Richard could protest all he wanted that the blood streaming from his hand was nothing; she knew better, just as she knew he’d be far too stubborn and gallant to admit it. With her usual calm efficiency—and her best Italian—she’d made sure their gondolier showed the greatest haste in returning them to the Ca’ Battista. She’d sent for a surgeon, she’d roused the cook to produce a late, fortifying supper for Richard, and she’d ordered a footman to build the fires in Richard’s rooms and to bring warm water for washing.

Though Richard’s manservant Wilson had rushed to take possession of his master, Jane had insisted on accompanying him upstairs herself, and had only left Richard and Wilson alone when the manservant began to strip away Richard’s blood-stained Arlecchino costume. She hurried to her own rooms just long enough to replace her own frivolous costume with her woollen dressing gown, and was back in Richard’s bedchamber before the surgeon arrived. Now in a fresh shirt and a quilted silk banyan, he was sitting beside the long table where he’d conduct his business affairs, his injured hand resting gingerly on the edge and a glass of brandy in the other.

‘That’s not for you to do, Jane,’ Richard said as she insisted on gently unwrapping the sodden handkerchief from his hand. ‘Leave it for the doctor.’

‘It’s not good to let this sit any longer,’ she insisted, her concern growing. For all his bluster, she thought he looked pale and drawn. ‘Who knows when the fellow will decide to show his face?’

He grimaced. ‘Janie, please.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly, pouring warm water over the wound to clean it. He’d been caught on the heel of his hand, dangerously close to the underside of his wrist. The flesh gaped open, bleeding afresh now that it was unbound, and the rest of his hand was mottled and swollen. Now that she could see the gravity of the cut, she realised how difficult it must be for him to remain so stoic before her. She wasn’t squeamish or afraid of nursing when required, but this was no ordinary scrape or bruise, and once again her emotions welled when she thought of how he’d risked his life to defend her.

‘There now, Jane, you’ll need a sterner face if you’re to play surgeon,’ he said, striving to lighten the mood. ‘You’re so doleful, I’d swear you’re preparing me for an amputation.’

‘Hush, Richard, don’t even jest like that,’ she scolded, but all the same she was vastly relieved to see Signora della Battista usher the black-clad surgeon into the room. The man bowed, and immediately set to work with a quiet confidence that reassured Jane. As he did, the
signora
pulled Jane aside.

‘The authorities have arrived to question his Grace,’ she whispered. ‘About the fighting.’

Jane gasped with dismay. ‘Oh, I was afraid of that! I’ll go speak to them myself, and—’

‘No, no, Miss Wood, please, it is not necessary,’ the older woman said quickly. ‘I have sent them away for now. But when they return in the morning, you must make sure that his Grace is mild and gracious. Venice is a republic, and peerages mean nothing here. We do not care for murderous foreigners.’

‘He was defending us from thieves who would as soon have murdered us as not!’

‘Then that is what they must be made to understand, Miss Wood,’ the
signora
insisted. ‘They will listen, if the explanation is civil. His Grace must be made to put aside his English temper. Be agreeable, and our authorities in return will be obliging and forgiving. But if he blusters—ah, who can say?’

‘Thank you,
signora,
and I promise to speak with his Grace.’ Jane glanced over her shoulder to Richard. He was sitting with his eyes squeezed shut and his head bent, fighting the pain as the surgeon finished stitching the gaping cut closed. The brandy glass was empty. ‘Though I do not believe his temper will have much fire to it tomorrow.’

Swiftly she returned to Richard’s side, resting her hand lightly on his shoulder. At once he reached up to take it, clasping her fingers so tightly she caught her breath. He opened his eyes at the sound, and looked up at her, and purposefully not at his hand.

‘Is it so very bad, Janie?’ he asked, little drops of sweat glistening on his forehead. ‘You’d tell me, wouldn’t you?’

‘There is nothing to tell, your Grace,’ the surgeon said as he tied the final knot on the new bandage. ‘The cut was deep, but clean. I have dressed it simply with a mixture of egg yolk, oil of roses and turpentine against putrefication, and while it is still early to predict entirely, I do not believe there will be much lasting damage. A scar, of course, but what gentleman does not relish such a hard-won scar?’

Sceptical, Richard at last frowned down at his bandaged hand.

‘Another glass of brandy, your Grace, and you shall sleep like a babe,’ the surgeon promised. ‘I shall return tomorrow to dress it again, and—’

‘Go,’ Richard said sharply. ‘All of you. Leave me with Miss Wood.’

As the others obeyed, Jane began to busy herself with clearing away the water basin and the surgeon’s soiled cloths. She couldn’t help herself; it was so much easier to fall into her old familiar patterns of usefulness than to confront everything else that had happened this dreadful evening.

‘Here now, enough of that,’ Richard said impatiently, reaching out to stop her. ‘That’s not why I asked you to stay with me.’

‘You didn’t have to ask,’ she said. ‘It needs doing regardless.’

‘It can wait,’ he insisted. ‘It’s your company I want, Jane, not you pretending to be a maidservant.’

She gave her head a little shake, and left off cleaning as he’d bid, instead filling his glass with more brandy. ‘The surgeon said you were to drink this.’

‘Blast the surgeon!’ he exclaimed, knocking the glass from the table and scattering brandy across the floor. ‘If I want to drink more brandy, I’ll damn well drink it myself, and not wait for the by-your-leave of some prattling foreigner!’

At once Jane knelt to wipe up the spilled wine, and as she did Richard rose from his chair and awkwardly pulled her back to her feet.

‘If I want a servant, Jane,’ he thundered, ‘then damnation, I’ll call for one.’

Indignantly she jerked her arm free of his grasp. He didn’t look pale now, and he certainly didn’t seem weak, not when he was overflowing with bluster and spark like this. ‘I can understand perfectly if you’re cross, Richard, but I—’

‘Can you understand?’ he asked. ‘Because if you can, than that’s one more way you’re better than I’ll ever be.’

She shook her head again. Perhaps he’d drunk more of the brandy than she’d realised, because no matter what he was saying, she didn’t understand any of it. ‘Richard, please, be calm. Don’t do yourself harm.’

‘Harm!’ he exclaimed. ‘Damnation, how can you speak of harm after the wreck this night has become? Do you believe this is what I planned, what I wanted, for us?’

Suddenly it all made sense to her. ‘Oh, I am so sorry,’ she said unhappily, bowing her head and clasping her hands in a tight knot. ‘I spoiled everything, didn’t I? You’d arranged such a lovely evening for us, and then I spoiled everything by asking to leave the Ridotto so early.’

‘You, Jane?’ he said, incredulous. ‘How could you spoil anything when you are as close to perfect as any woman I’ve ever known?’

Swiftly she looked up at him. She wasn’t the perfect one, not by half. But Richard was: her golden-haired duke with the broad shoulders and laughing eyes, kindness itself, a gentleman beyond measure, beyond gallantry.
That
was perfection, a perfection she couldn’t dream of matching.

‘I’m not perfect,’ she said with regret. ‘Not at all.’

‘Yes, you are,’ Richard said, and he’d never meant anything more in his life. ‘Perfect for me.’

‘But I’m not,’ she protested again, shaking her head, her voice breaking with a troubled little sob. ‘When I think of the terrible risk you put yourself through this night—’

‘For you,’ he said softly, reaching for her. He slipped his hands inside her dressing gown to find her waist and pull her close. He’d held her earlier when she’d been bound by silk and whalebone, and he much preferred her this way, with only the thinnest layer of well-worn linen over her soft, warm body. He’d wanted to do this ever since she’d come to his door in her nightgown on that first night, and despite all the times he’d imagined it, his imagination fell far short of this reality.

‘I’d do it again a hundred times over, too,’ he said, his voice suddenly hoarse. ‘I’d slay any dragons you wanted slaying.’

‘It’s not the dragons that frighten me.’ Her fingers splayed lightly across his chest where he was sure she must feel the racing of his heart. She looked up at him, her eyes enormous, and at last he kissed her.

He meant to kiss her only once, and lightly at that, as a kind of reassurance for her after she’d been so frightened. She was trembling still; he could feel it as he held her. He would keep it quick and chaste, and not let himself be lost in the heady, hot temptation he’d discovered when he’d kissed her before. A single kiss, that was all. She was too fragile tonight for anything more.

But while he’d planned to be so honourably restrained, he’d forgotten about Jane herself. As soon as his lips touched hers, her arms were around the back of his neck, drawing him down to her level. Her lips pressed and slipped over his, soft and eager, and then tipped to one side to part for him. There was nothing cool about her mouth, as warm and rich and sweet as he’d remembered, and he couldn’t quite help himself from kissing her in return. It was quickly begun, yes, but not chaste, and not finished in an instant, either, the way he’d planned.

The sash on her dressing gown came unknotted, and the gown fell backwards over her shoulders. Impatiently she lifted her hands from around his shoulders only long enough to shake the dressing gown away, letting it fall into a woollen puddle behind her. Now when she kissed him again, her breasts with their thin linen covering crushed gently against his chest. He forgot the pain from his wounded hand, forgot everything but her. Instinctively, and against his own wiser and infinitely better judgement, his hands slid from her waist and over her rounded hips. It was nothing at all to pull that linen nightgown higher, to bunch it upwards so he discovered skin, bare, velvety, lovely-to-touch flesh, all the while drinking in the heady intoxication of her kiss.

He
would
stop. She didn’t understand what they were doing, though God knows he did. Jane was clever in countless bookish ways, but not about this. He must stop, now, while he was still able to heed such cautionary warnings in his head.

But he wasn’t thinking, at least not with the brains that were in his head. He was tasting, and touching, and discovering, and savouring every marvellous bit of her, even as he cursed his bandaged hand for making him clumsy. It had been a long time since he’d been with a woman, and longer still since he’d been with one he’d cared for the way he cared for Jane Wood.

She was the one who finally drew back, her breathing ragged and shallow and her eyes heavy-lidded, her arms still curled about his shoulders as if she’d never wish to let go.

‘My darling, darling Richard,’ she whispered, her voice breaking. ‘What if I had lost you?’

‘You’ll never lose me, sweet,’ he said, his voice hoarse, his hands sliding low enough to grasp her bottom. She gasped and tensed with surprise, but she did not pull away as his fingers spread to caress her, his senses reeling.

‘That is—that is very nice,’ she stammered, her hands sliding to his waist for support. ‘That is…
nice.
’

It was considerably better than ‘nice,’ thought Richard with a desperation that was growing in direct proportion to his desire. His mouth was dry with longing, his blood hammering in his ears as if he’d just climbed to the top of that bell tower Jane loved so much. It didn’t help that she’d slipped her hands inside his dressing gown, too, and was now sliding her hands up his back, exploring him the same way as he did her.

‘Your hand,’ she murmured. ‘I don’t wish to hurt you further.’

‘You’re not,’ he said, and in that moment he’d quite forgotten all about it. ‘Especially not now.’

He’d bet his life she was a virgin, and that she’d no notion of what she was doing to him. If he’d any morsel of honour, that alone should have sobered him enough to stop. Instead it had the opposite effect: she could be truly his, and he’d become the only man in the world who could ever say that.

He kissed her again, featherweight kisses of genuine sweetness, while his hand eased gently beneath her gown to her belly, to the tangle of dark curls, and lower, to steal into the honey-sweet place between her thighs. She shuddered as he touched her, stroking with infinite, tantalising care, and then she gasped again, breaking away from his kiss to squeeze her eyes shut and press her cheek into his shoulder. Her fingers clutched convulsively at his nightshirt, the last barrier between them and open disaster.