The Rake (10 page)

When they’d finished, Alma Moreland retired
to her son’s room to ‘cheer’ the invalid, Phoebe vanished upstairs
behind her and Demi was left to entertain herself as best she
would. She sent for Sarah to find out if a tray had been sent up
for Lord Wyndham. Sarah assured her that the cook had prepared a
tray for him exactly to the doctor’s specifications and sent it up
some time ago and that Lord Wyndham had dutifully, though not very
happily, consumed the beef broth he needed to help rebuild his
blood. Demi was a little doubtful. It sounded like very little for
so large a man, but Sarah seemed to think it was just the thing he
needed.

“
His manservant, Fitzhugh,
is attending him?”

Sarah nodded. “He seems a very efficient
sort. It was a fortunate circumstance that Lord Wyndham had
arranged for Fitzhugh to deliver their luncheon to them on the
shoot. If he had not been there with the carriage they would have
had to send to the Abbey for one to carry Lord Wyndham. His
lordship’s horse caught more of the blast than him and had to be
put down, not that his lordship was in any shape to be ridin’ a
horse after that anyway.”

“
I don’t suppose Mr.
Fitzhugh needs anyone to help--perhaps to stay with Lord Wyndham
and give him time to rest?”

Sarah smiled. “I already offered, Miss. He
was none too happy about it, but the doctor said his lordship was
not to be left alone for more than a few minutes for the next
several days…until he’s certain his lordship is out of the woods,
so he accepted my offer. His lordship’s got a touch of fever, but
the doctor seemed to think that was to be expected. He left
medicine for the fever. Yer not to worry about it. We’ll watch over
Lord Wyndham and make sure he’s right as rain before you know
it.”

“
I could stay with him part
of the time, too.”

“
Now, Miss Demitria, you
know your aunt would have apoplexy! A young lady has no place in a
gentleman’s bedchamber.”

Demi sighed irritably. “You must know I’ve
no reputation to worry about any longer. Horatia Wynthrope was
here, for heaven’s sake! If it had been anyone but her! But Aunt
Alma has sent her home and you may be certain there will not be
anyone in the ton who does not know of my disgrace by
tomorrow.”

Sarah’s jaw set. “As unhappy as it is that
ye’ll have to marry the man that ruined ye, yer not the first and
ye’ll not be the last to find herself in that position. There’s
naught in that little incident that the marriage won’t fix. Being
in a man’s room that’s neither yer fiancé nor yer husband is
another matter altogether.”

Demi wasn’t satisfied, but decided to let it
go, for the moment, at least. So long as Lord Wyndham didn’t
worsen, she was willing to contain herself and stay out of the sick
room. If his conditioned worsened, however, she fully intended to
help, regardless of what anyone had to say about it.

She certainly didn’t care about protecting
her reputation for Jonathan Flemming, not when she knew very well
that he had premeditatedly ruined her to begin with to make certain
she could not back out of the engagement. She wouldn’t have been
surprised in the least to discover his intention had been to get
her with child if possible to insure his hold on her. He had not
needed to go so far as that. Her disheveled appearance had been
enough to imply it, but despite the fact that she’d been very
agitated at the time, she was certain he had not needed to throw
her down on the seat of the carriage only to steal a few kisses.
He’d had his knee between her thighs and her skirts halfway up her
legs when she’d managed to kick the hand brake free the last time
and he might well have made a third attempt if she hadn’t had the
good sense to wound his little pet by grinding her knee into
it.

She supposed it was possible that he had
only intended to steal a few kisses and had lost control, but he
did not strike her as a man who had difficulty controlling himself
in general. He seemed far more cold and calculating than
impulsive.

It occurred to her to wonder if he would
even care if her reputation was further sullied. She doubted it,
whatever anyone else might think about it. She didn’t doubt,
however, that he would make her rue the day she’d cuckolded him.
She was as certain of that as she was that she would not let it
weigh with her if it transpired that Lord Wyndham had need of
her.

Chapter Seven

As tired as she was from the anxiety that
had plagued her since Lord Wyndham’s accident, Demi found she could
only sleep fitfully. She drowsed, but she did not sleep so deeply
that she failed to notice the increase in activity at Lord
Wyndham’s door late in the night, despite the fact that his room
was two doors down from hers and nearer the stairs.

Climbing from the bed, she grabbed a robe
and slipped into it, securing it by the ribbon beneath her breasts,
then crept to the door and opened it wide enough that she could
look down the hall. Sarah, she saw, was carrying a pail of water
into the invalid’s room. Demi’s heart lurched. That could only mean
that his fever had risen.

Glancing up and down the hall to make
certain no one else was around, Demi dashed for the door to Lord
Wyndham’s room and tested the knob. Finding that it was not locked,
she went in, closing the door behind her. Her gaze went toward the
bed first where she saw that he was moving restlessly, his
complexion as flushed now as it had been pale before. Sarah was in
the act of pouring water into the basin. She glanced around when
she’d filled it, stopping dead in her tracks when she saw
Demitria.

Frowning, she moved to the table beside the
bed and set the basin down, then turned and made a shooing motion
in Demi’s direction. Demi ignored her, instead moving to stand near
the foot of the bed. “He’s worse, isn’t he?”

Placing a finger to her lips, Sarah rounded
the bed, caught her arm and escorted her to the door. “His fevers
up a bit, that’s all. The medicine the doctor left’s helping, but
Mr. Fitzhugh said if he got too hot to bathe him with cool
water.”

“
I’ll do it.”

“
Ye will not!” Sarah
whispered in outrage. “I’ll not be leavin’ ye in here in his
lordship’s room in nothing but yer night rail!”

Demi’s eyes narrowed. “How long have you
been in here?”

Sarah looked taken aback. “Since around
eleven, but that’s got nothing to do with this.”

“
You’re tired. What if you
fall asleep? I’ve slept for hours. I can do it … and everyone else
is asleep. No one will know the difference.”

“
Have you ever attended a
sick room?”

Demi gave her a look. “You know very well I
haven’t.”

“
Well, there you
are.”

“
How much experience can it
take to bathe someone with cold water? Just tell me what to
do.”

“
Ye’ll go back to your
room, Miss, before your aunt discovers ye here or I’ll tell her
myself!”

Demi’s lips tightened. “Tell her. I’m
staying. You can go get some sleep and come back before anyone
wakes up and I’ll leave and no one will be the wiser. Or you can
run tell my aunt right now and have the whole household up, in
which case everybody will know I’ve been in his room all this time,
in my nightgown, and they can speculate about what I’ve been doing
all they want.”

Sarah released an angry breath. “You’ll not
give me any trouble about leaving when I get back?”

Demi shook her head and after giving her a
disgusted look, Sarah led her back to the side of the bed and
explained the procedure for cooling the fever. She stayed long
enough to watch Demi for a few moments to make certain she was
doing as she’d been told and finally left. When Demi dipped the
cloth the second time, wrung it out and turned back to him, she
discovered that he was looking at her. She smiled, not certain of
whether he was actually aware of her or not. A faint smile curled
his lips and he closed his eyes once more as she carefully placed
the cloth over his forehead.

“
You should not have come,
Demi,” he murmured a little hoarsely.

“
I won’t stay long. I
promise.”

“
At all.”

“
Are you thirsty?” she
asked, changing the subject. He nodded and she dropped the cloth in
the washbasin and went to get him a glass of water. He struggled up
on one elbow when she returned with the glass of water, wincing as
pain shot through his leg. “You should have let me help you,” she
admonished, slipping an arm around him to help steady him while he
drank. When he’d drained the glass, he asked for another and Demi
hurried across the room again, bringing the pitcher with her that
time. Finally satisfied, he lay back again and closed his
eyes.

Demi touched the back of her fingers to his
cheeks and then lay her hand across his forehead to check the
warmth. Before she could pull her hand away, he reached up and
placed his own over it. “Your hand feels so cool. I’m damnably hot
in this nightshirt.”

“
You’re liable to catch
your … a chill without it,” she amended.

He opened one eye and looked at her. “I’m
not likely to die of so paltry a wound … unless it gets infected,
of course. I’ve had worse.”

Gently disengaging her hand from his, she
wrung the cloth out and placed it on his forehead again. “We won’t
let that happen,” she said after a moment.

“
We?”

“
Mr. Fitzhugh, Sarah and
I--we’ll take good care of you. You’ll see. You’ll probably be
feeling much better by tomorrow and tired of lying in
bed.”

“
I’m tired of that now. How
long have I been here?”

Demi bit her lip, feeling a flutter of alarm
that he’d lost track of the time. She could not think that that was
a good sign. “Since about noon today … well, I suppose yesterday
now.”

He frowned as she removed cloth and dipped
it into the water again. When she turned back, she discovered he
was studying her. “Flemming should have been horse whipped. I’d
have had a better opinion of Lord Moreland if he’d at least offered
to instead of sitting there with his mouth agape like a fish out of
water.”

Demi flushed uncomfortably at the reminder
of her fall from grace, but at that last comment, she looked at him
in surprise. “He’s only a boy, and not even half the size of Mr.
Flemming.”

“
He’s as much a man as
he’ll ever be, I’ll warrant. He should have called him
out.”

Demi gave him a look. “I can’t imagine
getting himself killed would’ve helped me in the least. You know
how bad he is with a gun. He could not hit the side of a barn if he
was standing no more than ten paces from it.”

“
He hit me--without even
trying I might add.”

“
Exactly. If he’d been
trying, most likely he would’ve hit one of the others.”

He chuckled, then winced as the movement
jarred his injured leg.

Demi frowned. “Sarah said I could give you a
few drops of laudanum for the pain if you needed it,” she said
tentatively.

He shook his head. “I’d as soon keep my wits
about me.”

“
Sleep is what you need to
mend,” she said admonishingly. “I didn’t intend to wake you, or to
keep you awake.”

“
You are a font of wisdom
for one so young,” he murmured, smiling without opening his eyes.
“Where did you learn that?”

Demi frowned, trying to think. “My mother,”
she said finally, with a touch of surprise.

He looked up at her. “You don’t remember
much about your parents, do you? I’ve never heard you mention them
before.”

The comment struck her as odd, since she’d
only spoken to him a handful of times in all the time she’d known
him. She dismissed it finally, shaking her head. “Not much. I was
very little when they were killed.”

He frowned. “You were eight when you came to
live with the Morelands.”

She looked at him in surprise. “Did I tell
you that? I guess I must have. Almost eight, anyway.”

“
Surely that’s old enough
you should remember a great deal?”

She concentrated on rinsing the cloth again.
Discovering that the water was warm, she got up and poured the
water from the bowl into the chamber pot, then refilled it from the
bucket Sarah had left. Lord Wyndham was studying her when she
returned. She glanced at him a couple of times as she soaked the
cloth and finally sighed. “There’s nothing wrong with me. I just
don’t remember very much. I’m sure there are probably plenty of
people who don’t remember their childhood that well.”

“
In truth, you’re little
more than that now,” he said wryly.

She sent him an irritated look. “Geoffrey is
only a little older than me and you said he was a man. If that is
true, then I am most definitely a woman, not a child.”

Something gleamed in his eyes. A slow smile
curled his lips. “Prove it.”

Demi’s stomach went weightless at the look
on his face, but she couldn’t help but chuckle. Leaning down until
her lips hovered just above his, she whispered, “When you’re
better.”

“
Tease,” he said without
heat when she pulled away.

“
And you’re not?” Her back
and shoulders had already begun to burn from bending over to apply
the cool cloth. When she’d dipped it and wrung it out again, she
sat on the edge of the bed.

“
No. I always keep my
promises.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to remind
him that he’d been the one to call a halt to their interlude in the
meadow, but she thought it best not to. The entire conversation was
wildly inappropriate. She doubted, if her situation had been
different, that he would have spoken so outrageously. She couldn’t
imagine that he would speak so suggestively to Phoebe--or any other
lady for that matter--but then a lady would not have been in his
room in the dead of night, wearing nothing but her nightgown. A
lady would not have allowed, much less encouraged, the kisses
they’d shared.