Nobody's Angel (7 page)

The bound man—Connelly, she must remember to think of him as Connelly now that he was to be a member of the household—lay on his stomach. He was naked, or at least she presumed he was naked, though Ben had drawn the quilt up to his waist, so she could not be absolutely sure. Susannah's first thought was that his back was far darker that the rest of his coloring would have indicated. Then, as she came closer, she saw that the darkness was a combination of severe bruising and dried blood, and she drew in a shaip breath.

"Looks like he's been beat bad."

Without answering, Susannah set her provisions down on the small table that stood beside the iron bedstead. With hands that were carefully steady, she lit a pair of candles so that the parlor's perpetual gloom would not distort her judgment. Finally, as the candles' warm yellow glow spread to illuminate the area in question, she turned to look again at Connelly's back.

As Ben had observed, the man had been badly beaten.

There were dozens of wounds crisscrossed on top of one another, some half healed, some oozing pus, some raw and obviously fairly fresh. The abused flesh was swollen and painful-looking. The smell from it reminded Susannah of meat gone bad. She had nursed many people and animals through a huge variety of injuries and illnesses, but nothing had ever angered her so much as did the condition of her new bound man's back.

"Fetch my medicine case," she said tightly.

"Yes'm." Ben, with no more than a single look at her expression, was out the door with as much alacrity as if she had taken a lash to his legs. Susannah smiled sourly as she reflected that it was the fastest she had ever seen the boy move.

Turning to the bedside table, she washed her hands and wet the towel. Taking the soap in her hands, she sat down on the edge of the bed to do what needed to be done.

The first order of business was to give the bound man a quick, much needed bath.

6

The last bed bath she had given had been to Mrs. Cooper just the previous night. Washing Connelly was a whole different experience.

Not that Susannah had never given a man a bath before. She had, on several occasions, in the course of her nursing duties. But it occurred to her, as she carefully soaped Connelly's left hand, rinsed it, and patted it dry, that every single man she had cared for so intimately in the past had been ancient and, if not on his deathbed, near it. Never had she had occasion to bathe a man who could be no more than a decade or so older than herself. The experience was almost unsettling.

But to allow herself to be disturbed by such a mundane task was ridiculous. He needed care, and it was up to her to provide it. Perhaps lack of sleep was making her unaccustomedly skittish.

He had beautiful hands, Susannah noticed as she soaped the long, strong fingers. The nails were ragged and caked with dirt, but the fingers themselves were straight, the fingertips elegantly rounded. His palms were broad, and the faintest sprinkling of black hair covered the backs of his hands. His wrists were bony but thick, as befitted a man of the size she judged that, under normal conditions, he was.

With his hands clean, she saturated the towel and lathered soap into it. Somehow she could not feel quite comfortable about running her bare hands over his flesh, no matter how pure were her motives. Some small part of her, which she steadfastly determined to ignore, was very much aware that the sprawled body beneath her fingers belonged to a man. The tiny flicker of feminine awareness was like nothing she had ever experienced before, and she wondered at herself. She was long past such foolishness, not that she had ever indulged in it anyway.

His arms were long and hard with muscle, despite their lack of excess flesh, and his forearms were dark with hair. Thick black tufts grew in his armpits. His shoulders were smooth-skinned and broad enough to cover half the bed. She noticed these attributes as she washed him simply because she could not help it. That she should find his person so very intriguing vexed her, but there was nothing she could do to keep her eyes from seeing and her brain from registering various masculine details. Almost against her will, as she washed down both sides of his rib cage, her eyes absorbed the powerful symmetry of his upper torso, from his wide shoulders to the intriguing hollow of his spine, where the quilt fortunately cut off her view. For all his leanness, his build was superb. Restored to health, she guessed, he would be a very strong man.

Which was why she had bought him, of course. For his strength. There were plowing and planting and harvesting to be done, and fences to build and mend, and the roof of the barn to be repaired, and a new pond to be dug, and— and dozens of things about the place that needed doing that she could not at the moment call to mind. Connelly must perform all these tasks, and more. If the question of his strength interested her, then that was why. Certainly there was no other reason.

"Here's your case, Miss Susannah."

Susannah had quite forgotten Ben's errand. Startled by his return, she glanced around to find him right behind her, proffering her case. To her annoyance, she felt heat rise in her cheeks as she met his gaze. Which was ridiculous, she told herself sternly. She had done nothing, thought nothing, that should make her feel in the least guilty.

Nevertheless, guilty was precisely how she felt.

"Put it on the floor here beside me."

If her words were short, it was simply because she was tired. Ben complied, then straightened. She smiled at him to lessen the impact of her tone. He looked relieved, and she felt guiltier than ever.

What was the matter with her today?

"Can I do anything else for you, Miss Susannah?" Ben's diffidence did not help matters. He sounded as if he were actually afraid of her. Was she really such an ogress? Perhaps she was. Most everybody seemed to be scared of her at one time or another. But someone had to keep them all in line, and by default the job had fallen to her. Not that she regretted the circumstances of her life, but still it would be nice to be as young and full of anticipation of life's possibilities as her sisters. Sometimes it seemed to Susannah that she had never been young.

"I am going to need a big bucket of warm water, a couple more towels, another cake of soap, and a paring knife. Would you fetch those for me, please?" She smiled at him again, and this time he smiled back. Susannah felt a little better. Maybe she was not so terrifying, after all. Maybe her view of the world was unaccustomedly black at the moment because she badly needed a decent night's sleep.

"Yes'm." Ben took himself off, and Susannah applied herself once more to the task at hand. Before she medicated and bandaged Connelly's back, she wanted him to be as clean as she could render him under such constrained circumstances. Cleanliness was all important to the recovery of health, as she had seen demonstrated over and over again.

His arms, the uninjured portions of his back, his shoulders and neck were clean. Susannah moved down to stand at the foot of the bed. Folding back the quilt so that his legs were bared to the knees, she proceeded to wash his feet.

Like his hands, they were long and strong-looking and beautifully made. There was a large, horn-thick callus at the base of his big toe. Susannah remembered the hole in his shoe. He would not be wearing those brogues again. She made a mental note to have Ben carry them to the cobbler in town. The cobbler could use the shoes for a size gauge as he fashioned Connelly some sturdy work boots, two sizes bigger.

"Do you need help, Susannah?" Mandy popped up in the doorway, her eyes bright with curiosity as she took in the sight of her oldest sister running a soapy cloth along the bound man's calves. Connelly was covered only from the small of his back to just above his knees, and Mandy's eyes widened at so much masculine nudity on view. Susannah frowned at her and moved instinctively so that her body was between her sister and the bed, blocking much of Mandy's view. But before she could send the girl away, Ben returned, lugging a steaming bucket in one hand and carrying the other items she had sent him for in the other. Mandy had perforce to step into the room so that Ben could pass. With Susannah distracted by Ben's arrival, Mandy approached the bed. Susannah did not become aware of what her sister was about until Mandy stood beside her, gaping down at the nearly naked man lying prone on the white sheet.

"Ben can render all the assistance I need in here, thank you very much. As you have so much excess energy, you may go upstairs and tidy Pa's room."

"But, Susannah . . ."

"Go do it, Mandy. And when you have done, go back to the kitchen and help Sarah Jane and Em. Your presence is not required here."

"But what happened to his back?"

"That is not your concern, is it?" Instinctively Susannah sensed that Connelly would not relish having the world at large know of the punishment he had endured. She had already seen that he was a fiercely proud man and not one to easily accept public humiliation. Just why she felt compelled to spare him from further embarrassment she could not say. But she would, and did, reflexively shelter as best she could any living creature battered by life's blows. She supposed the urge to protect Connelly sprang from the same source.

"It looks dreadful!"

"Amanda, go on now. Shoo!" The firmness in Susannah's voice brought a momentary pout to Mandy's face. Mandy glanced swiftly from her sister to Ben, who was in the act of setting the bucket down on the floor and placing the other items on the bedside table.

"Oh, very well," Mandy said. Turning, she left the room. Susannah felt some of the tension leave her shoulders. Mandy could still act like a spoiled little girl, and she was perfectly capable of throwing a tantrum if she failed to get her own way. Susannah guessed she owed her sister's restraint to Ben's presence. Perhaps Mandy's dedication to attracting male approval had some vestige of a silver lining, after all. On that comforting thought, she picked up the paring knife and proceeded to trim and clean Connelly's nails.

"Ben, I want you to help me scoot him so that his head hangs over the side of the bed. I can't stand the idea of leaving his hair so dirty," she said when she was done.

"Yes'm."

Between the two of them they managed to get Connelly positioned. He stirred during this procedure, grunting, but then lapsed back into what Susannah believed was nothing more serious than a profound sleep. His skin was hot to the touch, indicating the presence of fever, but not so hot as to cause her a great deal of anxiety. It was obvious to her that, whatever ailed her bound man, he would recover if provided abundant food, water, rest, and nursing care. Then he could begin to help about the farm, and perhaps she would cease fearing that she had made a dreadful mistake in purchasing him.

"I'll hold his head, and you pour half the water in the bucket over it. We'll need the other half for rinsing." Susannah pulled up a nearby chair and sat, taking Connelly's head in her hands. He lay facedown, and his head was surprisingly heavy. She tried not to feel distaste at the griminess of his hair as it curled around her fingers or at the filthy state of his skin.

"Yes'm." Ben did as he was told. The warm water gushed over Susannah's hands and wrists as she held the dead weight of Connelly's head over the slop jar, one of which was kept beneath every bed in the house in case of need.

"What the bloody hell?" Something, presumably the water rushing over his head, roused Connelly with a ven- geance. Susannah gasped and sat back as, without warning, he braced his hands against the mattress and jerked his head from her hold. Though she quickly regained control of herself, Susannah was aware of the still-quickened pace of her heart at her bound man's unexpected resurrection. She watched warily as he levered himself into a sitting position. Streams of water ran down his face and neck and onto his chest. Blinded by the soaked curtain of overlong hair that plastered his face, Connelly shook his head, spraying droplets like a wet dog, and uttered an oath so foul that Ben, bucket suspended in his hands, swallowed and glanced wide-eyed at Susannah. Then Connelly brushed the offending strands back with both hands. Susannah unexpectedly found herself pinned by a pair of fierce gray eyes.

"It's all right. We're merely washing your hair," she said. Though her heart continued to pound, she tried to make her tone soothing. The color of his eyes, which she had not noticed before, came as a surprise. With his black hair and swarthy skin, she would have expected them to be brown. But they were the gray of the sea during a storm, cloudy and turbulent and changeable. Just now they were glaring at her as if he meant to leap on her at any moment and tear her limb from limb.

"The hell you are." The words were a throaty growl. It occurred to Susannah that perhaps he had forgotten who she was and the altered circumstances of his life. Certainly he could have no idea how he had come to be in this room and this bed. The realization reassured her. All she needed to do was make him aware of what had transpired and that dangerous look would vanish from his face. The key to handling him was to be gentle, so as not to frighten him. She would treat him just as she would any injured, snarling animal.

"You do remember me, and the auction this afternoon? I am Miss Susannah Redmon, and I . . ."

"No bloody woman is washing my hair!" His voice was hoarse, scratchy, furious, and its intonation was unmistakably British. He glowered at her as angry dark blood rose high in his cheeks. His shoulders were dauntingly broad and tensed as if ready for battle. His fists were clenched, and his torso was rigidly erect, though she guessed that it must be costing him considerable effort to keep it so. Thankfully, the quilt was puddled around his vital parts, but he was bare as a babe both above and below it.

Though she tried not to let her gaze rest there, Susannah could not help but observe his naked chest. It was wide and furred with a wedge of thick, curling black hair that narrowed to a thin line as it trailed past his navel to disappear beneath the quilt. The sheer masculinity of that hairy chest caused the tiny flicker of feminine awareness she had struggled with before to flame anew. Conscious of her pinkening cheeks, praying that he would not notice, Susannah dragged her eyes back up to his face.