Redeeming a Rake (15 page)

Late that evening feeling almost refreshed
she returned to Geoffrey’s bedside to find the maid shifting
between hysterical tears and laughter as the butler pleaded with
the naked Duke of Lyndhurst, crawling on his hands and knees in
agitated circles, to return to his bed. “What is he doing on the
floor?”

“Shortly after you left His Grace started
thrashing. He sat up, stared at nothing for a long time and then
without warning threw off his covers. He tried to stand, but he
fell to his knees making that moaning sound. He lay face down on
the floor until he heard your voice on the stairs and he then he
started crawling.”

“Geoffrey? I’m right here…” He ignored her
for several more turns before falling exhausted onto his stomach.
“Fetch me a large shallow pan, warm water, soap and tell the maids
to bring up fresh linen for the bed while we wash his hair and
check his head wound.” She took a deep breath and kneeled next to
the man moaning into the floorboards. “Geoffrey? I’m going to wash
your hair.” The moans faded into silence as she put her hand on his
back.

An hour later he was back in bed, his eyes
once again fixated on her face, a clean nightshirt covering his
pale torso. “We can’t just sit here and stare at each other; would
you like me to read something? I found all the volumes for Clarissa
in the corner. That should provide reading for the next few
months.” She stood up and Geoffrey jerked upright in bed with a
loud moan. She picked up his limp hand and kissed it before helping
him lay back down. Sitting down with the first volume she opened up
the book and glanced at the invalid. He was still staring at her.
She smiled at him and crossed her legs and began reading slowly. He
didn’t appear to understand the words, but the sound of her voice
seemed to soothe him back to sleep.

Another two weeks limped by as the invalid
continued to stare at her while she sat reading or tending to his
needs until one morning the moaning was joined by odd jerking
movements. After two days and nights of constant vigil, Tolerance
escaped to the parlour where she fell asleep in the yellow chair
that smelled of her beloved. Sleeping through the day and night she
woke feeling refreshed.

Rubbing her eyes, she entered Geoffrey’s
room to get him ready for breakfast, but the room was empty.
‘Geoffrey?” She didn’t know why she expected a reply. The man
hadn’t said more than a moan since the attack. Panicking, she
prayed he hadn’t fallen over and damaged his healing wounds.
Rushing out of the room she sighed with relief on finding him in
the empty large chamber at the back of the house. He was standing
in his nightshirt staring out the window, his arms hanging at his
sides. “You gave me a fright! Come, let me help you back to
bed.”

He slowly turned and looked her up and down
with a ravenous leer and sneered in disgust before sighing as if
resigned to his fate. “Get undressed!” Tolerance started at hearing
him speak and then the meaning of his cold command scorched her
cheeks.“You’re not very comely, but you wear a skirt. You’ll
do.”

“Geoffrey, that is not amusing.”

“I’m the Duke of Lyndhurst. You will address
me as Your Grace or my Lord. Are you going to pleasure me or not?
Don’t expect me to pay more than a few pounds unless you have some
particular skill.” He raised an eyebrow as the plain woman’s face
drained of colour, but the movement caused him to wince in pain. “I
prefer traditional pleasures and I won’t pay extra for the pox. If
you don’t have a new shield send the maid to buy one. Well? Do you
expect me to wait ‘till Christmas?”

“Geoffrey I’m your friend, Tolerance
Spencer. Someone attacked you. I’ve been nursing you…”

“I don’t know who you are, but you’re not my
friend. You probably arranged to have me bashed over the head so
you could pretend to save me. Did you think I’d be a gentleman and
marry my nurse? What tripe; the Devil’s Corpse nursed by a tolerant
friend?” With tears in her eyes, Tolerance backed away from the
laughing man and ran from the room to find help.

Geoffrey’s laughter faded into a moan. The
throbbing pain in his head made him feel sea sick. Opening his eyes
he was relieved to see a familiar face. “Howard, what the devil is
going on? Why do you look so old? Where the blazes is my Queen Anne
bed and who the devil is that woman?”

Howard looked at Tolerance with an
incredulous expression before gulping down his disbelief, “You
ordered us to chop up and burn that bed two years ago Your Grace.
You’ve exchanged frequent letters over the past two years with Mrs
Spencer. She is your friend Your Grace.”

“Two years…what’s the importance of two
years? I’ve never seen this woman before in my life.” He shivered
as he realised the words weren’t true, he had seen those eyes
stunned with pain somewhere, but where? The thought made him angry.
“Next you’ll be telling me I’ve given up gambling and started
taking communion.” Fear chilled his heart. “I have no recollection
of becoming friends with this woman or ordering you to burn my bed.
What the devil is going on? Do you take me for a blockhead? What
bloody year is this anyway?” The woman covered her face with her
hands and burst into sobs as if her life was somehow more difficult
than waking up to find the world had changed without her.

“1817 Your Grace.”

Geoffrey’s lower lip trembled as his eyes
glittered with rage. “Impossible! Yesterday I was living in 1813.
What the devil are you crying for woman? You’re not the one living
a nightmare. Friend indeed; I may be hideous, but I can still
afford to buy ‘friends’ who are at least passably pretty, unless…
Howard, have I’ve lost all my money?”

“I don’t believe so Your Grace.”

“Then why the devil do I have a plain woman
nursing me?” Geoffrey moaned as nausea made his painful head spin,
making him more enraged. “Get me something to eat and bring me a
pretty wench before I burst. I don’t care what she charges. I don’t
know what feels worse; my head, my stomach or my…”

“Your Grace…” Howard glanced at the
immobilised Mrs Spencer crying into her hands. “…I’ll arrange for a
woman to visit you as soon as Mrs Spencer has departed.”

“I don’t give a damn for Mrs Spencer’s
sensibilities, bring me a whore!”

“As you wish Your Grace.” Howard reluctantly
shuffled from the room leaving the crying widow alone with his
randy employer.

Geoffrey couldn’t wait an hour. He needed
relief and there was a woman only a few feet away. Tiptoeing up to
her, he wrapped his arms around her ready to hold her against her
will until he could persuade her into his bed, but she relaxed into
his embrace and pressed her tears into his shoulder. Geoffrey’s
senses were swamped with a new pleasure. His chest tightened as
chivalrous thoughts emerged from the dark shadows of his heart.
Through the painful haze of need he felt warmth penetrate his skin,
as if he’d stepped out of freezing shadows into strong summer
sunlight. Feathering kisses over her cheek, he was amazed to find
she didn’t cringe or stiffen in disgust. Was she pressing her face
into his kisses because she enjoyed them? It was an exhilarating
thought. “Who ever you are, you’ll more than do.” Geoffrey was too
absorbed with thoughts of imminent pleasure to notice her
stiffening spine. “I’ll pay you five hundred pounds for an hour of
your time. All you have to do is enjoy my touch…”

“I’m your friend not a whore. Please don’t
talk like that, it hurts.”

Feeling rejected, Geoffrey’s tender embrace
tightened into angry manacle. “What kind of man did you think I
was? Did you think I’d put a ring on your finger?” He snarled as
her body convulsed with distress. “Have you been holding out your
kisses in hopes that I’d make you my Duchess? Is that your price
Madam?”

“You’re hurting me…” The woman broke free
and rushed from the room.

“Come back here! I need you. I’ll pay you
five thousand pounds. You’ll never have another offer like it. Come
back!” He listened as she ran down the stairs to his parlour, her
heartbroken sobs more infuriating than a thousand curses. Left
standing in the middle of an empty room, Geoffrey felt
light-headed, lonely, confused and suddenly cold as if the sunlight
had departed with the plain woman. His weak legs stumbled back to
an unfamiliar bed and crawled under the covers, his head throbbing
in time with his other aches and pains. Who was the tolerant woman?
Why couldn’t he remember her?

Howard’s pretty whore was sent away having
earned five pounds without setting eyes on her customer. Geoffrey
didn’t want a whore, he wanted the woman refusing his summons.
After eating he spent the rest of his energy haranguing nervous
servants to fetch Mrs Spencer back to his room, but without
success. He fell asleep exhausted, the pain in his head forced to
compete with a strange new ache in his chest. He slept through the
rest of the day, but his eyes flickered open in the middle of the
night. Was he dreaming? Several bright candles outlined the
tolerant woman sitting on a chair next to his bedside without her
ridiculous cap. Long white-blonde hair was coiled at the nape of
her neck, escaping tendrils draping her throat. She was asleep, her
arms folded underneath her bosom covered by a voluminous pale pink
apron, her head falling forward. She looked like an angel. He felt
that odd warm feeling again as if the sun was shining in the middle
of the night. Comforted, he watched her until his eyes grew heavy
and he fell back to sleep.

***

Over the next week Tolerance continued to
check with the servants to make sure the invalid was asleep before
entering his room. She could almost pretend as she watched his
chest rise and fall that he’d roll over and wink at her, magically
returned to his old self. She nearly jumped out of her skin when
his voice, gruff with sleep, reached out of the darkness one night
and caressed her. “Angel?”

Her old Geoffrey was back. Excited she
picked up a candle and sat on the edge of his bed, beaming a smile
down at her friend. “Geoffrey?” The invalid stared in shock as the
plain woman’s smile somehow transformed her into a beauty. “How is
your head?” Her concerned whisper skimmed over his cheek as her
fingers on his forehead sent tingles of pleasure over his scalp.
He’d never known anyone to care whether he was in pain or not.

“It hurts.”

“Shall I prepare a dose of laudanum?”

“You only come when I’m asleep. Do you think
I’ll drag you into my bed and force myself on you?”

There was a long pause as her smiled faded
and the candle was lowered to her lap. “No.” It was a small
constricted word.

“Do you love me?” It was an imperious
command tinged with curiosity.

“Yes…” He could hear the tears in her
voice.

“Why?”

“Because I do.”

“Why? Do you love my money? Do you love my
title? Do you love men who look like corpses? There must be a
reason you love me.”

The woman sighed and stared off into the
darkness. “I love your voice, your eyes, your smile, how you make
me laugh, your hands, your kindness. There’s just something about
you I find…”

“What; attractive, fascinating,
irresistible…?”

“All of them.” Geoffrey flushed with
pleasure and leered at his companion, but she’d turned away to trim
the candlewick.

“How did we meet?”

She paused as if needing to weigh her reply.
“At one of your mother’s balls…”

“Now I know you’re a lying slut; I’d rather
hang myself than attend one of her functions.”

“There’s no need to shout; your servants are
trying to sleep.”

“I can’t sleep, why should they?”

“They get up early and stay up late. The
least you can do is let them sleep.”

“I don’t pay them to sleep.”

“And they don’t work for you so they can die
from exhaustion.”

“I thought you said I was kind.”

“You can be very kind if you choose to be
and nearly a thousand people saw you enter the ballroom, you
needn’t take my word. It’s late, I’ll tell you about it in the
morning.”

“I’m sick to death of rest!” His voice
dropped to a soft seductive whisper. “Please let me hold you.”

“I’ll hold your hand.”

“I need you in my arms. I haven’t felt like
this since I was nineteen. I need you so much it hurts.”

“If you need company I’ll hold your
hand.”

“I don’t want you to hold my hand, I want to
be pleasured!”

“Shouting will only convince me to leave the
room.”

“No, please don’t leave Angel; I don’t want
to be alone.”

The woman gingerly sat back down on the edge
of the bed. “You won’t be lonely if you hold my hand.”

“Are you always so blasted stubborn?”
Geoffrey managed to caress her thigh before it was out of reach off
the bed. “Come back…I was just reaching for your hand.”

“That is a pitiful lie.”

She sounded out of breath. Was she affected
by his touch? The thought made him want her even more. “Do you
expect me to believe that I’ve never tried to touch you? Are you
here to serve me or torment me? You may as well pleasure me; the
world will assume you already have.”

“I had to try to help. I couldn’t let you
die…I love you.”

“How noble. Are you sure you didn’t simply
wish to ensure that I’d live to feel obligated to marry you?
Perhaps the lure of being a Duchess is greater than the horror of
being bedded nightly by the Devil?” She avoided his gaze as she
snuffed out all the candles except the one in her hand. She held it
up high and looked down at him as he stared at her with frustrated
lust.

“You’re so like my friend, but there’s
something ugly in your eyes that makes me feel sick. He never
looked at me like that.”

Geoffrey winced in pain at the words. “Just
because you didn’t see my tongue hanging out doesn’t mean I wasn’t
counting the hours until you’d lift your skirts. I’m Geoffrey
Lindsey Grayson; the man you idolised because you thought I’d offer
for you out of desperation. Well I don’t need a wife, pity or
friendship. Pleasure me or be damned!”