The Lady and the Knight (Highland Brides) (24 page)

"I have no other clothes."

"And you imagined I didn't realize that? I'm wounded, not dead!"

Her face was bright with embarrassment.

"What if Lord Haldane learns of this?" she asked.

"Surely your life is worth more than the slim risk of a scandal," he said.

"I was thinking of you."

"Me?"

"Ye are his trusted knight, sir. What will he think of you if he learns of these circumstances?''

Peter's pecker! He hated it when she was selfless, and she was being selfless now, while he was being... Well, the word randy came to mind—and with a leg wound, too! There were probably all kinds of unwritten physiological laws against that.

"My Lord Haldane will hear naught of this night, Sara," he vowed. "These simple village people have no interest in our lives. And they think us man and wife. There will be no gossip."

She watched him in silence, but he saw her shiver again.

"Remove your clothing," he said. "Wrap in a blanket."

Still she was silent.

"I'm a knight, vowed to protect the fairer—"

"Do ye think I believe I canna trust ye?" she whispered. Then, "Tis not the case, sir, for I know I can."

Her voice was breathy and went straight to his heart. She trusted him, she said. But why? Didn't she know what she did to him?

Against his better judgment, he touched her face, smoothing his palm across her satin cheek. She closed

her eyes and leaned ever so slightly against his hand.

"Tis myself I dunna trust," she murmured.

It was beyond, far beyond time to get drunk. She smiled a little, a sad sort of expression.

"Turn around," she said softly.

He did so in something of a fog. Time ceased to have meaning as he tried not to think of her getting undressed behind him. He attempted to pretend she was just another woman, no more appealing than many of the fairer sex. But there were her eyes, and her laughter, and the sound of her voice. And that wasn't even considering all those soft attributes below her neck.

He had to quit thinking, or soon he was going to fall on her like a hound on a chair leg. Now there was a charming thought. And if that wasn't enough, there was the memory of Lord Haldane. If he touched her, the duke's anger would make her medical attention seem like a fine walk in the park.

"I am finished." Her voice was soft, as soft as the underside of her breasts would be. As soft as the curve of her firm waist, the swell of her buttocks, the...

"Sir?"

"Aye." He started from his reverie. God, he needed help.

"Lie down on the bed."

"If you insist," he said, but reality sprang at him suddenly, tightening his muscles. Regardless of the soft shiver her tone caused to spurt up his back, she probably didn't have in mind what
he
had in mind. Was he drunk yet? And didn't she need to undress some more?

"Lie down," she ordered again, but like an angel.

There was no point in arguing. She would win.

The mattress ropes groaned under his weight. Every inch of him ached with the thought of the pain she could cause him, with the thought of the pleasure she could give him. "The baby!" He jerked upright suddenly, certain he'd found an escape. "Where's the babe?"

"The innkeeper's wife took him." She looked quite complacent. Damn.

"Surely you cannot trust her with the child." He rose to his feet with an effort. She pressed him back down with no trouble at all.

"Aye. I do trust her."

He settled back against the mattress with a scowl. "Why?"

She shrugged. "I just do."

"That's no reason. He may be hungry."

"She'll feed him."

"But... he's probably scared. Surely he misses you—your gentle touch, your sweet voice—"

"Sir Knight," she said in that ethereal voice. "You're blathering."

"I never blather."

"Tis sorry I am that I've hurt ye," she said. "But I'll not do so again."

"Promise?" His voice distinctly lacked that harsh, arrogant tone he had worked so long to hone.

But it seemed like such a waste of effort suddenly.

"Ye've me word as a Scot."

He snorted, but when she smiled the room lit up like a basilica at Michaelmas. He could no longer speak. Indeed, a bit of pain hardly seemed to matter when she looked at him like that. Hardly.

"You must push up the blanket," she said.

He eyed hers breathlessly. "Really?"

"I mean
your
blanket."

"Oh." The disappointment was bitter, but he did as she requested, easing up the woolen an inch at a time. Even that pressure against the wound sent waves of pain shooting up his leg, but it was time to act like a man.

Or not. Maybe he could pass out again instead.

She had turned away. He watched her bend to take a kettle from the fire and wondered how and if she managed to keep the blanket in place as she did so. But soon she was back. She rummaged in a pouch for a few moments, then dumped a handful of herbs into the steaming pot. A fresh, rninty aroma filled the air.

Sir Boden took a deep breath, and against his will, felt himself relax. From a leather bag, she took a dab of dusty-looking powder, which she placed in a wooden bowl. Then, adding some of the liquid from the pot, she stirred it with a spoon.

Boden eyed it dubiously. It looked rather like someone had hurled into the bowl. "Is that the same stuff you put in the wine?''

"Aye."

He scowled. "What are your plans for that concoction?"

"I will smear it on the wound."

He stifled a shiver. "Do you hate me so?"

"It may sting a bit at first."

"Before it burns a hole through my thigh?"

Her eyes were laughing when she lifted them to him. "Are ye certain you're a knight?"

"Have I not tcdd you I am—"

He sucked air between his teeth as white-hot pain seared his leg. Agony sizzled through his senses. Darkness rushed in. Boden grasped the bed sheets and dropped his head back, grappling for lucidness. But in a few moments the torture had lessened to a dull throb, then eased even more.

He raised his head weakly and scowled down at his wound. "What did you do?"

"Tis Fiona's secret," she said and, slipping a shaky hand under his knee, bent it upward. "She said to use it wisely. If inhaled it may boggle the mind, but it will also ease one's aches. And if applied directly to a wound, tis little short of magic."

"You mean to say, you could have used it for my arm?"

"Fiona cautioned me to use it on only the most grievous of wounds."

"My arm was grievously wounded," he said.

"Do not forget, there was a reason I stabbed ye. Twould have made little sense to immediately try to heal ye."

He snorted.

"I must bandage ye now."

His leg felt somewhat numb, heavy, oddly content.

"You could have used it for my arm later."

"Does it still hurt?"

"Aye." He looked at her through dark-lidded lashes, and for a moment she was tempted almost beyond control to touch his face, to still her trembling against the warmth of his skin. But she could not risk that. Far too much was at stake, not least of all, Boden's own life. So she smeared the tiny remainder of ointment from the bowl with her fingers and smoothed it gently across the healing scar on his biceps.

Then, because she could not resist, she slipped her hand down the strength of his arm and back to the ointment.

He dropped his head back slightly. His throat was thick with muscle and very dark, but for the quickly healing wound he had sustained at her own hand.

"Do ye feel better?" Her voice sounded strange to her own ears—far away and husky.

"Aye." His was throaty and deep.

"Anywhere else that I can touch? I mean..." she corrected quickly. "Is there anything else that needs my ministrations?''

The scar at the side of his lips danced, and then his hand moved, slowly, to point at an old scar on his pectoral. Dipping her fingers into the bowl, she smeared them against the oily side, then drew them out to smooth them gently over the scar.

His eyes fell closed. A feeling, hot as hell, spurred down her throat to her belly, and when she spoke, her voice was just above a whisper.

"Anywhere else?"

His fingers moved again, ever so slowly to the next scar. His torso was crisscrossed with them.

And yet it seemed like heaven to touch each one, to smooth her fingers over the aged wounds, to skim her hands over the curve of his biceps, the cap of his shoulder, the bulge of his chest, and then lower.

The rippled muscle of his abdomen danced when she touched it. She felt the sharp intake of his breath in her very soul. The warmth of his skin seeped through her fingertips, intoxicating her, and suddenly her head felt light and her limbs heavy. It seemed she could hear the very beat of his heart, could feel the hot blood pumping through his veins.

"Sara." His voice was as deep as forever. She opened her eyes, and realized rather foggily that she was caressing his belly with a slow, steady rhythm that matched the pace of her heart.

"You are beautiful beyond words."

But suddenly she didn't know if the words had come from him or her. Her blanket had fallen away, that much she knew, for she could feel the cool air caress her shoulders. Perhaps she should be cold, but she was not. Still, she forced herself to pull the blanket up and wrap it casually about her torso, tucking it beneath her arms.

"I must tend yer leg," she said, and picking up a long strip of cloth, she wrapped it about his thigh. It was a big thigh, heavy with muscle, dark skinned, dark haired, long. She covered the wound and tied off the cloth but her hands didn't leave his leg.

The blanket lay bunched about his waist, and beneath that heavy woolen... She shivered. The tremble felt delicately delicious, like a forbidden drink.

And suddenly she realized his fingers had touched her face and were slipping with languid slowness down her throat. She shivered again, but remembered her duty. Taking his hand, she helped him rise to his feet. He did so slowly until he stood over her like a towering elm, silent, venerable.

It took all her control to turn away, to lift the herbed kettle from the floor. She drew a deep waft of the hot air into her lungs, then poured the water into the tub. Curls of sweet steam filled the air. She heard Boden inhale it.

The tub was more than half full. Tugging at his hand, she urged him to step inside. He moved closer, and then his hand lowered, and with the slightest movement, the blanket fell from him. The hard thrust of his manhood loomed into sight. She nearly reached out. Nearly touched it. But even now, in her strangely disembodied state, she did not. Instead, she urged him toward the tub. He stepped inside.

"Again you have me at a disadvantage," he murmured. "Watching me bathe and without even the darkness to cover me."

Her gaze skimmed down his hard-muscled body. "There is a God," she whispered, and raising on her tiptoes, kissed his lips.

He tried to pull her to him, but she pulled away, urging him into the water. It washed over him, and there seemed nothing she could do but watch him. Dear God, he was beautiful, even wounded and scarred, he was beautiful. Or did those imperfections only make him more appealing?

Somehow the questions were too heavy to ponder. It took a moment for her to realize he still held her hand. They stared in unison at the bond between them. Finally she tugged on her fingers and he relented. But she didn't move far, indeed, not out of reach, for it seemed impossible suddenly to keep from touching him.

Instead, she lifted a sponge from the water and draped it over his shoulder. Water ran in silver rivulets across his chest, down his back, over the healing scar on his arm. She watched it flow, mesmerized by its path, by the loving way it caressed his flesh. She dunked the sponge again, and draped it over the other shoulder. The water's course was much the same, and yet it fascinated her no less, and with every drop of water she watched, she felt the heat in her body building.

His face was slightly turned toward her. She could see his hard, chiseled profile, the jut of his jaw, the hollow of his cheek. His brows were dark, low, his eyes hidden beneath closed lids.

Her hand fell automatically then lifted again to douse his hair. His head dropped back a fraction of an inch. She watched the tendons in his throat tighten, and in a moment she found that her hand had gone there, touching the cords that stood out in sharp relief against his dark throat. His skin felt like sun-warmed velvet, and when she touched his arm, it seemed that the strength of a stallion had been imbued in this sculpture of a man. She washed the sponge down his arm, leaving behind a fine sheen of oiled water until she reached his fingers. She washed each one, then slid her hand sideways onto his hip. Her hand curved out of sight.

His eyes opened slowly. There was light in them, a light so bright and fierce that for a moment she couldn't breath. She realized foggily that her blanket had left her completely.

"It seems my blanket has abandoned its post," she whispered.

"There is a God." He repeated her words then reached for her.

She told herself it was not too late to retreat, but the air was heavy with anticipation, and deep inside she ached with a desire that would no longer be ignored.

It didn't feel as if she stepped into the tub, instead, it seemed that the water rose to meet her, flooded the edges of life, sliding up her calves, her knees, her thighs as she slipped down beside him.

Warmth and peace wrapped them together. It seemed as natural as breathing that he kiss her face, her hair, the swift pulse in her throat.

Her fingers still held the sponge. She ran it up his arm, onto his shoulder, and higher. Warm water rinsed his midnight hair. He dropped his head back and with that movement, his chest pressed against hers. She closed her eyes at the impact. They shivered in unison, and when she looked at his face again, his hair was washed back, black as ebon, to show his every feature as if it were etched in granite.

Leaning back slightly, she lifted the sponge to press it against his chest. Rivulets streamed around his left nipple, leaving the dusky summit dry in their wake. And suddenly it seemed there was nothing she could do but kiss it.