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Tempting Kate. Deborah Simmons
Читать онлайн.Название Tempting Kate
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Автор произведения Deborah Simmons
Издательство HarperCollins
For the second time in two days, Kate watched in horror as the marquis of Wroth collapsed onto the floor. She knelt beside him and put her hand to his forehead, her worst fears confirmed.
“He’s burning up! Tom, carry him upstairs again!”
“Really, Kate!” Lucy exclaimed, obviously disgusted. “You should never have brought him here. Now look at him.”
Kate did, and her heart ached to see him brought low again, his handsome face pale and wan, his eyes closed, his tall body felled by fever. She swallowed painfully. “I’ll see to him,” she whispered.
“Oh, very well. I’ll keep supper for you,” Lucy promised, “but I might as well eat his portion. No sense letting it go to waste, after all.”
“No, of course not,” Kate replied, in response to her sister’s cold-blooded behavior. It was a defect of her character that Lucy rarely considered anything more important than her own wishes, but she had suffered much in recent years, and could be forgiven for selfishly wanting an extra helping for herself and her child.
“I would have left him upstairs, if I’d known I’d have to drag him back up again,” the coachman grumbled as he hefted the marquis’s prone body.
“Then you should not have let him come down,” Kate said, without sympathy. “I should have checked on him, as I planned, rather than let you talk me out of it.”
“I tell you, it ain’t proper for you to be tending a gentleman!”
Kate gave an inelegant snort as she followed the coachman through the gallery and up the stairs. “As if that matters now!” Was she the only one with any sense in this household? The marquis of Wroth was injured and sick, suffering by her own hand, and no one seemed the slightest bit concerned. Indeed, the others appeared put out. “How inconvenient of the man to fall ill from the bullet I sent through him!” she said, tossing the biting sarcasm at Tom’s head.
He ducked and hurried forward, dumping the marquis unceremoniously on the bed that had once been her father’s. “Guess I’ll have to get his boots off of him again.”
“Yes, and the shirt, as well.” Kate spoke calmly enough, but she felt panic beating at the back of her mind, and pushed it away. She had to think clearly now, if she was going to save him. And there could be no “if” about it. Although they had been buried here in the country for a long time, she had heard Wroth mentioned before. Rich, powerful, dangerous. Those were words that were used to describe him, and although Kate had not heeded them when she was bent upon revenge, now they returned to taunt her.
For one fleeting moment, she pictured herself dangling at the end of a rope while an eager crowd chanted, “Murderess!” Then she rolled up her sleeves and got to work. “Fetch Mother’s recipe book, please,” she told Tom as she sat down beside the marquis to check his dressing. “And see if there are any spirits in the house. There might be some brandy in the cellar. And bring up a bowl of water, straight from the spring, so it is especially cold.”
Tom hesitated, and she shot him a look that questioned his delay. “It’s not proper,” he protested, with a mulish expression.
Kate nearly gave in to the hysterical laughter that bubbled in her chest. “Proper? Proper? How could that possibly matter now? Lucy is already with child by a man who pretended to be someone he isn’t!”
“Well, that doesn’t—”
Kate cut him off with a sharp glance. “We must fend for ourselves, Tom. You know that.”
The two shared a poignant look until Tom dropped his eyes and mumbled one of his oaths. “Well, it ain’t right.” He gazed at her again, suddenly apologetic. “I’ll take care of him.”
“No,” Kate replied firmly. She had entrusted Wroth to Tom today, and he had failed her, whether by accident or by design. It had only reinforced the lesson she had learned a long time ago: The only way to ensure that anything was done was to do it herself.
Waving Tom away, she waited until she heard his footsteps leave the room before she checked her charge. Beneath the unnatural flush that stained his cheeks, she could see the strength and beauty of his face. He had kissed her, this elegant, assured nobleman, Kate thought, still amazed by the memory.
She had no notion why he had done it. Perhaps he thought her a housemaid, eager for a tumble, or maybe he thought any girl who would dress as a boy fair game. Whatever his motivation, Kate was secretly thrilled by his fleeting interest. In the quiet struggle her life had become, she had never thought to visit the dark, sensuous world she had known in his arms. Now she would have that small wonder to carry with her always.
Snorting at the strange, sentimental turn of her thoughts, Kate leaned forward, turning her attention toward the sick man. He was her responsibility, and if she had other reasons for saving him besides selfpreservation, she did not care to examine them.
Kate opened bleary eyes and turned them toward the bed, lit by a brace of low-burning candles. Wroth had thrown off all the covers and was tossing restlessly, and the only thing she knew to do was bathe him with cool water. Originally, she had just wiped his face, but as the evening wore on and his body warmed, she had boldly pressed the wet cloth to his arms and his chest. It had gained him some respite, but now he was thrashing again, hotter than ever. Kate’s eyes darted down to the breeches that still covered him.
Tom would never approve.
Lucy would have an apoplexy.
To the devil with them, Kate thought, determination firming the line of her lips. She would do whatever was necessary to save this man’s life, and if she had to see him in his underclothes to do so, it was no one’s concern but her own.
Pulling the covers down to the bottom of the bed, Kate moved toward his waist. She knew how to work the fall, for she often wore boy’s trousers, but it was one thing to dress herself and quite another to undo the buttons that covered the front of the tall, virile marquis. Her fingers fumbled against the body beneath, but finally she had his breeches open. Grabbing a fistful of material at either side of his hips, she tugged hard, and nearly fell facefirst upon his thighs at the sight that met her eyes.
He wasn’t wearing any drawers.
Sitting back on her heels, Kate drew in a deep breath and stared at the large male member that lay nestled in a thicket of dark brown hair. “Gad,” she whispered to herself over the pounding of blood in her ears. Suddenly she felt as hot as the man on the bed. Feverish. Out of her head.
Swallowing hard, Kate forced herself to look away. There was something positively common about a woman who stared at a prone man’s private parts, she decided. Perhaps all these years of struggle and solitude were taking their toll and her wits were fleeing her. God forbid. Her wits were the only thing that held them all together.
Drawing in a deep breath, Kate positioned herself over his hips again and tugged at his clothing while trying not to look at what she had uncovered. Unfortunately, the breeches would not give way easily. They fitted like a second skin and clung tenaciously to his sweat-soaked body, and Wroth did nothing to help. In fact, he abruptly turned over, nearly taking her with him.
Swaying on her knees, Kate righted herself once more and gripped the material, which was now twisted around his thighs. “Good,” she muttered. “Now I no longer have to look at…that.” Instead, she found herself staring at his narrow, tightly muscled behind. “Bloody hell,” she whispered, flushing anew.
As if in reply, Wroth groaned, and, alarmed at the possibility that she might be caught admiring his nether regions, Kate gave the breeches a swift yank. Although she fell back upon the blankets, gasping from the effort, she had them at last. Scooting off the bed, she tossed the garment to the floor and refilled the bowl from the bucket of spring water Tom had reluctantly