Devotion (33 page)

"Hopefully, my examination will further enlighten us as to his ongoing condition,"
Edgcumbe
said as he moved down the corridor slightly ahead of Maria. She hurried to keep up while doing her best to balance phials and medical instruments she carried on a tray. "You say, my dear, that he's shown no improvement whatsoever in his ability to move the lower portion of his body?"

"None," she replied.

He shook his head and frowned. "I simply cannot understand why. While the blow to his head was sufficient enough to cause trauma to the memory coherency, I've found no reason why his mobility should be so permanently impaired. In short, there is no physical reason that I can find that he should not get up from his chair and waltz right out through the door."

"He withdrew mentally and emotionally," Maria said. "Might he not have done the same physically?"

Edgcumbe
looked thoughtful before shaking his head.
"Perhaps.
But the man is the Duke of Salterdon, my dear, in line to inherit one of the greatest fortunes in England. He has everything: youth, wealth, good looks. He has an obligation, doesn't he?"

Edgcumbe
continued down the corridor until disappearing into Salterdon's room. Maria trailed behind, her mind on that afternoon when she had walked from the house to discover him shivering in the cold, eyes down, his breath smelling heavily of liquor. That far too familiar and discomfiting emotion had roused inside
her,
had leapt up like a startled hare the moment he had wrapped his hand around hers, it had sung as vibrantly as a bird the instant she realized that she would not be leaving Thorn Rose after all. For an instant, as their carriage had made its way down the meandering slippery road and he had continued to hold her hand, she had been silly enough to actually fantasize that they were lovers,
out for
a brisk romantic ride in the snow.

Daft girl.

And she had relived that moment in the music room when he had held her—gently, so gently, and the warmth of his body and hands had made her fee!
liquid
and on fire.

Obviously the strain of the last weeks had wrecked havoc on her sensibilities.

And the memory of her hand on his private body— the heat of his body—the fullness of it . . .

"Corning,
Miss
Ashton?"
came the physician's voice from Salterdon's room.

She took a breath . . . and wondered if she were coming down with something; her entire being felt uncomfortably feverish all of a sudden.

The pungent smell of
medicináis
greeted her as she hurried into the room that was thick with a foul-scented vapor that made her nose burn and her eyes water. Along with a roaring fire in the hearth, tins of red hot coals had been placed around Salterdon's bed. Molly hovered in the background prepared to pour the rank smelling liquid on the embers, which hissed and spewed steam into the air.

"Come along, Miss Ashton, quickly," called
Edgcumbe
.

Carefully, she made her way through the cloistering fog, sliding the tray onto a table where
Edgcumbe
pointed. Only then did she turn for the bed and froze.

"The duchess mentioned you had nursed an invalid brother,"
Edgcumbe
said as he poured a thick oily fluid into his hand. "And that you are perfectly capable of assisting me without embarrassment."

She swallowed and faintly nodded.

"Good."
Edgcumbe
caught the white sheet covering Salterdon from the waist down, and flung it aside.

He lay on his stomach, totally nude. His broad back was slick with sweat and narrowed sharply to a thin waist and slender hips. His buttocks were round and firm, his legs incredible. From mid-thigh down, they were sprinkled with coarse black hair.

"Miss Ashton?"

She blinked and forced her gaze to
Edgcumbe
, and the flask of oil he extended to her. "Concentrate on the waist down,
nibbing
briskly. The steam will open the pores and allow the elixir to absorb. 'Tis said the heat increases the circulation, encouraging blood to the muscle and bone, as well as limbers the muscles so they become more pliant."

Maria moved around the bed, just as Molly tossed a cup full of water on the coals. Already her clothes felt damp and clung to her skin. The collar of her dress felt like a noose. Maria glanced around at the maid, saw her eyes narrow and her mouth part in something less than a smile, as if she recognized Maria's embarrassment and relished in it.

Taking a deep breath, she allowed the warm oil to spill from her hand onto his back where it pooled and glistened in the lamplight and slid along the ridge of muscle running along the length of his spine. Hesitantly, she reached out, caught the stream with one finger that touched his skin so lightly she hardly noticed, until he stiffened, caught his breath, and twisted his fingers into the bedding.

She closed her eyes, drew her oily hands down his waist, over his firm buttocks, and down the backs of his hard thighs,
nibbing
, massaging, learning the feel of him, the smoothness, roughness, softness, only vaguely aware of those around her who spoke occasionally, of Molly splashing the coals with the pungent liquid that formed a heavy cloud around Maria's shoulders.

This was not a boy's body—not like Paul's, whose early manhood had been obliterated by a blacksmith's
hands—whose body had not matured to such extremes. Paul's had been pale and soft.

This was not even Thaddeus's body—or what she had seen of it as he was making love to Molly.

She shivered. Her breath seemed to catch somewhere deep in the pit of her stomach and the sudden overwhelming need to flee shook her. Yet . . . she did not, but allowed her hands to move over him gently, firmly, experiencing the feel of her skin sliding against his, skimming on a frail barrier of slick warm oil, luxuriating in the feel of his flesh.
Learning him as few women ever had, from the tiny scar along his left hip (a burn?) to the unusual scattering of brown beauty marks on his right buttock.

"Miss Ashton?"

She blinked and slowly looked up at
Edgcumbe
.

"I said we should turn him over now."

"Turn him over?"

Edgcumbe
nodded.

Molly made a faint noise of amusement and tossed medicine on the coals. A geyser-like spray of steam and water spewed into the air, coating Maria's face in moist, cloying heat that made breathing impossible.

Leaning near her ear, Molly said, "No doubt yer thinkin' 'bout Thad. Well I'm here to tell
ya
that it'll be a cold day in hell afore you ever set hands on him like this. Aye, he likes oil poured in a slow warm stream over his body, but I'll be the one
pourin
' it. And furthermore—

"You,"
Edgcumbe
said to Molly, cutting her off midsentence. "Give me a hand, please. Miss Ashton seems to be preoccupied."

"Right," Molly said, and pushed her way by Maria, shoving her hard enough to unbalance her slightly.

For heaven's sake, what had come over her suddenly? It was not as if she had never witnessed Salterdon in partial undress; obviously the last weeks she had touched him hundreds of times in hundreds of ways. She had seen to his every need: fed him, shaved him, brushed his mane of hair, helped him clean his teeth, and manicured his nails. Now she stood at his bedside unable to move or breathe, oddly agitated and nervous at the prospect of seeing this man undressed, and of touching his flesh.

Setting her chin, she grabbed Molly's arm and shoved her away. "I'm perfectly capable of handling the situation, thank you."

They rolled him.

Maria turned away, bumping the
hod
of coals and upsetting the pitcher of water. Catching it before it toppled from the table, she clutched it to her stomach and shut her eyes.

"The oil, Miss Ashton,"
Edgcumbe
called.

Slowly, she set aside the ewer and turned again to the bed, relief flooding her at the sight of the fleecy towel draped over Salterdon's loins. Her gaze drifted to his face to discover that he regarded her—
only
her—his gray eyes the color of smoke, dark hair clinging to his damp brow, his skin flushed by heat and steam. And his mouth . . . tipped up at one end, flat at the other—as conflicting in its message as his too-often erratic behavior.

Stiffly—dear merciful God in heaven, her arm felt as if it weighed ten stone—she reached for the oil and poured it from the bottle into her hand, allowing it to spill through her fingers in a thin amber thread and pool on his lower belly, just beneath his navel.

His skin quivered in response; the muscles in his stomach grew tight.

She nudged the toweling aside just slightly, swept the oil over his pelvis, then his hard thigh, rubbing gently at first, then briskly until her own fingers began to ache. All the while,
Edgcumbe
chatted amiably, muttering comments about how well His Grace's body had held up to its year of incapacitation.

Maria touched the scar on his hip.
it
was as big as her hand and slightly pink. "A burn?" she asked, more to herself than to Salterdon.

"Yes," he replied.
"A burn."

"How?"

"When I was ten, my brother and I traveled to the Far East with my parents. On the return journey, our ship caught fire during a storm. I fell beneath a burning mast. My father saved me."

"Your parents were killed."

"My mother first.
She drowned."

"And yet you survived."

His brow knitted. His eyes became distant and hard. For a moment, it was as if the past opened up and swallowed him. In his eyes, she saw terror. His body became tense with fear.

"Sharks," he finally
whispered,
his voice dry. "They took most of the crew and passengers who hadn't already burned to death or drowned. We drifted for days clinging to a bit of wood that was only large enough to hold three of us. We all took turns in the water. I had begun to run fever because of my injuries and when it came time for me to go in the water, my father wouldn't allow it. He went in for me . . . The sharks came during the night . . ."

His voice trailed off. It seemed that the silence magnified with every beat of her heart, deepened as heavily as the shadows in the darkening room. The image of turbid seas, of terror and blood rose up before her, made all the more riveting by the sense of fathomless pain and self-blame reverberating in the steamy air around her master. She was beginning to understand, oh yes—the reasons for his lifelong anger and belligerence—

He blamed himself for his father's death. "There were screams all around us," said he in a soft, guttural voice. His face had become a caricature of itself, eyes wide, nostrils flared, lips pressed against his white teeth, his body rigid as stone. "The water was still as glass, the night incredibly clear and bright with a full moon suspended just above the black, undulate horizon. All around us there were men, women, and children crying, 'My god, my
god help
us, save us.' The screams of terror and pain were bloodcurdling."

Salterdon swallowed. His eyes never leaving hers, he said emotionlessly, "With no warning the monster came up from the depths and cut my father in two. I was looking into his eyes the very instant it happened, Miss Ashton. He didn't scream. He was too damn dignified, you see."