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Leo resumed brushing. “Apparently a very poor one. I must bring you one that shows your beauty accurately.”
“How gallant you are! Who would have thought it?”
She chuckled softly. He liked her laugh. He had not heard enough of it.
“Even rogues can speak the truth.” He closed his hand around a cluster of ringlets. “You are quite lovely.” Before that remark could linger, he added, “There. All done. Let us see about the water. Ah, just right. I shall be within call.”
Suiting action to the words, he stepped around the edge of the screen and waited. Hearing no sound of water sloshing, he ventured a question. “Miss Hathersage, do you need help?”
Her voice sounded near to frustrated tears. “No. It…it is just that I can’t get the sheet off.”
Deciding that meant she was still covered, Leo went back to the fireside. She slumped a bit to one side, leaning her elbow on the arm of the chair, a ghastly pallor draining her color. She would not last much longer. “I fear we must take the bull by the horns, Miss Hathersage. I will help you remove it—and the nightshirt.”
“Sir…Oh, dear. I suppose…” She rubbed her brow.
“We’d best just do it.” Leo took hold of the sheet.
“I am so tired. Perhaps I should just go back to bed.”
“I promise not to look.” He covered his mouth to hide a smile.
She gave him a suspicious glance. “How can you not? Oh, very well. Why should I draw back now? I have come this far. Close your eyes.”
A laugh escaped him. “Yes, miss.”
He dutifully closed his eyes, peeled away the sheet and tugged the nightshirt over her head.
“Are your eyes closed?”
He strongly suspected that her own were squeezed tight. “Yes, Miss Hathersage, they are quite sealed.” He dropped the sheet to the floor. Blindly, he inched backward a few steps, groping behind him for the edge of the screen.
And promptly tripped right over it. It crashed to the floor with a resounding clatter.
So did Leo.
The lady shrieked.
Leo cursed.
Hell and damnation, he could not separate himself from the blasted screen! It had fallen on top of him. As he tried to find his feet, his eyes flew open. Working frantically, he finally shoved the screen away and stood.
Miss Hathersage would be beside herself once more—this time with outrage. Leo risked a quick glance. She was reaching in vain for the sheet. He took a step toward her.
“Would ye be needing assistance, sir?” Aelfred spoke from the door, his voice carefully neutral.
Leo dived for the sheet and whipped it over the lady’s white form. He also carefully controlled his voice.
“Just right the damned screen, please, Aelfred.”
Leo stood, silent, holding the sheet while Aelfred set the shelter back up. His henchman’s face revealed not a single thought. Leo knew he was suppressing laughter. At Leo’s expense. He clenched his teeth and kept firm hold of the sheet.
Aelfred finished his task and vanished through the door. Leo knew he had stopped on the staircase, awaiting further emergencies. He sighed. “Well, let us move on before you tire completely. Call when you need me to help you dress.”
“Thank you, sir.” He thought he detected a small giggle. “But I think we should make the next attempt with your eyes open. I shall try to restrain my maidenly blushes.”
Leo’s laughter burst out of him. “Don’t do that, Miss Hathersage. I should very much miss your lovely blushes.”
She had surely blushed aplenty when his lordship returned to hastily slip the fresh nightshirt over her. Her whole body burned with it. But he had accomplished the task so quickly she felt sure his gaze had not lingered on her nakedness. Perhaps he was, after all, a more civilized pirate than she had previously believed.
Hades set her gently on the bed and pulled the cover up to her chin. He lowered himself into the chair with a plop. “My God! I’m as tired as though I had hauled canvas in a storm. Who would have thought giving one small lady a bath would be so exhausting?”
“You must think me a complete ninny, to create such a fuss.” She gazed up at him, grateful for the crisp feel and sunshiny smell of the clean sheets. Still blushing, she knew.
“Not at all, Miss Hathersage.” He propped his feet up on the chest. “Inexperienced, yes. Innocent, yes. Pure. But a ninny? No. You are bearing up amazingly well under the circumstances. One would expect you to be in strong hysterics.”
“I never have hysterics. It is just that no one has ever seen me… That is…”
“No man has ever seen your body, you mean. This must be very difficult for you.”
“Yes.” Phona sighed. “Of course. I don’t mean to seem unappreciative for the care you have given me. But if you had not…”
“If I had not brought you here in the first place, it would not be necessary. I have already explained that, but I understand your anger. Do not repine. I will take you home as soon may be.”
She closed her eyes and nodded. “But how will I go on once I am there? I feel that I will see eveything differently after this experience. Matters that once seemed important…”
He looked at her thoughtfully. “Yes, I would imagine that you will have a very different point of view. But how did you go on before? I know you rode nearly every day. Did you go to parties often?”
Phona wrinkled her nose. “Not if I could avoid it. As I said before, I loathe parties. It is all I can do even to be polite. I always feel so…inadequate.”
“You? Inadequate? I can hardly credit that.” He raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“Well, only at parties. I do other things very well.”
“What other things do you do?”
“Mama does not like seeing to the household and the estate, so I do much of that. I enjoy it, especially visiting the tenants. Mama…” She had to think a moment about it. “Mama does not know how to talk to them as I do, whereas at a ball she knows just how to captivate everyone. A nod here, a touch there, a word to the favored few.”
He chuckled. “Yes, an apt description. I have seen your mother in action.”
“Have you?” Phona tried to sit up. “Where?”
“At a ball.”
She fell back. “You won’t tell me, of course.” It was a statement, not a question. She let it pass and continued, “I have never been able to do that. I sit by the wall, tongue-tied, wearing unbecoming colors and feeling ugly and awkward while my hostess brings young men to introduce to me and my hair works its way out of the pins. I dare not dance. It would all fall to my shoulders. I can’t even move my head. And I blush. So they think me very stiff and a great bore. And then, of course, there are the freckles.”
He smiled. “Blushing, your hair fallen to your shoulders. Now that would be a truly captivating sight. All the young men would trample one another to make your acquaintance.”
“You are teasing me.”
“No, indeed. I am completely serious. But why do you wear colors which do not flatter you?”
Phona sighed. “Because Mama wants to drape me in maidenly white at all times—at every ball, afternoon parties, certainly all al fresco occasions. I hate it, and it doesn’t suit me.”
He gazed at her, a twinkle in his eye. “You are not qualified for maidenly white?”
Her cheeks flamed. “My lord! How dare you?”
“Forgive me, Miss Hathersage.” He laughed aloud. “You are delightful to tease.” Leo sobered. “But you seriously underrate yourself. You will make a fine wife.” He looked thoughtfully into the fire for a moment. “Yes, a very fine wife. Beautiful, in spite of your distorted vision of yourself, accomplished in the needs of an estate. And both courageous and ingenuous.” He seemed almost to be talking to himself.
Before she could answer, he stood. “And right now, very weary. You should nap. I will return at supper time to keep you company. You will be happy to know there will be no gruel tonight. Aelfred has promised to make you a panada. Rest well.”
As he went out the door, Phona, already half-asleep, had a dreamy vision of herself dancing at a ball, around and around and around, her skirts swirling, her curls flying loose.
Dancing…with whom? She could see… Yes.
A man with a beard. A black vest.
And a hook.
This was a dangerous state of affairs!
She was beginning to be attracted to this man: a nameless rogue, a brigand—a maimed thief? Unbelievable.
Yet she looked forward to his visits every afternoon. Felt relieved when he appeared after supper to keep watch over her through the night. A wave of warmth spread through her whenever he touched her forehead to gauge her fever and a subtle, smoky scent rose around him.
This would not do at all. Phona had gone from the spit right into the heart of the flames. She resolved to guard her emotions more carefully. Each resolution lasted until the next time he sauntered into the room and her heart raced in her breast.
What a goose! Mama would shriek the house down if she knew.
Phona’s strength had gradually increased as her fever receded. Aelfred now brought her baked eggs at midday and boiled chicken and onions and a bit of cheese for dinner in place of the insipid, if highly nourishing and digestible, gruel.
Every afternoon Lord Hades lifted her into a chair, wrapped in a man’s huge silk dressing gown, while he sat nearby, keeping a sharp eye on her. While it provided a pleasant change to sit, Phona always returned to her bed with a sigh of relief. Would she never feel vigorous again?
Hades did so many things for her now. This afternoon he had again played the lady’s maid, helping her wash the still-lingering grit out of her hair.
Phona badly wanted a real bath in a real tub, but her host had shaken his head with a wry grin. “But nay! I should peek around the screen to find you sunk to the bottom, and then I should have to fish you out. With my eyes closed.”
Phona wrinkled her nose, then broke into a giggle. “I must agree the last attempt ended in complete disaster.”
“You have no idea how great…” He had broken off, leaving Phona wondering what he intended to say.
This evening as she sat up against the pillows, clean and combed, awaiting dinner, Aelfred came into the room and set the small table and two chairs tête-à-tête near the bed. “Good evening, miss. His… My master thought ye might be able to eat at table tonight.”
“Why, yes, thank you. I would enjoy being out of the bed.”
As she spoke, Hades arrived, looking his most civilized. He carried something green in his hand.
“What do you have there?”
He smiled. “A wreath for my lady’s freshly washed hair.” He held it up for her inspection. It was twisted of small, pliable branches of spring leaves and tiny white flowers. “When I noticed the leaves in your hair the first time I brushed it, I thought it somehow suited you—the daughter of a fertility goddess.”
Phona laughed. “Mama is hardly a fertility goddess.”
“No, hardly. But her namesake, Demeter, was.” He laid the circlet over her curls and stepped back for a better view. “Charming.”
“I doubt that, but thank you. You are very thoughtful.” Strange how even a little bit of frippery made her feel more attractive, more feminine.
He held up the silk robe. “Are you up to a proper dinner?”
“I should love one.”
He picked her up and transferred her to one of the chairs. “Tonight you shall have venison and a small glass of red wine.”
“Wine? I am quite astonished.”
“We need to build your blood. I do not like this lingering weakness. Ah! Here is Aelfred.”
They dined on venison and potato pie, a bowl of apples, and, as promised, red wine. Phona sipped cautiously. She was barely accustomed to wine of any sort. Nor did she care much for the sour stuff. She had drunk about half of her portion when Hades moved his chair around the table nearer to her own.
From somewhere on his person a sharp blade appeared as if by legerdemain. Phona blinked and leaned away from him a bit. If he noticed, he gave no sign of it. He reached for an apple, set it on the table, and, steadying it with his truncated left arm, began to make careful slices. When he had cut half the apple, he set down the knife, plucked a piece from the pile and, without warning, slipped it between Phona’s lips.
“Oh!” Startled, she drew back again. He had been helping her eat for many days, but there seemed something different about this. The simple gesture sent a wave of sensation through her.
Perhaps it was the wine.
Or perhaps it was the way he was gazing at her, a crooked smile on his lips and a warmth she had never seen in his one twinkling eye.
She blushed.
He laughed softly. “Have a bite of apple, my lady.”
“Uh… Thank you.” Phona swallowed, and he fed her another slice.
“And another sip of wine.” He handed her the glass.
She took a tiny sip and set it down. “I am not very fond of wine.”
“I know, but you need it. And apples are very healthful.” He popped another slice into her mouth.
His fingers never touched her lips, but somehow Phona had felt their warmth. In fact, she could feel the warmth of his whole body as he sat next to her. Could sense that subtle scent. It created a response down deep inside her.
Looking amused, he picked up the uncut portion of the apple and took a large bite, white teeth gleaming. The heat blossomed.
It must be the wine.
Phona glanced at the man beside her. He took another bite, looking steadily at her as he chewed. Phona all but gasped.
It could only be the wine!
