plain gray gown, her hair once again pulled severely back, the Quaker austerity of dress and coiffure seemed to emphasize rather than detract from the perfection of her features.
A smiling Botticelli angel, bending over his sickbed.
Extraordinary that a woman of her profession could exude such an aura of innocence. He felt that he might be content to spend the rest of his days simply gazing at her.
No wonder Bellingham had been so besotted.
And you, Carrington, had best keep a tight hold over your senses during the time you spend under her roof.
“Besides, that would have been breakfast yesterday,” she continued while he remained speechless, staring like a lackwit. “’Tis evening now, so you were unconscious nearly a day and a half. Indeed, I was beginning to feel I must call Dr. Thompson back to check you again.”
“That long?” Jack asked, shocked. As he studied her, recovering now from his bedazzlement, he noticed shadows beneath her eyes…and pulled up by the bed, a chair with a shawl draped over its back. “You tended me…all that time?”
“My companion Mae, though she possesses the kindest heart imaginable, turned queasy at the sight of you, the footman was little better, and I feared that my butler, a former prize-fighter, might not be gentle enough. But now that you are awake, I shall send Watson in and rest.”
“Please do! I apologize for being…such a burden.”
“Having been the instrument of your injury, ’twas only right that I do everything possible to assist you. In any case, I should not have been able to sleep until you regained your senses, giving me more confidence in your eventual recovery. Now, the doctor tells me rest and quiet are essential for healing, and I know you—and your family—will wish to have you on your way as quickly as possible.”
With that, she offered him another sip of water, bracing his shoulder as he leaned forward to drink. This time, Jack found his meager strength fading even more quickly—and now that he’d had time to sort out the gradations of pain and pressure in his chest, he discovered that breathing was becoming more difficult, as well.
He couldn’t stifle a groan as she eased him back against his pillows. There was so much more he wanted to ask her, but the words seemed to elude his grasp. “Sleep…might be…wise,” he admitted.
“You’re sure about the laudanum? Sleep, then.”
For the few moments before the vortex of pain and fatigue sucked him down to oblivion, he savored the feel of her fingers, gently stroking his face.
FOR THE NEXT TWO DAYS, Jack dozed and woke and dozed again, except when roused for the doctor’s periodic visits, experiences uncomfortable enough that afterward he several times accepted Belle’s offer for a bit of laudanum. Mercifully, a small dose dulled the agony enough for him to sleep without filling his dreams with nightmarish visions.
Or perhaps being wounded in the safety of London, rather than in the middle of a grim winter retreat through the wilderness, allowed him to rest undisturbed. Whatever the reason, he awoke on the fifth day to find his mind and senses had at last escaped the haze of pain and laudanum.
Except for an itchy tickle of beard, he was reasonably comfortable, his soiled garments having been removed at some point in favor of a plain nightshirt, and his body washed. He gazed about him, able now that a tepid daylight illuminated the room and he was finally lucid to take stock of his surroundings.
He lay in a handsomely carved canopy bed, its hangings and the curtains at the windows a rich blue damask, a hue mirrored in the Turkish carpet upon the floor. The room itself, its walls painted a pale blue, boasted a fine plastered cornice, classical broken pediments over the windows and a doorway flanked by inset pilasters.
’Twas a bedchamber such as one might find in the home of any ton aristocrat of superior taste and unlimited funds. Lady Belle’s late protector had obviously been endowed with both, Jack decided.
Though the constant pain had eased, he still possessed very little strength, and moving even a small distance remained a teeth-gritting endeavor.
His vain effort to reach his water glass was interrupted by the entrance of a tall, hulking man whose dark livery proclaimed his status even as his crooked nose and huge fists spoke of a previous occupation. This must be Belle’s former prize-fighter-turned-butler.
“The maid what built up the fire said you was awake,” the man said. “Lady Belle sent me to ask iff’n you was wishful of having a shave. She done washed you off some when you first come, but she didn’t trifle none with them whiskers. I’m Watson, by the way, Lady Belle’s butler.”
“Jaimie Watson?” Jack said, a memory beginning to surface. “Defeated Molynieu back in ’09, in one of the best bouts of fisticuffs ever seen?”
The big man’s face brightened. “You saw the match?”
“No, I was on the Peninsula at the time, but troopers who witnessed the event talked of it for months.”
Watson smiled. “’Twas my best fight.”
“Don’t start him talking about the Fancy, or you’ll never get your shave,” Lady Belle said as she entered.
Conversation ceased as Jack let the beauty of her wash over his senses. She was garbed today in a plain, high-necked gown of a medium blue that underscored the brilliance of her deep blue eyes. With her golden hair pulled back in a simple chignon, her cheeks and lips devoid of artificial enhancement and her rigidly upright stance, she might be taken for a governess. Yet the sheer loveliness of her unadorned beauty still caused him to suck in a painful breath.
“Good morning, ma’am. How charming you look!” Jack said—and immediately regretted it, for at the banal compliment, he saw her almost physically withdraw.
“You seem better, Captain,” she said coolly.
Forewarned now, he copied her matter-of-fact demeanor. “Much better, thank you.”
“Should you like a shave before breakfast?”
Jack had never considered himself vain, but in the face of her luminous beauty he was feeling decidedly unkempt. Bad enough, he thought, to have practically cocked up your toes in front of a lady you hoped to impress without looking like a hooligan who’d ended up on the wrong side of an altercation with the Watch.
“That would be wonderful. I understand I have you to thank for making me more presentable.”
She shrugged. “You needed to be stripped out of those bloody garments—which are ruined, I’m afraid, so that I insist you allow me to replace them. It seemed best to do so while you were still unconscious.”
The idea of her stripping him down, laying hands on his naked skin, even for the prosaic purpose of cleansing it, sent a ripple of arousal through him. After spending several days in an enfeebled state, he thanked his body for this hard evidence that he was finally on the mend.
“Watson, you have the shaving utensils ready?” Belle interrupted his wandering thoughts.
“Aye, Lady Belle.” While Belle helped Jack to a sip of water, the butler brought in water, soap and razor.
While Watson shaved him, Belle recounted the doctor’s findings and informed him that both Darnley and Ludlowe had called to check on him and would return in the afternoon.
After Watson finished, a boy trotted in carrying a covered dish. “Mornin’, Miss Belle, Cap’n,” he said, fixing a curious and entirely undeferential gaze on Jack.
Scrawny and obviously undernourished, the child had hair that stuck up at odd angles, as if barbered by a blind man. With his narrow face, sharp nose and small, gleaming eyes that reminded Jack of a rodent, the child was one of the ugliest specimens of boyhood Jack had ever beheld. Where, Jack wondered, had this little street rat come from?
“Thank you for bringing up the