Chapter 8
Eight
Dearest Lady Caillen,
It is my deepest regret that I treated you poorly the night we met.
If I had behaved as a gentleman, perhaps you would have allowed me to court you in a proper manner.
My last thoughts on this earth are dreams of you as my countess, and our lives being entwined for eternity.
I hope you find a true gentleman who knows your worth, cherishes your smile, and fills your heart with the love you deserve.
I selfishly hope he is unable to toss Shakespearean insults in your direction and that our time praising the virtues of the great bard’s aspersions will be a fond memory of my worthless soul.
All my love,
Simon
—A confiscated letter written in the French prison at Mont Saint Michel by Simon Clark, Earl of Astley. It was destroyed by a guard on Christmas day, but not before it was read by a little boy who planned to care for the earl until his dying day.
“Fuuuuuck.”
He knew it would hurt. In fact, he’d whole heartedly embraced the thought of the pain his recovery would entail while he’d been rotting away in that hell called France.
But would the pain ever stop? His cast was off, his leg looked like hell, hurt even worse, and for the first time in months he’d seen his entire body.
He grimaced at the ghastly image staring back at him in the mirror.
Turning toward the tub, his crutch caught on the rug and he cursed once more. “‘Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity,’ you will make it to that bath if it’s the last thing you do.”
He’d dismissed the servants as soon as his bath was full, not wanting to make an ass out of himself.
He’d done enough of that already. He reached the copper tub and dropped his crutch.
He sat on the edge to catch his breath and ran his fingers in the steaming hot water.
It was as if he’d raced his horse up and down the Strand all morning long, and yet all he’d done was undress and travel twenty feet from the bed to his bathing room.
He sighed and prepared himself for the next feat—getting into the blasted tub. He leaned across the expanse and braced himself on the opposite side as he swung his bad leg over the edge first. He lifted his second leg just as the door to his chambers opened.
“Astley, I received word from Sir Will—”
He would never know if she completed her sentence with Williamson.
He was too busy attempting to cover himself from her view.
As his luck would have it, because, really did anyone else have his luck, he fell into the damned tub headfirst and struck his head on the opposite side.
If things couldn’t get worse, he somehow ended up with his arse sticking up in the air and his head under water.
Struggling and splashing and making a bumbling fool of himself, he attempted to right himself.
For an avid swimmer, he was doing a piss-poor job of saving himself from a bloody tub.
Delicate hands wrapped around his arm and pulled him up, his arse and cock going under the water where they belonged, even if his other hand was the only thing he had to spare her modesty. He sputtered water as she slapped him on the back multiple times to clear his lungs.
“Bloody hell, Caillen I’m not drowning,” he croaked.
“You could have fooled me. What were you doing?”
“I was attempting to cover myself.”
“I’ve seen it all before, Astley.”
“Well, I wasn’t doing it for my fucking modesty, I was doing it for yours.” He pushed what little hair he had off his forehead and Caillen gasped. Unable to hide his utter mortification at being less than a man, he snapped. “What?”
“Your temple. You’ve got a goose egg forming.”
“It’s nothing.” At least it had been nothing until she pointed it out. Now it hurt like hell.
“That’s not nothing? You could die!”
He took a calming breath before he said, “I’m not going to die.”
“The farmer next to us in Scotland died the day after his cow kicked him on that very same spot.”
Simon rubbed his head. It wasn’t enough that he had a nasty bump right at the edge of his eyebrow, now he had to hear about the local farmer? “You saw him get kicked?”
“No.”
“You saw him die?”
“Of course not. He died in his sleep.”
Simon closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Then how do you know it was the same spot or that the kick was even the cause of his death?”
“Oh, well that’s what his wife told the coal monger, who told our housekeeper, who told our nanny, and Ailsa and I overhead the story as we were doing our scales on the pianoforte.”
He looked at her, unable to even think of a response.
“What?” She asked as she rubbed his temple in the gentlest of touches.
Despite her obvious concern and his desperate attempt not to think of her touch as anything but a nurse caring for her patient, his filthy mind found her touch erotic, and she wasn’t the slightest bit aware of the effect she was having upon him.
Maybe that’s what made it so tempting as he watched her perfectly formed lips part as she inspected his injury.
Scoundrel that he was, he couldn’t help but notice how her efforts to pull him up in the tub had saturated the front of her gown, making it mold to her breasts and showcase her dusty rose areolas and pert nipples. He moaned and closed his eyes.
“Does that hurt?”
“You have no idea.”
“Maybe we should move you back to the bed,” she said, her voice laced with concern.
That was the last place she wanted him. “It’s fine. I need to finish my bath.”
“Simon,” she admonished.
“Caillen, it has been over eight months since I’ve had a bath.
If I die in this tub, I will die happy.” Not really, but that was the only thing he could say to get her to leave.
The last thing she needed to see was his reaction to her proximity, especially when she hovered over him with those kissable lips parted and her glorious nipples begging to be adored.
Caillen had breasts that were meant for a man’s hands and his tongue.
All he had to do was lean forward and take one into his mouth.
Bloody hell, shut up.
“I beg your pardon?”
Had he spoken out loud? He searched her face for an inkling of offense. “Not you, Caillen. My head.”
“If your head hurts that badly, then I must insist you get out of the bath now and we’ll call for the doctor.”
He closed his eyes again. “No doctor. No bed. I’m taking a bath and if you don’t step outside you will see all of me in my splendor.”
“I’m not leaving you, Simon. I will help you.”
He laughed. “Caillen, think about what you’re offering. Any man would love to have you ‘help’ him with his bath.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I bathed you every day for over a fortnight.”
“That is not helping.”
Caillen stood up, and it took everything in him not to lean forward and touch her, kiss her, caress every inch of her. With his tongue.
She turned and grabbed the linen and bar of soap. Good Lord, not that routine again. It was as if she were practicing to be a courtesan.
“Caillen,” he pleaded, because what else was a man to do?
“I will wash your hair and your back. The places that are hard for you to reach.”
“How is it that touching me, doesn’t bother you?” It bothered him immensely.
She was silent as she walked toward him, her hips swaying, in a seductive manner.
Then slowly, as if she were puzzling out her response, she removed his towel from the stool next to the tub and put the stool behind him.
“I suppose it’s because I took care of you for so long, and that I am the one touching you, not the other way around.
” She paused then added. “Despite all your teasing, I don’t really see you as the type of man to want anything untoward from me. ”
“You’re wrong. There are many untoward things I want from you, and to do to you.”
She froze behind him and then laughed before laying the linen across the back of the tub. “You’re just trying to make me leave. Lean back so I may wash your hair.”
He leaned back and savored the warm water on his back and shoulders and found it to be like standing at the gates of heaven and getting a glimpse through the cold iron bars of how invitingly divine the afterlife could be.
Yet the gate to pure bliss remained locked, forever out of reach of his wretched soul. Her hands were his glimpse of nirvana.
“I will be careful of your injury. When we’re done, I’ll have one of the maids bring some cold water so that we may put a cold cloth over your temple to soothe the swelling.”
“I’ll need a cold bath for other parts of me that are swelling,” he muttered.
“Did you injure your leg? Let me see.” She began to move toward the side of the tub, and he grabbed her wrist, desperate to stop her before she saw his obvious reaction that he could not conceal. His hand was what captured her attention, however, and she froze instantaneously.
“Astley.” She’d never used that tone before. Controlled. Commanding. Centered.
“Yes?”
“I will only ask this of you once. Release me.”
He slowly, regretfully released her wrist, but he allowed his fingers to leisurely travel down the length of her palm and fingers, caressing her in a manner she deserved to be touched.
Her breath hitched as she watched his hand release hers, and then their gazes met, and he swore there was the stirring of passion in the depths of her eyes, just begging for release from the prison bars which held her apart from everything she desired.
“I’m sorry. I was attempting to keep you from seeing how my body was reacting to your touch,” he confessed.
Her gaze traveled down his face, to his neck and chest, and it was as if her fingers were tracing a line from the tip of his nose to the trail of hair that started at his navel and ended at the base of his cock.
He watched the delicate flare of her nostrils as she realized how much he was protecting from her view.
He wanted to let her see everything, expose his desire for her in all its glory.
He did not.
“I will grab an extra linen for your modesty,” she said and turned toward the wardrobe.