She suppressed a shiver. It seemed they were at a stalemate, and her wrists and hands ached, as did her wound. Her body was in need of respite. “I require a bath. Do you allow your prisoners ablutions, or am I to be tied to this bed like an animal until you cast me into prison?”
He sniffed the air. “I will allow it on account of the fact that you stink, madam.”
Her cheeks went hot, for her nose told her she did. Lord knew how many days she had been unconscious, sick with infection, and sweating. Her skin itched.
She would have told him to go to hell. Indeed, it was on her tongue, ready, but he spun on his heel and stalked from the chamber before she could manage a coherent sentence.
“English bastard,” she muttered after him.
Her fingers felt as if they had been pricked with a thousand needles. Her wrists ached. And she was being held captive by the Duke of Carlisle. Fine turn of events this was.
Fine turn ofevents this was.
His captive was on her way to recovery, but she was as hardheaded and strong-willed as ever. He had not known, when he had left her here at his lesser Oxfordshire estate, Willoughby, if she would live.
But live she had.
And now he would need to bathe her, for he did not trust the woman who professed to be Jane Palliser—the woman who was decidedlynotJane Palliser—would not attempt to either slit his throat or escape the moment he loosened her bonds. How difficult it was even for Leo, who had seen untold evil in his years leading the Special League, to believe a small, beautiful woman like her could foster such an endless capacity for treachery. Her bravery knew no bounds. So too her foolishness.
The woman did not know when she was outgunned. Daring, fearless, and determined, she was a dangerous sort of female indeed. She was the kind of foe he could almost admire. Would have admired, except for her attempt to abduct his innocent nephew and her allegiance to the bloodthirsty Fenian menace.
Leo’s jaw clenched as he stalked down the main hall. One of many in the vast entail, the house was staffed simply with a cook, butler, and a scant handful of maids and footmen. The structure was smaller and far less grand than he was accustomed to, yet had served its purpose well in this instance.
In the aftermath of rescuing his nephew from Miss Palliser’s duplicitous clutches, he had flatly turned down Clay’s suggestion he return to Harlton Hall whilst the Fenian virago recuperated. After the harrowing experience Edward had just faced, Leo had no wish to subject him to further fear.
He had taken his unconscious prisoner past the rail station to this house, knowing he could at least leave her here without causing any more harm to Clay and his growing little family. He and Ara had only just wed, for Christ’s sake, and while Leo harbored no love for the grim institution of marriage, he was nevertheless glad to see his brother settled and happy, reunited with the woman he had always loved and the son they’d had together. He had earned his reputation for being cold and ruthless, but Leo loved his true family, and he would lay down his life for them.
His duties in London had forced him back to town, and he had left his prisoner in the care of the maid he felt he could trust most, and the region’s best physician. To the Home Office, he had reported his captive officially dead for reasons all his own.
He found the servant, Annie, idly flirting with a footman. They broke apart when they saw Leo, but he understood all too well what they had been about. It was as old as the seas.
“Your Grace.” Annie flushed, stepping away, righting her skirts, and dipping into an atrocious curtsy. She had been casting him longing eyes ever since his arrival with a wounded woman in tow, and he knew if he wished it, he could avail himself of her undeniable charms. Annie was a golden-haired beauty. Samuel, in comparison, was a large-footed oaf with a receding hairline.
Before his arrival here today, part of Leo had been tempted to accept her unspoken offer. In the days following his prisoner’s wounding, she had taken ill with fever and had been insensate for days. The physician had not been certain if she would survive the infection that had set in. He had spent many sleepless nights in London communicating with the Home Office and his agents, attempting to glean more information to assist him with his interrogations if his prisoner awoke.
Through it all, he had been plagued by an irritating abundance of suppressed lust which could only be quenched by sinking inside a warm, wet cunny and losing himself. But the trouble was, Annie was not the woman he wanted, and the woman he did want was not only his enemy, but on her sickbed, put there by him. Altogether an untenable situation.
Moreover, he was beginning to suspect from what he had viewed thus far—namely Miss Palliser in a bed which had not been stripped for days, wearing nothing but a chemise stained by her own perspiration—that Annie had not taken care of his prisoner at all as he had asked.
The sensitive nature of his missions meant none of his domestics were aware of his true position. He had fed his staff a story about Miss Palliser being a distant relative who was not only mad, but a danger to herself and others, and had left two of his own men behind to aid in guarding her. His sense of honor had required him to see a female tended to his prisoner while she was with fever. But he had seen at once Annie had not been the right choice for the task.
“The lady requires a bath,” he said without preamble. “She is lying in her own filth as we speak, Annie. Tell me why her bedding has not been freshened and why she is wearing the same chemise I left her in a week ago.”
Annie blinked, straightening her skirts. “She would not cooperate, Your Grace. As you said she was a danger who must be kept locked in her chamber at all times until you returned, I did not deem it wise to spend too much time in her presence.”
Damn it to hell.
Or any time in her presence, which seemed far more apt. He despised Miss Palliser and her actions, along with everything she stood for, but that did not mean the sight—and smell, for that matter—of her had not affected him. He had noted it from the moment he had first gone to her chamber to find her sleeping the deep, calm slumber of a babe. And he had instantly sought to restrain her. Annie’s message about their patient’s recovery had reached him two days late since he had been hosting one of his infamous fêtes.
It had both begun and ended with a woman attempting to suck his cock. Different women. Both rebuffed. He had neither the time nor the inclination, though he had been tempted to accept not only both offers, but to drown himself in all the spirits and opium in Blayton House. He had not been this conflicted, this driven to the edge of the darkness dwelling within him, in some time, and he did not like it.
“The bath,” he snapped. “See that it is readied. She will take her ablutions in my bathroom.”
His order was partially self-serving. He had no wish for the domestics to witness the manner in which he had tied Miss Palliser to the bed. Also, he had placed her in a chamber ordinarily reserved for a governess. As such, it contained no private bath, unlike the ducal apartments, which had been renovated from their original, Jacobean splendor—or lack thereof—by his father the duke before him.
“Your chamber, sir?” Annie asked, frowning her disapproval.
He stared her down. She was not paid to disapprove. Nor was it her right, nor her place, especially given the state in which he had discovered Miss Palliser. “Yes, precisely as I said.”
