“It is a nice one,” Maggie solemnly agreed.
Ashley covered her mouth to muffle her chuckle. And yes, it was. She cleared her throat as she sat on the edge of the bed behind him. “This is the only way I can treat the bruises on your back.” With a damp cloth she wiped away the sheen of perspiration coating his skin, and gently smoothed on the ointment.
“Right,” he said, drawing out the word. “You already patted my bum. The night we met.”
Ashley dropped the tin. She couldn’t look at Maggie or Sally, though from the corner of her eye saw they were staring at her, mouths agape. Hazy memories stirred, of being carried over his shoulder, one arm hanging down, her hand—acting completely on its own volition—intrigued by the soft wool of his trousers and the firm muscles of his buttocks as he walked. She cleared her throat. “How ungallant of you to mention something I may or may not have done while under the influence of an intoxicating substance.”
His face half buried in the pillow, he chuckled, a delicious rough rumble of sound that went right through her.
Picking up the tin, she noticed how the pillowcase was dirty from the dried mud in his hair, and the difference in color of the sheet where he’d been laying. She patted his shoulder. “You can roll back now.” While he did, with a muffled moan and his eyes still closed, she turned to Sally. “Please fetch clean linens. These are damp.”
He squinted at her with one eye. “Haven’t wet the bed since I was in leading strings.”
She pulled the blankets up and brushed a lank lock of hair from his sweaty forehead, and showed him her glistening fingertips. “Perspiration.”
Wearing his banyan, David settled in a chair by the window, drinking a cup of willow bark tea with whiskey and was about to eat the second soft-boiled egg, when Sally returned.
She shut the door and leaned against it as though blocking barbarians from without, clutching bed linens to her chest, her face pale. “It’s Gretchen’s day to dust, miss.” She glanced over her shoulder, as though she could see through the door at the upstairs maid marching their way. “She’s nearly done with Mrs. Endicott’s chamber.”
Ashley glanced from Ravencroft sitting by the window, to her bed with its heavy velvet bed curtains. He stared back at her, shrugged, and started to rise.
“It’s the third week of the month, so she also beats the curtains and drapes.”
Maggie gasped. “We can’t let her in!”
“Yes, we can. We must if we are to avoid raising suspicions. It’s already odd that you two are fetching the waterandthe coal instead of letting the footmen bring it in.” Ashley grabbed her blanket and pillow from the sofa and waved David over. “She doesn’t dust in the dressing room, so you’ll have to hide in here until she’s done.”
She quickly got him settled as comfortably as possible under the circumstances, then raced with Maggie and Sally to remove all traces of an injured person’s presence from her room, hiding many of her supplies in the dressing room.
By the time Gretchen scratched at the door a few minutes later, Ashley was seated at her writing desk trying to pen a thank you note to Lady Mansfield for the lyre, while Maggie and Sally started changing the bed linens.
* * *
David tried to get comfortable, seated on the floor, partially hidden by Ashley’s gowns hanging from hooks. He didn’t think he’d ever seen a woman’s dress from this angle before. He finished off the whiskey-laced tea in the cup he’d brought in with him. This was all part of a feverish dream, right? Or an alcohol-induced hallucination. But the bruises on his back and the goose egg on his skull that made it uncomfortable to lean against the wall argued otherwise.
His stomach rumbled. He wished he’d had a chance to eat the egg. Or dared eat the apple that was here somewhere, among the supplies they’d cleared off the bedside table. The maids were chatting as they worked, but he didn’t want to risk drawing attention by making crunching sounds.
There should be some cheese in here, and a roll that might not be stale. Somewhere. Without thought, he reached his right arm out to find it in the semi-darkness of the dressing room, and bumped his injured, infected forearm on a leg of the clothes drying rack. He clenched his fist to stifle an oath as pain jolted through his entire body, reverberating with his suddenly accelerated heart rate. He let his head fall back against the wall, breathing hard, counting to one hundred, alternating numbers in Greek and Latin.
* * *
Gretchen flung the window open wide and beat the heavy velvet window curtains. Sally came around to the side of the bed nearest Ashley as the maid continued to instruct Maggie in the proper way to make a bed, when Ashley heard the distinctive sound of glass on wood.
They’d forgotten to hide the whiskey bottle.
Without missing a beat in her instructions, Sally used one foot to slide the bottle further around the bedpost, tucking it between the bed and the wall.
By the time Gretchen left, Ashley was a bundle of nerves, her note to Lady Mansfield illegible. She crumpled it into a ball and tossed it in the fireplace on her way to the dressing room and flung open the door.
His right arm held cradled to his chest with his left, Ravencroft had slid sideways until his head rested on the floor, his legs still folded, eyes closed.
“That can’t be comfortable,” Ashley murmured. She crouched beside him and gently shook his shoulder. “My lord?”
He gave a slight moan.
“David?” She gently patted his uninjured cheek, two days of razor stubble prickling her palm. “Wake up. You need to get back in bed.” She shook him a little more firmly, and he finally roused enough to climb to his feet. He leaned on her, one arm slung over her shoulder, as they walked to the bed. She instinctively wrapped her arm around his waist, wincing in empathy as she felt him shiver.
He looked vaguely confused as to what he should do once they stood beside the bed, his cheeks flushed, hazel eyes bright with fever. When he made no move to untie the belt on his banyan, Ashley untied it and brazenly reached up to slip the silk garment from his shoulders. He shifted his grip on her shoulders, turning so she could undress him. As she tossed the banyan toward the foot of the bed, he wrapped his arms around her in a full embrace, resting his chin on her shoulder, leaning some of his weight against her, and let out a contented sigh.
