With some surprise, she realized while all these thoughts were swirling through her mind, she’d made her way to her bedroom. The man was asleep, the sheets a tangled mess around his hips and legs as though he’d wrestled with them a bit. One long arm rested along the side of his face, crooked over his head, the other hand curled near his groin. It was an exceedingly masculine pose, and if she weren’t so certain he was beyond reasoning, she’d think he’d set himself up like that on purpose, just to set her womanly instincts on edge. She’d worked so hard not to be attracted to men, and in the space of a single day, she was discovering all her efforts had been for naught. She could become unraveled by the sight of a lovely chest covered lightly in hair that arrowed down and disappeared beneath the coverings where something even more masculine resided.
With a groan and a quick flick of her wrists, she snapped the sheets back over him. She considered waking him for a bit of broth, but he appeared to be in a deep sleep, and his body probably—in order to properly heal—needed that more than what she was going to offer. Best just to leave him be. Still she pulled the sheet up to his neck in order to hide that distracting chest and brushed her fingers lightly over his jaw. His stubble was thicker, darker. If he went much longer without using a razor, he’d have a beard like Mick. It would be a shame to hide that strong, chiseled chin with an abundance of facial hair.
And there she was, once again, spending too much time pondering him, when she needed to get a bit of sleep herself. He took up most of her bed, not that she’d entertain the notion of lying beside him. He caused her womanly parts to riot enough as it was. If their proximity to him were any closer, they’d keep her awake with a longing she’d managed to keep in hibernation for a good portion of her life. However now that it had been disturbed, it seemed starving for sustenance. A good rest should send it back into submission.
She considered the sofa in her front room, but settled for the large plush chair beside the fire in this chamber, so she’d be certain to hear him if he called out in distress. Besides, she’d fallen asleep there many a night while reading. Over the years, it had begun to retain her shape, and when she sank into it and it molded around her, it was like coming home. In no time at all she was lost to slumber.
Awakening with a start from a deep sleep, she stared groggily at the man flailing about in her bed, kicking at the sheets as though they were irons dragging him down. Disoriented, she couldn’t quite figure out what he was doing there, why she would have a man so near—
Then everything came rushing back. Shooting out of the chair, she glanced toward the window. Darkness had fallen. She’d slept the day away, obviously more tired than she’d realized. With the speed of a racehorse, she arrived at the bed, focusing on the stranger’s face rather than the fact he’d successfully rid himself of any covering, leaving everything of importance exposed. She placed her palms on either side of his face, surprised by the heat that greeted her, a heat that could easily singe a babe’s bum. “Shh, pet. It’s all right. Calm down now.”
He opened his eyes; there was a fever to them, a wildness, a desperation in them. “Have to find her.”
She didn’t like the kick to her gut, the phantom pain, she felt with the knowledge a lady, clearly one extremely important to him, resided in his life, that she might have unwittingly acquired the answer to her question regarding why he’d been in a dangerous area of London at an even more perilous time of night. “You will find her, but first you must heal, regain your strength.”
“Step . . . aside.” He tried to shove her away, made a move to roll out of the bed, but she stood her ground, clamping her hands over his shoulders, digging her fingers into firm muscle, striving to avoid causing the wound in his shoulder to bleed again.
“You’re no good to her dead, and you will be if you don’t mend.”
He continued to struggle against her hold, endeavoring fruitlessly to push her away, but getting into tussles with four brothers had taught her how to cling, how to leverage her weight to put herself at an advantage. Mustering all her strength, she gave him a hard shake. “Thorne!”
She’d not addressed him by his name before. It somehow seemed intimate, made him more to her than he was. “Don’t fight me or I’ll be done with you.” Her tone, the one she used when ousting drunkards from her establishment, was designed to break through the thick fog of confusion that sometimes addled men’s brains when they were viewing the world through a haze of alcohol.
He went still, so still, his breathing labored, his eyes the shade of Guinness boring into her. For a heartbeat, he seemed suddenly aware, his expression intense. “Don’t let me die.”
Then his eyes closed and he sank back into the softness of the mattress, once again lost to the world, lost to her. She brushed the hair back from his fevered brow. “You won’t die, pet. Not if I have a say in it.”
Since he was in her bed, she had a good deal to say about it. Reaching down, she brought the sheet back over him. He reacted not at all, lost in a deep sleep, possibly unconscious. She rather hoped for the latter as it would make tending to him easier, would prevent him from experiencing what was bound to be more than a bit of discomfort.
She began by redressing his wounds, adding a tart-smelling salve Graves had given her to ward off infection. The areas were red, but she couldn’t see any signs of putrification. One of her brothers had nearly died from a wound becoming poisoned, so she knew what to look for. She also knew what had to be done to clean it out. She preferred to avoid that unpleasant task, assumed her patient would welcome not having the procedure visited upon him.
Her patient. What a fool she’d been to send the nurse away. Not that she regretted it, not really. She enjoyed tending to this man’s needs, wiping a cool cloth over his brow once she was finished tending to each of his wounds. He was fevered, that couldn’t be denied, but he didn’t seem delirious or out of his mind. She’d take what little victories she could.
She could hear some of the revelry from belowstairs. Strange how it didn’t call to her, how she was able to ignore it. She trusted Jolly Roger to take care of it, but it was more than that. For the first time in her life, something seemed more important than pouring ale. Even without conversation, he was more interesting than the chaps who ambled up to her bar and stammered a few words of greeting. Perhaps it was because he was a mystery. A well-heeled gent in this part of London that time of night, concerned with her reputation—
“Who are you?”
The question asked in a low, raspy voice mirrored the one she’d been asking herself about him. Slowly she lifted her gaze from his neck, where she’d been wiping away the dew, to his eyes. She’d told him before, but perhaps he’d been in too much pain to pay attention or to remember. “Gillie.”
His head moved slightly from side to side as though the answer were inadequate or made no sense. “More. Tell me more about you.”
No gent had ever cared to learn more about her. Perhaps he just needed a distraction from his discomfort or some noise to tether him to this world. “Broth first.”
With a strength to his fingers she’d not expected, he wrapped them around her wrist, stilling her attempt to leave the bed. “Won’t be able to keep it down.”
“You should at least try.”
Again, that slight movement of his head. “Talk to me.”
She gave a nod, and he released his hold on her wrist, trusting her not to go back on her word, an action that caused something inside of her to swell with longing, the way it had when she’d been a small girl and seen a doll, dressed more finely than she, in a shop window at Christmas. Every day she’d returned to the shop to see it, had wept the day she discovered it no longer there. As though she would weep to find him no longer in her bed. She dipped the cloth into the bowl, wrung it out, and patted the dampness from his neck where it flowed into his chest. “I own the tavern downstairs.”
“Name?”
“The Mermaid and Unicorn.”
A corner of that be
autiful mouth of his hitched up. If he weren’t so weak, she suspected he’d have given her a blinding smile. “You threw the mermaid at me.”
Her own lips twitched. “I’ve always favored the unicorn a tad more.”
“Why?”
She shrugged, embarrassed to have shared that, not wanting to share more, but how could she not if it would keep him distracted from his pain? “It always seemed more mythical, yet also more believable. I couldn’t quite bring myself to accept a woman could be half a fish, but it seemed plausible that at one time, somewhere in the world, a horse might have a horn. Don’t you think?”
He merely stared at her, no doubt because she had spouted such utter nonsense. “I know it seems silly—” she began.
“Not silly. Endearing.”
“You will have me blushing, if you’re not careful with your flattery. So, there, now you know everything about me.”
“I doubt that.”
She dipped the cloth in the bowl, squeezed out the excess water, and gently dragged the linen just below his collarbone from shoulder to shoulder, carefully avoiding the wound. “What were you doing out in the streets at such an ungodly hour of night, alone, a target for footpads?”
He averted his gaze, turning his head toward the fire. The golden light danced over his features, in a macabre display of shifting shadows he almost seemed to welcome hiding within. “Chasing a dream.”
Disappointment, sorrow, and the beginnings of defeat wove their way through his quietly spoken words. What sort of a dream would a man search for within these wretched environs? She nearly laughed aloud at the absurdity of her question. Her own dreams were anchored here, although there were times of late when she found herself yearning for more. She wouldn’t pester him with probing inquiries, as she doubted he would answer anyway, but she couldn’t allow him to give up. “Instead you found a bit of a nightmare, didn’t you?”
He released a solitary huff of breath that might have served as a laugh if he had more strength in him. She longed to see him well and robust, imagined how bold and daring he might appear under other circumstances. “A bit.”
Turning his head back in her direction, he seemed to be struggling to keep his eyes open. “They knew you, called you by name.”
“Did they now? I thought as much, that they might know me, since they ran off with little more than a shout chasing after them. I don’t suppose you got a good look at them.”
The shake of his head was barely noticeable. Now was not the time for an inquisition. But she’d keep an eye out, take notice if someone suddenly appeared flush from fencing off some items stolen from a gent. “You should try to get some sleep.”
“Might not awaken.”
“You’ve a fever, but I’ve checked your wounds. They’re not festering. Still your body has to fight, and rest will serve it well.”
“Keep talking.”
“About what?”
“You.”
It was wrong to lose patience with a man who was suffering. “I’ve told you everything there is to say about me. I’m not very interesting.”
“Tell me about the mermaid . . . and unicorn.”
She didn’t think he was asking about her tavern but rather why she took a fancy to those creatures, why she’d chosen them. Once more she wrung out the cloth. Hoping to cool him, she set it across his brow. After dampening another piece of linen, she wiped it across his chest, careful to avoid his brown nipples, and thus something that seemed far too intimate. Then she dragged it along his sternum where more sweat gathered. “They can never be together. I have a soft spot for things that can never be together . . . I think because of my family. We’re the result of people who couldn’t be together.” Except for her brother Mick. They’d recently learned his story was a bit more complicated, but it wasn’t one she’d share with this stranger—even if he were no longer a stranger. It was Mick’s story to tell, not hers. “We’re all by-blows, you see.”
His eyes nearly shut, he didn’t react. Perhaps her voice was lulling him into slumber or he was lost to the fever, beyond comprehending what she was saying. That thought emboldened her a bit. She wasn’t much for talking, but if the noise would keep him beyond death’s reach and it wasn’t really making much sense, then what did it matter what she said? “The mermaid lives in the sea. The unicorn can’t go there, now can he? The mermaid can come to land, but not for very long. So they can have a friendship, but nothing more than that. Silly name for a tavern where mostly blokes visit. I should have named it the Black Boar or something that would make men feel strong when drinking there. But I wanted something a bit softer. There wasn’t a lot of softness in my life when I was growing up. Not a lot now, either, really, but now it’s by choice. I work hard because I want to work hard. And now I’m rambling like a bloody idiot.”
His lips twitched, which caused a strange tightness in her chest. He was listening. Made her wish she’d kept her tongue still, although if she were honest with herself, she also liked that, in spite of his pain, discomfort, and fever, he was paying attention to her words. She wished only that she had more interesting stories to share with him.
After a few moments of silence, he mumbled, “More.”
More. He might be near death’s door, but she thought it unlikely he’d step over the threshold. There was a command in his tone. He was obviously accustomed to giving orders, probably didn’t take kindly to her bossing him about, wouldn’t heed Death’s orders either. But then few people had a choice in the matter. If her voice would keep him from answering the knock, so be it.
“I said my life was hard, but it wasn’t awful. When I was very little, I’d help my mum make matchboxes. My tiny fingers were suited to the task. We should have known then I’d be tall, because they were so long. But the chore required tedious hours of sitting, and I grew bored rather quickly. I wanted to follow my brothers on their adventures. They were always off doing one thing or another, finding the odd job here and there, but I reasoned whatever they were doing had to be more fun than my labors. When I was eight, I began working as a step-girl.” Although based on the clothing she wore at the time—trousers, shirt, jacket, and cap—they’d all thought they were hiring a boy.
He gave no reaction except for the fluttering of his eyelashes, as though the lids were too heavy to lift. She replaced the linen on his forehead, placed another damp one at his throat, then went about outlining each of his ribs with a cool cloth. “You strike me as the sort who doesn’t pay any attention to how his house is kept tidy. It takes more than sweeping to keep the outside steps clean. Takes scrubbing to get it done. I’d start at one end of the street, yelling, ‘Steps cleaned! Three-pence! Three-pence to clean your steps.’” She released a caustic laugh. “Three-pence per house, not per step. But I liked the independence of it. I could go off for a wee sleep when I got tired. Sometimes if the cook was kind, I’d get a jolly good meal or maybe a bit of pastry or a biscuit. I seldom went home hungry, which left my mum with more to feed the boys. Caw, you’d think they were starving every time they sat at the table.” She dipped the cloth into the bowl, lifted it out, began to wring it and, for the first time in ages, truly noticed her hands. Marred with tiny scars, callused. “I’ll never be mistaken for being a lady,” she muttered.
Her patient was breathing a little more heavily. “Do you want some laudanum, pet?”
“Words.” It came out soft, strained as though he’d pushed it out from the depths of his soul.
She searched her memory, trying to find something of interest, latched onto it and laughed. “Ah. There was this one time, I was cleaning the front stoop and the toff’s son shows up on his horse, rides it right up the steps, past me, and into the house. And wouldn’t you know it? The horse left me a damned present, right there, before he went over the threshold. Which made it my business to clean up. They didn’t give me any more coins. Only my three-pence. Never took a fancy to horses after that. Well, except for the mythical kind, of course.”
“Ta
ke you . . . riding. Change your mind . . . about them.”
Her heart slammed against her ribs so hard she was fairly certain one cracked. He was delirious with fever, of course. He didn’t mean the words. Men spouted all sorts of nonsense when they were in pain, fevered. When he was recovered, he’d look at her and laugh to think he’d ever suggested the two of them going together on an outing. Ridiculous. Not unless hell had frozen over. She wanted to make light of it, to tease him, but a small corner of her soul, a traitorous part, longed for him to be coherent, to have uttered the words with true purpose, wanted to find herself in his company when he was healed and well again.
What a silly chit she was to wish for things that could never be. Even though she knew little about him, she recognized they were worlds apart, that she had chosen an occupation and a life no man would welcome in a mate.
“Where’s Gillie?” Aiden Trewlove asked as he drew back a chair and dropped into it, joining his brother Beast at a corner table in the tavern. It was an odd thing to walk into the Mermaid and Unicorn and not see his sister standing behind the bar, nodding at him, and turning around to pour him a drink.
“Jolly Roger says she told him she wouldn’t be coming in today or tonight.”
“What? She’s not working at all?”
Beast shrugged a brawny shoulder that always came in handy when a brawl was needed. He was also a man of few words, which made him the ideal drinking partner for Aiden, who always preferred listening to his own voice.
“Gillie always works,” he reminded his brother.
“Not today.”
“Why?”
“She didn’t say. Gave no reasons apparently.”
“Is she in her rooms?”
“Supposedly.”
“You didn’t go check on her?” Shoving back his chair, he started to rise.
“She might not want checking on.”
Aiden froze, glanced back at his brother. “Why ever not?”