24. Back to the （Naked） Present

24

Back to the (Naked) Present

Returning to now…

His chair had gone missing two nights ago. He’d woken yesterday morn to find it gone . He certainly hadn’t misplaced the blame contraption. Nor had the dog hidden it.

So where the devil had it gotten off to?

But at least its disappearance explained why, in his questionable murky-conscious state he now stood, trembling and bare, before the sunset-haired, freckled angel who persisted in haunting his deepest dreams…

Exhaustion. Pure, sheer, all-encompassing exhaustion.

Is that not what his hours had been the last forty-eight or more? Ever since waking with his trusty chair no longer beside his bed?

No wonder his garret conjured visions to nourish and succor.

Succor? Do you not mean suck the sense right out the gap between your ears?

True. To be imagining such…

Miss Prim ? Whatever brought her here? To the Blasted Tyrant’s abode?

“I could offer apologies for not greeting you properly,” his dream self said now, “but you are the one who has burst upon me uninvited.”

“Have you wed? Since last we corresponded? Or—or met? Your letters didn’t say?—”

“Why would you ask that?”

“I would—would stop looking.”

“And shred my newly soothed pride? Please do not. And no, no wooing nor wife. No desire for either.”

“Well. Good, then.”

Good?

That confirmed it. He was dreaming.

Or dying.

Aye, dying would explain everything . Instead of laboriously making his way back to his room, he had never left the kitchen after the calamitous events of that afternoon.

The kitchen, where he’d been crossing to reach the outside pail he would empty that evening, the pail just beyond the door used during daytime hours for convenience. But he had not made it over the hard floor. Of course not, else he would not be having such visions now. He had, in fact, slipped in the sludge—spilt only when the damned dog jumped up from behind and knocked heavy paws into his back. Shoving him—and the bowl balanced within his hands as precariously as Warrick himself balanced upon his feet, into the table.

The dog had jumped. Knocked him askew.

Pot went flying. Or rather, dropping. Straight to yon floor, in a smelly, slick mess of broken shards and disgusting filth that needed cleaned. Cleaned swiftly—before the imbecilic dog pranced paws through it and dragged the stench through the house.

It mattered not that this was, if not the first disaster he’d dealt with during his week-long stay, then definitely the worst disaster he’d faced. It mattered not that he washed his hands (and feet), after removing shoes, and made his stumbling, slow and laborious way to his assigned room to scrounge his last remaining set of clean clothing before tackling the disparaging rumfoozle.

Mattered not that he had washed his other clothing, all that he hadn’t donned that very morning, and had wrung them out and spread to dry—also in said kitchen. Even his great coat had been sponged of dog dander and opened outside in to dry and air.

At first, he’d tried to keep up heating fires in the two or three rooms he occupied. But had quickly discovered ’twas warmth or starvation. Food had won out.

At night, after a day chasing behind the dog—who liked to make off with anything near at Warrick’s hand not cemented down ( neckcloth, handcloth, sock, pencil, half-written letter to Shieldings and the girls, three-quarters of a letter penned to the twins, the last slice of ham upon his plate…ad nauseam…), it was all he could do to leverage himself onto the bed and sleep like the dead.

Which meant he hadn’t kept up with heating the house, not at all.

He preferred to sleep shivering, but with a belly not gnawing at him in hunger, when not back-snugged by the damned dog. The dog who sometimes used the stealth and quiet of night to bang around the house, stealing things and making a general, audible, nuisance of himself until Warrick had trained himself to ignore the odd thumps and shuffles, if he had any hope of staying asleep.

He already put himself out to an extensive degree, caring for “dear Merc” during daylight hours, didn’t need to add to his misery at night.

Already “walking” said damn dog twice daily ( thrice had been out of the question from the moment it was uttered). Not when he also comforted the whining hound during more than one night terror that had woken them both. For the barker’s sleep, when he deigned to join Warrick upon the bed, proved far less restful than Warrick’s own.

You have your angels tending you in your misery; the old, blind dog has naught but you.

Pah.

It had taken days before the sound of Warrick’s voice was enough to soothe the beast. He wouldn’t admit it, but his heart had gone out to the mongrel. Must be difficult to not have the use of sight to help make your way. Especially when a stranger invaded your midst. And your trusted owner and constant companion abandoned you to said invalid.

The first two days, both he and the dog had whined and wallowed about. But Warrick soon took pride in every little accomplishment. After a several-hour bout of rain, unsticking the back door? Puffed his beleaguered soul up as though he’d won a prize.

Managing meals for both himself and his four-footed sightless friend? More accomplishments. More difficulties, yet more pleasure each time he provided full bowls and bellies for them both. Even if it was only once or twice each day.

And while he wasn’t certain he approved of Arbuckle’s recent and deceptive methods, Warrick had to admit being away from his already scant servants—and siblings, who he may have come to rely on a bit more than was wise (to fetch and barter with, whenever others weren’t around, offering to assist with whatever he might need) had brought him an unexpected measure of both satisfaction and independence.

Despite his vocal complaining—first to Arbuckle, then to the sightless dog who seemed not affected in the least at any amount of growled complaints or curses—what mattered was that Warrick had done it.

He had survived this past sennight. In part on his doddering feet. Mostly with the use of his chair, until recent hours. He had fed himself. And the dog. Successfully emptied the blasted chamber pot—until today—and kept them both alive, if not necessarily warm.

But now that he’d slipped in his own spilt shite and obviously hit his head on the way down, likely cracked it open upon the hard landing, he was dreaming. That explained everything .

Dreaming. Dying.

Because why else would he—in his dream-induced state, no doubt—be clutching the door jambs and waving his limp prick boldly at the one lass he thought of more than any other not already family?

Already?

His head started to pound. “Tell me I’m dead, if you would. Either that or stitch back in any brain matter that still resides in the kitchen. For you look too inviting by half. And I have not the energy nor the will to fight…you…myself…imaginings…any…”

The room—and even Miss Prim, whose startled smile grew dim—sped by in a haze as his body gave out and he wilted to the floor in one fell, painful swoop.

Splat .

And that was that.

“Your chair! Where is it?” Aphrodite all but screeched, in stunned panic when the strong and powerful man before her just dropped . Wilted.

His face turned white as curd, eyelids flickered and whomp , downward he sank.

Pushing past the dog—mouth now empty of its prize—she raced forward, arms outstretched, knees hitting the ground as her dress slid over the floor in her haste to reach him. “Did you hit your head?”

Groaning, he turned and faced her, blinking, forehead rumpled above dazed eyes before they drifted shut. “P-prim?”

“Answer me!” She brushed her hands over his head. No bright blood, thank heavens.

“Blazes if I know.” His voice was weak, weaker than expected, given how he had bantered with her the last few moments.

“You don’t know if you hit your head? Or you don’t know where your chair is?”

Could a man shrug while lying down? His shoulders seemed to lift, as did his upper torso. Blazes was right! His chest. Her nails cut into her palms as she resisted the urge to pet him. To feather her fingers over not just scalp and hair, but skin .

You must get him off the floor!

“Your chair! Where is it?”

“What…I would…like to know.”

She couldn’t help it. She smoothed his brow.

With a sigh, he seemed to sink even deeper into the floor.

“What? You could not have lost it.”

“In full…agreement, but there it is.” His lashes fluttered open, that startling blue gaze catching hers before they slammed shut again. He moaned. She couldn’t tell if it was in pain, or perhaps more of his style of flattery and flirtation (only suspected because of how he seemed to rise into her touch). Either way, the sound reached toward her stomach and twisted . “Or not is. Gone. Stolen? Ask Mercury.”

Mercury? Who now snuffled about the fallen man’s legs.

His words weren’t very clear. Exhaustion? Or had he conked his noggin in truth?

“Heathen dog”—that was clear enough—“likely snuffled it one night, bartered it for an hour with a pretty bitch.”

She snickered. Found she had somehow scooted beneath his head, drawn it into her lap and now cradled the sides of his face with her palms. Her fingers testing the bristle of his chin. Her thumbs brushing over his temples and toward that black-as-sin hair. “That is not the least humorous. He’s ten or twelve by now. And—and?—”

His lashes flew open, eyes looking clearer than they had just seconds ago. “You think time would dull my desire?” For you might have gone unsaid, but they both heard it plain enough. “Because it wouldn’t.”

She swallowed the knot that had lodged in her throat. His hair was like silk. She tried to concentrate. To think.

Because Get him off the floor had turned into Save yourself and your sanity!

“Still adept with the ribald gallantry, I see.”

Swifter than she might have expected, he grasped one of her arms, coiled his fingers around her unsuspecting wrist and stroked his thumb over the delicate blue veins just beneath the surface. They both watched the motion until he lifted his head, leaned up on the bent arm that wasn’t holding hers captive, and met her gaze straight on.

“Is it flirting if ’tis the truth? If it isn’t something said to shock or entertain?”

The knot was back. Bigger than before. Making it difficult to breathe. “Lord Warrick, I?—”

“Richard.”

“R…” Her voice faltered at the intimacy he’d just invited.

The husky tone of his voice made it seem later than it was. Nearing midnight instead of merely the dusk of evening approaching.

His eyes gleamed. “Aye. My name. Rarely heard since I became the earl before I gained even nine years on my plate. I would have you use it.”

“I…” Her lashes swept downward, hiding the depths this man made her feel.

So bloody dangerous, Aphrodite.

“I… Mayhap. But not now. Not when you are on the floor and…and?—”

“Naaaaaked?” ’Twas a droll, elongated sound.

“Aye, that,” she squeaked, feeling her face flame anew. “Now, while you have me looking like a roasted tomato, let us get you upright, back on your feet and to bed.”

“I adore seasoned, roasted tomatoes. And we might have to skip over upright. Do away with further ado and seek ourselves straight to bed—given how my limbs shake even now.”

The truth of that, the gritting of his jaw, the single, fast clasp of his fingers—warm and strong—about her wrist before he released her all that kept her from chastising him.

Well, that and the sight of his large, hardened, scarred body as he shoved the inquisitive dog aside, rolled to his stomach and used his arms to drag himself toward the passageway that led toward the sole sleeping chamber on this, the ground floor.

Breath labored from the entire encounter, fingers fizzing at the remembered texture of his hair, she followed a pace or two behind—trying, unsuccessfully, to keep her gaze off his .

His behind . Blazes and blazing fires brimming in her belly. The flex of pale, smooth muscle fired through her?—

But then she gasped. Choked. Slapped a hand over her mouth to smother the sounds. But ’twas too late. For he flinched as though struck. Paused. Angled sideways until he captured her gaze and froze her in place, his eyes heated, as though she hadn’t near strangled upon seeing the mash of mottled skin and sickening scars that knotted about the base of his spine.

“You are beautiful to me. More stunning tonight than ever before. What happened to make it so?” His forehead creased, head gave a hard shake. “Naught but a vision, I know, but still so very welcome. I will see myself to bed. Do not follow.”

A loud sigh. A frown, and he rolled back to his stomach. Several more surprisingly smooth shuffled steps of his strong arms and he disappeared from view.

Leaving her more disordered than she had ever been in her life, and taking into account a couple of her encounters with titled men and their relations, that was saying something.

“I’m not seeing the log pile go down. Not for a while, now.”

Viola, Silas’s lovely companion, made this remark with definite concern. No surprise as this day had grown colder than any other and now marched decidedly toward nightfall.

Concern which made him feel lower than he wanted to admit. “We know he hasn’t frozen through. Does he not open the door several times a day, lure poor Mercury out with a haunch of meat, tied to a blasted string, and lazily wait before reeling him in like a deuced fish?”

She made a murmur of agreement, for one of them had seen just that at least once each day.

Silas swallowed the rock her worry had grown in his throat. “Fret not about the wood. Likely his belligerence keeps him warm.”

“You gruff about him often enough.” She spoke toward the window, where her face was in shadows, leaning forward as though she could melt through the glass and go order a fire built—if not to do it herself. “But I think you have a fondness for him.”

“Pah,” he disparaged, determined to ignore the nagging uncertainty that grew every day he didn’t see his most irritating patient “walk” outside, or at least lean, upon his feet, against the rock wall while dispensing his canine duty.

She abandoned her stance at the window and came over where he had been tidying his notes for the last week’s appointments with various patients—or at least pretending to, his mind certainly not on the task as it should have been.

He might be visiting them this month, especially ones he had been seeing for a spell, instead of requesting they come to him, where he had equipment and instruments they might not, but in truth… With most families occupied with each other this time of year? With the cold that had climbed into this southern part of England? Between fact and the short daylight hours, meant he had precious little to occupy him outside of her cherished companionship and troublous thoughts of the stubborn lord who, it seemed as time went on, truly might not be able to walk.

Viola smoothed the rumpled paper from his grip, the pencil from his clutch. She drew him up to standing. “You do. Else he would not be inhabiting your home.”

“My home and my garret, more’s the pity. Would rather be thinking of you and naught else.”

She gave him that siren smile, the one he never would have expected, not in a trillion years, to have directed his way, the first time they met. “Come now, I will ensure you have no thoughts of anything but me…”

Warrick awoke with his hand fisted about an erection.

Shock quivered through him like an electric charge. Blasted through his mind like a lightning bolt.

Shook his frame, clenched his fingers—and then was gone. Vanished in the stark light of late morning that blared through his window. Banishing it all. Everything…

Gone.

Both the phantasms of the delicious dream that hovered on the fringes, just out of grasp…

Out of grasp, also, was any semblance of wood. Of firmness. His fingers now squeezed about pliable flesh. Weak flesh that suddenly sickened him as he released his disappointing prick and rubbed the flat of his hand over his chest where the firm muscles and crisp hairs didn’t disappoint and disgust.

Damn. He’d imagined it. Hadn’t been stiff and stout at all.

And what was with the beat of song elevating his heart? The lift of spirits?

Why was his body in such a fine mood? Especially when his muscles ached as though he’d gone rounds blindfolded with Gentleman Jackson—and lost handily. Especially when he needed to piss with such urgency he feared soiling his sheets for the first time in nearly two years?

A guttural moan tore from his throat as he rolled, bracing himself with one hand gripped about the edge of the mattress, his other reaching for the chamber pot?—

Only to stop. As he trembled anew. Felt a tiny, unmistakable flutter in his groin.

A pounding in his garret.

Because all of his things were gathered. In neat array. All his clothing folded . The ones he’d washed and strewn with haphazard care about the kitchen to dry. Transformed into tidy stacks upon the dresser.

And then the voice of an angel—his angel—reached through the shock and dismay. Zapped along his body…

Endangered the flame of mortification. Raised the flare of red-hot desire.

“Hush now, Mercury. We have already been out twice.” The soft, melodic sounds caressed his ears. “No, you may not wake him. Lord Warrick, Richard , needs his sleep. Nay—do you not grumble and growl at me, young man.”

A bark. A playful snarl.

Light, feminine laughter that threatened to claim his ballocks right then. “All right. I concede. Old man. But one still spry and naughty…much like the man sleeping yon.”

He fell over to his back with a flop. A silent growl of his own.

Holy hell. ’Twas real? All of it?

His “dream” came rushing forth.

She’s here? His earth-bound angel was truly here? Had caressed his face? Sparred with him? Traded quips and seen him in all his brazen-ballocks and phallic-swinging glory?

“By damn, Aphrodite Primrose…”

It hadn’t been a dream? None of it? He hadn’t imagined it? The kitchen full of his body’s filth? Swooning nearly at her feet? Crawling off, arse-naked, before her avid gaze? His fingers clenched tight within the sheet.

Gad, snaffle me now.