Awakening His Duchess (32 page)

Beau didn’t wait for her responses and eventually his words
began to blur. Every now and then he said something that made her mind startle.
Such as, he told her she wouldn’t dream, but she rather liked the idea of her
rest not being disturbed and she accepted his words. Her eyelids grew heavy.
And he told her she was sleepy. She agreed, but couldn’t find the words to say
so. Beau reached out his hand and she put hers in his before she realized.

He guided her across the floor through the archway to his
room. A tiny burst of panic stilled her steps, but Beau was talking again,
whispering near her ear, lulling her back to a somnambulant state. “Come, you
are very nearly asleep.”

Yvette woke with a gasp in the predawn. The blackness of night
had shifted to gray. She was in Beau’s bed on her side with his arm tossed over
her and his chest pressed against her back. For a second she didn’t want to
disturb the warm cocoon, but the position was reminiscent of the last time they
had been in bed together. When he wouldn’t let her touch him.

“Go back to sleep,” murmured Beau. His breath stirred her
hair. “It’s still early.”

She shifted away, the events of yesterday rushing back to
her. “They didn’t come?”

Beau groaned.

“The Fowlers didn’t summon me?” Had they realized Thomas was
dying and there wasn’t anything more she could do? She shifted up against the
headboard and realized she was still wearing her dressing gown over her
nightgown, but Beau’s naked shoulder was above the covers.

“No.” Beau opened his eyes and blinked sleepily at her.

“You did not forbid the servants to disturb us?”

Beau shifted to an elbow and looked up at her. He said
patiently as if talking to a small child, “I told Digby to make certain we were
woken and to make the night porter aware I wanted to know immediately if any
news arrived.”

She could scarcely tear her gaze away from the broad chest
he’d exposed. Now was not the time, she chastised herself. It was never the
time, but her mouth watered anyway as if he were her own special kind of tart.

“One of the footmen is to take breakfast to them at first
light and report back.”

“W-What?” His words jerked her back from the idea of
pressing her lips to his torso. Why was she even having such a thought?

“I said—”

“I heard what you said.” She cut him off. “Why am I in your
room?”

Beau snorted then fell onto his back. “I didn’t want you to
be alone.”

She’d been alone for three years. Had he brought her to his bed
so when she woke he could have use of her body again? Her body heated, but she
fought the idea of it. “
Non
, you wish not to be alone.”

“Fine. I didn’t want to be alone.” He glanced toward the
clock on the mantel. “We only have an hour before we have news, one way or
another. Go back to sleep.” He pulled the covers over his chest and rolled away
from her.

A cold chill ran down her spine. How was it she didn’t
remember getting into bed or falling asleep? And it wasn’t like her to wake
with desire stirring her blood. “What did you do, drug me?”

He sighed. “You are the one with knowledge of the medicinal
herbs. I talked you to sleep.”

“One cannot talk a person to sleep.” She should get out of
bed and go to her own room, but she was strangely reluctant to leave the warmth
of Beau’s bed.

“Bokor trick.”

Alarm prickled through her. She clenched the covers and
pulled them to her chin. What else could he talk her into? Had he planted some
thought about her wanting to have congress?

“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t be able to talk you into anything
you don’t want to do,” he said in a voice dangerously burred with sleep.

That was the trouble. She was of two minds about some
things. She wanted and she didn’t want. “I do not like this. How do you know
this vodou magic?”

Beau rolled to his back again. The bed swayed and she felt
it low in her stomach as one might feel the tickle of a soaring swing. “Because
the bokor did it to calm me after he drugged me in the mornings.”

She made a sound of protest.

Beau continued gently, “What he didn’t know was that I
wasn’t always keeping the poison down or would pour it out when he wasn’t
looking. I just listened to what he said and how he said it. Truly it doesn’t
work if you don’t want it to.”

“How could I know if I wanted it to work when I did not know
what you were doing?” She felt unsettled, on the verge of anger or passion.
“You did not like vodou tricks played on you.”

“I didn’t mind once I figured out how to do it for myself—on
myself. It isn’t different from reading to Etienne so he’ll fall asleep.” Beau
rolled to his stomach and moved up on his elbows to look at her in the gray
darkness. “Just a trick to steer your thoughts away from worries.”

He grabbed her around the waist and slid her down on the
bed. “Now be quiet and go back to sleep.”

Her neck tightened and her pulse raced while waiting for his
hand to move, cover her breast or slide over her hip. His arm remained across
her midsection, and he tucked his head into her shoulder. Within seconds his
breathing had slowed and his arm across her relaxed until it was dead weight.
He wasn’t going to seduce her?

Something between disappointment and relief flowed through
her, draining the tension from her. He’d said
nothing more
, and apparently he’d meant it. She could have pushed
his arm off her but found herself oddly reluctant to move.

A part of her was irritated he was more interested in sleep
than her, yet another part of her was relieved he wasn’t pressing for relations
with her while her thoughts were swirling with concern for the boy she hadn’t
expected to make it through the night.

A soft tap at the door to the suite had her stiffening in
alarm. This was the news then. She started to slide out from under the covers,
but the door snicked open and Digby entered, a candle in his hand. He turned
and closed the door softly. No urgency then.

She sighed. Likely it was over.

Digby moved across the sitting room and the light faded a
little. He must be looking in her room. Uneasy about facing the bad news Beau’s
man was likely bringing, Yvette started to swing her legs to the side and lift
Beau’s arm. Then Digby moved into the archway to Beau’s room.

“My lady,” he whispered, while averting his eyes.

“They need me?” she said resignedly.

“Well, no. You needn’t get out of—get up.” Digby’s face scrunched.
“They just had a question. Master John is waiting below stairs for your
answer.”

She lifted her head off the pillow.

“He said Master Thomas has been awake an hour now and he
says he is powerful thirsty.”

“He’s awake?” echoed Yvette. Awake and talking? A numbing
relief flowed through her and left her weightless. Beau’s arm suddenly felt
like an anchor she needed to stay on the bed. She curled her hands around his
arm. She told herself it was to lift his arm off her.

“They want to know if they might give him a bit of well
water, or if they should give him aught else,” stage whispered Digby.

“Of course they can give him water.”

“Very good—”

“But tell them just a half-cup at a time.” She searched what
she knew to try and figure out if thirst was a bad sign, but she couldn’t come
up with a reason why it would be. Perhaps he would mend. “If he tolerates that
well, they might offer a bit of broth or gruel. I will be along soon.”

She slid more to the edge of the bed, but Beau’s arm
tightened around her. Not entirely certain he was awake, she hesitated.

“Yes, ma’am. I will relay your message. Sorry to disturb
you.” Digby backed into the archway then swiveled toward the sitting room.
“Won’t disturb you again unless you ring,” he mumbled with his back to her.

“I want to know if there is any change for the worse,” she
said, giving up trying to get free of Beau while Digby was in the room. She
didn’t want to engage in a struggle in front of an already blushing valet.
“Thank you.”

Digby left the room on tiptoe.

Yvette put her head back down on the pillow and stared up at
the canopy.

“Can you sleep now?” mumbled Beau.

“You heard?” she asked.

He didn’t answer except to burrow closer. “Y’smell better
’an Mazi.”

“You slept with Mazi?” she screeched.

Beau lifted his head and blinked sleepy eyes at her.
“Chained together.” He rolled away from her onto his back again.

“I’m sorry.” She shouldn’t have spoken so loudly as to jolt
him out of his doze.

“He didn’t smell
bad.
” Beau’s voice held an amused
lilt. “You just smell better. We shared a hut. What exactly are you thinking
happened?”

Slave huts were small, the interiors no bigger than the
surface of this bed. Beau would have been lucky to share the shelter with only
one other. “Why was Mazi chained?”

“He didn’t take to being
owned
any better than I did.
Actually it was lucky because he originally was sold into slavery in South
Carolina. He knew enough English to understand me when everyone else thought I
was muttering gibberish or that demons possessed me.”

Yvette stiffened. Did she really want to know the horror
Beau had gone through? She could guess easily enough. Women were generally kept
away from the slaves and the punishments, but she’d seen enough of the
aftermath to know. The scars on Beau’s back would indicate his treatment had
not been easy. She took the coward’s way out. “I believe I could sleep now.”

“Good.” Beau shifted to his side facing away from her.

Soon his breathing seemed heavier while she stared into the
room watching the darkness shift to a lighter gray then to a pinky golden glow
of dawn’s first light. In Saint-Domingue the sun had risen and fallen with a
sudden erasure of darkness or a plunge into night. Here in England the days and
nights lingered and the change from one day’s season was gentler and more
prolonged.

She’d loved Saint-Domingue as a child. The weather was
balmy, the sun shined all the time, flowers bloomed year round, but she hadn’t
seen the underbelly of the paradise. She wished she could forget it now.

When Beau had been talking to the Fowler children, it was
clear he appreciated the good things to be found in Saint-Domingue even though
he knew the horror too. Beau’s willingness to speak of the lush greenery, warm
sun, and the sweet mushiness of bananas surprised her. She avoided talking
about her birthplace.

But then he had been full of surprises yesterday. She turned
on her side, looking at the broad expanse of Beau’s back. He hadn’t been soft
as a boy. He’d been toned and fit as an adventurous young man would be, but now
his scarred skin stretched over well-developed muscles. Muscles that were hard
and bunched from hours of hard work. Lifting, carrying, swinging a machete for
hours on end had changed his body, strengthened him, made him into a harsher
man than he likely would have been.

She touched one of the red welts, following its path across
his shoulders to where it trailed off to a faint discoloration of the skin. His
skin was warm, and she traced the next scar with two fingers, feeling where it
thickened and bisected another. More than one whipping then. A less strong man
might have succumbed to these injuries. Perhaps that had been her father’s
intention if he’d been the one to have Beau poisoned.

She flattened her palm against Beau’s ribs. His chest
expanded with his breath and there was something comforting in the heat of his
skin, his care of her. It was as if once he made his mind up to claim her as
his wife, he’d only taken a few days to shift his thinking around to being her
protector. Or had he really changed his mind about her? Her trust was not so
easily won these days.

Sliding her hand down, she let her fingers glide over his
side to the barrier of his smalls. Her thumb found a ridge that dipped under
the material. She eased the edge down trying to see how far the welt went. They
must have been deep to cause so much damage. The slashes had healed long ago
and the truth was she could have done little to help the skin and muscle knit.
Perhaps stitch together the worst of the wounds or bind them tightly to
minimize the bleeding.

If he had thought she’d knowingly forced him to this cruel
punishment, was it any wonder he’d been harsh with her? Not wanted her to touch
him. Had shown her no tenderness, not kissed her nor been willing to hold her.

Yet these scars were only an external sign of what he went
through. There were undoubted deeper wounds to his spirit.

Wounds she could possibly help to heal. Her heart hammered
as the back of her throat grew dry. If Thomas could mend, perhaps she could
help Beau heal.

“Don’t.”

She yanked her hand back, startled by his low growl. Did he
still intend to make any encounters between them just about physical
gratification? But last night he’d held her. Through most of the night he’d curled
around her. “Do you still forbid me to touch you?”

He made a low sound of impatience.

She curled her fingers. Her heart thudded painfully against
her ribs. She tried to tell herself it was anger, but it wasn’t. “I thought you
changed how you thought of me.”

She should slide out of the bed, march back to her own room,
and draw the bed curtains. But it had been so nice being held, not being afraid
every second that the hold could turn brutal, having care taken of her. It had
been a long time since anyone had showed concern about more than her basic
needs, worried that she needed comforting.

“Oh for God’s sake, Yvette. I am only a man. If you touch
me, I want more. But you are examining my back like I am a scientific
specimen.”

“
Non
,” she whispered, but it came out choked. Was she
examining him or did she want more, too? She wanted more. Between her legs felt
empty. Her breathing had grown rapid and her nipples had tightened without her
noticing.