Page 51 of Any Duke in a Storm

Fifteen

Of all the times to suffer a blade to the belly!

Raphael moved slightly and winced at the pain shooting along his sides. He glanced down. Beneath the sheets he wore nothing but a pair of smallclothes. A clean linen bandage surrounded his mottled torso. Clearly, the wound had been cleaned and stitched, and he remembered being warned to remain abed, lest he rip open the laceration. The amount of blood he’d lost had caused him to fall into a deep sleep the moment they’d set foot on the ship.

The bits and pieces of the past handful of days were a bit fuzzy, but the doctor—a man with kind brown eyes—had come to tend to him at the beginning. Later, he’d felt the ship start to move and wondered if he’d been dreaming. He had no sense of time, everything blurring into hours of awful agony and blessed silence.

Gentle fingers had cooled his brow when the fever had set in, feeding him sips of water and broth. On the occasions when his eyelids had cracked open, he had seen his Viking pacing in the background, her anxious gaze fastened to him as he plummeted back into oblivion. Right now his beautiful caretaker was asleep in the chair beside his bed.

They were no longer on a ship, but in a room withgauzy curtains. How on earth had he gotten here? Were they still in Florida? Raphael licked parched lips, but his eyes flicked back to the sleeping goddess. He couldn’t help watching her quietly. In repose, with her lashes leaving shadows on her cheeks and her pink lips parted, she seemed much younger. Golden wisps of hair curled into her relaxed brow, the freckles on her nose even more prominent. A tiny snore left her mouth and he smiled. She would positively loathe the fact that he’d heard her snoring.

Raphael exhaled a tiny puff of laughter, and gilded lashes tipped up to reveal soft green eyes that sharpened into relief. “You’re awake,” she said, sitting upright. “How do you feel?”

“Like some brigand got in a lucky strike because I couldn’t take my eyes off a beautiful woman making mash of her enemies.” His voice was nothing but a croak, and she instantly plied him with a cup of water. Raphael sipped gratefully.

“Are you well?” she asked. “Does the wound pain you? The doctor used catgut for the stitches and he also used carbolic acid to sterilize the thread and his instruments. He said it was your best chance.”

“It’s not too bad.” The sutures didn’t pull as much, which hopefully meant that he was healing. He formed a confused frown, taking in the space around him again. “Where are we? And what day is it?”

“Exuma,” she replied. “Boisie got us back here in one piece. We had to stay in Cedar Key for a few days so thedoctor could drain your wound, stitch it, and make sure infection didn’t set in. Then you caught a fever, and it was touch and go for a while there.” She blew out a breath. “Everyone was afraid that it was yellow fever, but Narina insisted it wasn’t what her mama had. Beyond the chills and the fever, you weren’t vomiting, so that was a good sign. It broke in two days and we were able to leave. It’s been nine days since you were injured.”

Nine days! No wonder he felt like such shit. He stared at her, seeing the conflicted expression on her face, and narrowed his eyes. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“Your instincts were sound about Tampa. When we rounded the coast, we were pursued by frigates owned by the customs house agents and only managed to escape by the skin of our teeth, as well the luck of a squall that reduced visibility.”

He scowled, though he wasn’t surprised. Dubois wouldn’t be Dubois without some perverse plot in place. “Whereismy uncle? I’m shocked he didn’t sneak someone in here to finish me off.”

Something else—frustration or disappointment, perhaps—flitted across her face. “He’d already sailed for New York by the time we returned. He left early.”

“Well, that’s one small mercy.” Raphael frowned. “So why the long face?”

“I was hoping to get back to theSyrenwith him on that voyage,” she said cagily and her voice trailed off. But there was something more, some agenda that she was hiding. He could see it in the set of her shoulders and the tightlines bracketing her mouth, and the fact that she wouldn’t make eye contact was a dead giveaway that something more was afoot.

“How do you know theSyrenis in New York?” he asked softly and she froze. They stared at each other in silence, her upper lip tucked between her teeth. His gaze dipped to where her thumb and forefinger worried the fabric of her skirt. As far as physical tells, she didn’t have many, but that was one sign that her infamous control was being held by a thread. He cleared his dry throat and shadowed green eyes met his. “Tell me one true thing, Lisbeth.”

The conflict was evident in her face and in her hand white-knuckling the pleats of her skirts. She knew what the question meant; shehadto know. She swallowed convulsively and ground her jaw. “I…cannot.”

“Cannot or will not?”

“Saint,” she begged. “Please. I just need time to think.”

Saint.He closed his eyes and leaned back against the pillows, a strange sense of heavy disillusionment filling him at her refusal and the address. He had hoped… He clenched his teeth and banished that errant, pitiful thought. Well, hope was an infernally stupid thing, wasn’t it? “Keep your secrets, then,” he whispered and turned to his side.

“Raphael.”

Her voice was agonized, but they were both spared more awkward discomfort when Narina bounded into the room and climbed onto the other side of the bed. A homemade eye patch covered nearly half of her face. “Aboutsodding time, Cap’n! You scared the good goddamn out of me, savvy?”

“Good to see you too, lassie,” he said at the same time that Lisbeth chided, “Language, Nari.”

“Nearly lost your ship. Boisie wouldn’t listen, that giant bucket of fartleberries, and it was because ofmethat we were able to lose the frigates in the storm.” She plopped her hands on her hips, even as Raphael’s lips twitched at her creative name-calling. “Every seadog worth his bloody salt knows you sail around a storm or into it. Never wait for it to catch you.” A self-righteous smirk formed on her small face. “I told him I would tell you that he fancies a bit o’ the ol’ Bess and you would cleave him to the brisket, if you found out.”

Raphael pushed upward with a groan at the pull of his aching muscles, and Lisbeth was quick to prop a pillow behind him. Her sweet scent teased his nostrils, and he fought the natural urge to reach for her…to bury his nose in her hair. “Thank you,” he grunted.

“You’re not going to get blood everywhere, are you?” Narina’s eyes rounded with unease as she observed him, no doubt taking in the weeks’ worth of dark scruff on his face and the remnants of illness that made his skin feel dry and tight. Dark circles probably flourished under his eyes, and he was sure he looked like a horse’s arse.

“I won’t lie. You look like you were shat”—Narina glanced at Lisbeth’s pinched face and adjusted her words—“surely pooped out by wild goats.”

“That sounds about right.” He grinned at the quick save. “Know a lot about goat droppings, do you?”

---