A Most Unconventional Courtship. Louise Allen

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СКАЧАТЬ pretty.’ Kate sounded as though she was contemplating a fine roast dinner. ‘I don’t think I’ve seen the like since—’

      ‘Kate! For heaven’s sake! You are virtually a married woman, I am bringing up a boy, neither of us should be carrying on over the sight of a man in the nude…’ Alessa stopped focusing on his injuries and followed Kate’s appreciative stare. Yes, well, perhaps a naked, fully grown stranger was a different matter to a skinny eight-year-old after all. Come to that, he was a very different matter to the numerous marble statues of classical male nudes that littered the Lord High Commissioner’s residence. This was not a pre-pubes-cent boy. This was not even chilly white stone equipped with a fig leaf. This was a long-limbed, well-muscled, completely adult male with curling dark hair on his chest and—

      ‘He’s certainly well—’

      ‘Don’t you dare say it, Kate Street! You should be ashamed of yourself. You are a respectable woman now and I…I am attending to him purely in a medical capacity.’ Alessa snatched up the discarded neckcloth and dropped it strategically over the focus of Kate’s admiring scrutiny. Conscious that her cheeks were flaming, she finished her examination. ‘Nothing is broken, I am sure of it, although he probably shouldn’t try and stand up tomorrow. I’ll put a poultice on that hip.’

      Kate, who had finally finished her unabashed inspection, began to pick up the discarded linen and took it to drop into one of the pails of water that stood against the wall. ‘Shall I put the other stuff to soak too?’

      ‘Please.’ Alessa kept half an eye on the delicate lingerie from the ladies of the High Commission as it dropped into the soaking-pails. It was a valuable source of income and she could not risk any damage; but Kate, despite her rough hands, was treating it with suitable care.

      She fetched salves and bandages and a pad of old shirting from the cupboard and set them on the floor. The wound in itself was easy enough to dress, but wrapping a securing bandage around the slim hips was nothing short of disturbing and Alessa knew she was pink-faced before she had finished. Get a grip on yourself, girl! she scolded mentally, gratefully shuffling down on her knees to strap up the twisted ankle. The head wound, although angrily bruised, did not seem to call for a bandage, so she was ready by the time Kate had finished dunking the lawns and laces for their overnight soak.

      It was no easier to wrestle the limp body of an unconscious man into a shirt than it was to get one off him, they discovered, and both women were panting with effort by the time the Englishman was decently covered, his head on the pillow, a rug pulled up to his chin.

      ‘You going to be all right with him here?’ Kate asked, taking a grateful gulp from the cup of watered wine that Alessa held out to her. ‘I can come up and spend the night, if you like.’

      ‘Thank you, but, no. He can’t give me any trouble—not with that ankle.’ Alessa regarded the silent figure resentfully. ‘He is just a thoroughgoing nuisance, and another mouth to feed for breakfast.’

      ‘Sir Thomas will have him fetched before the day is out,’ Kate forecast confidently. ‘Whoever he is, the Lord High Commissioner won’t want English nobs cast adrift in the back streets, that’s for sure. Good night!’

      Alessa slipped the peg into the door latch to secure it behind her friend and started on the evening’s chores. Clean clothes for tomorrow, Demetri’s slate to find, Dora’s piece of lumpy sewing to flatten out so that it would not scandalise the nuns too much when they came to assess it, check there was enough wood by the hearth…

      She realised she was achieving little, almost too tired to go to sleep, too restless to try. A deep sigh from the couch—which she had been carefully avoiding—made her start, but the man was still profoundly unconscious. Alessa hesitated, looking down at him. Why was he disturbing her so? He was nothing but extra work, her actions in helping him could lead her into all sorts of difficulties with some very unsavoury characters, and he combined the three things she distrusted most in the world: he was English, he was an aristocrat and he was male.

      Trying to be fair, Alessa sat down and studied him. He might not be English, he might not be an aristocrat—although she doubted that, he had all the trappings of the upper classes—and not all men were bad. Just an awful lot of them. It was, taken all round, much the safest course to treat him with the deepest mistrust and to get rid of him as soon as possible.

      If only she did not have this urge to touch him, to run her fingers through that intriguing tortoiseshell hair, to enjoy the feel of clean, faintly scented, healthily muscled skin under her palms. To touch those sharply sculpted lips with hers, to—Alessa clasped her hands together in her lap and stared aghast at the stranger. Witchcraft. Not that she believed in it, whatever old Agatha, their neighbour in the country, had told her on countless occasions. No, the only sorcery here was the effect of a handsome and mysterious stranger on a tired and bad-tempered woman who had long since given up any hope that there was a man somewhere for her.

      ‘And even if there was, it certainly is not you,’ she informed him crisply, getting to her feet and picking up the ewer of water that had been keeping warm on the hearth.

      In the bedroom she stood for a moment with her back to the door, surveying the scene. At least here was normality, a very temporary peace, and her only sure source of contentment. Behind a screen Demetri lay sprawled face down on sheets rumpled as only an eight-year-old boy fighting pirates could make them. Across the room on one side of the big bed Dora was curled up with only the tip of her nose showing, her tousle of black curls spilling over the pillow.

      Alessa went to touch the back of her hand to the warm cheeks of the sleeping children, beginning to loosen ties and hooks on her clothes as she did so. Undress, a lick and a promise with soap and water, then bed. Heaven. She slid in, careful not to wake Dora, and settled down to sleep, the sound of the children’s breathing a soothing backdrop to her own dreamless slumber.

      It must have been hours later when the yowls and shrieks of a catfight on the roof of the bakery roused her. Alessa opened one eye, listened for any sign the children had woken, and then jerked into full consciousness. She was curled around the bolster, holding it in her arms like a lover, her cheek pressed against it. She snatched it up, dealt it a firm thump with her fist and settled it back at the head of the bed where it belonged. Goodness knows what she had been dreaming about. The sooner that man was delivered back to the Residency where he belonged, the better.

      Chapter Two

      The bed was not moving, which meant he was on land, which was fine. That was where he was supposed to be: in bed, on land. The only problem was, he could not recall getting into his bed—or anyone else’s, come to that. Chance lay very still. The thunderous headache might be one explanation for why his memories of last night were very hazy, although it argued a powerful amount of strong liquor, which he definitely could not remember. But there was someone else in the room. He had not yet engaged a servant; he was quite positive he would have had some memory of it if he had found himself female companionship; the only possibility left was a sneak thief.

      Only…they were a very noisy sneak thief. There was the pad of soft leather soles on the boards, the occasional rattle of what sounded like pots, and someone—or something—was breathing like a grampus just inches from his face.

      And the smell—that could not be right either. Wood smoke, herbs, soap, food. A kitchen? Chance cracked open his eyes and found himself almost nose to nose with a child. She jumped back and he realised there were two of them, brown eyed, olive skinned, with identical mops of black curls and identical expressions of intent curiosity.

      ‘He is awake!’ The small girl was squeaking СКАЧАТЬ