The Pleasure of the Rose Page 4

  “Where are you going?”

  She leveled him with a gaze that, though carefully controlled, could not hide her anger. “To give you some privacy.”

  “I may need your shoulder to lean on. I feel weak.”

  “Then I suggest you use the bedpost.”

  Good one, he thought. “As my nurse, aren’t you supposed to help me?”

  She nudged the pot with her toe and moved it toward the end of the bed. “There. Use the bedpost.” Then she disappeared behind a folding curtain.

  When he finished, he took the blanket and wrapped it around himself, and then sat down on the bed again. “I’m done.”

  The door opened and a dour-looking middle-aged woman with sad eyes entered, carrying two steaming pails of water. Geddes strode in behind her, carrying two more. “We have your hot water, Your Grace.” They disappeared behind the folding partition and he heard water splashing into a tub. The woman left, carrying the empty buckets, and Geddes stoked up the fire. “How are you feeling?”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Fletcher saw the sister stop what she was doing and watch the exchange. “I feel like a herd of buffalo has trampled me.”

  “Yes, well, my sister Rosalyn will see that you feel better.”

  Fletcher raised an eyebrow in her direction. “She burned my clothes.”

  Geddes gave the woman a pointed look. “You did?”

  “They stank.” Her voice was matter-of-fact.

  “Unless you want me to walk around stark naked, I suggest you get me some clothes,” Fletcher said.

  “We will find something,” Geddes promised, then added, “My sister will be your nurse. She insisted that she alone will tend to you, my lord. Isn’t that right, Rosalyn?”

  Rosalyn shot daggers at her brother.

  He crossed to the door. “I’ll leave you in Rosalyn’s very capable hands.”

  When he left, the room was quiet, except for the ticking of the clock on a long table below an enormous painting of some young dandy in a long wavy wig and ruffled shirt.

  “You alone? How flattering,” Fletcher commented with a smug smile. “How very flattering, indeed.”

  “I offered to nurse you, that is all. Barnaby is the valet. I will send him up to you while you bathe, but…he’s really quite decrepit, and the less he is required to climb the stairs, the better for his rheumatism.”

  “Hmm, he sounds useless,” Fletcher said around a purposefully careless yawn. “Why is he still here?”

  “He has been in the employ of the MacNeils since he was a lad.” She became fiercely protective. “Your grandfather has stipulated that Barnaby be allowed to stay on here until the day he dies.”

  Fletcher knew this; Geddes had gone into detail about everyone in the household. But if the widow could treat him with contempt, he could give her a hard time. “We’ll see about that.”

  Her clenched jaw and narrowed eyelids spoke volumes.

  He grasped the bedpost to steady himself. He really did feel weaker than he’d imagined. He shook his head and felt the floor come up.

  She was immediately at his side. “Maybe you should lie down.” Her voice was kinder, less icy.

  “I’m not getting into that bed again until I have a bath.”

  “Fine,” she said sharply, but placed his arm around her shoulders and helped him to the tub. He could smell a flowery scent in her hair, as if she had rinsed it with roses. It was the color of Texas wheat, and looked soft and abundant. He glanced down at her chest again, outlined by her fitted dress. She had a bosom most women would envy. Odd, he found himself wondering what she would be like in bed, curious to know what secrets lay between her thighs.

  Alone, he sat in the water for a long time, his mind fuzzy, yet not entirely asleep. He did need a woman; it was simply that he hadn’t had one in so long, even this one tempted him.

  • • •

  Too impatient to call for her gig, Rosalyn threw on her cape and gloves and took the short cut through the coarse marram grasses and rocky sand that led to Fen’s cottage, barely noticing the slicing wind that came up off the sea. Sima lumbered along at her heels. Rosalyn needed the time to walk off some of her frustration since her cowardly brother had rushed to an appointment as soon as he had seen that the duke was all right. Once the savage had fallen asleep, she’d left him in Barnaby’s care.

  The new duke bore absolutely no resemblance to any of the MacNeils. Strutting around naked, taunting her with his knife. And he wouldn’t dare get rid of Barnaby, who was a sweet old man with absolutely no place to go if the new duke booted him out.

  Once over her initial shock, she’d vowed to give him the benefit of the doubt, promising herself she would not be unfair, just because he was…well, what he was. It was absurd. He had no sense of breeding. He was rude, crude, and abominably ill-mannered.

  At one point she got the sense that he was toying with her, but even if he was, he did not appear to know the first thing about being a gentleman. Doing his bidding was not going to be an easy task. Thank God for Geddes’s management expertise, for without him, she wondered what would become of the estate. Surely this savage duke was not educated in any way to handle it. She approached Fen’s cottage and as always was struck by its sturdy appearance. Unlike other cottages on the island, it had a roof made of slate stone that Fen had brought in from England. Most other roofs were constructed with thatching material, which, according to Fen, was a breeding ground for vermin and should be outlawed.

  Reggie Gunn was hoeing the garden. Rosalyn waved. Reggie was Fenella’s bodyguard. She had found him near death on the battlefield during the Crimean War, his tongue cut from his mouth. She nursed him back to health and he became her devoted servant from then on.

  Fen came to the island as a stranger and was not trusted by the villagers. She made enemies quickly when she assisted women who were not satisfied with the care they received from the island physician. She was disliked by the men, who thought her a witch, with her remedies and strange ways of healing. And it was Reggie who had protected her twice from an angry mob.

  Rosalyn approached the front door and knocked briefly, then stepped inside. Sima curled up on the stoop. “Fen?”

  “In here.”

  Rosalyn hung her cloak on the coatrack and went into the small parlor, where Fen was lying on the divan with a blanket tucked around her.

  “How are you this morning?”

  Fen coughed, but Rosalyn noted that the sound was loose, which meant her chest congestion was loosening up. “Better, I think.”

  “I’ll fix us some tea.” Rosalyn went into the small kitchen and poured hot water into the teapot from the boiler. She added tea leaves to the pot and let them steep while she rummaged around for some biscuits.

  From the other room, Fen chatted with her, then said, “So today is the day the new duke arrived. You must tell me everything.”

  Rosalyn brought the tea tray into the parlor and put it on the table in front of Fen. “I hardly know where to begin.” She poured tea for each of them, adding a generous dose of whisky to Fen’s. “He was unconscious when he got here; it took four footmen to get him upstairs.”

  “He’s ill?”

  “He has a fever and a terrible cough. Despite his condition, he was able to bellow like a bear.”

  “So he’s already acting like lord of the manor, is he?”

  Rosalyn shook her head. “You have no idea.”

  “What was the physician’s diagnosis?”

  “He wasn’t there. A fat lot of good he is, always off somewhere else when he’s needed here, and when he is here, he’s more often drunk than sober.”

  With a frown, Fen said, “I wish I could help you.”

  “No. You need your rest. Anyway,” she added cryptically, “I don’t think medical care is all that the man requires.”

  Fen scooted herself up, interested. “What do you mean? Oh, come now, Roz. I won’t tittle-tattle, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

  Rosalyn
leaned forward. “Och! I must tell someone or else I’ll explode. He’s not quite…white,” Rosalyn finished lamely.

  Frowning, Fen asked, “What do you mean? ’Tis Shamus, isn’t it?”

  “Nay. Shamus died; the new duke is his son.”

  Fen nodded slowly. “But what do you mean, he isn’t white?”

  “He’s brown. No, actually, red.”

  Fen’s expression changed. “He has red hair? Well, that’s a bit of bad luck.”

  “No, no. Red skin, as in savage Indian.” When Fen didn’t respond, Rosalyn added, “He’s a half-breed, Fen. His mother was a full-blooded Indian.”

  Fen flopped back against the divan, her mouth open. “Well, by the saints.” Suddenly her eyes widened. “Does he dress like they do in books? You know, feathers and…” she paused to think, then finished, “a tomahawk?”

  “No feathers, but he does have a knife, and his hair is very black and in long braids that come nearly to his waist.” Rosalyn nearly stumbled over her words to get them out.

  “Oh, bloody hell! What fun,” Fen crowed, collapsing in a fit of coughing.

  “It wasn’t fun. He was wearing buckskins that smelled awful. And when I told him I had burned them he got so angry I was afraid he was going to scalp me.”

  “Does he speak like a savage? You know, ‘ugh’ and all that?”

  “He speaks like any other American, I suppose, his sentences crude and spiked with curse words.”

  “How is Geddes taking all of this?” Fen asked.

  “He acts as if the new duke is no different from Prince Albert himself, as if every day a savage Indian becomes a peer.” She thought of him as she’d helped him to the tub. Big and muscular he was, and his body grand, his touch not repulsive, in spite of everything else. “It’s hard to believe he’s actually the duke.”

  “I’d have loved to have seen Geddes’s face when he first saw him.” Fen chuckled and sipped her tea.

  “Aye, that’s another thing. I think…I think there’s something more to the story than Geddes has told me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When I asked him where he’d found the duke, he said at an army fort. And when I asked more about it, he became snappish.” Rosalyn drummed her fingers on the arm of the chair. “Whenever he gets impatient with me he’s usually hiding something.”

  “Considering everything you’ve told me, the possibilities are endless.”

  “Aye,” Rosalyn agreed, although for the life of her she couldn’t imagine how things could get any worse. “You know, I still cannot imagine Geddes traveling all the way to the American frontier. Lord, he has enough trouble journeying to Edinburgh and London. Although maybe I’m overreacting. I can only imagine what kind of trip it was for my brother. What does an unadventurous soul like Geddes talk about with such a person?”

  Fen laughed again. “I suppose chess was out of the question.”

  “According to Geddes, the duke won every game.”

  “This gets more and more interesting, doesn’t it?” Fen looked sharply intrigued.

  Rosalyn sipped her tea. “I suppose I shouldn’t gossip about him—he is the duke, no matter what else he is.”

  “Well, if you’d brought him here, I’d have been hard-pressed not to ask him to do a war dance.”

  “Fen!” Rosalyn had to laugh. “You can’t say anything to anyone yet. I honestly don’t know how people will react when they find out.”

  “Well, Lord knows that twit Annie will be spilling the news everywhere she can.”

  “Annie hasn’t seen him. I’m tending to the duke myself.”

  “You are? Interesting. Who is watching him while you’re here?”

  “Barnaby is with him now, for all the good it will do. Poor old addled thing. The other day I found him wandering about in only his cotton breeks. When I brought it to his attention, he looked surprised that I had even noticed, and then said, ‘The air feels good on me bum, madam.’” Rosalyn rolled her eyes and Fen laughed.

  Rosalyn could confide in Fen, who knew her deepest, darkest secrets, and was the only one who knew the truth about Leod, Rosalyn’s late husband. He was a monster, who had lied to her and hid a secret life until after she’d married him, and then it was too late. Rosalyn could not think of her dead husband without feeling so dirty she wanted to soak in a tub of hot, soapy water for a week.

  “So, tell me more about the duke. What’s he really like?”

  “So far we’ve only sparred with one another. I got the distinct impression he was testing me.”

  “Testing you?”

  Rosalyn nodded. “Yes, testing me. At least I hope that he was, else he is quite possibly the most boorish barbarian who has set foot in Scotland since the Vikings pillaged and plundered.”

  “He has got your blood up,” Fen noticed.

  “Why would you say that?”

  “You’re here, aren’t you? I don’t think I’ve seen you this fired up since the day we learned Leod had taken little Fiona, and you vowed to roast him alive.”

  All of those ugly memories flooded her. “Leod deserved to die; the new duke merely deserves to be ignored, and for the life of me I can’t seem to let his taunting simply roll off my back. I find myself answering his barbs with a few of my own.”

  “I can’t wait to meet him,” Fen said with glee.

  “Well, it shan’t be too long, I wouldn’t imagine. He seems like the kind of man who would want to explore his domain and meet his people, even if it’s to see what kind of reaction he gets out of them.” She chuckled. “And what kind of chaos will ensue after they meet him? That should be something to see.”

  They were quiet a moment, and then Fen said, “So Shamus MacNeil bedded an Indian squaw. Tongues will wag when people hear about his background, but he’s the new duke of the isle. If he’s even halfway civilized some desperate mamas will be throwing their virginal daughters at him, despite his braids and his knife. He’s worth a bloody fortune,” Fen said dryly.

  Once again, Rosalyn thought about how the duke’s future might affect her own. If he should marry, and indeed he would, she would no longer be needed. Surely any young bride would want to hire her own help. And although Rosalyn rarely thought of herself as merely the help—for she and Geddes came from fine stock and good breeding—she was, indeed, employed by the estate.

  “I’d better get back,” Rosalyn said as she stood. “Do you need anything before I go?”

  With a quick smile, Fen shook her head. “Just return soon with more gossip about this savage duke who soon will have the entire island buzzing like flies over a dead rabbit.”

  Aye, Rosalyn thought, the islanders would buzz about him, and there was no way to stop it. As she made her way back home, she wondered exactly how the man’s appearance in her life would change it, for indeed it would. With each step she took, her anxiety worsened.

  Chapter Four

  Just as Rosalyn came in the front door, Geddes rounded the corner from the library and gave her a look of displeasure. “Where have you been?”

  “I could ask the same of you. Hustling out of the duke’s bedroom and leaving me to deal with him.” She hung up her cloak. “I went to check on Fen.”

  “How many times…” He raked his fingers through his hair and gave her a troubled sigh. “She doesn’t even dress like a woman, strutting around in those ridiculous trousers and all. Even when she attends a formal affair, as she did when she attended the old laird’s funeral, she wore those damned trousers. It’s as if she has no sense of decorum at all. ”

  Rosalyn rounded on him. “Would that make her a more presentable friend? If she wore a gown, like most of the rest of us? Och, there are times I envy the way she dresses.”

  He rubbed his hands over his face. “She irritates me. Do you know that I met her in the village the other day, and she was standing nose to nose with the schoolmaster, telling him he couldn’t beat his students with a switch because it was barbaric?”

  “But don’t
you think it’s rather barbaric, Geddes? Remember how you felt when our tutor took a switch to your backside?”

  Her brother lifted his chin in defiance. “It made me a better man.”

  “Hogwash,” Rosalyn said under her breath, then, louder, “Fenella could do so much good, if only that sot Doctor Russell would quit trying to undermine her. She knows that wounds must be kept clean and privies must be far enough away from the wells, otherwise the sewage will seep into the water. She—”

  “She’s sticking her nose into other people’s business, that’s what she’s doing. And Callum Russell has been to medical school, Rosalyn. Surely he knows what’s best for us all.”

  “He’s a drunk. And he believes that washing a man’s head in dog urine will cure baldness. Our very own footman tried that, and dare I say that his pate is still shiny as a new coin. What a foolish remedy,” she scoffed. “And that was thanks to Callum Russell, the educated physician.”

  Geddes rubbed the back of his neck. “Now that the new duke is here, I expect you to spend more time at the castle.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “And why would you say that? You know I never leave here unless all of my duties are done.”

  “Well, right now, we have a little crisis in the village.”

  Alarmed, Rosalyn asked, “What’s happened?”

  “There’s some argument over a dog or something,” he answered.

  “That’s a crisis?”

  “It is here, Rosalyn. God knows we’re lucky if that’s all that’s stirring things up right now.”

  That was certainly true.

  “And, even though the duke is ill, I think it would be a good time for him to present himself to his public. This incident is minor, but at least the people will realize that he’s here to intercede when needed.”

  Rosalyn was incredulous. “You’re going to haul him off to the village in his condition?”