The Virgin Huntress (The Devil DeVere #2)(22)

At first, Hew almost wanted to laugh aloud for she truly was a sight. The elegant, gold gown was torn and covered with tar. Her hair was a matted, wet tangle, and her lips were blue with cold. A smile pulled at his mouth, but his suppressed chuckle was obviously the last straw for Vesta. She collapsed to her knees with a sob.

It was an unfair assault, one that struck him like a cavalry charge against an already weakened foe, for he knew it wasn’t a ploy. Although she might be a fine actress, she was far too spirited to resort to such mean tactics as counterfeit tears, and while Hew had no compunction against railing at her soundly when she defiantly stood her ground, the fact that he had caused her to cry threatened to bring him to his knees.

“Please, Vesta,” he pleaded. “Neither of us is at our best at the moment. I’ve been an ill-tempered ass. The pain in the shoulder is nothing. I’m accustomed to living with it.”

“B-but what of your leg?” she said.

“I’m only glad to still have the thing at all, defective as it might be. They wanted to take it from me, you know.”

“I d-didn’t kn-know.” She sniffed. “How did it happen?”

“It’s not important at the moment,” he said. “You are going to catch your death if you don’t get out of those wet clothes. Have you another gown?”

“Only a c-clean shift,” she answered.

“Then that will have to do. I’ll just step outside while you change.”

“But I c-can’t,” she said. “I n-n-eed help with my l-laces.”

“Very well then.”

Vesta rose and gave him her back, lifting her tangled mass of dripping hair out of the way while he fumbled with the laces. Once her gown was loosened enough to remove, he limped to the door.

“Please don’t go back into the storm,” she said. “You’ll only get wetter and colder. Besides, I’ll only be a moment. You need only turn your back to me. Here.” She handed him one of his brother’s shirts she had found in a drawer. “You can change too.”

Hew knew his duty as a gentleman was to brave the weather again, but he was damnably chilled and tired, and hell, he’d already had her bare legs encasing him. Besides, he’d managed to stave off temptation for twenty-eight years so far, sometimes in indecently close quarters with men and their camp followers. What difference would a few minutes make? It was certainly not as if he desired Vesta. He’d been doing everything in his power to escape her. But even if he had felt something...any man with breath in his body surely would with an attractive young woman’s bare legs wrapped about him.

Still, when he inadvertently caught a glimpse of her in the shaving mirror on the far wall, he couldn’t quite avert his gaze. Her body was turned at an angle just obtuse enough to afford him a profile of a small but perfectly shaped breast as she pulled the shift over her head. The image burned into his brain, milky white, pink-tipped, filling him with a powerful desire to look his fill, to touch, to taste. No doubt it was just lingering frustration from that unfinished business this morning. Cursing his weakness, he looked away.

“I’m finished,” she said at last. When he turned around, she was wrapped in a blanket. She handed another to him. “The worst of it seems to have passed,” she remarked.

“Aye. It does seem to have settled somewhat,” Hew agreed. The violence of the storm had abated with the motion of the vessel returning to a less menacing rhythm.

“You never ate anything today,” she said, voicing aloud an observation his stomach had made quite some time ago. “Please, Hew.” She urged him to sit and then retrieved her basket of victuals. She handed him a meat pie that he devoured in unseemly haste and then poured wine which he partook from the glass this time. They ate in a silence that almost broached companionable until Vesta yawned.

“You should sleep,” he said. “I daresay our little adventure afforded you little repose last night.”

“True.” She smiled. “For I had to keep close watch over my captive.”

Although he glowered, Hew was secretly pleased to see the glint of mischief had returned to her eyes. She had remarkable eyes, really. Unusually large and lustrous with glints of green and gold that infused the brown. And lovely alabaster skin too, a thought that recalled the brief vision of her breasts. He shifted in his chair and forced his thoughts elsewhere. “Go and sleep, Vesta.”

“What about you?”

“I’m a soldier and accustomed to sleeping anywhere. I’ll do well enough here in the chair.”

“Then so will I,” she insisted.

“Vesta, must you thwart me at every turn?”

She set her chin at a defiant angle. “I will not take the bed when I caused you injury.”

“I told you it’s nothing. I’m accustomed to pain and accustomed to much more adverse conditions than sleeping in a chair. Please.” He groaned. “I just don’t have the strength to continue arguing with you.”

“Then don’t,” she said. “We can share it.”

“I’d really rather not,” said Hew, recalling once more the effect her presence had had once before while he slept. Although he was no longer influenced by laudanum, he feared the same result. Perhaps he would just rest an hour or two until she slept deeply enough that he could rise and finish the night in the chair. That seemed a reasonable compromise, although he realized the battle was already lost.