To Beguile a Beast (Legend of the Four Soldiers #3)(29)

“Is this any way for a housekeeper to talk to her master?” His teeth were chattering, but he balanced the puppy in the crook of his other arm.

“You may dismiss me in the morning,” she snapped as she helped him awkwardly up the step. For all his sarcasm, he leaned heavily on her, and she could feel the ragged heave of his chest against her cheek. He was a big, stubborn man, but he must’ve been riding in the rain for hours.

“You forget, Mrs. Halifax, that I’ve tried and failed to dismiss you since the night you arrived at my door. Watch it.” He’d fallen against the doorframe, pulling her off balance.

“If you’d just follow my lead,” she gasped.

“What a very bossy woman you are,” he mused as he staggered through the doorway. “I can’t think how I managed without you.”

“Neither can I.” She propped him against the wall and shoved the door shut. The pup whimpered. “It’ll serve you right if you catch an ague.”

“Oh, how dulcet is the feminine tone,” he murmured. “So soft, so gentle, even enough to rouse the protective urge in any man.”

She snorted and led him toward the stairs. They were leaving a trail of water that would have to be cleaned on the morrow. Despite his sardonic words, he was pale and shivering violently, and she truly was afraid he’d catch a deathly chill. She’d seen strong men laid low by fever before, when helping her father on his rounds. They’d be laughing and alive one week and dead within days.

“Watch the step,” she said. He was tall enough, heavy enough, that if he started to fall, she wasn’t altogether sure she could keep him from tumbling down the stairs.

He merely grunted, and that worried her more—did he no longer have the strength to argue with her? Her mind leapt ahead as she helped him slowly up the stairs. She’d have to get hot water, perhaps make tea. Mrs. McCleod had left a kettle near the banked kitchen fire last night—perhaps she had again tonight. She’d get him to his room and then run down for the kettle.

But he was shuddering in waves by the time they made the hallway outside his room. The puppy was in danger of being flung from his arm.

“You may leave me here,” he grunted when they reached his door.

She ignored him and pushed the door open. “You’re an idiot.”

“Several imminent scientists in Edinburgh and the continent would beg to differ.”

“I doubt they’ve seen you half-dead and clutching a wet puppy.”

“True.” He staggered toward the bed. His room was huge. A bed with massive posters squatted between heavily draped windows, the coverlet trailing on the floor. On one wall was a large ancient fireplace, made of the same rose stone as the rest of the castle. For a moment, Helen wondered if this room had been used continuously by the master of the castle since it was built.

Then she shoved the thought from her mind. “Not the bed. You’ll get it wet.”

She guided him toward the fireplace. A single enormous chair sat before the cold hearth. Sir Alistair sank into it, shuddering, while she bent and stirred the fire. A feeble ember still glowed there. Carefully she heaped coals upon it and blew until the fire caught. Rainwater ran down her face from her hair and dripped to the floor. She shivered, but she wasn’t nearly as cold as he.

She stood and faced Sir Alistair. “Take off those clothes.”

“Why, Mrs. Halifax, such daring.” His words were slightly slurred as if he’d been drinking, though she had detected no alcohol on his breath. “I had no idea you had designs upon my person.”

“Humph.” She picked up the shivering puppy and placed it near the fire, where it sat in a forlorn wet heap. She’d worry about the dog later. At the moment, its master took precedence.

Helen stood and started peeling the soaking coat from Sir Alistair’s shoulders. He leaned forward to help her, but his movements were clumsy. She flung the wet coat on the hearth, where it began to steam. Then she knelt before him and worked the buttons through the soaking fabric of his waistcoat. She could feel him watching her, his eyes heavy-lidded, and her heartbeat could not help but speed up. She got the waistcoat undone, pulled it off, and threw it on top of the coat. When she started on the buttons of his shirt, she was conscious that her breath was coming harder. She concentrated, staring at the white translucent material plastered to the hard planes of his chest. Crisp hair was shadowed under the cloth. She could feel his hot breath on the top of her head. This position was too intimate.

She determinedly drew off his shirt before she could stop and think about it, but she still faltered when his nude torso was revealed. His body was ever so much lovelier than her imaginings. The wide strong slopes of his shoulders led to surprisingly thick muscles on his arms, and his chest was broad and covered with dark curling hair on the upper part. Brown-red nipples peaked through the hair, hard and pointed and shockingly bare. His taut belly had only a fine line of dark hair that circled his navel before widening below and then disappearing into the waistband of his breeches. She’d stretched out one hand toward that seductive line of hair before she’d even realized her own movement.

Helen snatched back her wayward hand, hid it in her skirts, and said briskly, “Stand up so we can get the rest of these clothes off you. You’re nearly blue with cold.”

“Mrs. Halifax, your regard alone is enough to heat m-me,” he drawled as he stood. The rakish words were only marred by the chattering of his teeth.