Devil's Daughter (The Ravenels #5)(34)

Phoebe frowned. “I wish you hadn’t put it like that. Now when I take her back to the barn, I’ll feel terribly guilty about it. But we can’t keep her.”



A few minutes later, dressed in blue summer serge with a white silk bodice, Phoebe made her way to the wing of the house where the Ravenel family members resided. After asking directions from a maid who was sweeping the hallway carpet, she approached a long, narrow passageway. At the far end of the passageway, she saw three men conferring at the threshold of a private suite: Lord Trenear, her father, and a man holding a doctor’s bag.

Phoebe’s heart quickened as she caught a glimpse of West Ravenel, wearing a dark green dressing robe and trousers, just inside the threshold. The group talked companionably for a minute, before Mr. Ravenel reached out to shake hands with the doctor.

As the men departed, Phoebe backed away and went into a small parlor, staying out of view. She waited until the group had passed and the sound of voices had faded. When the coast was clear, she headed to Mr. Ravenel’s room.

It wasn’t at all proper for her to visit him unaccompanied. The appropriate thing would be to send a note expressing her concern and good wishes. But she had to thank him privately for what he’d done. Also, she needed to see with her own eyes that he was all right.

The door had been left ajar. Bashfully she knocked on the jamb and heard his deep voice.

“Come in.”

Phoebe entered the room and stopped with a head-to-toe quiver, like an arrow striking a target, at the sight of a half-naked West Ravenel. He was facing away from her, standing barefoot at an old-fashioned washstand as he blotted his neck and chest with a length of toweling. The robe had been tossed to a chair, leaving him dressed only in a pair of trousers that rode dangerously low on his hips.

Henry had always seemed so much smaller without his clothes, vulnerable without the protection of civilized layers. But this man, all rippling muscle and bronzed skin and coiled energy, appeared twice as large. The room scarcely seemed able to contain him. He was big-boned and lean, his back flexing as he lifted a goblet of water and drank thirstily. Phoebe’s helpless gaze followed the long groove of his spine down to his hips. The loose edge of a pair of fawn-colored trousers, untethered by braces, dipped low enough to reveal a shocking absence of undergarments. How could a gentleman go without wearing drawers? It was the most indecent thing she’d ever seen. The inside of her head was scalded by her own thoughts.

“Hand me a clean shirt from that stack on the dresser, will you?” he asked brusquely. “I’ll need help putting it on; these damned stitches are pulling.”

Phoebe moved to comply, while a thousand butterflies swirled and danced inside her. She fumbled to retrieve the shirt without overturning the stack. It was a pullover style with a half-placket, made of beautiful fine linen that smelled like laundry soap and outside air. Hesitantly she moved forward and dampened her lips nervously, trying to think of what to say.

Setting down the water goblet, Mr. Ravenel turned with an exasperated sigh. “Good God, Sutton, if you’re going to be that slow—” He broke off as he saw her, his expression turning blank.

The atmosphere in the room became still and charged, as if lightning were about to strike.

“You’re not the valet,” Mr. Ravenel managed to say.

Phoebe held out the shirt clumsily. To her mortification, she was staring at him openly, ogling, and she couldn’t seem to stop. If the back view of West Ravenel was fascinating, the front was absolutely mesmerizing. He was much hairier than her husband had been, his chest covered with dark fur that narrowed to a V at his midriff, and there was more hair on his forearms, and even a little trail below the navel. His shoulders and arms were so powerfully developed, one had to wonder why he hadn’t simply wrestled the bull into submission.

Slowly he came forward to take the shirt from her nerveless hands. Bunching the garment awkwardly, he pushed his hands into the sleeves and began to lift it over his head.

“Wait,” Phoebe said in a suffocated voice, “let me help.”

“You don’t have to—”

“The placket is still buttoned.” She moved to unfasten the short row of buttons while he stood there with his hands caught in the gathered sleeves.

His head bent over hers; she could feel the rush of his unsettled exhalations. The hairs on his chest were not flat and straight, but softly curling. She wanted to brush her nose and lips across them. He smelled of soap, male skin, clean earth and meadow grass, and every breath of him made her feel warm in places that hadn’t been warm in years.

When the placket was finally unfastened, Mr. Ravenel raised his arms and let the shirt settle over his head, wincing as the neat row of stitches at his side was strained. Phoebe reached up to tug at the hem of the garment. Her knuckles inadvertently grazed the dark fleece on his chest, and her stomach did an odd little flip. From the surface of her skin down to the marrow of her bones, her entire body was alive with sensation.

“Forgive me for intruding,” she said, her gaze lifting to his face. “I wanted to find out how you were.”

Amusement flickered in his eyes. “I’m well. Thank you.”

With the short, dark layers of his hair all disheveled, he looked so attractive, somehow both cuddly and uncivilized. Hesitantly Phoebe reached for one of his wrists and began to button his cuff, and he went very still. How long it had been since she’d done this for a man. She hadn’t realized how she missed the small, intimate task. “Mr. Ravenel,” she said without looking at him, “what you did for my son . . . I’m so grateful, I don’t know what to say.”