Lost in Your Arms by Christina Dodd Read Free Book Online Page A

remember her name. He remembered hearing her gentle voice regaling him with tales of her day. He remembered seeing her heart-shaped face leaning over him when he woke. He remembered how her eyeslit up when she smiled, how her tender hands smoothed his covers, how her rich, dark hair tumbled about her shoulders and brushed his cheek. He remembered the delightful curve of her breast peeking forth from her wrapper.
    But he didn’t remember tumbling her onto the mattress, and why else would he have seen her in such dishabille? What was happening? What did he remember?
    Nothing. Nothing.
    He struggled to raise up— why wouldn’t his body work? —and demanded, “Who the hell am I?”
    The female exclaimed and slid an arm under his head.
    Behind him, the other woman said, “Whoa, dear sir, ye’re in no shape fer wrestling,” and caught at his shoulders.
    “I want to sit up.” His annoyance at his weakness could scarcely be expressed. This thought-blankness grew and grew until it filled his mind. No matter how he tried, no matter how he searched for memories, he found nothing.
    He took command as he always did, giving orders in that clipped tone that got instant results.
    But how did he know that?
    “Women, you will tell me who I am and what I’m doing here right now.” He’d make their lives hell if they didn’t answer him, but how?
    Who was he?
    “Calmly. Move slowly.”
    The sweet-faced woman, the one with those extraordinary blue eyes and the sprightly breasts, leaned overhim as he maneuvered on the bed, trying to find a comfortable position.
    “You’ve been very ill,” she said.
    “I deduced that, you silly wench.”
    With a small offended huff, the female straightened hastily.
    But he had no taste for tact. “I’m in bed. It’s daylight. I don’t lie about unless I’m ill. I’ve got too much to do.”
    But what did he do?
    The other female, the gray one with the motherly face— he recognized her, too, but why? —leaned down close to him. She looked him in the eyes, and in a tone of voice she must have perfected through countless scoldings, she said, “Ye had the look of trouble about ye even when ye were unconscious. Now ye listen to me, my lad. I’m Mrs. Brown. I’m going to get the master. He’ll explain everything to ye, but in the meantime this young lady will care for ye. Don’t ye do anything stupid. Don’t try and get up, ye’re not capable. Ye listen to me, and ye do exactly what this kind lady tells ye.”
    Like a sulky boy, he said, “Why should I?”
    “Because she’s the one who pulled you back from the brink of death, and I’m the one who’s been wiping yer bare bottom.”
    He stared at her.
    She stared at him.
    He knew he was a warrior, and a warrior acknowledged when he’d been defeated. He nodded grudgingly, and with a shuffle of leather soles, the older female left.
    The younger female laughed, one hand over her eyes.
    “What’s so funny?” he snapped. As if he didn’t know.
    She lifted her head. “We were so worried you would never wake up, and now that you have, you’re more boorish than you ever were.”
    Two things caught his attention. She’d called him boorish, so she knew him. And her eyes were wet. She’d been laughing, but she’d been crying, too. A funny sort of a thing for a damsel to do.
    But everything seemed odd today. His body, which usually performed as he required, throbbed with pain. His face hurt when he spoke. And his leg . . . what had he done to his leg to make it hurt like this? He could scarcely lift his hand, and when he did, he stared at it. Skeletal. Wasted. The precariousness of his physical condition became more and more clear, and it infuriated him. Infuriated him almost as much as this vast blankness. He turned his gaze on the lass and found her watching him, her eyes grave. “I’ve got little mind to wait for this master,” he said. “You know who I am. Tell me.”
    Without hesitation, she told him, “You’re Stephen