Silver-Tongued Devil (Louisiana Plantation Collection) by Jennifer Blake Read Free Book Online

discovered where she was; she had only needed time to bring herself to ask. He had made finding the exact words unnecessary. For that much, and for the lack of false sympathy, she was grateful.
    Tears pressed, burning behind her nose, seeping into her eyes and running in hot tracks down her face. She ignored them. The words tight, she asked, “They were decently buried? You saw it done?”
    He was silent so long that she looked up again. His face had a grim cast as he answered her. “Their bodies were not found, may never be — the Mississippi likes to keep its dead, or so the rivermen say. I would have done what was required for them if it had been possible.”
    She accepted that. Her father and Laurence must be gone. They would have been with her, certainly would have seen to her in her illness, if they had been alive.
    “How long—?” she began.
    “Two weeks and five days, to be exact. You were struck by a chunk of falling timber. For the first twenty-four hours, you seemed fairly well, but have been laid low by concussion and fever since then. It isn’t surprising you have no memory of what occurred.”
    “I remember some things very well,” she corrected him.
    It was true; she did if she tried hard enough. The doctor young, sweating into his sandy hair, rank with the smell of fear as he stared across her at Renold. Herself being strapped to a door in order to be carried on board a waiting steamboat. The vile medicine Renold had tipped down her throat when she cried and begged not to go. This room the first night, quiet, cool, and immobile at last. She had clung to someone’s hand, she thought, before she slept. She had felt safe, protected.
    There were tears sliding over her cheekbones and into the hollows below them. She wiped distractedly at the wetness.
    The dark-skinned woman, a housekeeper from her starched white apron and neat kerchief, gave a soft exclamation of concern and began to move forward. Renold stopped her with an upraised hand, then made a single, sharp motion. The woman turned with reluctance and obvious disapproval in her round face and pouter-pigeon shape. The door closed behind her.
    Renold shifted his position, drawing closer to the bed with a single, careful step. Angelica stiffened, drew back.
    “Calm yourself. I am no threat to you, I swear it.” He moved a little closer.
    “Stay where you are.” She meant the words to be sharp, but they came out as a whispered plea.
    “It’s a little late for that, don’t you think? When I’ve been sworn and dutifully blessed this age? Not to mention I’ve been lying on a cot at your feet like a faithful hound through nights longer than a saint’s rosary. That’s when not applying cool water to your lily white skin in places once known only to you and your nursemaid.”
    “You didn’t.” She would not look at him, she couldn’t. He had a reason for saying those words, she thought, if she could only clear her mind enough to discover it.
    “Someone had to relieve Estelle. Besides, it seemed I was due the privilege.”
    “Why? Because you had earned it?”
    His smile, when it came, was wry. “Now that was almost worthy; I can see you are better. But you still need to sleep. You can annihilate me another day.”
    He had moved to the head of the bed where he reached to pour a dark liquid from a small green bottle into a crystal glass. His hand was steady and his gaze on what he was doing as he put down the bottle and picked up the carafe beside it to add water. Swirling the mixture, he held it out to her.
    “No, I thank you.”
    “You prefer to keep your eyes open and your wits about you? Useless, I promise. I don’t care to risk you being thoroughly sick down my shirt front.”
    Had she done that before? She would not ask, could not imagine being so close to him, did not want to know. Surely she had not, since he showed no sign of disgust.
    “Or maybe,” he went on, “you intend to tell me you have no pain. Don’t, please. I’ve