Page 33 of A Momentary Marriage

He shivered and rolled away from her, throwing his arm up over his eyes and muttering to himself. Laura sat up shakily, struggling to pull her tattered composure into order. He was delirious. She slipped off the bed, straightening her dressing gown and retying the loosened sash.

It was more difficult to pull her thoughts together. She sank down onto the chair, putting her head in her hands. She was a doctor’s daughter. She had long been aware of what went on between a man and woman. Or at least she had thought she understood. Clearly the mechanics of it didn’t begin to explain what actually happened.

She sat back, leaning her head against the chair, and took a calming breath. Eleven years ago Graeme had kissed her a few times—sweet, stolen kisses that had made her pulse quicken and promised a rosy future.

But it had been nothing like the fierce way James crushed his lips to hers and invaded her mouth. The way his hands roamed her body. She closed her eyes, remembering his palm cupping her breast, his thumb teasing at her nipple through the cloth. His ragged breath as he rolled over, pinning her to the mattress beneath him. The thickened flesh beneath the cloth of his trousers and the way it pulsed against her hand.

Her cheeks flamed at the memory—not just with embarrassment, but with another kind of heat altogether. For however unexpected his kisses had been, they had not been as astonishing as her own reaction. Her entire body had simply burst into flame. She’d wanted to press her body into his; she’d reveled in the weight of him on her, the intensity of his passion.

What in the world did that say about her? Even worse, what did it say that she hadn’t wanted him to stop?

The truth was, her pulse was still racing, and she was suffused with heat. Her insides had melted, a low throbbing ache starting deep in her abdomen. If James had not broken it off, his delirium taking him off on another path, there was no telling what she would have done.

If she had not given up Graeme, if they had married, is that what would have passed between them—no, that was too embarrassing to even think of. She could not imagine doing such things with the man who had been her friend since they were children.

Far easier to feel this way about the man who had that wicked smile, whose silver eyes glittered in sardonic amusement at the world, who had no interest in being any better than he was. James de Vere was not a gentleman, which made her less ashamed for not acting like a lady.

Had James even known who she was when he kissed her? He had clearly been delirious; he could have been thinking about some other woman. It was a deflating thought, but it would be better if he had been unaware. It would make it easier to face him again. If, of course, he recovered.

That was what was important. James had a raging fever; he could be near death. This was no time to be sitting around pondering her feelings. She must get to work. Laura stood up, smoothing her hands down her dressing gown, and turned back to the washbasin.

James was shivering now despite the searing heat of his skin. He turned onto his side, huddling into himself, so Laura pulled the covers up and tucked them in around him. Still he shivered. She added the blanket folded at the foot of his bed. He continued to shake, his teeth chattering. She opened the chest at the foot of the bed but found no other blanket. Finally she took off her dressing gown and added that to the pile of coverings atop him.

“Cold,” he whispered. “It’s so cold.”

Not knowing what else to do, Laura slid into bed and wriggled over until she lay behind him. His body was like a furnace, and the pile of coverings added to the smothering heat. Laura snuggled up against his back, holding him close and wrapping her arms around him. Gradually his shaking stopped, and he once more fell into sleep.

It was so hot beneath the covers that it was some time before Laura realized that James’s body next to hers was no longer blazing. He had stretched out, no longer trembling. She sat up, propped on her elbow, and felt his forehead. It was clammy and much cooler to the touch.

His fever had broken.

chapter 13

James awoke and stared at the dark green tester high above his bed. He had slept—slept for more hours than he had in weeks, judging from the light coming through the cracks of his curtain. Yet he felt wrung out—weak as a kitten, drained, and thirsty.

What the devil had he done last night? It was a tangle of heat and bright piercing pain, of shivering cold, of color. Laura had been there, her blond hair tumbled down around her shoulders. He had been in a cave of ice, and she had pressed herself against him. No, that was idiotic. A cave of ice? It had been a hallucination, just as the flaming heat and the hunger that had filled him, the heavy, throbbing desire deep in his loins.

It had been one of his dreams. He had, after all, dreamed of Laura at other times these past few days. That day in the garden when she had rescued him in all his humiliating weakness and he had kissed her—he had dreamed of her that night.

He hadn’t wanted a woman in weeks. Then Laura had put her arms around him to keep him from falling, and he had kissed her to keep up the pretense of a lover’s embrace. No, that wasn’t true, not really. He had used that excuse because he wanted to taste her lips. Had wanted to for days. That night he had dreamed that he was well and strong again and they were walking. She’d held his hand and leaned against him—before she turned into a raven and flew away.

The dream was absurd, insane . . . just as it had been last night when he was holding Laura in his arms and kissing her. God, he had been kissing her as if he would consume her, her mouth so hot and wet and welcoming, her body lithe and firm beneath him, the scent of lavender in his nostrils, her hair like corn silk slipping through his fingers.

It had to be a dream. Laura would never have been rolling in this bed with him in a welter of heat and desire. But it had seemed so real, his body hard and eager, her kiss so sweet. His hand tingled with the memory of her breast in his palm. And the scent of lavender still clung to his sheets. He turned his head, breathing in the smell. She had been here.

He tried to think back. It was so hard to remember things, his scattered thoughts made even worse by the lancing pain. He remembered sitting out on the terrace with Dem, as he always did, waiting for the others to retire so no one would witness his feeble climb up the stairs. It had been very warm, and he had felt a little dizzy again. And on the stairs—yes, on the landing he had gone weak in the knees, and his vision turned black. For a heart-pounding eternity of seconds, he had been certain he was blind.

That was when Laura had come running up the stairs—rescuing him again, of course. What was the matter with her, anyway? She didn’t even like him. Yet there she was, wanting to help him. God knows, he was always tempted to take it. To give in.

Last night he had. He had leaned on her and let her put him to bed like a child. She had given him something foul to drink—that was just like her, too. Then, of course, she had plagued him with her questions. He had been so hot. So tired. The next thing he knew, she was sitting on his bed, her hands cool and caressing on his chest, and he had been aflame for her, aching and eager. He remembered guiding her hand lower as he reached up to pull her down to him.

James closed his eyes. If he had even the slightest bit of energy, he would be hard all over again, remembering it. It had to be real. It couldn’t be something he imagined. But Laura wouldn’t have kissed him, wouldn’t have let him caress her.

Not willingly.

He remembered taking her arm and moving her hand down; he had clamped his hand behind her neck and pulled her down. Perhaps she hadn’t wanted it at all. Because he could remember, too, that she left him and he had reached out, trying to pull her back, only she was out of his reach. Then he was running after her, and she was fleeing from him. Had he hurt her? Had he tried? He had been so desperate, so yearning, he would have believed himself capable of almost anything.

The icy dread in him now was enough to make him push up and out of bed. He swayed when he stood up, but he wrapped a hand around the bedpost and managed to stay upright. He looked around. There was a bag on the chair. Yes, that had been what she had carried in here, and there, beside his washbowl, were two damp rags, hanging to dry. He picked up one and brought it to his face. It smelled of lavender.