When Beauty Tamed the Beast

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Linnet heard Piers’s voice first as a faraway trickle, like running water in a brook somewhere off in the distance. She herself was far away in a safe place, the pool near the sea. It wasn’t cold as it always had been, those mornings, but pleasantly warm, sometimes even too hot.

  Still, she wanted to say good-bye to him, she really wanted to say good-bye to him.

  He was her lodestone, after all. Her beating heart. And although he’d pushed her away, he would be broken when he learned of her death. She knew that.

  In the last days, as she lay in that place, drifting into and out of the fever, she’d come to the certainty, the sure knowledge that he loved her. For all he said cruel things, he loved her.

  And she had let him scold her out of the room and out of his life. It was just as she thought when she saw Piers for the very first time. If they were to be married, she’d have to stop him from bullying her.

  If she lived, she would go back to him and make him stop. She would tell him . . . something.

  She drifted off again, but when she woke his voice was closer and less melodic. Piers, melodic? That was an amusing thought. What could she be thinking? He was never melodic.

  As if on cue he burst into a string of curse words that would have made her smile except she was too strangely enervated to twitch a muscle.

  In truth, she didn’t seem to have the energy to open her eyes. But she’d stopped opening them lately, anyway. She was too exhausted to drink, and her eyes were sticky with dirt.

  So she sank back into the water, the blue crystalline water of the pool. She was drifting down and away, her hair rippling through the water, when she heard him swearing again.

  Really, she should speak to him about his profanity. It—

  Then she remembered that she was dying. In a chicken coop, and Piers was nowhere close, since he’d thrown her out of the castle.

  Dying . . .

  He would care, dreadfully.

  Then she clearly heard Piers say something about her buttocks. Bottom, she thought. But she was still trapped under the water. Though was trapped the right word? It was pleasant there. The pool was fearsomely hot sometimes, but now it was cool, and the water brushed her face like the hand of someone who loved her.

  Her mother’s hand. A sudden memory came into her head of a fever, some fever she’d had as a child. Her mother’s voice, her nurse’s voice . . . her mother irritably saying, “Of course I’m not going anywhere tonight! Linnet is ill . . .”

  But it wasn’t a hand touching her, it was an arm. An arm around her waist, heavy and male.

  It must be Piers. She’d never been to bed with anyone else.

  For a moment her mind reeled wildly between the pool, with its watery silken sheets and its drifting peace—and a bed with Piers. His arm around her, tight. The smell of him, male and a bit sweaty.

  Sweaty? Piers was never sweaty.

  Just like that, her face broke the surface of the pool as if she were thrust from the water by a pair of arms that threw her, threw her—

  Where?

  She opened her eyes. It was terribly dark, so it must be the chicken coop. But the coop . . . She sniffed again, but carefully, without moving. She had learned not to stir a muscle because of the sores on her skin.

  It didn’t smell like the chicken coop.

  And then, as her eyesight slowly returned, she realized that moonlight was coming in a window. She was in a bed. And the arm . . . there was an arm around her.

  She turned to her side, wincing. Piers was there. He’d come for her. For a moment Linnet just feasted on the look of him: his lean, fierce face, darkened with beard. His eyes, closed now in sleep, but so powerfully intelligent when he was awake. His lips were surprisingly full for a man, his bottom lip rounded.

  Piers, she whispered, before she remembered that she couldn’t talk, that she hadn’t been able even to whisper for a long time.

  He didn’t stir. Her eyes began to close again; the pool beckoned . . . but he was here, next to her. Didn’t she want to say good-bye? Hadn’t she something to tell him, something important?

  Yes. She had to stay awake, not fall into the pool until he woke, until she could tell him the important thing.

  She forgot what it was, feasting on his cheekbones, long eyelashes, the tumble of hair over his brow, the frown that he wore even in sleep. He had never slept with her before, though she had secretly longed for it.

  And here he was, naked on the sheet. Sleeping with her, in the same bed, at night.

  The moonlight faded, replaced by the very first rays of morning light.

  “Piers,” she whispered. Her lips moved, but no sound came out.

  Still, he must have heard her that time, because his eyes opened.

  For a moment he just smiled at her, sleepy and possessive. “Linnet,” he said, and her whole soul rejoiced.

  Then his eyes snapped open. “You’re awake!” His hand came down on her forehead. “How do you feel?”

  “Hurts,” she said, knowing no sound was coming from her lips.

  “It must hurt like hell,” Piers said. That was all he said, but for Piers, that was sympathy. “You need to drink, Linnet. That’s the most important thing. You’re not out of the woods.”

  It was as if he were talking to himself. So she drank some water, though most of it trickled down her neck.

  Still, she felt . . . different.

  “Clean,” she said. He read her lips.

  “Do you remember me washing you, Linnet? Do you?”

  She almost shook her head, and then remembered not to. “No,” she breathed. Her eyes were drifting shut. His hand was huge on her forehead, touching her gently, and she could hear him talking.

  “The fever’s back,” he was saying. “But that’s to be expected, Linnet. I’m putting a wet cloth on your forehead.”

  It made her flinch.

  “I know those sores hurt.” His voice was grim. “But I have to bring your temperature back down.”

  Suddenly she remembered the important thing she had to tell him, and opened her eyes. “Love you,” she breathed, eyes meeting his.

  “Then live for me,” he said, bending over her, his voice fierce as a hawk’s cry. “Live.”

  She fell asleep with a little smile on her face. The pool was farther away now, dim and receding. She found herself dreaming of the chicken coop instead, and woke with a gasp.

  Piers was still there, dressed now, with a snowy white neck cloth. He was standing at the door to the bedchamber, talking to someone in the hallway. “More water, if you please. Boiled, of course.”

  She went back to sleep. Time seemed to stretch out, elongate itself and then suddenly disappear. She’d sleep, and wake up to find it was the middle of the night. Sleep again, wake to find it still nighttime, but Piers was wearing a different neck cloth.

  Finally, after three days, she tried to say something, and a squawk came out.

  “You sound like a barnyard rooster with a cold,” Piers said, coming to her side. His face was exhausted, his eyes bruised.

  “Tired,” Linnet said, going back to a soundless whisper.

  He misunderstood. “Fatigue is a side effect of a brush with death,” he said, a triumphant grin spreading across his face. “Damn it, Linnet, I’m going to write you up. I’m the only doctor in Wales who could have pulled you through.”

  “You peacock,” she mouthed. Her body felt boundlessly weary, but mercifully, the prickling pain was fading. Remembering, she raised her arm, and gasped. It was dark red and scaly.

  Piers sat down on the edge of the bed. “It isn’t a pretty disease, Linnet.”

  She tried to make sense of that.

  “This is not your finest hour. I had to cut your hair off.”

  She blinked in horror, her mouth falling open.

  “You’re covered in scabs, head to toe. Well, actually for some reason your feet are fine. But you even have them behind your ears.”

&nbsp
; Linnet raised her arm again and stared at it in disbelief.

  “You could have gone blind,” Piers said with his usual directness. “Or died. You should have died, by all rights. It’s a miracle you didn’t get an infection, lying on the floor of that chicken coop.”

  Linnet shuddered at the word chicken and let her arm fall. But she had to ask. “Scars?” she asked, propelling the word out with such force that it was easy to comprehend.

  White lies were not in Piers’s repertoire. “Most likely,” he said, looking at her analytically, like the doctor he was. “Sometimes yes, sometimes no. You won’t look quite as much like a boiled lobster in a week or two.”

  Linnet closed her eyes and tried to understand what he was saying. She looked like a boiled lobster, perhaps permanently. Not a beauty any longer. Not by any measure. More like a monster, she thought. A scaly beast.

  She could hear Piers rising, probably thinking she had gone to sleep. Her body was rigid, the arm under her sheet feeling her leg and then her waist carefully. Everywhere she touched, her skin felt uneven, scaly and hard under her fingertips.

  Piers was there again. “Broth,” he said. There was no point in refusing; she’d learned that over the last three days. Piers would not accept no. So she opened her eyes and took the broth, spoon after spoon. Her left fingers twitched at her side, but she didn’t move.

  Then the bowl was empty, and Piers walked away with it. For a moment she was frozen, unable to make herself move—and then she did. She put her hand squarely on her breast.

  There was no mistaking the skin under her fingers. Her breasts were in the same condition as her arm, as her stomach, as her leg.

  She lay there, hand on her breast, and felt one hot tear go down her cheek, and then another.

  Piers was still at the door, having given someone the empty bowl. “I’ll just go next door and take a nap,” he was saying.

  She knew he would come back, lean over her, say good-bye. In the last three days, he had never left the room without telling her where he was going, and how long he’d be gone.

  “Maid,” she breathed, as soon as he was close enough. “You go back to the castle. I’ll be fine with my maid.”

  For a split second, his eyes changed, turning desolate. But then he said readily, “Of course. She can be here by supper time.”

  Eliza was no better at hiding the truth than Piers. She fell back upon entering the door, hand on her heart. “Lord Almighty!” she gasped.

  Linnet waited.

  “Your hair, your poor hair,” Eliza breathed, but her eyes returned with a kind of fascinated horror to Linnet’s face and neck. “That’s not . . . you don’t have that all over, do you?”

  Another tear ran down Linnet’s cheek. She nodded.

  “Well, you were like to die,” Eliza said, coming over but looking as if she was thinking twice about touching Linnet. “You easily could have died. By all accounts, his lordship thought you would, at first.”

  Linnet wished she had, rather than face life with this skin.

  And Eliza guessed what she was thinking. “It’ll get better,” she said, rattling out the words. “I’m sure of that. We’ll—we’ll bathe you in mineral salts, every day. Twice a day. I’ve never seen anyone who looks like you, which means that it has to get better. Of course—” She stopped.

  “What?” Linnet croaked.

  “Oh, your poor throat,” Eliza cried. “Your voice is just gone.”

  “What?” Linnet repeated.

  “His lordship said as how you’re almost the only one to get this sick and survive,” Eliza said. “Maybe that’s why I’ve never seen skin like that before.”

  Linnet closed her eyes, feeling utter despair. She had lived, but she was left with this face. This skin.

  “Would it hurt if I touched you?” Eliza was saying.

  She shook her head again, wearily.

  Eliza’s fingers were soft and cool. “It’s like scabs,” her maid said. “All-over ones. Well, this is a perishing state of affairs.”

  “Home,” Linnet croaked, catching her eye.

  “You want to go home? It’s going to break your father’s heart, that it will.”

  At the moment Linnet didn’t give a damn about what her father thought. She just wanted to be back in her own room, away from anyone who—

  Away from Piers.

  Away from the man who had loved her body and thought her hair was like burnished gold.

  “I’ll ask,” Eliza promised. “But his lordship, I’m not sure he’ll let you go. He tended you all by himself, you know. Kept you alive when no one else could, spooning water into you every hour, covering you with wet cloths, and then warming you up again.”

  Linnet felt a pang. Piers had always warmed her with his body when they swam together. She had no doubt he had done everything possible to make her live. Piers couldn’t bear to lose, especially to Death.

  “From what I hear,” Eliza continued, “you were a proper sight when they found you in that chicken coop.”

  Linnet remembered bits and pieces, and what she remembered wasn’t pretty. The smell . . . the smell was foremost in her memory. She shuddered.

  “We’ll have to get you back to the castle first,” Eliza was saying. “You should see the duke and the duchess now. Like a pair of lovebirds, they are. The duke wanted to get a special license, but Lady Bernaise made him post the banns right in the little church in the village. Second week now, so they’ll be tying the knot again next week. Did you ever hear anything so romantic?”

  Linnet shook her head.

  “I’m not sure that you’ll want to go to the ceremony, though,” Eliza said. She ran her fingers over Linnet’s hand again.

  “Never,” Linnet managed, meaning that she would never, ever leave the house again. Not like this. Not . . . ever.

  “Well, as to never,” Eliza said, “it’ll get better. There are salves that we can put on, and salt baths, and in a week, maybe a month, you’ll be as good as gold. There’s all those creams they advertise in the papers,” she added. “For clearing up red skin. I know I’ve seen those. We’ll buy some back in London. Your father will buy all of them. The earl sent him a message, by the way, in case he was worried at not hearing from you for so long.”

  Linnet closed her eyes and tried to imagine her father worrying about her long silence.

  “And even if your skin isn’t quite what it was before,” Eliza went on, “it doesn’t matter, because you’re going to be a countess, and a duchess someday.”

  Linnet snapped her eyes open.

  “Anyone can tell the man loves you to distraction,” her maid said, smiling. “Besides, he told his father and the marquis that he was marrying you. They came over here the second day to see how you were doing. He wouldn’t let them in to see you, but he told them that you were going to live long enough to marry him. Three footmen heard it, so I know it’s true.”

  “No,” Linnet stated. She would never marry Piers. In fact, she would never marry any man, but in particular not the Earl of Marchant.

  Eliza didn’t hear her. “I’m just going to pop out and see what I should be doing for you. There must be something we can put on that skin.”

  Linnet could hear her, through the door. “I don’t care if he is asleep, there must be something we can put on her skin.” More murmuring. “All right then.” She was back in the room, brandishing a jar. “I’m going to put this stuff all over you.” Eliza took a sniff. “It smells like beer. Well, beer and pine needles. Who cares as long as it works?”

  Linnet let her spread the oily, smelly stuff all over, front and back.

  “Lord Almighty, it’s worse here,” Eliza exclaimed, gently rubbing it into Linnet’s rear. “Though I wouldn’t have thought that possible.”

  More tears trickled into the pillow.

  By the time Piers walked into the room—without a knock, as if he were master of the bedchamber—Linnet had made up her mind. She couldn’t go home to London yet, obviously. She
had to gather strength. She drank more broth than she wished, because the sooner her strength returned, the sooner she could leave.

  He bent over her, almost as if he were going to kiss her. “Go away,” she said, turning her face to the side. The words came out like squawks, but they were perfectly understandable.

  He straightened and scowled down at her. “You smell like a brewery. What’s all over you?”

  “I put on this salve,” Eliza said, bustling forward with the now-empty jar.

  “I told Neythen to send that along for the scullery girl’s chapped hands,” Piers said. “Though it can’t have hurt.”

  “I had to do something,” Eliza said defensively. “The poor dear can’t stay like this. Why, she couldn’t be seen on the street without causing a riot.”

  She would never look in a glass again.

  “Go away,” she croaked at Piers.

  “It stands to reason you’d be one of those cranky patients,” he said.

  So Linnet looked at Eliza. And Eliza, bless her heart, stepped forward to fight the beast. “My mistress would like you to leave the room, Lord Marchant. Since she can’t make herself understood, I’ll speak for her.”

  “Fine,” Piers snapped. He walked to the door, turned around. “I’ll come back later with your supper. I think it’s time to try something more sustaining than broth.”

  Linnet threw Eliza a desperate look. Her maid moved forward again, as if she were guarding the bed. “If you’ll bring me the supper, my lord, I’ll make sure that my mistress eats every drop. She’s not fit for company at the moment.”

  “I’m not company!” Piers roared.

  Eliza folded her arms.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” he said suddenly, and got himself through the door. Linnet could hear his cane thwacking down the steps, and then receding into the distance.

  Eliza came back. “I won’t be able to hold him off for long,” she said, peering down at Linnet. “He is a doctor. He’s seen the worst of it. He was here all alone with you the first night.”

  A tear trickled down Linnet’s cheek. Eliza sat down and put a hand on her arm, not even flinching at the feel. “There, there,” she said. “If a body ever deserved a good cry, you’re the one.”