Page 39 of Every Rogue Has His Charm

“Caro,” he said, still breathing heavily, “what the devil have you done?”

Chapter 13

Almost immediately, Maxim regretted raising his voice. For one thing, it hurt like hell, his throat already raw from swallowing and then purging what had felt like half the water in the channel. For another, Caro’s stark expression—carved into her face by guilt and worry and things he couldn’t even name—was enough to flay open whatever parts of him the shingled beach had left intact.

“What in God’s name did you hope to find?” he demanded of her, the question quieter, but no less urgent.

“An explanation.”

“For what?”

Her gaze cut back to the box of papers. “Your hard feelings toward your grandfather.”

All at once, the flash of indignation that had temporarily warmed him fled and his body recalled its battered and chilled state. A bone-deep shudder passed through him, rattling his teeth, rattling the little sofa on which he sat. He had imagined her trying to discover how much money she could wheedle for her family, or the name of some far-flung ducal property to which she could repair, alone. Not searching for—and finding—the clues that would strip away whatever thin layer of protection he had managed to build between his present life and the torments of his youth.

He dug his fingers—or tried; his hands didn’t seem to want to work properly—into the thin pink shawl Caro had draped over him, as if he could hold himself together with it. “And di-di-d-d-did you f-f-f-find—?”

The door of the drawing room swung open without warning, revealing what must be every servant belonging to the place. Mrs. Horn sounded an incoherent alarm as she strode into the room and deposited a tray on the table. “You need something to warm yourself, Your Grace. A cup of tea, first,” she ordered as she poured, “and then a nice hot bath.” A sharp nod at the maids and manservant gawking from the doorway sent them scampering to the stairwell with their steaming cannisters of water.

Maxim couldn’t seem to make his arms obey enough to reach for the cup and saucer she held out to him. Caro stepped forward, took the tea from Mrs. Horn, and perched herself on the edge of the cushion beside him, heedless of the dirt or the damp. “Here,” she said, holding the cup to his lips.

He wanted to despise the pity shadowing her eyes. That crate could only contain a fragment of the truth; she didn’t know the half of why he hated his grandfather. Anyway, he didn’t want—didn’t deserve her pity.

Did he?

When she tipped the cup, he took a scalding gulp of tea, craving a sharper, more focusing pain than the ache of muscles or the sting of various scrapes. Ordinarily, he never drank the brew without wishing it were either red wine or black coffee. But he could not help but welcome its hot sweetness as it seared its way down his throat and into his belly.

Perhaps his grandfather had not been entirely right about him. Perhaps there was some part of him that was really an Englishman.

Caro tilted the cup away. “Be careful. You’ll burn yourself.”

Did it matter? To her? To anyone?

The warmth spread inside him, but he still shook uncontrollably, his teeth rattling against the delicate china when she tipped up the cup again. With a gargantuan force of will, he released his hold on the shawl and brought up one of his own hands to encircle hers, hoping if not to steady the cup then at least to time its tremors with his own.

Mrs. Horn, who had stepped momentarily from the room, returned with a pair of blankets and wrapped them around his shoulders. “Gracious, sir,” she fretted as she gave him a closer inspection. “Look at your hands. I’ll find what’s left of Dr. Trefrey’s salve for them.”

Belatedly, he realized that Caro’s knuckles were smeared with his blood. But he couldn’t let her go—wouldn’t let her go. And she made no effort to free herself, simply urged him to go on drinking.

After refilling the cup for a second time, Mrs. Horn excused herself again and soon returned with Leclerc, whose expression was nearly as shocked as Caro’s had been. “A hot bath is what’s wanted now, Your Grace,” the housekeeper said.

Maxim didn’t disagree; the tea had warmed him enough that he was becoming more aware of the rest of his injuries, as well as the grit that had managed to work its way everywhere beneath his remaining clothes. Despite his willingness, however, it took the combined efforts of the other three to get him to his feet and then up the stairs to his bedchamber.

A fire already blazed in the hearth, and before it sat a copper tub, steam rising from it in swirling, inviting clouds. Once even Leclerc had gone, he stripped off his tattered garments and sank into the tub, wincing as the water hit his abrasions.

Gradually, the heat penetrated his cold, stiff muscles. Cupping his hands, he sluiced water over his chest and his arms, rinsing away the grit and salt from his battered body, then slid low enough to do the same for his hair.

When he opened his eyes after shaking the water from them, Leclerc was there, holding out a cordial glass.

“Qu’est-ce que c’est?” Maxim rasped.

“Something for your pain,” the young man replied in French. “Laudanum.” He shaped the word oddly, not as a Frenchman would, but probably as he’d heard it on the lips of Mrs. Horn or that quack, Trefrey.

“Bah.” Maxim waved the glass away. He’d been given enough as a boy that he’d come to crave the stuff and had had to learn to do without. Never again.

Leclerc gave a reluctant nod and set the glass aside. “Something else, sir?”

“Rien.” The word of refusal scraped his tortured throat. Tipping his head back against the edge of the tub, he listened as the young man padded from the room.