Devil in Disguise (The Ravenels #7) - Lisa Kleypas Page 0,52

bestowing cool, sweet calm on his tortured body.

But for all her softness, there was steel in her. She was unrelenting when it came time to dose him with medicines he didn’t want. She made him sip water or broth despite his struggles to keep anything down. There was no bloody refusing her. This was a woman who would keep him anchored safely to the earth, to life, with the force of her will.

During the worst of it, when Keir was maddened by suffocating heat, and every breath felt like someone was stabbing a peat knife into his chest, the woman packed ice around him, or bathed him all over with cool cloths. It mortified and infuriated him to lie there helpless and naked as a wee bairnie while she took care of his intimate needs, but he was too damned sick to do anything for himself. He needed her, both the softness and the steel.

She assured him that he would be better soon. He’d fallen, she said, and his lungs had been injured, but they were healing. A wound on his back was causing the fever, but that too would heal.

Keir wasn’t so sure. The hot, pulsing place on his back seemed to be worsening by the hour, spreading poison through him. Soon he couldn’t keep even water down, and instead of worrying about dying, he began to worry about not dying. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t stop writhing from pain and nausea. He’d have welcomed any escape.

He felt a touch on his forehead and slitted his eyes open. A stranger stood beside him, tall and sternfaced, blindingly handsome, with silvery-gold hair. He looked like an angel. Not the kind offering comfort—the kind sent to smite people. Almost certainly this was the angel of death, and about time he appeared. Even hell would be better than this.

But instead of escorting Keir to the hereafter, the man pressed a fresh iced cloth to his forehead. As Keir writhed and panted in a red welter of fever, he felt the covers being drawn away, and someone began to lift the hem of his nightshirt. Riled by the indignity, he struck out blindly, trying to knock away the unfamiliar hands.

“Keir. Rest easy, boy.” The stranger was leaning over him, speaking in a low, lulling voice that would have caused an entire sounder of wild boars to curl up like kittens. “We have to bring the fever down.”

“Not you,” Keir managed to gasp. “I want her.”

“Lady Merritt has gone to bed for a few hours of badly needed rest. Do you remember me? No? I’m Kingston. This fine old fellow beside me is Culpepper—he’s been my valet for twenty-five years. Lie back now, there’s a good lad.”

Keir subsided warily while the odd pair—one golden and resplendent, one old and wizened—moved around him with quiet efficiency. The nightshirt was removed and a towel was draped over his hips. They cold-sponged his limbs, dressed him in a fresh nightshirt, and changed the sheets while he remained in bed. As Kingston reached around Keir and lifted him to a sitting position, he began to struggle.

“Calm yourself,” Kingston said, sounding faintly amused. “I’m keeping you upright for a moment while Culpepper tucks the lower sheet around the mattress.”

Having never been held by another male in his adult life, Keir would have balked, but he was too weak to sit up on his own. To his eternal humiliation, his head lolled forward onto the man’s shoulder.

“It’s all right,” Kingston said, holding him securely. “Lean against me.”

The man was remarkably fit, Keir would give him that. The form beneath the fine cotton shirt and soft wool waistcoat was sleek and rock-solid. And there was something so comfortable about his manner, so calm, that Keir relaxed despite himself. He tried to think, but his head was a maze of dead ends and trapdoors. Nothing about the situation made sense to him.

An onset of fever chills started his teeth chattering. “Why are you doing this?” he managed to ask.

It might have been his imagination, but Kingston’s arms seemed to tighten a little. “I have sons who are approximately your age. If one of them were ill and far from home, I would wish for someone to do this for them.”

Which wasn’t really an answer.

“I’m going to lower you now,” Kingston said. “Don’t strain yourself—let me do the work.” Carefully he settled Keir among the pillows and weighted him with blankets. He laid a hand over Keir’s forehead. “Culpepper,” he asked quietly, “when is