Stand and Deliver Your Love by Killarney Sheffield

The marquis was too ill to make any inappropriate overtures she tried to convince herself. With a last look at his face to make sure he wasn't playing games, she slid onto the bed. She lay on the edge, facing the fire, taking pains her body did not touch any part of his. For a few moments she held her breath. When there was no movement from him she relaxed and began to drift off to sleep.
    Somewhere in her dreams a warm body drew her close and cradled her.
     

 
    Chapter Five
     
     
    Outside a bird trilled. Its song answered by another , the sound telling Sarah it was well past sunup. She stirred, stretching under the warm blanket and opened her eyes. Despite the bird’s cheerful serenade, there was no sunlight streaming in through the bare window above the bed. Instead the sky was dark gray and raindrops trickled haphazardly down the window panes. Her hopes the rain was letting up were dashed as quickly as lightning flashed in the distance.
    A firm, warm hand slid into the hollow of her waist and rested there. Sarah stiffened as the events from the previous night came rushing back to her. With a jolt she sat up, tossing the covers off. The lord’s offending hand slipped from her waist onto the warm indentation in the straw stuffed mattress where her body had lain. Standing she turned and glowered at him.
    His eyes were closed, his breathing raspy, but steady. Leaning down, she braced herself in case he was pretending to be asleep and touched his forehead. His skin was dry and hot to the touch. She hurried to mix more mustard powder with warm water from the kettle over the coals as Dickie came in from outside looking damp but fresh. With false cheerfulness she greeted him, “Good morning Dickie. Have you been out tending the horses already?”
    The boy carried a large arm load of wood across the room and dumped it all to the floor by the hearth with a clatter. “Yes, mistress.” Sarah spread the fresh mustard paste onto a clean towel and crossed to the bed. Glancing at Dickie she gingerly sat on the edge. The boy was stoking the fire, blowing on the embers with careful breaths to encourage them to burst into flame. She turned her attention back to her patient. It seemed her usually talkative friend was still ill at ease with strangers. Would he ever be the strong confident young man she knew he could be? Carefully she peeled the old plaster pack off Byron’s chest. After placing the fresh towel mustard-side down in place of the old one, she smoothed it flat.
    Thinking back, she remembered the day she found poor Dickie. The half-starved lad was discovered lying naked in a feces and garbage-filled alley. He was beaten so badly she feared the boy was dead. He was, upon closer inspection, barely alive. She recalled whispering a desperate prayer as she scooped his little body up and took him back to the orphanage. The boy had more broken bones than she had ever seen, but with tender and constant care he recovered.
    When gently questioned, Dickie had finally been persuaded to tell them his drunken father beat him in a fit of rage when the boy failed to beg enough money to buy another bottle of rum. The man discarded him in the alley like a pile of garbage.
    Pursing her lips together she stood on and wiped her hands. It was hard for her to imagine or understand how a human being could be a monster and terrorize a child in such a way. She couldn’t help but feel satisfaction, shameful as it seemed, when Bert went out a few nights later and gave the boy’s cruel father the beating of his life. The man certainly deserved worse than he had received, she concluded. She crossed the little room to the wash basin and scrubbed the sticky mustard plaster from her fingers.
    Gathering her hair, she twisted it into a loose knot on top of her head and secured it with a small hair comb. Looking at her reflection in the jagged piece of mirror hanging on the otherwise bare wall, her normally bright eyes were dull with dark circles