Loving a Lost Lord Read Online Free PDF Page B

leave him alone, but the faster she got him indoors and warm, the better.
    Hoping he could walk, she leaned over and asked, “Can you understand me?”
    After a long moment, he nodded, head bent.
    â€œIf I help, do you think you can walk to my house? It’s not far.”
    He nodded again. Though his eyes were closed and he shivered with cold, at least he had some awareness of his situation.
    She brushed the sand from her feet and put her slippers back on, then knelt and draped his left arm around her shoulders. “I’ll lift as best I can, but I can’t manage without your help.”
    She lifted and he struggled. Between them, he got to his feet, swaying. She used her free hand to wrap her shawl around his shoulders, hoping the heavy wool would dispel some of his chill. “We’re on our way. It’s not a very long walk.”
    He didn’t reply, but when she started walking, he followed her lead. Their floundering progress through the sand was excruciating and the breeze sliced through wet clothing.
    Matters improved once they reached the path. A pity it was all uphill. But with her under his arm and taking half his weight, the sailor managed to keep moving.
    He used a railing to drag himself up the steps into the house while Mariah supported him on the other side. They staggered inside, Mariah wondering what to do next since he surely couldn’t manage another flight of stairs to the guest bedrooms. Then she remembered a small chamber at the back of the ground floor. Once it had been used by an elderly housekeeper. The room was shabby and underfurnished, but there was a bed. It would suffice.
    She steered the sailor through the darkened house, occasionally banging into furniture. She hoped her charge wasn’t acquiring as many bruises as she was. It was a huge relief to enter the small bedroom. Because the aged housekeeper had been infirm, the bed had been built low. With the last of her endurance, she steered him to it. “You can lie down now.”
    The sailor folded onto the bed in an ungainly sprawl and promptly clutched a pillow the same way he’d hung on to his beam. Mariah swung his legs onto the mattress, then used her tinderbox to light a lamp. Even though the room hadn’t been used for years, the capable Mrs. Beckett had oil in the lamp and a fire laid in the tiny fireplace. The bed wasn’t made up, but there would be blankets in the small, battered wardrobe.
    After she lit the fire, she tugged at the pillow he was crushing. “You’re safe now. Safe .” His grip eased and she was able to remove the pillow and examine him.
    She patted his shivering body dry with a thin towel from the washstand. His clothing was so tattered that she was able to examine him fairly thoroughly without stripping off the ragged remnants. Some of his garments were charred at the edges. Perhaps a ship’s fire drove him to jump into the sea.
    He was massively bruised and had cuts and scrapes beyond counting. There were also areas of blistered and scorched flesh, which fit with the charred clothing. Mercifully, the burns weren’t severe. He must have hit the water quickly.
    She found no major wounds on his limbs and torso. Though some of his injuries had bled, his time in the seawater had washed away the actual blood and nothing seemed to be bleeding now.
    She pulled blankets from the wardrobe and wrapped him in multiple layers. Luckily the fire was warming the small room rapidly and he was losing his deathly chill.
    Taking the lamp, she made a trip to her room for dry clothing, then descended to the kitchen. While tea water and broth heated, she brought a pitcher of water and a glass back to her patient. He was sleeping. In the soft light, his complexion and his unfashionably long hair were dark. She was no expert on male whiskers, but it looked as if he had at least a couple of days’ growth. If he had been in the water that long, he had to be as strong as an