Winter's Warrior (The Wicked Winters Book 13) Read online

  Shadows passed over her brother’s countenance. Without answering, he presented her with his back and filled the glasses a third time.

  “Jasper.” She moved toward him, loving her brother, hating to see him filled with such torment, for it was the same pain that had been plaguing her ever since their brother had gone. “I know you miss him. Pray, think of how wrong this is. Think of Loge out there somewhere, hurt as badly as Gavin Winter, or worse. Think of someone keeping him from us—”

  Her brother spun back to face her with such haste, the gin splashed over his hands. “He is bloody well dead, Caro. Gone to Rothisbone. Thinking about Loge out there somewhere would be for naught. He ain’t out there. He’s gone. This is different. Gavin Winter is a separate matter entirely, and I’ll thank you to trust me to ’andle it.”

  Tears bit at her eyes at the vehemence of Jasper’s response, the sharpness in his voice. He had just spoken aloud the words none of them had been willing to say, to openly acknowledge.

  “You do not know for certain that Loge is dead,” she countered, swallowing down a lump of emotion—sadness, fear, she knew not what. “He could still be alive. The Winters are likely fearing the worst about Gavin. He has been here with us for almost a fortnight, with no word. Would you truly wish the agony we have experienced upon others?”

  “It isn’t your affair,” her brother said, and then he drained the glasses he held in quick succession.

  She had known that Logan’s disappearance had taken a toll upon them all, but Jasper had seemed to take it especially hard. Almost as if he felt responsible for what had happened. This ruthlessness he was exhibiting now, extraordinary even by his previous, dubious standards, troubled her.

  “But it is my concern,” she argued quietly, worried for her brother. “You have made it so by forcing me to continue to lie to Gavin, to pretend I do not know who he is and that I am keeping his presence here a secret from my family. He wants to speak with you, to explain himself, and he is capable of walking about on his own strength now. We cannot keep him forever trapped in a room. What shall we do when he heals completely?”

  Wisely, she refrained from mentioning that he had been walking about naked when she had entered his chamber. Jasper’s mood was volatile enough without such an inflammatory revelation.

  “You let me worry about that when the time comes,” her brother said, stern and commanding. “We are Suttons, Caro. Our loyalty to each other is first. Always. Do not forget you promised me you would allow me to ’andle this.”

  She clenched her jaw, knowing there was nothing more she could do for now. When the walls came down inside Jasper, there was no more talking, no more bargaining. He had decided, and that was that. And he was not wrong. She had made him that promise.

  She would concede this battle with him.

  But not the war.

  Caro nodded. “As you wish it, brother. I will leave you to your work. But please, I beg you, no more spirits this morning.”

  “It’s as it must be, Caro. Never doubt that.”

  But as she left her brother’s office, the doubt was rife and heavy upon her, weighing her down more than ever. She was not going to surrender. Gavin Winter deserved better.

  He knew he did not deserve the glory which had been delivered to the chamber. But he was going to accept it, just the same.

  A tub.

  A true bath.

  Finally, he could be clean.

  So many days in his sickbed, followed by making use of the bowl and pitcher when he had regained his strength enough to make a rough attempt at removing the stink from himself. It had rendered him desperate for clean, warm water surrounding him. Randall and one of the other hell guards had hauled the tub upstairs and filled it.

  After his disastrous attempt at dressing the day before, he was ready to begin anew. He could not wait to get inside and wash away the stench of his illness, which he could not help but to feel had been haunting him. Hell, for as long as he lived, he would still recall the scent of the ointment Caro had applied to his wound, and that was to say nothing of the acrid sharpness of his own sweat.

  Little wonder he had sent Caro running from the chamber, never to return. Not only had he been naked before her, but he was also a hulking, stinking beast. When he had been abed, he had not realized the full extent of his size and height.

  Yesterday, as he had been testing his ability to amble about the chamber, and when she had come rushing to his aid following the spell of dizziness… Well, it had occurred to him afterward that he was a rather large chap. His fists alone were massive, and he could not seem to shake the aches in them, the feeling of them pounding against something.

  He sighed and slowly, painstakingly, lowered himself into the bath. His limbs were stiff from lack of use. His wound still pained him, but for the first time, surrounded by the heated, clean water, he felt as if he were well and truly alive. It was a glorious feeling.

  So damned glorious that when a knock sounded on his door, he called for the person to enter without having a second thought about what had unfolded the day before. Without supposing it may be Caro on the other end of the portal.

  The door creaked open. A face appeared in the crack, and hazel eyes settled upon him, searing him to his soul.

  Damnation, she was a gorgeous woman.

  “Caro.” He attempted to brace his arms on the tub so he could slide lower beneath the water, but when he moved his wounded arm, pain sank its jaws into him, biting hard. Though he did his best to muffle the oath, the curse that fled his tongue was blistering.

  He needn’t have worried that he had offended her, however. Caro came charging into the room, the door closing at her back.

  “You must take care, or you will injure yourself further when you are just beginning to heal,” she warned, her tone reminiscent of someone else’s he knew.

  At least, he thought it was. The murky mists of his mind were stubborn in their persistent refusal to relinquish his secrets. Oh, how he wished he could remember even the tiniest speck of his past. Anything at all. Still, there was something about a stern reckoning that made him think he had heard it before. Not from Caro Sutton, but from another woman who was dear to him.

  A mother?

  Surely not a wife?

  He did not want to think his heart belonged to another. But the hell of it was, he had no notion. Not the slightest shred of an inkling. Every memory he had once possessed had turned to dust.

  “Have you nothing to say for yourself, sir?” Caro asked, averting her gaze as she bustled past him with a tray of more mixtures and elixirs.

  If he had to guess, he would say it was yet another of her healing unguents. Each day, it seemed, she brought him a new salve, ointment, poultice, tea. She was forever trying to heal him.

  And she was also turning to face him, pinning him with a ferocious glare now, awaiting his response, he supposed.

  He found his voice at last. Rough and husky, partially from the desire that simmered in his veins whenever she was in the vicinity, even when he was doused in pain. But there, nonetheless.

  “Forgive me, Caro?”

  Her dark brow rose. “For?”

  “Causing your displeasure.” Indeed, if there was anything he wanted—even more than regaining his memory—it was her pleasure.

  In every way. Pity he was in no condition to offer her that just now. And hell, he did not know if he was a skilled lover. He would most certainly like to believe it.

  She pursed her lips, her fingers burrowing into the skirt of her gown and twisting. “You do not cause me displeasure. The lack of care you take with yourself, however, does. You must remember the severity of your injuries. Your movements with the wounded arm need to be slow and measured. No pulling at the stitches, or you will ruin my work before you are properly healed and I can remove them.”

  “Slow and measured,” he repeated, trying to ignore the sudden rising of his cock below the water. “Of course. I’ll do better, I will.”

  T
hey frowned at each other as his words fell between them.

  She nodded. “You must, for your own sake.”

  “Not a gentleman, am I?” he wondered aloud.

  Her lips parted, and for a moment, he thought he read something in her eyes before she blinked, banishing it. And then he supposed he must have been imagining the entire affair.

  “You are indeed a gentleman,” she countered. “At least you are not walking about, bold as you please today, bare-arsed as a babe.”

  She sent him a gentle, teasing smile to blunt the sting of her words.

  “You should not be here,” he told her, thinking it must be wrong for an unwed lady to be alone with him thus. Surely her brothers would skin him alive if they were to learn of the familiarity he had with their beautiful sister. “It was not my intention to—”

  “Oh, hush,” she interrupted. “You are an invalid. I know you haven’t any secret desire to seduce me.”

  She smiled at him, and all he could think about was how very wrong she was, and how mayhap he was a bad man. A scandalous rogue. An incorrigible scoundrel. An out and out rakehell. Because he did want to seduce her. Since he’d grown well enough to manage a cockstand, he had lain awake at night thinking of little else.

  “What if I were to say I do?” he asked, feeling bold.

  And stupid.

  Likely, it was the warmth of the water. The abating of the pain in his arm now that he was holding still. Or mayhap it was just her eyes, trapping him. She was the loveliest woman he had ever seen. Hell—since he had arisen from the abyss, she had been the only woman he had seen, but he understood instinctively he had not known one who affected him in the same manner. She was uncommonly warm and caring, and he understood that instinctively as well.

  Caro Sutton took his breath and made his heart beat fast.

  “What if you were to say you have a secret desire to seduce me?” she echoed, color tingeing her cheekbones as she repeated the question.

  He wished he had more strength. He wished he knew his bloody name.

  “Aye,” he told her. “What if I were to say that?”

  Her lips parted. Full, tempting, pink lips. Riper than a summer berry. Had he ever eaten a summer berry? If he had, he could not recall.

  “I would tell you that you are bound to be disappointed,” she told him primly, dashing his hopes. “I do not allow my patients to be so bold.”

  “Patients?” Now that was intriguing. He had taken note that Caro was a deft hand when it came to tending to a man on his sickbed. But now he realized how little he knew of her. How little they had spoken since he had been well enough to engage in conversation. “Have you many others then, Miss Sutton?”

  He did not like the notion. It made his gut clench. Somehow, over the course of his sojourn to regain his strength, he had become enamored of her. He had come to think of her as his. However, there was a world beyond this chamber of hers, though it was one he would not recognize. He would do best to remember that.

  “You are my only patient at the moment,” she said softly, seeming to relent. Her gaze dipped to the water and then moved away with haste. “However, I am the healer here at The Sinner’s Palace. You are by no means the first to whom I have tended.”

  Of course he would not be. She was far too skilled for him to be her first patient.

  He studied her, noting she looked as if she wanted to run. “You needn’t stay here with me. I promise I ain’t going to drown.”

  As the words left him, he frowned. For there it was again in the imperfection of his speech, the hint that he was not a gentleman at all. Frustration rose, along with impatience. He had hoped his loss of memory would have been temporary—the result of the blows he had taken to the head. But it had been some time since he had initially been attacked. Far too long…

  “You had better not drown, sir,” she said crisply, still wringing her fingers in the drapery of her serviceable gown. It was an uninteresting shade of gray, but even the unattractiveness of her dress did nothing to detract from her allure. “I have fought quite hard to make certain you survive.”

  “And I am grateful to you for your efforts,” he returned, meaning those words. “I am a stranger, and you have been going to great lengths to protect me. I worry about the burden I am to you. Even this bath must attract some notice in your household, no?”

  Her lips thinned, and her shoulders stiffened. But then she smiled that radiant smile of hers, and he forgot all about her initial reaction. Forgetting came deuced easy to him these days.

  “You must not fret over me.” She turned away, hastening to the tray she had brought and fussing with the contents once more. There was the distinctive sound of an upending vial. “Damn it all.”

  He had made her uncomfortable, he supposed. But he was not certain if his gratitude or his nudity were the cause. Mayhap both.

  “I do fret over you, Caro,” he said, wishing he were not naked in the bath just now, despite the pleasant warmth of the water licking at his skin. “You are far too good to me. I do not deserve any of the risks you have taken on my behalf, nor all the time you have spent making certain I healed properly. I owe you a great deal.”

  His very life, in fact.

  “You do not.” If possible, her shoulders stiffened even more as she rushed to mop up her spill, back still turned toward him.

  There was an edge in her voice he could neither define nor understand.

  She knocked over another item on the tray and cursed again.

  “I owe you my life,” he dared to counter before hurrying to add more. “You needn’t linger here if it makes you uncomfortable, Caro. If I make you uncomfortable.”

  She turned back to him in a swirl of skirts, eyes wide. “Of course you do not. Forgive me. I am being a wretch.”

  He was sure she could never be one.

  “You are not yourself today,” he observed. “I assumed it was because of me.”

  Because he was naked in his bath, and he was saying things which he ought not.

  She shook her head. “Of course not. I came to make certain you had everything you needed for your bath, and I arrived too late. I meant to come before you were in the water and…bereft of garments.”

  Then her flustered state was down to his nudity. And she was attracted to him, as he was to her.

  Thank all the angels and the saints and…anyone he could not recall, too.

  “Fancy way of saying naked,” he observed.

  Her flush returned, but her gaze never wavered from his. “Yes. It is.” She cleared her throat. “I should leave you to your bath. If you need anything, Randall will bring you some food and tea in the next hour.”

  With that warning, she fled from the chamber.

  He watched her go, disappointment unfurling, along with another feeling he was more than familiar with. Just as it had every day since he had opened his eyes to find himself a guest at The Sinner’s Palace with nary a hint of memory, frustration hit him with the force of a blow.

  Chapter 3

  “You and Jasper are keeping a secret from the rest of us.”

  At the unexpected voice behind her, Caro jumped, spilling the mixture she had been creating all over her work table.

  “Blast!” The oath fled her lips before she could contain it, for she had spent days attempting various combinations of ingredients, testing and trying until she achieved a mixture which pleased her.

  A mixture that was now dripping to the damned floor instead of helping Gavin’s wound when she removed his stitches, as had been her intention. Worse, she had not yet written down the measurements and ingredients so that she could recreate it. She had been rushing and had not taken care to copy down her efforts.

  How she regretted that carelessness now.

  Caro spun around to find her sister Penelope watching her, hands on her hips.

  “Pen, you gave me a fright, and now my ointment is all over the bloody ground,” Caro snapped. “Could you not have given me a warning?”


  “I knocked. You were talking to yourself. Something about camphor and unguents, unless I’m mistaken.” Pen raised a brow, distinctly unapologetic. “But I have no doubt you will make another. Tell me, what is happening? You and our eldest brother have been conspiring like a pair of Seven Dials footpads, and I don’t bloody well like it.”

  Caro and Pen were close in age, and they had been as inseparable as twins for much of their lives. However, in recent years, she and Pen had grown somewhat apart as her sister’s interest in the darker parts of their world distracted her. Especially her interest in one wastrel, rakehell lord. Caro did not approve of him. Pen did.

  And, well, they had naturally butted heads, both being stubborn Suttons. The distance between them had grown. Caro had thrown herself into her role as the Sutton healer. So it was that she did not feel obligated to tell Pen the truth about Gavin Winter, beyond the fact that Jasper had made her vow not to tell anyone else. Besides, she feared Pen would go running to her no-account friend Lord Aidan with the tale. For if ever there had been someone one could not trust with damning information, it was he.

  “Nothing is happening,” Caro deflected calmly, “except that my sister is intruding upon my work and making me spill my efforts before they can be of any use. All because she seems to think I am keeping a secret from her.”

  But Pen was undeterred, her eyes narrowing. “I think you are keeping a secret because you are.”

  Caro eyed her sister across the tiny room beside the kitchens of The Sinner’s Palace, the lone space she had claimed for her healing efforts. Nothing but bare walls, a table, and all her herbs and instruments and vials and jars. Better than no place at all, she reminded herself.

  “You may think whatever you like, Pen, but that will not bring my ointment back to me. It is quite ruined.”

  Indeed, a glance to the floor proved it had slid down her gown, leaving a wet stain in its wake, only to fall upon her slipper before landing on the floor in a worthless lump. She had spent days perfecting this version of the healing ointment she applied to her brothers’ cuts and wounds whenever they were involved in fights. And she had been so certain she had been close to developing a final combination of ingredients that would enable wounds to heal faster and with less pain, all while minimizing contagion.