Naamah's Kiss - Jacqueline Carey [62]
He touched my cheek. "Mysterious and uncanny, yes. At the moment, you don't appear particularly dire."
It drew a reluctant smile from me. "No?" I prodded the lump on the back of my skull. My hair was matted with dried blood. "To be sure, I'm feeling rather dire."
He laughed.
A maidservant arrived with a tray. She peered around Raphael with wide eyes when he went to take it from her. Despite my protests, he insisted on feeding me himself as though I were a babe too weak to hold a spoon. After the first few bites, my appetite returned and I finished almost the entire bowl. When I was done, I found myself sleepy and yawning. When I apologized to Raphael, he shook his head.
"Sleep's the best healer." He laid one hand on my brow and felt at the pulse in my wrist with the other. "You're young and strong and like to recover. Sleep, and I'll look in on you in a few hours. If you've need of aught, ring the bell and someone will come."
"All right." I settled my aching head against the pillows. As he made to draw away, I caught one of his hands and stroked it. Somewhere beneath the pain and weariness, desire waited, coiled inside me. I saw it reflected in his surprised gaze and smiled. "My lord, for all your kindness, you've not given me your name."
"Raphael," he said softly. "Raphael de Mereliot."
"Stone and sea!" I blinked. "You're the Queen's favorite courtier. The one who thinks the Academy ought to explore more than the philosophy of magic."
He stared. "How in Blessed Elua's name did you know that?"
"Oh, I had a long stagecoach ride." I yawned. "And you're quite the preferred topic of gossip, my lord—you and her majesty."
"Are we, now?" Raphael de Mereliot's tone was dry. He stood and gazed at me, his expression unreadable. "Wait until they get wind of you, Moirin mac Fainche."
* * *
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I slept for most of my first full day in Raphael de Mereliot's home. By the second day, I felt much better. My ribs ached and the lump on my skull was tender, but the dizziness and nausea had passed and I felt stronger. By midday, Raphael agreed that I might eat solid food and have a bath afterward.
"No vigorous scrubbing!" he warned me. He laid his hands on my ribcage. "You've got to keep still to let the tissues heal and hold the bone in its proper place."
"Aye, my lord," I said innocently. "Would you prefer to scrub me yourself?"
His grey eyes darkened, but he merely shook a finger at me. "Be a good girl and heed your physician's orders."
Stone and sea, that bath was a glorious thing! The tub was a vast marble affair with gilded feet in the shape of leaping fishes. I couldn't begin to imagine how many buckets of water it took to fill it, nor how much wood to heat the water. At the moment, I didn't much care. I only knew it was bliss to sink my aching body into its warmth.
A maidservant too shy to meet my gaze gave me a ball of soap and a soft cloth. The soap smelled of lavender and had the image of a flower impressed on it. It lathered beautifully. I washed myself all over, careful not to make any abrupt movements. When I was done, I soaked the matted blood from my hair and washed that, too. Afterward, the maidservant gave me a robe of thick satin to wear—vivid sea-blue worked with gold in a repeating pattern of two fishes, nose to tail in a circle.
"Better?" Raphael found me back in his guest-chamber, sitting on the footstool and running a comb through my wet hair.
"Oh, aye." I maneuvered the comb around the sore place. "Much. Do you know where my clothes have gone to? My own clothes? They weren't in my satchel."
He perched on the edge of the bed. "You don't care for the robe?"
I glanced down at it. "I do. But—"
"It's the crest of House Mereliot," Raphael informed me. "We're a very old house descended from Eisheth's line."
"Eisheth." I put down the comb. "She brought the healing arts, and… music to the folk of Terre d'Ange, aye?"
"Aye," he agreed, mimicking me.
"I know, I know!" I sighed. "Only vulgar common folk say aye. My clothes?"
Raphael laughed. "Your clothes,