"Thank you." The words caught in her throat because they were so hard to say.
"For what?" He looked up from grabbing a linen towel from a dark shelf. "For saving you from getting more soaked than you already are?"
"Nay. For accepting me into your family, for treating me so well. 'Tis more than my own family has done." She watched the surprise on his face, and mayhap a bit of confusion. Embarrassed, she ran out into the drumming rain and let the cold wetness sluice away the heat from her face.
"Tessa?" Thomas gazed out at her, framed by the dark threshold, backlit by the single lantern's gentle flame. "I am glad you're happy here with us. We appreciate you more than you know."
Aye, 'twas good to belong. To truly belong. She smiled, not trusting her voice, and hurried to the house. Warmth and the sweet scent of steeping tea met her as she rushed inside. Water dripped from her cloak's hem.
"Mistress." Anya spun from the hearth. "We've all been worried. The storm is so severe."
"No need to worry, for I'm well. Has Andy shown any signs of fever?"
"Nay, but he has been coughing." The girl stuffed her hands behind a pretty but plain apron. "Colonel Hunter said that since I was looking around in the attic as you told me to do, I should take whatever I might need. Like this apron."
Tessa knew Anya had come with only the clothes on her back. "Did Samuel climb the attic ladder by himself?"
"Aye. He tried to swear me to secrecy, but I told him I would not lie to my mistress." A small nervous smile flickered across her pale face. "If this is too much, I can put it back."
"Nay, an apron is sensible. And we must clothe you. Think of how indecent it would be if we did not." On a smile, Tessa shrugged out of her cloak and hung it on a wall peg to drip dry. "Do you like your room?"
" 'Tis very comfortable. With a real bed. The colonel said I might borrow a book to read at night from the library after my work was done. If I am careful with it. Is that all right?"
"Of course. I would let you go now, but I need help with an onion poultice for Andy."
"Let me go down cellar and fetch some onions. How many will you need?"
"Four will do." Tessa reached up into the cupboard and found a small empty crock. The girl had already slipped into the pantry. The cellar door squealed a protest in the small room.
Tessa measured out a good amount of crushed yarrow leaves, sweetgrass, dried bearberries, cottonwood bark, and mint. She set Anya to peeling, then slicing the onions. Thomas knocked at the back door, and she handed him a small packet with instructions, wrapped in leather to protect it from the rain. She thanked him again, and he was gone, blending into the shadows of the thunderous night.
She chose cottonwood bark to steep with Andy's tea and then headed upstairs. The house seemed quiet with the parlor dark and the colonel asleep.
At the head of the stairs, a thin light drew her to Andy's chamber. The door was ajar. She could see a bed centering the room where a down comforter was drawn up to Andy's chin. A fire crackled in the small fireplace, the light glancing over Jonah to illuminate the sleeping man propped up by pillows.
"How is Mistress Thankful?"
"Not well. Her malady seems similar to your father's. Is Andy worse?"
"Aye, he started coughing after supper. Not hard, and he doesn't have the rattle in his chest Father had." Lines furrowed across Jonah's brow. How tired he looked, how worried. He'd pulled his dark hair back into a leather tie at his nape. If he were not in a sick room, he could be mistaken for a pirate, or mayhap a spy for the French. His hand caught hers and fire skidded across her skin. Desire built in her blood. "I didn't send for you because I knew Mistress Thankful was more ill."
"Anya is slicing onions for a poultice. It will help keep his lungs clear." Tessa watched Jonah rise and tower his full height over her. She stepped into the shelter of his arms, against the wondrous comfort of his chest. She could hold him forever just like this with their hearts beating together.
"Andy will be ecstatic. He sleeps now, but when he was awake he complained mightily of your awful tasting headache powder." His hand on her back caressed slow circles at her spine. "I scared him into taking it by saying I would fetch you from the Bowmans."
She tilted her face upward, and his smile became a kiss, fiery and possessive.
"I missed you this evening." His fingers brushed over her hips. How dark his eyes were. Was he thinking of the last time they'd made love? How she straddled him, brushed by only candlelight and his hands, and took his hard shaft inside her?
"Tell me how ill Andy is." How rough his voice sounded, low and intimate. Aye, he was thinking of it, too. "Then we'll see what comes next between us."
He stepped away, and the ache for him low in her belly grew heavier. She craved him, like air and water and sleep. She wanted to make love to this man who'd given her not just a home and a place to belong, but his love. 'Twas all she had wished for, prayed for, dreamed of.
Tessa drew the chair up to the bed and set the burning taper on the nearby stand. Light washed Andy's face, slack and younger looking in sleep. A slight blush pinkened his cheeks. The color was high, near his eyes, and a faint trace of it painted his brow.
"He doesn't feel overly warm, but the fever has begun."
So, there would be no pleasure this night. She would do all she could to help Andy fight the fever, which like Thankful Bowman, struck more swiftly than with the colonel. 'Twas why she feared it would be all the more dangerous. "I'll need another candle, Jonah. And wood for the fire."
A muscle jumped in his jaw. His beautiful shoulders tensed. "As you wish, my lady." He kissed her brow, tenderly this time, so infinitely tender.
'Twas going to be a long night.
He heard the outside door close down below, for the kitchen was beneath Andy's room. The fire burned low, in need of more wood, its orange-red glow lashing the fine cut of Tessa's back and the slender shape of her shoulders. The back of her neck, bent over her work, looked vulnerable. Dark curls that had escaped her braid gathered there, ebony silk against creamy satin.
"What do you need from the kitchen?"
"I could use more clean dish towels."
"I'll be right back." He pressed a kiss to her forehead. A warm feeling beat in his chest as he stepped away. She returned to her work, checking the poultice smeared on Andy's chest.
The hallway was cool, the parlor damp and cold. Spring came stubbornly this year, holding back its warmth. "Thomas, is that you?"
"Aye. I've brought in more wood."
Jonah studied his brother, face lined and brow furrowed, and recognized that dark brooding look. "I thought you had gone to bed."
"Andy is my brother, too." Thomas knelt before the wood box, instead of nosily dumping his armload, and quietly filled the copper tub stick by stick.
"You looked troubled. Is it Andy? The fever is a serious one." Jonah bent to help.
"Aye, Andy's illness does worry me, but something else also troubles me." He set the last chunk of maple into the box, then dusted the slivers of wood, bark, and moss from his gloves and jacket. "Do you know what Tessa did today?"
"She did many things." Jonah turned to sort through the shelves beneath the work counter.
"She thanked me."
"Thanked you?" He spied the towels and grabbed a couple. "Pray, tell me 'tisn't so! It must have tortured you. What did you do to deserve such treatment?"
"Offered to take medicine to Mistress Briers for her, because of the storm." Thomas walked to the window just as lightning split the sky, flashing behind the curtain. Thunder rolled overhead, angry and ear splitting. "But that wasn't all she thanked me for. She's grateful for how well we treat her. For how I treat her."
"So, you feel guilty, is that it? Do you feel bad for wagering Andy five pounds over my choice in a wife?"