“Besides, once I have her skirt tossed up, I don’t need to look at her face.”
“Ye can toss it over her face!” one of the men said to raucous laughter.
Belle had sidled away, shame and humiliation washing over her. She’d never felt so ugly or so much the fool. She’d never spoken to the boy again, though she’d had to go back to that warehouse again. And because the docks were full of sailors, who inevitably attracted prostitutes, over the years, Belle saw plenty of what men and women did with a woman’s skirts tossed up. Once she’d even seen a woman on her knees, her mouth engaged in pleasuring a man. Belle had been so surprised to come across the scene that she hadn’t realized, until the man met her gaze and smiled, that the prostitute’s client was none other than the boy.
And now, here she was, in that same position as the prostitute.
Arundel offered her his hand. “Stand up, Miss Howard. I can manage.”
Belle had the urge to push him over so that he fell on the bed, but this was not that boy. This was Hew Arundel, and he’d done nothing to her. Well, nothing she hadn’t wanted. He’d been nothing but respectful and kind, even in his most delirious moments. She supposed in one of those moments he had been less than respectful, but she could hardly blame a man who was out of his head with pain and fever. And because he was out of his head, she could have stopped it. He hadn’t forced his attentions on her.
And he wasn’t forcing them on her now. She looked at his outstretched hand then shook out the trousers in her hands. “Give me your foot, Mr. Arundel.” Belle would not let that stupid boy from the past affect her now. This moment had nothing to do with anything from before.
“Are you certain?”
“I’ve dressed children before. I can certainly dress you.”
“You do have a way of putting things,” he said, and offered a foot. She eased one trouser leg over it and up about the ankle and then asked for the other foot. She felt a sense of accomplishment when the trousers were secure about the ankles. “Now we just need pull them up,” she said, taking hold.
“I have it,” he said, but when he bent, he hissed in a breath of pain.
“Of course you do,” she muttered, taking hold of the trousers and pulling them up his calves. “And you still think you won’t faint on the stairs.”
“I told you—” His voice cut off, and she realized she’d reached his thighs and was sliding the trousers higher. Her bare fingers had brushed the back of one of his thighs, and she felt the skin pebble with gooseflesh. That wasn’t his only reaction. After all, she was at eye level with his nether regions, and she saw a definite stirring there. Had she caused his manly part to do that?
Arundel took hold of the trousers and pushed her hands away. “I have it now,” he said and turned. He pulled the trousers over his buttocks, inadvertently lifting the shirt as he did so, and giving her a nice view of his bare arse. For some reason, Belle had wanted to reach out and stroke it. Or bite it. He had nicely rounded cheeks.
Belle abruptly stood and stepped away from him. What was the matter with her? She was a pockmarked spinster. Practically a thornback. She had given up on men. Why was she doing this to herself? She grasped the china teacup and drank down her tea in one swallow. It was an awful waste of the lovely white tea, but the hot liquid on her throat burned some sense into her. Arundel was not interested in her as a woman. He’d had a perfectly normal male reaction to a woman’s hand on his thigh. He would have had the same reaction if any woman had touched him there.
Wouldn’t he?
“I think I have it now,” he said. “You can turn around.”
She turned, keeping her gaze firmly above his waist. Unfortunately, that meant she watched him unfasten the buttons at his throat, revealing the V of skin there. The buttons at his wrist were not fastened, so he began to draw the shirt over his head. She heard the hiss as he lifted his arms and took hold of the shirt. “I’ll do it. If you open those stitches again, I will stab you.”
Carefully, she drew the shirt up his chest, pausing to help him extricate his arms. Belle tried very hard not to touch his skin, but she kept inadvertently brushing against his chest and feeling the soft hair and the hard muscles. Though the work wasn’t difficult, she felt a trickle of perspiration roll down her back, and she could feel that her cheeks were burning with heat. Finally, she pulled the shirt over Arundel’s head and stepped back. She had the urge to fan herself, but that would only draw more attention to her state.
He smiled at her. “Bit warm in here, isn’t it?”
“It’s perfectly comfortable,” she snapped. The man noticed everything! That was advantageous when he was working for the Crown but annoying when she wanted to hide her reaction to him. But he wasn’t looking at her any longer. He crossed to a cheval mirror beside a washstand and a changing screen and studied his wound. Belle averted her eyes, but she’d already taken in his broad shoulders and the way his body tapered to a slim waist. She wanted to trace that lovely line and clenched her hands together to stop them tingling.
“It does look better,” he said, his voice low as though he spoke to himself. “Clean. No infection. Bit of redness here but that’s to be expected.”
“I suppose this means you will live.” Her tone was mocking, but the words gave her a sense of relief. A knot of tension in her belly unfurled, and for the first time in days, she felt as though she could lower her shoulders and take a deep breath. Arundel would live. This nightmare was almost over.
“I won’t live long if I don’t find something to eat. Help me with the shirt?”
She rolled her eyes. “I think I liked you better when you were wracked with fever and insensible. You made fewer demands.”
He lifted the shirt from the bed and handed it to her. “I think you like me fine now, Miss Howard. You have a sharp tongue, but you don’t mean half of what you say.”
“Ten minutes of consciousness and you think you know me.”
He ducked his head so she could put the shirt over it. “I would never presume to claim to know you, but I am beginning to understand you.”
She draped the shirt over his head, but he didn’t straighten. He continued to look her directly in the eye. His face was only inches from hers, and she could smell the chamomile on his breath. She had the strange urge to lean forward and kiss him. He was close enough that they might kiss. Instead, she made a show of tugging the shirt down and then taking his arms and none-too-gently forcing them in the sleeves.
“Thank you,” he said with a wince.
