Ready to count on her fingers, Maggie drew breath. “Well, there’s—
“I meant, more socially accepted skills,” Ashley interrupted. “Do you cook, or sew, or…?”
Maggie pleated her skirt, staring at her nails. “I couldn’t even learn to pick a man’s purse from his pocket without him noticing.” She raised her chin. “But I’m willing to learn something else. I don’t want to go back to … to what I was doing this morning.”
Ashley addressed Sally. “It appears you have an under-maid, at least for now.”
Sally sat up straighter and a smile spread across her face. “Cor blimey, I’ve never had one before!” She cleared her throat. “I mean, ah, thank you, miss.”
Maggie beamed.
Letting Sally and Maggie take care of the dirty dishes, and only half-hearing their plans for tackling the unexpected laundry as they carried it all downstairs, Ashley went to check on Ravencroft.
His chest still rose and fell regularly, and his forehead felt cool to the touch. His eyes moved beneath his lids and his left arm twitched. Was he dreaming about the fight? Or were his dreams filled with something more pleasant, like the music he’d performed?
She sat on the edge of the bed, tin of ointment in hand, when he suddenly opened his eyes and stared wildly around the room. He struggled to move his arms out from under the blankets and swore, his breathing ragged. One of the milder oaths she’d heard from the farmhands working near the academy, but something she’d never heard from a gentleman.
She rested her hand on his chest, in a spot with no bruise. “You’re safe, my lord. You’re safe here.”
He turned his gaze on her and stopped struggling. He squinted at her, lines of pain tightening around his eyes.
“I know you’re hurting. I can offer you laudanum or whiskey. Which would you prefer?”
He squeezed his eyes shut and winced, immediately relaxing his face as he discovered the soreness around his left eye. After a few deep breaths, he focused his gaze on her once more. He pursed his lips as though trying to say a “w,” but no word emerged before another wave of pain washed over him and he let out a deep moan, his breath coming in harsh pants.
He must have been trying to say whiskey. She quickly poured some into a glass—two fingers’ worth, just as her uncle took it—and lifted Ravencroft’s head as she held the glass to his lips. He coughed several times but eventually drank it all, and she let his head relax back down to the pillow.
“Are you—”
His eyes rolled back in his head. He was unconscious once more.
Well. Probably for the best. As much as she would like to have talked with him, to hear his voice, sleep was the best and fastest way for him to heal.
She applied ointment to his injuries again. This time she noticed the split in his bottom lip, which was beginning to swell. She warmed a bit of the ointment between her thumb and forefinger before stroking her fingertip across his lips.
She’d never touched a man’s lips before.
What would they feel like against her own? She had watched them, rapt, as he sang and spoke, studying his full lower lip, the perfect Cupid’s bow on his upper lip, while his smooth, rumbling voice sent tingles down her spine.
His long brown lashes rested against his cheeks. At the masquerade ball, seen through his half-mask, they had definitely been black.
His costume as the Bogeyman must have included cosmetics to disguise his face. Amber had described him as having black holes where his eyes should be. Squinting through blackened lashes, with kohl brushed around his eyes and lids, might give that appearance.
When she had waltzed with him, his red silk cape had been lined with black velvet. He could have worn it reversed when he scared Mrs. Driscoll and convinced Amber to abandon her improper suitor.
Twice Ravencroft had dressed up as a frightening character at night to protect a woman, with no one the wiser, and received no injury. Today he’d stepped in to protect another woman, dressed as a gentleman, in the middle of the day. “And look what that got you,” Ashley whispered.
She smoothed back a lock of his long hair from his forehead. The strands felt gritty instead of soft, and his streak looked more grey than white. Later she’d try to brush out more of the dirt now that the mud was drying.
Much as she wanted to sit here all evening, admiring him, she dragged herself away. Time to prepare the moldy bread. A quick trip to the kitchen—she could hear Maggie and Sally working in the laundry room, chatting about the most effective methods for getting mud and bloodstains out of different types of fabrics—yielded the right size bowl. Back upstairs, she tore the fuzzy bread into small chunks, sprinkled enough water to make it all damp, covered it with a scrap of muslin, and set the bowl in a warm spot on the hearth. With any luck she would not need it, but she wanted to be ready.
She mixed up another tin of ointment, then tidied up all trace of her apothecary activities. The rest of the staff was due to return any time. She tried to put away, hide, or remove any evidence of the earl’s presence or the things she used to treat him, save the man himself asleep in her bed. She even closed the bed curtains on three sides, leaving open only the side facing the fireplace.
Ashley had just sat on the sofa, about to read the journal with her notes from helping in the infirmary, when she heard a scratch on the door. “Come in,” she called.
Mrs. Gillespie stepped in. “Just letting you know everyone is back, miss, and how much we appreciated the afternoon off. Is there anything we can get for you? Would you like some tea or supper?”
Ashley marked her place with her finger. “Supper and tea would be lovely, thank you.”
