“That’s a good sign. It’s healing.” She grasped his hand. “Don’t scratch.”
“I know,” he gritted out.
After a moment she realized she was still holding his hand. She cleared her throat and let go. “After the academy closed, Miss Blackwell left England to help her uncle with the illustrations for another book on flora. Those are her drawings in the gardening journal, not mine.”
“And here I thought you were a talented artist.” His low rumble was a soothing caress to her senses, his half-smile melting her insides.
“Sorry to disappoint. My watercolors and sketching are mediocre at best.” She lingered with the muslin strips, fussing with how tight to make each wrap. A question she had been wanting to ask was on the tip of her tongue. A very personal question. Impertinent. Miles beyond topics of polite discourse. But the idea had plagued her since she recovered from her initial shock of their kiss.I knew it would be like this.
An owl hooted just outside the window, reminding her they were alone, late at night, in a darkened bedchamber.
Tomorrow he was leaving. She may never again find the opportunity to quench her desire to know this one thing.
“The other night, you said you don’t intend to marry. You said you didn’t want to, ah, watch your bride recoil in horror when she sees that your legs don’t match. Sees the scar on your thigh.”
His expression became more guarded, but he said nothing.
“Maggie said—” she had to clear her throat— “Maggie said you wouldn’t let her, ah, help you … um, relieve tension.”
She wasn’t sure whose face was getting redder, hers or David’s. The flush on his cheeks spread down his face to his neck and … oh my, to the top of his bare chest.
In for a penny. He already knew her to be brazen. She had abducted a peer of the realm, stripped him of his clothing, tended his wounds. Bathed his body. Washed his hair. “Does that mean you, ah…” She licked her lips. She definitely had not thought all the way through the phrasing of this question. At least not with words she could bring herself to say out loud. And truly, the answer was none of her affair. She had no right to ask. “That you’ve never…”
He was so still, she wasn’t even sure he was breathing. But he didn’t look away. He met her gaze, unblinking. Just stared back at her, his chin slightly lowered so that he peered at her through his thick lashes.
Only the fine tremor in his forearm, which she held, and the fluttering pulse at his throat, betrayed his roiling emotions.
He raised one eyebrow and tilted his head toward her. “No.”
No? No, that’s not what it meant, or no, he’d never…
“I’ve never felt … the need … strongly enough to want to risk a companion’s response.”
So quietly did he utter the words, she barely heard them over the pounding of her pulse. Surely it beat so loud he could hear it, too.
She didn’t realize she was licking her lips again until his gaze dipped down to her mouth. She tucked her tongue back inside. She wasn’t a tease. She wasn’t trying to lure him into any behavior. She just had an insatiable curiosity to know this one detail about him.
Well, to knoweverythingabout him, if she were to be honest with herself.
He pulled his arm closer to his chest when she tried to finish tying off the bandage, drawing her with it. “Have you?”
Disconcerted to realize she’d leaned farther across the table, closer to him, she almost missed his quiet question. As impertinent and brazen as her own, yet also fair under the circumstances. She flattened her lips to resist the urge to lick them again. “There has not been anyone for whom I felt strongly enough to risk my reputation, let alone the possibility of conceiving a child outside of wedlock.”
“Practical and pragmatic,” he softly replied, stretching his arm back to within easier reach for her. He lowered his raised eyebrow to match the other, and then briefly dipped it as he spoke, a gesture she found endearing. “Just as I thought.” Not quite a wink. More subtle.
Still did things to her heart rate.
They really needed to stop talking about intimate topics because her mind’s eye was providing all sorts of inappropriate images. Not helped by the actual view in front of her of his chest, bare on one side, covered on the other but naked beneath the silk.
She cleared her throat. “A woman has few things that are truly her own. Her reputation is one of them. I couldn’t stop it if people were to choose to shred my reputation, but I do what I can to deny them fodder for gossip.” She tied off the bandage, reluctantly ending her physical contact with him. For both their sakes. She was quite aware there was a large bed behind her, a comfortable sofa in front of the fire, and a mostly naked man in arm’s reach. Her supply of self-discipline was not unlimited.
“Until you decided to hide a man in your bed.” He slipped his arm into his banyan sleeve. The garment still gaped open, revealing his chest.
Lest her hands reach over of their own volition to stroke that lovely bare skin, she busied herself putting away her supplies. She knew how it felt beneath her fingers, applying ointment. How would it feel to touch him simply for the sake of caressing him? “I’d do it again.” Her voice was barely a whisper. She raised her chin, letting her voice get stronger. “You were hurt and alone. No one else stepped forward. Gilroy and Westbrook weren’t around. What else could I do?”Take him to his sister. “And at first I thought you’d be able to leave in just a few hours, before the staff returned from their half-day off.”
He rose when she did. When she returned from putting things away on the bookcase, he’d taken only a few halting steps toward the bed. Thankfully for the sake of her self-control, he’d closed the banyan and tied the belt.
Without conscious thought, she took his left arm by the elbow and steered him toward the bed.
