“You’ve been badly injured. It’s no weakness to accept help.”
“I don’t mind help from you,” he told her, with a look that made her cheeks warm.
She concentrated on spooning soup into him, avoiding the blue gaze that watched her so intently. She wished he would close his eyes, but then she wouldn’t have been able to feed him.
The trouble was she had to focus on his mouth, his beautiful, masculine, perfectly chiseled mouth and all that did was to stir up other thoughts . . . feelings . . . from the morning.
“You never did tell me your horse’s name,” she said as she fed him. “The children will want to know.”
He swallowed the soup thoughtfully. “It’s very good soup,” he said after a moment. “What’s in it?”
He was still avoiding the question. Why?
“Nettles.” His eyes widened and she chuckled. “They don’t sting in soup and they’re very good for you. The hardest part is picking them—you have to use gloves.”
He allowed her to feed him another spoonful, making a show of tasting it properly this time. “Nettles taste like this?” It was a compliment.
“Not only nettles. There are other ingredients.”
“What?” he asked suspiciously.
“Oh, just the usual, you know, eye of newt and toe of frog.”
He smiled and she really wished he wouldn’t. He was too charming for his own good. For her own good. “Well, that’s me, done for. No, really, I’m interested.”
He was, too, she saw. “Nothing dreadful, I assure you. Mainly potatoes, butter, cream, watercress, and a little parsley.” In other words it was like most of their meals: made from ingredients she could grow, make, pick wild, or barter. Thank God Lizzie was a dairymaid.
“I could have sworn it tasted of chicken.”
“The basic stock is made from a chicken carcass—”
“Not Mabel or Dorothy?” he asked in faux horror.
She laughed. “No, this one was Tommy, and Tommy, though very sweet as a fluffy chick, turned into a nasty aggressive cockerel who picked fights and even attacked the children. He thoroughly deserved his fate.”
“Tommy has atoned for his sins. This is delicious.” As she fed him, his color slowly returned. His gaze passed over her like a touch, caressingly. He was a stranger. She didn’t even know his name.
She’d slept with him naked. Twice.
She’d saved his life, held him like a child.
He’d held her, not at all like a child.
“Please tell me your name,” she said softly.
He gave her an enigmatic look, shook his head, then looked away.
She brought him a second bowl of soup but made no effort to speak as she fed him. His refusal to answer her question angered her. Who was he to withhold his name? A criminal of some sort? A wanted man as well as a rake?
He was thoughtful, distant, drinking the soup she fed him almost as if she weren’t there.
She was very aware of him, his proximity, the lean masculinity of his body, the dark hair on his arms, the long-fingered, well-tended gentleman’s hands. Those hands didn’t belong here. She needed to send him on his way. Someone could send a coach for him.
“I am going to notify somebody,” she told him as he wiped his mouth and handed her the cloth. “So, who should it be?”
“Notify?”
“Your family, or whoever you were on your way to visit when you had the accident. They’ll be worried.”
