Page 37 of To Wed an Heiress
“I’ll go fetch us some towels,” Connor said.
Lennox nodded and led her to the kitchen. He headed toward the massive fireplace on the opposite wall and began building a fire.
For long minutes they didn’t talk. She simply stood there watching him as he knelt in front of the fire, his wound dripping blood on the stone floor.
Connor entered the room with an armful of towels and handed her one. She thanked him, then dried her face and blotted her hair. There was nothing she could do about her dress, but she placed the towel in front of her in an effort to maintain some type of modesty.
Lennox had seen her bare legs. She hadn’t been able to keep her skirt from billowing around her hips in the water. In those seconds underwater, she’d been as close to being naked as she possibly could be while still clothed. Even worse, when she’d emerged from the loch her dress had been plastered to her body.
She sat at the table, grateful that the fire had caught. She felt cold from the inside out.
“I’ll be going to change,” Connor said, placing the rest of the towels on the end of the table.
She wished she could do the same.
Unlike Connor, Lennox didn’t leave to change his clothes. Instead, he went to the cupboard and took out a leather bag she recognized. He placed it on the table before turning to her.
“I need your help,” he said. “My arm needs tending to.”
It was bleeding freely now, turning his white sleeve red.
She had helped her mother’s garden club roll bandages. She’d even knitted a credible volume of socks, mittens, and scarves for the troops, but she’d never been a nurse.
“You’ll do fine,” Lennox said, as if he heard her thoughts.
She doubted that.
“Couldn’t Connor help?”
“He gets a little green around blood.”
So did she, but there wasn’t a choice. Someone needed to help Lennox.
“We need some whiskey,” he said, going to another cupboard, retrieving a bottle of whiskey and returning to her side. “Medicinal reasons,” he added, placing it on the table.
Pulling out a chair beside her, he sat and emptied the bag of its contents, then pushed the squares of cloth and a small brown bottle toward her.
“Now you get to reciprocate for any discomfort I caused you.”
“What do you mean?”
She was in the process of reaching for the cloth when he asked, “Can you sew?”
Horrified, she stared at him. “You can’t be serious.”
“The wound is deep. It isn’t going to heal without some help.”
“I can’t sew a person,” she said.
“I’d much prefer you than Connor. His sewing skills are negligible.”
He seemed to take her silence for assent, because he removed his shirt, turning so that his wounded arm was close to her.
She’d never before seen a half-naked man, let alone one with such a distinctive-looking chest. He had muscles everywhere. She wanted to sit and look at him for a moment, to fix him in her memory. A water droplet rolled down the middle of his chest and she wanted to pat him dry.
Seanmhair would be horrified. Her grandmother would begin to lecture her about all sorts of rules Mercy was having trouble remembering right now.
He grabbed one of the cloth squares and began to blot at his wound. When he poured a little whiskey down his arm, the only sign that it was painful was a tightening of his mouth.
