Page 29 of Tender Blackguard

She paused and tilted her head. “Feeling better?”

Was that a hint of amusement in her tone?

Surely not. But he wouldn’t put it past her to have deduced his aversion to blood.

Scowling, he glanced to the jar in her hands. “I suppose you’ll insist on slathering me with some noxious mixture?”

She lifted a fine-arched brow. “Unless you’d prefer to succumb to fever from whatever your attacker’s blade may have introduced to your body. But perhaps you’d enjoy the opportunity to spend several days abed fighting a deadly infection.”

He should have been surprised by the insolent sarcasm in her voice, but he suspected it was truer to her nature than the flat tone he typically heard from her.

“Despite my earlier...presentation, I am not as vulnerable as you seem to think.”

“Infection can bring down anyone, my lord. Stubbornness doesn’t provide an exemption.”

He was sorely tempted to keep arguing with her for the simple satisfaction of it but realized it would only cause further delay. The less time he stayed in her private rooms, the better. “Fine.”

Barely acknowledging his acquiescence, she simply lowered herself back to the footstool at his side. Setting the basket in her lap, she lifted the lid from the jar and dipped her fingers into the mixture. Though there was an earthiness to the scent of the poultice, it didn’t smell nearly as bad as he’d feared. She seemed to intentionally avoid meeting his gaze as she focused on the wound and the immediate surrounding area.

The first touch of her fingers had him drawing a swift breath. Though her touch was gentle, the mixture was cool. Even so, Alastair suspected it was more than the temperature that had fine gooseflesh rising across his skin.

A voice in his head told him to avert his gaze as he’d done while she’d cleaned and stitched him. But he refused to listen. Instead, he studied the way the firelight burnished her light golden hair as it swept back from a center part to the long braid falling over her shoulder. The texture of it was smooth and straight, like cornsilk, and he wondered if it would slide across his skin as softly as her fingertips.

Until that moment, he hadn’t allowed himself to think intently on the fact that she was touching his bare skin. But as soon as he did, a rush of sensations that had nothing at all to do with his injury spread through him. Tingling heat, a swift rise in his pulse. A deep, aching tug through his core. His entire body tensed in resistance as his hands gripped the armrests and his belly muscles tightened.

She immediately stopped what she was doing and lifted her gaze to his face. Curiosity and subtle concern glinted in her eyes for just a second before they widened with a sudden flash of alarm.

But she didn’t look away and didn’t move to put distance between them.

Time slowed.

Alastair watched in uneasy fascination as the stormy gray of her eyes darkened and her lips parted. Her attention slid to his mouth in a quick flicker before she glanced down at where her hand hovered above his abdomen.

The room was suddenly too warm and quiet and dark as the air around them thickened with anticipation.

It was everything he’d been doing his best to avoid since this woman first strode into his study and turned her intent gaze in his direction.

Forcing an even tone to his voice, he tried to ground the moment in something less...dangerous.

“How’d you become so adept at nursing?”

She looked away, turning her attention to her supplies. “A good housekeeper possesses a wide variety of skills, my lord.”

Her answer was vague, revealing absolutely nothing about how she’d acquired such a talent. But there was a certain poignancy in her tone that suggested the truth was significant and deeply personal.

“And this doesn’t bother you? Mending a knife wound in the middle of the night?”

“Not particularly, no,” she replied while keeping her head bent to her task. The flat nature of her reply suggested a hint of boredom at the topic.

Alastair lifted a brow. “Is it such a common occurrence in your experience?”

He thought he saw a small twitch at the corner of her mouth as she turned slightly away from him to put the lid back on the jar then withdrew a square of linen from the basket. “Not since I became a servant in noble households, though I have tended a couple dueling injuries in recent years.” She paused and met his gaze. “I suspect you weren’t engaged in such foolishness, my lord.”

Too late, he realized he’d led the conversation down a path he should’ve been avoiding.

He cleared his throat and glanced to the fire. “I went for a walk and was accosted by a brigand.”

She tilted her head and her brows lifted above a curious gaze. “A brigand? In Mayfair? How...shocking.”

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