A Promise by Daylight

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BY THE TIME the duke’s valet came to tell her that His Grace required her assistance, Millie had decided that if the mere mention of an incision knife was all it took to make the duke recoil, it would be a simple matter to keep the advantage over him for the remainder of her employment.

Mr. Sacks, the valet, was a short, brawny man with giant hands and dark bushy brows, and he stood expressionless as he waited in the doorway. Millie gathered up her medical bag and followed him to the duke’s rooms.

Where—unbelievably—the duke was alone.

Wearing nothing but his shirt.

“Mr. Germain, Your Grace,” Mr. Sacks announced unnecessarily.

“Excellent.” Reclining against his pillows, with a glass of liquor in his hand and the tails of his shirt covering him only to midthigh, the duke smiled. “That will be all.”

Mr. Sacks withdrew, and Millie plunked her medical bag on the card table by the window and reminded herself that the duke was just a man like any of the sailors she’d doctored aboard the Possession—no more, no less.

“A number of cuts and an immobilized arm that isn’t broken,” she recounted briskly from their earlier conversation as she dug through her bag for heaven knew what except a few moments to delay the inevitable. “Is that the complete list of your complaints?”

“Hardly,” came his cognac-roughened voice from the bed. “Among other things, there isn’t a single comfortable method of copulation.”

She paused for only a second. And, for that, she deserved a medal.

“I shouldn’t think there would be a single comfortable method of eating, sleeping, defecating or any of the body’s other natural functions, either, in your condition,” she said matter-of-factly. If he thought the young Miles Germain would be startled by the duke’s excesses, he would soon learn otherwise. “But I was asking about your injuries, Your Grace.”

“Forgive me—when you said complaints, it was my most pressing grievance that came to mind.”

“As well it should.” She turned from the card table. Hardly a surprise that he considered slaking his lust a more serious issue than an immobilized arm.

“Bad enough that a woman has two breasts while I only have one good hand,” he complained.

She smiled, tight-lipped, because a man would smile at such an idiotic statement. And she approached the bed, hoping that if she didn’t encourage him further they could be finished with talk of copulation and breasts.

One of his legs was severely bruised—black and purpling, wrapped in two places with bandages.

Without all his clothing, she would have thought he’d seem smaller.

“Of course,” he mused, raising his glass to his lips, “there is much one can do with a breast and one’s mouth.”

And no, of course they weren’t finished with lewd talk. Because they were supposedly two men, and men were never finished with lewd talk.

“What a miracle that your injuries have not entirely kept you from enjoying your company,” she said in her blandest tone.

“But they have kept me from enjoying it in an entirely satisfactory way, if you understand my meaning, Mr. Germain.”

“Perfectly, Your Grace. But you needn’t fabricate the situation to me.”

“Was I fabricating?”

“The body is less able to respond to stimulus when it is putting its efforts into healing itself. But rest assured that as the healing process continues, you’ll find yourself once again able to copulate to your full ability.”

“Oh, but you misunderstand, Mr. Germain. I don’t have a complaint of ability.”

She let her brows edge upward, as if just comprehending something new. “Oh. I see.”

“Good.”

“In that case, I shall prepare a concoction straightaway. We should foment the organ very often—perhaps even apply a poultice in a suspensory bandage—and with a strict regimen, things should clear up for you eventually—”

“Mr. Germain, that is not the issue.”

“You needn’t be embarrassed. And rest assured that should there be anything present that requires lancing, I will use my knife most delicately.”

“You will not come near my privates with a knife, Mr. Germain. Is that clear?”

She almost smiled. “Certainly.”

“And there is nothing in need of clearing up. Or...lancing.”

“I trust your word completely, Your Grace. And you may trust me not to reveal this conversation to a single soul. We shall simply pretend nothing was ever said about it.”

“Nothing was said about it,” he said with a hint of frustration.

“Exactly.” She continued her cursory examination, close enough now to detect a spicy kind of musk on his skin and feel the whisper of breath on her cheek as she leaned forward to check his sling once more. And there was that sensation again—a quiet response to him, stirring in a deep, intimate place. She inhaled to cleanse it away, only managing to breathe in more of him.

“It’s a miracle no bones were broken,” she said, focusing intently on his shoulder.

She could sense him debating whether to press the point about the state of his manhood, but instead, “Indeed,” he said shortly.

“I shall need to see the wounds.” She backed away from the bed. He would have to sit up to remove his shirt.

When he did, he would be nude.

One male body is the same as the next. God knew she’d tended enough of them aboard the Possession.

He reached to set his glass on the bedside table, and his shirttails edged upward on one powerful thigh. A sudden frisson of anticipation had her turning toward her medical bag. But then, before she realized what he intended, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood up. Turned his back to her. Grabbed his shirt with his good hand and pulled upward, revealing a solid pair of buttocks.

“Mr. Germain...”

“Of course,” she said quickly, tearing her eyes away from where they should not have strayed, helping him off with his shirt, seeing now that his other physician had dressed a handful of wounds down the left half of his back and his left thigh. Much of his torso was wrapped completely around with bandages and plasters to keep the compresses in place, and where the skin wasn’t covered, it was badly bruised.

Dear God.

She lifted the edge of a bandage on his back and sucked in a breath at the ragged wound beneath. He had to be in considerable pain. Gently she checked the others, found thankfully that the first was the most serious. “What a miracle none of the pieces struck you on the head or neck,” she said, more sincerely than she’d intended, and felt him tense.

She touched his skin, lightly, and heard him hiss. “How long before I’m fully recovered?” he asked.

“Weeks, certainly.”

“Weeks. What can you give me to hasten the process?”

“Only the natural course of time and healing will do that, I’m afraid.” Assuming the wounds didn’t fester and bring on a new fever.

Holding up his shirt like a shield in one hand, she moved around him and reached up to press the back of her fingers to his forehead. “Have you felt warm? Any sign that the fever is returning?”

“No warmer than usual,” he said.

She let her hand fall. And now she became too aware of his bare chest, the dark hair dusted across it, the bare hips visible on either side of the shirt hanging limply from her fist.

She looked him in the eye. “When was the last time you were bled?”

“Good God. Yesterday.”

“Hmm.” Perhaps she ought to bleed him again, just to be safe. But if it had only been yesterday...

She moved behind him again, leaned close to sniff the poultices. Yes, definitely turpentine. “I’d like to re-dress the wounds, as I suggested earlier. But I’ll need to prepare the dressings first. It shouldn’t take long.” She ran her fingers along a length of gauze that stretched across his lower back and heard him inhale sharply.

She pulled her hand away, and a warm sensation skittered up her arm.

His hand reached back. “My shirt.”

She gave it to him. Had to help him again, because he could not put it back on one-handed. He walked a few steps to the bedside table, keeping his back to her, and picked up his drink.

“Prepare the dressings,” he said a bit shortly. “I shall be ready.”

* * *

AND WHEN SHE RETURNED, Winston thought as she left, his body would have stopped responding to her touch and begun responding to the liquor he would need in order to bear the pain when she changed the bandages.

He glanced down at his tented shirttails and knocked back a swallow of liquor, a little disgusted with himself. He’d sent away all the beauties, so his anatomy was making do with what was available.

And what was available was a medic whose cheeks had pinkened during the examination, who had inspected him with eyes averted from his crotch, and whose small, capable fingers were too easy to imagine wrapped around his cock.

Or around a surgical knife. Good God.

He’d do well to dismiss her. Today, now, before she could do any damage.

But already he preferred her methods to that Parisian doctor whose thoughtless handling had nearly hurled him into unconsciousness from the pain. And something in her tone had him suspecting that whatever she planned to use on his wounds actually stood a chance of having some effect.

Miles Germain would stay. He would take her to Greece, perhaps even continue to entertain himself at her expense. But he’d be damned before he’d let her near his privates again.