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He moved his hands again, but watched more carefully for her response. Consequently, she tried to hold them in. Then his finger prodded and she couldn’t.
‘There,’ she gasped.
He prodded again, maybe more gently, but it didn’t feel like it. ‘And there.’
He made some sound like distress or agreement. Then he fluttered his hands low around her front and the burning continued until she was panting to get air into lungs that refused to expand.
He yanked his hands away. ‘Does the pain go further up?’
The pain was everywhere, she nodded her head.
‘Feel them as I did.’
She hesitated, her body didn’t want to move.
‘I can’t touch you there. Surely you know I can’t touch you there?’
He looked more confused than she felt. Then she remembered, he worried for her modesty again. It wasn’t something she had to practice, let alone realize she was supposed to feign.
‘Of course.’ She felt along her ribs, both her hands and fingers doing the spider-walking movement he had done.
‘Nothing’s moved?’ he said. ‘Your ribs, do any feel loose?’
‘The pain radiates on my right. Am I to press harder?’
‘No, don’t. You’d know immediately if anything was broken.’ He let out a breath. ‘You’re bruised, maybe fractured. We won’t know that unless you are further harmed or the healing takes longer than a few weeks.’ He stood and grabbed the pot. ‘This salve is for your skin. Does it have other healing properties?’
‘It helps with pain.’
He nodded his head. ‘You can apply it to your front, but you’re in no condition to apply it to your back.’ He stopped, looked over her shoulder briefly. ‘Will you permit me?’
His hands had seared through her chemise. Warm, large, unfamiliar and yet like everything about him, something that calmed and reassured her. A mercenary. A knight. So far from her realm of familiarity, she should be as terrified of him as she was of the men he chased away.
She felt no such fear, but she knew what her skin felt like. Did she dare let this man touch her?
‘My mother...’ He turned the pot in his hand. ‘My mother was a healer. This smells familiar.’
Helissent licked her swollen lip. ‘Did she work with burns?’
‘Yes.’
‘Like mine?’
He looked over at her then, his eyes locked with hers. ‘No, but I watched her.’
What was he telling her? Nothing. He neither knew how to care for burns such as hers, nor had he ever done it himself. But there was something in the way he said it that put a sentiment she understood. Pain. He understood pain and that was enough.
She untied the lacing that bound her breasts within her chemise. When it was loose, she moved to shrug it off her, but his hand suddenly pressed upon her shoulder.
‘Stop.’
She’d been avoiding looking at him when he had sat so close. When he touched and inspected her. She had completely averted her head as she felt along her breasts though she was sure he had not averted his eyes. She had been tended before, this should have been nothing but a normal everyday occurrence.
This wasn’t like those times. He wasn’t like those times. He was like no one she had ever met before and everything in her knew it.
Looking at him confirmed that now. The candle was behind him, but she caught glimpses of his perfect symmetry within the flickering flame.
He was stunning, he was standing close and his hand was on her shoulder. She was terrified, hurting, but whatever her body was feeling was none of those emotions.
‘Your chemise is loose enough.’ He poured some of the pungent mixture in one hand, as he peeled the chemise away from her back. ‘Hold the front as I apply this.’
It was dark, the chemise would further shade her skin. He couldn’t see her scars, but in a moment he’d feel them. Her torso was much worse than her face. Terribly worse and he seemed to sense it when he leaned a knee on her bed, laid his hands on her back and stopped.
He held his breath. She knew she held hers until she cleared her thoughts at being touched again like this.
She’d never been touched like this. But she needed to let him know he wasn’t harming her.
‘It’s all right... You can’t hurt me further. My skin. I hardly feel anything on that side,’ she whispered frantically. She wanted this suspended moment over. It had gone on too long. His man was outside guarding the door. Rudd could appear and she shouldn’t have a man in her home. All of that didn’t matter, because her shock was wearing off, but not the pain.
He made a sound as though he was stopping himself from saying something, then he slid his hands along her back, slowly, gently, efficiently. Practical.
It didn’t feel practical. She lied when she said she couldn’t feel anything. On her left, she felt everything. The roughness of his callouses, the heat from his hands. The gentle, gentle pressure that radiated something deep within her.
When he reached the lower part of her back, he let out a breath, but she couldn’t seem to release hers.
Then she felt his studying gaze again and realized his hands had reached the deepest grooves of her skin. She was used to them, but she should have prepared him more. He confessed his mother hadn’t treated anyone as bad as she.
‘They don’t hurt; it merely feels as though it does.’ Her voice remained steady. Efficient, as his hands.
He huffed out another breath, but he widened his fingers and smeared the mixture until it started to stick, then abruptly he removed his hands.
Just as abruptly he stepped away and out of the candle’s light only to loosen his belt and yank his fine linen tunic off. ‘You need to apply the salve to your front,’ he said as he began to rip his tunic into jagged strips. ‘I need to bind your ribs. It’ll help secure them if they’re fractured; remind you that you’re hurt before you move too fast. Tie your chemise’s laces and stand.’
His request was kind, but his words were rough, like orders. Dipping her fingers into the pot, she wondered about his past that made him like this. She knew he wasn’t always so rough or direct. She’d watched him for days. He had made jokes with the other men, drank ale from the goblet like it was wine.
Then there was an innate sense of elegance in every movement he made. Pulling her chemise away from her body and gently rubbing the familiar salve over her sore ribs. Refinement even in something as simple as tying his tunic scraps together.
He came back into the lone flickering light. The linen tied around his right fist, a strip in his left. A look of gentle determination about his face as he looked everywhere but at her eyes. Her eyes which took him in. It was as if the candlelight wanted her to see him for it flared brighter when she stood. The fit of his breeches, the low-slung angle of his belt and scabbard, the bareness of his torso. He was golden all over like heated honey. Like shadows, like light.
Eyes lowered, he kept his silence, though it seemed troubled now. She remembered his wary defiant look from before and raised her arms so he could press the end below her collarbone. Then he took her hand to hold it there before weaving the fabric tightly around her.
He circled her while she kept her eyes straight, trying not to see, at the same time he kept his lowered as if he was trying to hide from her. But always, always his methodical movements flared the candle so that each swing around, his body was revealed to her more.
Utter perfection. Utter beauty. If a man could be called that. If a mercenary dared. Not even the few scars she glimpsed or one bruise that darkened his side marred the contours of his splayed back, the ridges of his abdomen.
She dropped her arms after the second turning. Saw him drop his shoulders as the linen bound tightly around her breasts, around her middle.
Collarbones that jutted. Shoulders curving with sinuosity even in the refrained movements of his hands.
All of it golden, all of it in shadows in the flared light. All of it too much as he finished the task and tied the knot.
‘Your cheek is swollen, but not overly so,’ he said. ‘I will leave it.’
Then there was nothing else. He was done. They were done.
‘It was you this entire time.’ He stepped back, and grabbed his cloak. ‘With the food, with the cakes. You’re the one who made it all?’
She nodded.
‘It was good. Very good.’ He continued towards the door. When he reached it he said in a tone that was firm, but apologetic, ‘I won’t be here tomorrow. We’re leaving early.’
She couldn’t say anything. He wouldn’t be here when Rudd returned, but she wasn’t surprised.
As if reading her thoughts, he added, ‘There’s nowhere else you could go, no one else you could stay with?’
‘My family died a long time ago.’
Though he’d never gazed overtly at her before, he did so now as his eyes roamed from her face down to her scarred and battered hand. His lips thinned as if stopping words from escaping before he said, ‘You should rest now.’
She was tired and intended to rest. She needed it. She could no more stop Rudd than she could the fire, but she would survive both. She was only realizing how it could be done.
‘Rhain,’ she said through the tightening in her throat.
He stopped, looked over his shoulder.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
She’d surprised him; his eyes lit and she saw something restless beneath his steady gaze, then he opened the door. She heard Nicholas’s words, a sound of amusement and Rhain’s low rebuke before he shut the door behind him and all was silent.
But it wouldn’t be for long. Before she released the breath she’d been holding, she knew what she had to do.
Chapter Five (#u3a5d942b-c6bb-57e8-b9f0-957e822ed333)
Rhain heard the tethered horses and the jingle of tackle through the morning’s drizzling air. His men’s voices were low and unusually somber. There would be a storm today. He hated riding in the rain and it would be worse if the wind kicked up.
When he rounded the corner he saw his men who were no doubt wondering why they rode today. Before London, he never would have travelled on days like this. In inclement weather, many a wealthy and powerful family was forced to wait for their arrival. He wasn’t soft, but wise. He valued his men, their safety and health, they were in turn valued by their patrons. It was a simple game of appearance.
Now, he couldn’t take such a luxury as waiting out the weather. It was early, but already the village was wakening and many were loitering in the streets, watching them in curiosity. They had garnered enough attention in this tiny village.
He tried not to look over his shoulder at the inn behind him; he tried not to think of the woman he was leaving behind, and as his stomach growled he tried not to think of the best cakes he had ever tasted in his life wasting in the kitchens.
‘You readied my horse?’ he said, as he patted the horse’s neck.
‘You slept in late.’ Nicholas shrugged.
‘You were there; you know why.’
He and Nicholas hadn’t slept but an hour or two. He left Helissent’s home with a purse full of coin. It was considerably lighter after he and Nicholas knocked from door to door. Waking families, telling them what had occurred, paying them to protect Helissent should it come to it.
A troubled night and one where he had little faith in people. They should have already helped her before some stranger paid them to.
‘Yes, but I didn’t sleep late and miss all the excitement,’ Nicholas said.
His thoughts plagued by a certain woman, who smelled of cakes, he couldn’t fall asleep as Nicholas had. ‘Excitement?’
‘He means me,’ a voice behind him said. A female voice.
Rhain spun around. Standing next to his men, wearing most likely all the clothing she had, plus the tattered blanket he’d spread over her, stood Helissent.
‘What is she doing here?’ he said.
Nicholas arched his brow. ‘You gave her your tunic. I know how you like to care for stray dogs. This wasn’t also part of your plan?’
‘You know the plan and adding another isn’t part of it.’ Rhain waved his hand in her direction. ‘Especially not a woman.’ He didn’t care what Helissent heard, but he kept his voice low. His men didn’t need to hear his argument. ‘What did you tell the men?’
Nicholas unclenched his fingers around the bridle. ‘I didn’t tell the men anything. They came to their own conclusions.’
Rhain looked to his men, who were no longer talking, but avidly looking at the proceedings. There was no amusement on his behalf or annoyance that a woman was in their midst. They were simply openly glaring at him. What conclusions had they come to?
Nicholas gave a saluting smirk before he walked the horse to the men and said a few words. Rhain swore he heard laughter, but his focus was on the woman staring levelly at him.
He still couldn’t comprehend the color of her eyes, even in daylight, but he understood the emotion behind them.
If she was stubborn, he would break her. If she was afraid, he’d keep it that way. He had precious little time left. He’d spent too much in the inn eating her food and too much time in her home, kneeling on her bed last night.
Last night... He’d slept in because he hadn’t been able to sleep until exhaustion took him. Until he’d been able to stop his wandering thoughts of a scarred barmaid who’d stared with wide eyes at him in the flickering candlelight. Who’d sat stoically as he tended her. As his body shook with rage at what those men had done. Then he’d felt her back and he’d wanted to gather her to him, weep and rage some more.
His lack of sleep would deter him enough for the day if he didn’t have distractions, which the woman who stood in front of him most definitely was. If for no other reason she extracted emotions from him he had no intention of feeling.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I brought you the cakes.’ She pointed to a sack at her feet. A large sack that matched the one next to it.
‘I was going to leave them in the kitchen,’ he said.
‘I know,’ she said.
He knew she knew. He could see in her eyes, and the tight bracketing around her mouth, she wasn’t happy that he’d left the cakes.
‘I only thought—’
‘I told you to keep the cakes.’
She opened her clutched hand, revealing the coins he gave her. ‘Then I’ll have to give you back the money.’
‘I told you to keep the money.’
‘But I won’t.’
