Six
Elizabeth
“Bloodybullocks!Wherethedevil did you learn to darn?”
I gave another remorseless stab of my needle into his flesh. “You ought to be grateful it is not my younger sister trying to piece your scalp back together. You would forever have a crooked seam under your hair.”
“I am more worried about having hair at all! Must you be so violent? You have nearly—gah! Confound it, woman! That hurts!”
I broke the thread with savage glee and tied a knot against his head. Hard. “You ought to have chosen an honorable profession instead of skulking about houses and splitting your head open. I do not pity you, sir.”
“A man has to make his living some way or another. I expect if I were a soldier, you w—in the name of all that is holy! Have you no mercy, woman?”
“You have a great gash here. Do you want your natural pate to slip off your head when they hang you?”
He raised a quaking hand to smooth over the uninjured part of his head. “Proceed,” he replied through gritted teeth. “Only I do not know why you take such delight in tormenting me. What harm have I done to y—” He broke off with a hiss and an oath as I tied another knot.
“You came to harm my neighbor.” I examined my needle and swapped out the remaining silk thread for another length. “Is that not reason enough for me to despise you?”
“Poppycock. He would not have been harmed in the slightest. I happen to know this for a fact.” He turned his head to look at me as he uttered this last sentence, but I spun his head back around. Not gently.
“Thieves always say that when asked to justify themselves, I am sure. Another has more, so they think it right to take what does not belong to them. Well, you are quite wrong, sir.”
He growled and hissed again, his teeth grinding against a foul assault of metaphors. When his eyes opened, there were tears of pain at the corners, and I almost felt an ounce of pity for him. Almost. “How is stealing from a man any different from deceiving him?”
I thought for a moment. “It is not,” I decided as I pierced him again.
“And you have never been guilty of deceit? Disguise?” His face crumpled, and he snarled in pain as I tied off the last knot.
“Not willingly, which is more than I can say for the likes of you. There, I suppose you will still look dashing when they take you up before the Assizes.”
“You think I look dashing?”
I gave him a dirty look. “You probably think you do.” I set down the needle and sighed as I inspected my fingers, crusted with blood. And to my surprise, the thief’s hand captured mine. His touch was… well, rather nice, though he was a scoundrel.
“Let us find you some water,” he said gently.
My spine went rigid. “I think I would rather have nothing more to do with you, sir. I can find water well enough on my own.”
“But you have done me a great service, and now I must see you right. Come, there must be a bucket over the kitchen hearth.”
“That is not likely, as the housekeeper has been away for three days. I shall have to look to the well.”
“And take the chance of stumbling on the groundskeeper? That might be an awkward conversation, Miss Bennet.”
I scowled at him. “You really do have a troubling way of forcing me to consider propriety when it bothers you not a whit.”
“Well, you have more to lose than I do, I am sure. Now, which way to the kitchen? Ah, here it is.” He had yet to turn loose of my hand, a situation I found all the more unsettling because I rather liked the feel of his. Perhaps I really was a hoyden.
I cast a glance over my shoulder as we passed a row of windows and saw with a mixture of panic and relief that Uncle Philips’ carriage had gone. He would know nothing of this little episode, and the story of someone trying to steal Papa’s vases would not come to an investigation that could have ruined us. But I was now fully at the mercy of this strange thief.
“Aha! Just as I hoped. There is a little water left, no doubt what remained of her water for tea just before she departed. I say, this is something of a shoddy housekeeper, is she not?”
“I would not know,” I answered primly, trying to retain something of my dignity. It was too late, for he had taken the bucket from the hook and set it on a worktable. Then he reached once more for my hands and plunged them under the water, scrubbing them with his own.
Good heavens, but this was scandalous, especially with the way he carefully caressed each finger, massaged the grooves between them, and stroked his thumbs into the centers of my palms. I could not draw breath, which was just as well, for the arrangement had me neatly tucked against his side, one of his arms draped casually over my waist, and my face nearly pressed into his shoulder. Breathing was no longer an option.
“There,” he declared at last. “We are somewhat more decent now, are we not?”
