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“Right,” she said. “Will you try to use some part of your grossly underworked brain and employ a dash of common sense? You’ve injured your foot.”
“It got a jolt, I daresay, when I fell on my face,” he said. He couldn’t have done more than wrench the ankle. It oughtn’t to be making such a fuss.
“I daresay,” she said. “Now, keep still, hold your tongue, and let me look. No, never mind. I know it’s too much to tell you to hold your tongue. But you must keep still. The idea is to not make it worse.”
He could hear the you dolt she was thinking.
She was right. Had their situations been reversed, he’d have roared at her to keep still. The trouble was, he could hear a faint inner voice telling him he’d done real damage, and that voice was trying to throw him into a panic.
He told himself not to be a baby. He wasn’t dead. No signs of blood anywhere. He was simply incapacitated. Somewhat. For the moment.
And not in the least worried.
“Look at my gloves,” he said, holding out his hands. “Just look at them.”
“You hate them anyway,” she said.
“It’s the principle, dammit.” He supposed his face was dirtier than the gloves, but it had never been very pretty, and so, no great loss there. “And it’s deuced undignified, falling on my face in a farmer’s field.”
“Yes, more dignified to fall on your face at a party because you’re inebriated,” she said.
“Exactly,” he said. “Drunk, you don’t know you’re undignified. Equally important, you feel no pain.”
“Men,” she said. She moved to his feet. “The right one?”
“Yes, nursey.”
“On second thought, maybe I’ll shoot you and put you out of your misery.”
“Sadly, we have no weapons,” he said. “I should have thought of that in Putney. Traveling without firearms is—oh.”
She had grasped his foot. Gently.
All the same . . . not pain, exactly. More like . . . excitement.
Well, he was a man, and when a woman touched a man, he was likely to get excited, whether he needed to or not.
“Tell me when it hurts,” she said. Carefully she moved his foot to the right, to the left, and in a circular motion, as she must have learned to do ages ago, having so many brothers and, as far as he could make out, loving but inattentive parents.
Perhaps he let out a small yelp.
His face heated. “It isn’t broken,” he said quickly. “I’d know.” He wouldn’t allow anything to be broken. “But it’s sweet of you to fuss.”
“I am greatly tempted to drop it. Hard. On a rock.”
“Too bad. Only mud and cow shit hereabouts.” He glanced about him. “Possibly sheep shit, too. Can’t say. I’m no agrarian.”
She rose and set her hands on her hips and looked at him. “I can’t leave you here, great as the temptation is.”
“Actually, you could. The postilion knows the way.”
He was perfectly capable of getting up, Ripley told himself. He would not have to crawl back to the chaise. He could move on one foot, more or less. He simply needed to stop whimpering to himself about a dash of excruciating pain.
He’d been in worse fixes than this. He’d been more badly damaged in fights and reckless riding episodes.
But at all those times he’d been drunk.
Never mind. Drunk or sober, he didn’t have time to play the invalid.
He had to get back to London forthwith. He had to advise Ashmont and goad him if necessary. Ripley had to make sure no duels happened and nobody got maimed or killed over the wedding fiasco. Above all, he needed to get away from her and get an unrespectable woman into bed. Quickly.
“It’s the shoes’ fault,” he said. “Can’t go tromping about fields in go-to-wedding shoes.”
Little more than slippers, formal shoes didn’t protect a fellow’s feet against wet, let alone stepping into rabbit holes. But one couldn’t get proper boots in short order in Putney or anywhere else. The inn servants had dried out and cleaned his wedding footwear as best they could.
“I’d better help you up,” she said. “You must not put any weight on the right foot.”
“I know that,” he said. “Go back and tell the postilion you’ll mind the horses, and send him to me.”
“I could drag you back to the carriage by your good foot,” she said.
“And spoil this beautiful coat, you insensitive female? Get the postilion.”
She glanced back over her shoulder toward the post chaise. “He’s still fussing with something. I wonder what frightened the off horse.”
“The postboy let his attention wander,” he said. “That or drunkenness is the usual reason for losing control of post horses. It’s not as though the creatures have any spirit left in them. Will you kindly get him?”
“He’s smaller than I am,” she said.
“He’s wirier. Just. Get. Him.”
She smiled down at him. “No. I like seeing you somewhat helpless.”
He smiled back at her. He liked seeing her standing above him, hands on her hips. Liked it very much. Wounded as he was, he’d have hooked his good leg about her ankle and brought her down on top of him . . . if she hadn’t belonged to his stupid friend.
She planted her feet hip-width apart and held out her hand.
“If you try to help me up, you’ll fall over,” he said.
“Do try to think rationally,” she said. “It’s the same as using a chair or a tree stump. I’ll provide support, so you won’t put any weight on the foot.”
“You can’t take my weight,” he said.
“That’s what they all say.”
“I can get up on my own,” he said. “It’s the going forward part that’s going to be awkward. Will you get the postilion?”
“How I should like to knock you unconscious with a rock and drag you by one foot,” she said. “Or an arm. Or your ears. But that could take a while.” She looked up at the darkening sky. Her spectacles lost their sparkle, mirroring the gloomy view overhead. “And it looks like rain. Again.”
He laughed. In spite of throbbing and dirt in his mouth and another set of ruined clothing.
Giving himself a push with one hand, and taking his weight onto his left foot, he propelled himself upright. Then he was glad indeed to have her handsome shoulders for support, because even the small amount of pressure on his right foot hurt like blazes. He managed not to do more than grunt, but he couldn’t help grimacing.
“Use me like a crutch,” she said. “It’s all right. I’m not fragile. Quite strong, in fact, thanks to dragging library steps about and hauling books up and down—and some of them as heavy as a cow, thanks to the gilt.”
She was stronger than he would have thought, in more ways than one. All the same, he hated making a crutch of her. He did it, though. No choice: one hop forward at a time on his left leg, with her as support for the right. Even so, he couldn’t keep the right foot fully clear of the ground, and every time it made contact, pain vibrated from his ankle.
But the common sense part of his brain told him that if he tried to get back to the carriage on his own, on this uneven ground, he’d land on his face. And end up crawling. He doubted it was much more fun to crawl with a throbbing foot as to walk.
And so, wrapped tightly together, they inched along the uneven ground. As they moved, her breast pressed against his arm and her hip against his upper thigh. The attendant sensations traveled easily to his groin, distracting him from the pain and thoughts like, Now what do we do?
Only another five miles or so to the house, he told himself. It wasn’t going to be the most pleasurable experience, jolting along the rough country road of the last stretch, but he’d survive.
And then?
He’d think about and thens when the time came.
At long last, they reached the road, and he dared to look up from the ground ahead he needed to cover.
The lurcher stood in the chaise’s open door.
“Woof!” he said.
Olympia caught the look in the dog’s eye in the nick of time.
As Cato vaulted from the carriage, she hauled Ripley out of the way.
The dog failed, by a very narrow margin, to bowl them over. One would have thought he’d be fatigued after his chase. Instead he was excited and apparently quite proud of himself.
“Sit,” Olympia ordered, and the dog sat, tail thumping.
“Where on earth did I get the idea you were well trained?” she said.
“Woof!”
“And silent?”
“Woof!”
She looked up at Ripley, whose face seemed paler than before.
“Sorry about that,” she said. “But I saw in his eyes the urge to pounce on a human, and I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t you he chose to greet overenthusiastically.”
“I saw it, too, the trickster, acting so meek and mild before,” he said.
