“Impetuous? Me?” She barked a laugh. This gentleman did not know her at all if he thought that was a description that matched her. Why, she was the very opposite of impetuous… though she could somewhat understand why he would think that.
His gaze flitted to meet hers, and she looked away quickly, her cheeks flaring with sudden heat.
“You really should not be touching me,” she said thickly. “Only a physician should do that.”
“There is no physician here, and it is starting to swell,” he replied, her heart racing as he gently placed her foot on the mossy ground and began to peel off his riding jacket.
Out of the corner of her eye, she simply could not stop staring, noting the pleasant shape of his shoulders and the powerful contours of his arms beneath his shirt. Arms that she soon gained a closer view of as he abruptly ripped the material, tearing the sleeve right off at the elbow.
“What are you doing?” she gasped, her throat tightening at the sight of a corded forearm, freckled and gilded by the sun. It did not take much time for her mind to better imagine the muscle of his upper arm, now that she had seen the forearm.
Goodness…
“Getting ahead of the swelling and bruising,” he replied, as if he had done this a thousand times. “And to give your ankle thesupport it evidently knees. We would not want you to stumble on a weak ankle, now, would we? Otherwise, a gentleman might think that you are weak at the knees instead, and misunderstand.”
She did not know whether to snort or glare if he thought she was the swooning type. Only pretty girls swooned, and rarely because they were actually faint. Rather, it was a performance to gain the concern of a gentleman they liked.
“Now, do not tell me that I should not touch you while I do this,” he said with a knowing look. “Rules are meant to be bent when there is a need for it, and you need tending to.”
She would have asked what he meant, but he showed her instead. First, he removed her shoe and set it to one side. Then, carefully, as if he were trying to separate the wing from a fallen butterfly, he eased her stocking down over her shin, pulling on the thin fabric until it was halfway toward her ankle. Apparently deciding that was an appropriate distance, he rolled the stocking the rest of the way.
“I could have done that,” Evelyn murmured, too stunned to make any real complaint.
The brush of his fingertips did not permit any objection, the accidental caresses so soft and well-intentioned… and utterly overwhelming to her dazed mind. No one had ever touched her like that before, as if she were worth caring for, as if she were something precious.
“I am sure you could, but I did not want you causing further harm to yourself,” he explained, his throat bobbing. “We do not yet know if you have any other injuries after falling as you did. I find it is best to act slowly and not do too much when one might have hit their head.”
“I did not,” she argued. “I landed on my shoulders. I know because the air rushed out of me.”
“Nevertheless…” He took the torn sleeve and wrapped it tightly around the ankle that was just beginning to bloom with the reds and purples and grays of a nasty bruise.
As he tied the makeshift bandage around her injury, however, she noticed a slight shake in his left hand. He flexed it sporadically, the tremor stopping for long enough to allow him to continue, but when it came to putting a knot in the fabric, the shake returned. A grimace twisted his mouth as he clenched the offending hand into a fist, paused for a few seconds, then determinedly secured a tight knot in the bandage.
“Am I making you nervous?” she asked, though she could not explain why. That was tantamount to flirtation, which was not like her at all.
His gaze lifted, his blue eyes narrowing. No humor glinted in their depths, but a coldness that let her know she had asked the wrong question.
“Your hand is shaking,” she added, no doubt making it worse.
“It is nothing,” he insisted firmly, withdrawing his touch.
She frowned as that trembling hand remained in a fist, his other hand moving to cover it. A sure sign that it was not, in fact, nothing. She had seen something similar with the old cook, whom her father had dismissed, despite the woman’s pleas that she could still do her duties. It had been caused by a fall, in which the cook had put her hand down to protect herself, the injury never quite healing right, causing a constant tremor that had only worsened with age.
“Did you hurt it today?” she asked. “Or… is it an old injury?”
It was a guess, but the defeated look he gave her told her that she had deduced correctly.
“I have… pain in my left arm,” he replied after a moment’s pause, his gaze lowered, a frown creasing his brow. “My entire left side is… weaker than the right. It mostly does not affect me anymore, but sometimes, it returns.”
“I am sorry,” she said quietly. “How… um… how did that happen?”
She sensed she was prying, but it would at least take her mind off the memory of his touch upon her skin, the light brushes that still made her feel all tingly and strange.
“A riding accident, ironically enough,” he said with a wry, almost pained smile. “I was not always the epitome of confidence. As aboy, I was rather afraid of horses. Well, not horses, but the speed of the creatures. My father was teaching me how to shoot and ride, and… I was not going fast enough for his liking. He made me ride faster and faster until both my horse and I were near exhaustion. I made a mistake, I fell rather hard, and my left side has never been the same.”
She stared at him, long versed in the art of hearing more than was said. There was not just pain in his smile but in his enchanting blue eyes, his right hand absently massaging up the length of his left arm, as if to rid himself of the memory as well as the fresh reminder of that accident.
“He was a strict father?” Evelyn asked.
