He waited a moment before reclining on the sofa, his skin tingling and pulling at the stitches as he moved. He undid the buttons of his waistcoat and shirt, careful not to reveal too much, just as he’d done the night of the ball. Bruises at various degrees of discolouring marred the rest of his skin, and how he’d got them was a conversation he didn’t want to have with her.
As a veterinarian, she probably had no idea what sort of maladies a human mind could be afflicted with. He wouldn’t be the one who shocked her into the world of pain and darkness that lived in his head.
“You didn’t give me time to bandage the wound properly.” She wiped her hands with a clear liquid, and a pungent smell reached his senses. But the disinfectant didn’t cover her sweet scent of cinnamon.
A little line appeared between her delicate eyebrows, and he was, once again, charmed by her beauty and light. She didn’t need to say anything to enthral him.
“I apologise again for having offended you the other day.” She touched the wound lightly.
“Offended me?”
“You left in a hurry. I must have said something that upset you.”
Yes, something had upset him, but she hadn’t offended him. Her kindness had reminded him how unkind he was, and it hadn’t been a pretty reminder.
“You didn’t offend me. I was caught off guard by your compassion.” The words tumbled out of his mouth without his explicit permission.
He blamed the power of her intense eyes. They made him tell the truth.
She dabbed the cut with a cloth. “You must have met some not-so-nice people.”
He smiled ruefully. “Your heart is so good. It’s unsurprising that you assume I met unkind people. I might be the unkind one, who was repaid in kind, if you allow me the play on words.”
“If you admit you were unkind, then you can’t be completely unkind, can you? An unkind person wouldn’t confess to being one.”
He gritted his teeth when she pressed her fingers to the sides of a particularly sensitive stitch. “One ought to show accountability.”
“True.” She wiped her hands. “The stitches are clean, and I don’t see signs of infection. But I’ll apply some more iodine anyway.”
He watched her work with great attention, which was ironic. Until a moment ago, he’d had trouble focusing on reading asimple document, but now he could easily dedicate his full mind to her.
Her long eyelashes were chestnut at the base and golden at the tips. Her pert nose twitched when she focused on her work. And her skin had a warm hue as if she spent a lot of time outdoors without a parasol.
She was the first earl’s daughter he’d ever met who knew both about farming and being a lady. The combination was extremely alluring and felt intimately close to who he was. Like her, he’d worked hard with his hands before being able to settle into the life of a lord.
“Done.” She tilted her head to the side, studying her handiwork. “But this time I need to bandage the cut, or the fabric of your shirt might get tangled with the stitches and rip them.”
“My valet wasn’t thrilled when he saw my shirt stained with blood and iodine.”
She signalled for him to sit up. “May I ask you something?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Why is it so important to buy that land from Father?” She selected a wide roll of bandage from her bag.
Curious. She hadn’t asked her father about the deal. Or more likely she’d asked, and Winchester had refused to answer.
“And please, don’t say you don’t want me to get involved. I really want to know,” she added.
“I’m expanding my London and West Marches Railway towards the southwest. I want the railway to reach a small town, Fletton. It’s in the middle of nowhere, but there’s an old glass factory that will die unless the town gets modernised.”
“With the railway,” she said.
“Yes. The factory is losing relevance due to its isolation. A few hundred people live in Fletton, and almost half of them work at the factory. In order for them to have a hospital and a school, they need a train station. The railway will connect Fletton toBristol and London, increasing job opportunities for everyone and making the transport of glass more efficient.”
“It sounds like an important project.”
He touched the stitches and groaned inwardly when his fingertips got stained with iodine.
