Page 13 of Duke of Sapphire

He was gone before Charlotte had finished registering that it was over.

Sappherton turned. He looked at her ankle, then at her face, and said nothing at all, which was almost worse than if he had spoken. He put a hand on her elbow, helped her to stand, and walked her across the yard without saying another word.

The carriage door shut behind them.

Once they were alone, the Duke spoke. “At what point,” Sappherton said, “during the instructions I gave you not twenty minutes ago, did you conclude they were suggestions?”

Charlotte’s ankle was throbbing steadily. “I was managing perfectly well.”

“You were on the ground.”

“I had tripped. That is entirely separate from the other situation.”

“The other situation being the hired agent who was two questions away from identifying you.”

“I handled that.”

“You told him you were a valet,” he said. “He did not believe you.”

“He had no proof⁠—”

“He had eyes.” Sappherton sat across from her, arms folded. “If I had been five minutes longer in that room, he would have walked you to the nearest posting house and sent a rider south before nightfall.”

“You cannot know that.”

“I know exactly that.”

Charlotte straightened. “Sitting in a sealed carriage while you conduct business is not a plan. It is a cage. I cannot be expected to⁠—”

“You were given one instruction.”

“A deeply unreasonable one.”

“The alternative,” he said, “was a sprained ankle and a hired man memorizing your face. Which of those outcomes do you prefer?”

Charlotte opened her mouth. Then she closed it.

His jaw was still set, but he was already moving, dropping from the seat to one knee on the carriage floor. He had her boot in his hands before she fully understood what was happening.

“What are you doing?”

“Examining your ankle.” He worked the boot free with careful hands, one thumb pressed light against the joint. She felt him assess it by applying a pressure that told her he knew what he was looking for and had handled similar injuries in the past.

The Duke removed one hand from her ankle and used his knuckles to rap on the roof. A moment later the carriage door opened and his valet, who had been riding outside, handed in a traveling case. Sappherton extracted a strip of clean linen without looking up.

Charlotte watched him wrap the ankle. His hands were steady. He did not rush.

“It is a sprain,” he said. “Not a break.”

“You sound very certain of that.”

“I have seen enough of both to know the difference.”

She had run out of things to say. The argument had gone somewhere she hadn’t intended, and now he was crouched on the floor of his own carriage wrapping her ankle, and she could not quite locate the indignation she’d had five minutes ago.

“You are considerably more worried about me and my well-being,” she said, “than you have been letting on.”

He did not look up. “Your safety is a concern. I would prefer not to arrive in Scotland with a woman who cannot walk.”