Page 123 of The Muse of Maiden Lane

And this is what he’d been afraid of. Moments like this one when he was vulnerable and exposed.

Stella didn’t like to take advantage. But she was his wife, just as she’d told him. She was also his friend. She made herself look at him, steeling herself for a shock.

Fortunately for her blushes, Teddy wasn’t wholly unclothed. He wore a pair of drawers beneath his trousers. Made of plain flannel, they came to the middle of his thighs, just a fraction longer than the length of his shirt hem. All the rest of him was exposed to her view. Lean, naked limbs, covered in a light dusting of black hair. Unmistakably male.

Heat rose in her cheeks.

Though the muscles in his legs hadn’t completely wasted away, they were noticeably withered. It made her think of how he must have been before. Strong and athletic, striding through the woods in his village in Surrey. But she hadn’t known him then. She only knew him now. And she didn’t find him wanting.

Rather the reverse.

She felt the sudden restless urge to busy herself elsewhere. “Shall I fetch some hot water for a bath?” she asked. “If I’m ever sore after riding, a soak in the tub always helps.”

“It’s liniment he’ll need, ma’am,” Jennings said. “I’ve some in my room.” He tramped out to fetch it.

Stella was left alone with Teddy, her husband of fewer than four-and-twenty hours. A man clad in nothing but his shirtsleeves and drawers. “Liniment?” she inquired in as casual a tone as she could muster. “Is he going to rub you down like a horse?”

“Something like that.” Teddy gave a grimacing smile. “It’s a paralytic liniment. More like a salve.”

She drew closer, the paillettes of her net gown tinkling softly. “Does it help?”

“It calms the worst of it,” he said. “The rest fades within an hour. Usually less, providing the damp doesn’t aggravate it again.”

Jennings promptly returned with a glass jar of salve. He opened it, releasing the faint fragrance of lavender and balsam into the room. “If you’ll permit me?”

She again moved away from the bed, relinquishing her place.

The mattress sagged as Jennings sat down beside Teddy. Scooping out a measure of the salve, he rubbed it between his hands to warm it, and then, placing his hands on Teddy’s right thigh, began harshly kneading the muscles.

Teddy groaned deep in his throat.

Stella winced in sympathy. “Must you be so rough?” she asked the manservant.

“Have to apply adequate pressure,” Jennings grunted. “That’s what the French doctor said as was to be done. Said I was to use all my strength.”

Stella frowned. Jennings was a great big ox of a man, with hands the size of dinner plates. As for that French doctor, she didn’t think much of any physician who prescribed cruelty as a cure. “I sometimes massage Locket’s muscles,” she said. “When she’s stiff after a ride on a cold morning. There are ways of pressing deeply without brutality.”

“A woman’s touch,” Jennings said, his tone edged with unmistakable disparagement. “Not much use for Mr. Hayes.”

“Not just any woman,” Stella informed him coolly. She returned to the bed, refusing to accept that she was useless to her husband. She met Teddy’s eyes. “May I try?”

His shirt collar was open. A dull flush of red crept up his neck. For a moment it seemed he would refuse her request. And then, with a huff of resignation: “You can hardly do worse.”

Stella’s pulse quickened. She helped herself to a scoop of the salve. She waited for Jennings to move and then took his place. She rubbed the salve between her hands, softening it with her warmth. It appeared to be composed of beeswax and tallow, with a slight sting to it that might have been turpentine.

“Tell me if I hurt you,” she said to Teddy.

“It’s not hurting me that’s the trouble,” he said. “It’s helping me.”

“Oh, ye of little faith,” she said, quoting Anne. “Don’t give up on me just yet.” With that, she pressed her hands gently into his thigh. His flesh was firm and warm. Her heart fluttered wildly. She did her best to ignore it. This was serious business.

His muscles were tightly contracted, solid as stone under her questing fingers. She applied additional pressure, pushing deep and pulling with her hands as she moved, her strokes fluid rather than jarring. She understood from working on Locket that the goal wasn’t to bruise a muscle or to inflame it even worse. It was to soothe it. To convince the knots that it was safe to release.

Teddy inhaled a shaking breath.

“How’s that?” she asked. “Any better? Any worse?”

“Better,” he grunted.