Page 85 of The Marriage Method

“It’s all right.” Mrs. Royce drew the girl up from her seat. “Miss Trewlove will be fine. She only needs some peace and quiet.” She gave Miles a pointed look. “And a doctor wouldn’t go amiss.”

Miles’s stomach lurched with apprehension. He waited until everyone had departed the drawing room before sinking down on his haunches in front of Nell. “Did he hit your arm?”

“My shoulder,” she said.

He moved to rise. “I’ll summon the doctor.”

“No!” she objected sharply. “I don’t want a doctor.”

“Want has nothing to do with it. If you’ve broken a bone—”

“I won’t see one, Miles. I hate doctors. Ever since…” She trailed off, closing her eyes. Her breath came in soft, shallow gasps. “I only need a cold compress. And…perhaps a sip of laudanum.”

Miles had never heard such patent absurdity. “Have you lost what’s left of your good sense?” he growled at her. “First to have gone to Whitechapel when I explicitly told you—”

“I know.”

“To fight a man who has already committed murder—”

“I know.”

“And then to let that infernal friend of yours prop you up on the sofa like a broken doll, all the while you’re suffering agonies—”

“Not agonies.” Nell exhaled another labored breath. “Though very near, I confess.”

Miles glared at her. “If you won’t permit a doctor to examine you, I’ll do it.”

Her lashes lifted a fraction. “You?”

“I know enough to tell if anything’s broken. And if it is,” he added sternly, “I’m calling the doctor, with no arguments from you. Agreed?”

A frown creased her brow. “Agreed,” she said at length. “But first…I’d like to lie down in my bed.”

Miles didn’t need to be told twice. Scooping her up carefully in his arms, he carried her from the drawing room.

Mrs. Bright and several of the other servants were hovering outside the door. The housekeeper approached as Miles crossed the hall with Nell. “I knew something was amiss,” she said. “I’d have rung for the doctor myself if I didn’t fear it would be taken as impertinence.”

“Never mind it,” Miles replied curtly. “Do you have any laudanum in the medicine cupboard?”

“Yes, Mr. Quincey,” Mrs. Bright said as he mounted the staircase. “I’ll bring it up directly.”

Miles continued up the stairs to Nell’s bedchamber, cradling her safely in his arms. It might have been romantic if she wasn’t grimacing with his every step.

All the while, his chest was so tight with conflicted emotion he could hardly breathe himself. He wanted to scold her. To rake her so thoroughly over the coals that she’d never do something so bloody stupid again.

And he wanted to hold her closer. To comfort and protect her. To keep her safe and never let her go.

Most of all, he wanted to howl with rage. To go out and find Silas and systematically tear the villain limb from limb. That such a man—that any man—should cause Nell even one moment of pain.

It was too much—all these blasted feelings. How was Miles to endure it? How could anyone?

Steeling himself against the chaos within him, Miles placed Nell down gently in the center of her four-poster bed. He drew back from her, exerting all of his not insubstantial will toward addressing the task at hand. “How attached are you to this dress?”

Nell’s eyes were closed again. She no longer had the look of a sleepy tigress waiting to pounce. She looked young and heart-wrenchingly defenseless. “Not very,” she answered with an effort. Her countenance was waxen. “You bought several more for me today. They’re much prettier.”

His chest constricted tighter. “I’m pleased to hear it.” He examined the set of her sleeve. “I’ll have to cut it off.”

“My arm?” she asked with a disturbing lack of concern.