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“Who will protect you if someone comes?”
That unfamiliar warmth again. “I’ve spent years protecting myself, Duke. Don’t worry.”
His dark brows knit together. “You shouldn’t have to.”
She forced a smile. “You’ve a massive gash in your side and you’re threatening to bleed to death on a kitchen workbench, Your Grace. Now is not the time for courtly love.”
“When this is over...” His words were thinning. Becoming more reedy as he slipped into sleep.
“Tell me,” she said, suddenly desperate to keep him awake. With her.
She wasn’t ready to lose him.
“I should have taken better care of you,” he said, barely, the admission making her chest tight as she stood over him, considering the constellation of wounds he bore for her. The bruises from fighting for her. The scrapes from his carriage accident as he chased after her. The scratches on his shoulder where she’d clawed her pleasure into him.
Before she could find the words to tell him he had cared better for her than anyone had ever done before, he said, “When I wake... I will take better care of you.”
She sucked in a breath, resisting the words, more tempting than she’d ever admit. Adelaide knew the truth, after all. When this was over, they’d never see each other again.
Chapter Thirteen
While he slept, Adelaide fetched boiling water and linens and supplies and stoked the fire in the kitchen hearth. She had just begun cutting his bloody shirt free of his torso when a knock sounded and the door opened, revealing Lucia.
“I see I did not miss the good part,” Lucia remarked, stepping inside, her gaze on Henry’s supine body as Adelaide pushed his shirt to the side, revealing a wide, muscular chest.
Adelaide threw her friend a look. “He’s unconscious.”
“But not yet dead, and neither am I,” Lucia quipped, moving forward to soak a long length of linen in the basin of hot water Adelaide had placed next to Henry. She wrung it out and offered it to Adelaide. “And neither are you.”
She wasn’t. Even as she told herself she was simply cleaning him, making it easier to see the place where Billy’s knife had landed in his side—the gash across his torso where the tip of the blade had slipped and slid until it found purchase in skin—Adelaide could not ignore the ridges and valleys of his body.
“Did you hear from Mary?” Adelaide asked Lucia.
The other woman nodded. “Your deliveries are already on their way to London. I hope you know what you’re doing sending Danny back to your father.”
“Any hesitation I might have had about my father’sability and willingness to mete out a fine punishment has been calmed by the knowledge that he sent Danny north to find and fetch me back to London for a similar fate. Alfie doesn’t like losing. And he really doesn’t like it when his Boys are the reason for it.” She placed a cool cloth on Henry’s brow. “Thank you for your help.”
Lucia waved away the words. “What is the use of having Rufus and Tobias if I cannot watch them toss grown men about?” She pointed to the spot where a fast blossoming bruise spread. “Your man’s broken at least one rib. And his nose.”
“I noticed,” Adelaide said, hating the bumps and cuts and bruises across his body, each one her fault.
“I imagine you did,” Lucia said in a knowing tone.
Adelaide told herself that noticing the broken rib was why she noticed the rest—the muscles and sinew. And only then, she’d noticed because dukes were not to have such bodies—they should come soft and pale and unworked for their lifetimes of idyll.
“Doesn’t look like only school fighting to me.” Lucia voiced what Adelaide was thinking.
“I hadn’t noticed,” she said.
Lucia snorted her disbelief. “You can admit it, Adelaide. It’s just the two of us, and I’m here to help you save the toff. Which is no small disappointment, I’ll tell you. I expect a certain amount of softness for aristos from Sesily and Imogen and Duchess, considering they’ve standing invitations to Almack’s or whatnot—”
“No one cares about Almack’s anymore,” Adelaide said, rinsing the bloody linen.
Lucia’s dark brows rose high. “Honestly. It pains me to hear that you know that. What happened to solidarity among thieves?”
Adelaide smiled at the other woman. “Did I not hang the lantern in the window and summon you here?”
“To save a toff, not to rob one,” Lucia said, lifting thebottle of high-proof alcohol that Adelaide had brought with the rest of the medicinal items. “You really want him saved?”
