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She leaned against a wall and waited. When several minutes passed and she did not hear anything alarming, she decided to return to the ballroom. As she turned a corner, she saw the very gentleman she had run from.
“Oh, damn it!” she muttered. His back was turned, but as if he could sense her presence, he began to turn.
Grace did not allow him to see her before she turned and ran back the way she had come. Instead of stopping in the hallway as before, she saw a flight of stairs and quickly took it. She arrived in a hallway on the second floor of the Manor, and to ensure she would not be found, she opened the first door she saw and walked into what appeared to be a sitting room, closing the door firmly behind her.
“What are you doing here?” a deep voice asked, and Grace’s head snapped up.
She gasped at the sight before her, and her eyes widened with shock. She had never seen a man naked before, and although the one that stood at the other end of the room was only naked from his waist up, Grace could not help the blush that took command of her cheeks, and the sensual heat that spread through her body.
“Can you not speak?” the man asked, sounding annoyed. He was standing near a table and a chair between two large windows.
“I can,” she replied quickly. His dark brows rose as he waited for her to tell him why she was there.
She was attending a ball, and had been running not out of fear but to get away from Mr. Digby, a man devoid of manners, who had insisted on keeping her company the entire evening. He had even followed her out of the ballroom when she snuck away.
She gazed up at the powerful blue eyes watching from across the room. “I wanted to be alone,” she replied.
His brows furrowed. “And you decided to come here?”
“I did not know I would find anyone here.”
“I am sure you can find another room in this Manor that you can be alone in.” The commanding tone in his voice made her bristle, and she raised a defiant chin at him. She was about to challenge him for ordering her to leave a room that did not belong to him when he moved slightly and she saw blood running down from his shoulder.
“You are hurt,” she said, and his body visibly stiffened while he cast her a blue glare.
“That is no concern of yours,” he returned, picking up a long piece of linen and holding one end with his teeth and pulling. The sound of fabric ripping filled the room, and a sense of danger surrounded Grace, exciting her, which was not appropriate to feel in such a situation.
Any sensible young lady would run, especially one who had just debuted into society, but Grace stepped toward this man. She told herself that he might need help, but the truth was that he was pulling her like lodestone, and she refused to fight any of the urges she was feeling. He was sinfully handsome, his body was perfectly sculpted, and she was exceedingly impulsive by nature.
He was reaching for a liquor bottle when he saw her approach him and stopped. “What are you doing?”
“I thought you might need help.” She did not give him a chance to stop before she added, “I have studied wounds extensively, and if I were not a woman, I would well be on my way to becoming a physician.”
One of his dark brows rose, and his irritation quickly dissolved into amusement. “Have you now?“
“Would you like me to demonstrate my skill?” she asked, holding her hand out for the strip of linen in his hand.
Wordlessly, he stepped closed and handed it to her. Now that he was close enough, she could see that the wound was a stab on his trapezius, and she wondered how he got injured and who had done it. Supposing he would not tell her if she asked, she decided to help him, and perhaps get to know him as she did.
“I have not been able to stop the bleeding,” he confessed.
“That is because the cut is quite deep and about an inch long. You might need to find a physician to stitch it.” She looked up at him. “It would help you heal faster and also lessen the chance of the wound getting infected.”
His eyes held hers for a while, and the heat she had felt earlier returned, flooding her senses. “Can you stitch?” he asked. His question told Grace that he did not want his wound discovered, which subsequently suggested that whatever he had been doing was wrong. She did not want to think that she might be helping a criminal but she could not walk away now that she saw that he would not be able to properly tend to his wound himself.
“Yes,” she replied, feeling a little breathless under his gaze, “but we have to find something—"
“I have everything we need.” He pointed at a small wooden box on the table beside him, and there were sewing items inside. Grace looked around them, noticing a bloodied paper knife on the table beside the box, and pieces of linen that had been ineffective in staunching his wound.
“Where did you find the linen and sewing items?” she asked, folding the cloth in her hand and pressing it to his wound, carefully at first, and when he did not flinch, she applied more pressure.
He gestured toward the other end of the room. “I was fortunate enough that someone had left their embroidery.”
“You are even more fortunate that I came when I did,” she murmured.
“Is that so?” He smiled roguishly. When she nodded, he asked, “Do you consider yourself my savior now?”
“Indeed, I do.” When he grinned, Grace nearly stopped breathing for how charming he looked.
