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Leo put the first aid kit on the table then went to the sink and started filling a large clean bowl with warm water. “There’s antihistamine cream for the stings, but we need to clean those cuts first.”
“It’s only a graze.”
“No. It’s not.”
He knelt on the floor before her, the bowl of water at his side, and cast around for a cloth. He spotted the picnic basket and took out an unused napkin, smiling to himself. Trust Pea to find the antique napkins, lovingly stored since they were last used fifty years ago on the Queen’s visit to Thornley.
It didn’t matter. It was only cloth.
He dunked the napkin on the bowl and wrung it out, then started dabbing gently at the weeping scrapes. “I’m sorry if this hurts.”
“It’s fine.”
Their positions, with her sitting and him kneeling before her, meant her voice came from above him. It sounded strange like that. He was so used to being taller, directing his voice down, with Peony tilting her head up toward him. This felt more intimate somehow. She must be looking down on the top of his head, and he found he could not bring his eyes up towards hers.
Instead, he focused on his task. Although that was no improvement. Her bare legs were inches from his face. As he bent to his work, his eyes were almost level with her knees, and they kept being drawn to the shadowy valley between them—the length of her inside thighs. Her knees were ever so slightly parted, and if he were slightly lower, and if her dress was slightly shorter, he probably could have seen all the way to her underwear.
If he had looked.
But he didn’t. Wouldn’t. Not even when she shifted slightly on her chair and he lifted her ankle and rested her foot on his knee so that he could treat a little scrape on the inside of her calf.
Heat crawled up his back. He was sure he must be red-cheeked, blushing like a schoolboy. His gaze wandered up from her calf to her knee and then along the soft, creamy length of her inner thigh—
He dipped his head to wring the cloth out, and he couldn’t help it. His better self was nothing. He looked.
Black. Were they black? Or maybe dark blue in the shadows there.
Oh God. This was Edward’ssister.
He bathed a cut on her knee and Pea hissed a little as it stung. “Sorry,” he muttered.
“You don’t need to do this, you know. But…I am grateful, Count.”
He looked up, praying the flush on his cheeks would be mistaken for a reaction to the heat of the day. Pea looked rather flushed too. He tried for a smile.
“How many times have your poor knees bled?”
“It’s only skin. It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.” He looked back at the bowl. The water was looking a little grimy.
“But a little pain can be worth the reward,” said Pea.
Leo nodded, though more for something to do with his body than because he agreed with, or even understood, the sentiment.
He took her foot from his knee, marvelling at both the slender width of her tiny ankle and the dirt on her sole. He went to the sink and got fresh water. Then he knelt down again before Pea and squeezed a little of the lotion he had taken from her bathroom onto a damp napkin. It was handwash, but he was sure it would do for feet.
“What are you doing?” Pea said as he lifted her leg by the calf and began to gently rub the sole of her foot with the soapy napkin.
“Washing your feet. They’re filthy.”
“Count…” she said uncertainly, but he continued his task, head bent, movements slow and sure. He used his soapy fingers to clean around and between her toes. She gave a little gasp. He pretended not to hear it, but his fingers tightened slightly on her calf and her smooth, wet skin slid slightly in his grip.
He rinsed her foot then repeated the process with the other one. Her skin was so warm and soft, rough on her sole and heel. He exulted in the feel of it, in the pressure of her calf in his hand. He felt…detached somehow, as in a dream, thinking of nothing but the smooth slip and slide of her skin under his fingers and the delicate bones of her slim brown feet. That was his world and he was temporarily lost to everything else, entirely unselfconscious, though his heart beat fiercely fast.
He put the napkin down and reached for the towel. He dried her feet. Then he reached for the other bottle of lotion. This one was hand cream.
“Count…” said Pea, even more uncertainly than before.
