Blackstone's Bride. Bronwyn Williams

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ be done, you know, else you’ll catch your death, lying in a wet bed. I’ll be as gentle as I possibly can.”

      With the afghan spread over his middle for modesty as well as warmth, she positioned the scissors. His eyes widened still more, until she could see that his eyes were brown, not black. Topaz, not obsidian. They only looked black because his pupils were enlarged from…pain? Fear?

      “I won’t hurt you,” she said softly, reassuringly. “I would never deliberately hurt anyone.” And just as she began to cut away the sodden fabric, the oddest feeling came over her. Staring down at the stranger on her bed, with all his injuries—with his face swollen and discolored—she felt something almost akin to…recognition.

      Which was beyond absurd. If she’d ever seen him before in her life, she would have remembered. He wasn’t the kind of man, even in his present deplorable condition, that any woman could forget.

      “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she muttered, embarrassed by her own reaction.

      Fortunately, he couldn’t see her flaming face. His eyes closed and remained shut until she had cut almost all the way to his groin.

      “No.”

      The single word momentarily stayed her hand. “We agreed, you can’t lie around in wet clothes. I’m going to cut across to the placket and—”

      “Madam,” he said just as clearly as if his lips weren’t swollen like a split melon, “you’re not getting anywhere near my privates with those scissors of yours. Leave me be and I’ll get undressed.”

      “Well for heaven’s sake.” She laid the scissors down on the table beside the bed. “I wasn’t planning to do you any harm, I only wanted to make it easier for you.”

      Her face must be steaming by now. She knew as much about a man’s anatomy as any other woman who had been married for nearly two years. That is, she knew where it differed from a woman’s, and which parts were more sensitive than others. She hadn’t planned on getting anywhere near those particular parts, but if he thought he could do better, then let him. At least he was speaking now.

      “I’ll just go—go and put the kettle on, then. Call me when you’re done.”

      Chapter Four

      He was asleep when she returned, giving her time to study his face. The horrid swelling around his eyes was already discolored, his lips split and swollen. The square jaw bore not only a shallow cleft in the center of his chin, but two cuts and a darkening bruise.

      Suddenly, she had a feeling of being watched. His eyes were closed, his breathing even. Living alone had obviously distorted her senses. “Are you awake?” she whispered.

      The shadowy beginnings of a beard darkened his face, which would make cleaning him up more difficult, but the twins had taken Devin’s shaving things. Besides, after the way he’d reacted to her scissors, she wasn’t particularly eager to approach him with a straight razor. “Hello-o,” she caroled softly. “You probably should try to stay awake until we’re certain that lump on your head is only skin-deep.”

      Brain damage. My God, what should she do about that? Had he said anything that made sense? Or even anything that didn’t make sense? Head injuries were not to be taken lightly.

      Damn the Millers! Throwbacks to the Dark Ages, every last one of them! What did they do when someone was sick or injured, call Miss Lucy to cast a spell?

      “Wake up,” she snapped. Standing over him, she couldn’t help but be aware of his powerful body. He was muscular, both his lower parts and his upper parts—she didn’t know about what was in between. Devin, like most of his cousins, had been short-legged, but powerfully built from the waist up, probably as a result of working with pick axes and wheeling barrows full of dirt along narrow underground tunnels.

      Or perhaps it was hereditary, she no longer cared. This man was different. His hands, for all the bruised and bleeding knuckles, were without calluses. Square-palmed, long-fingered, with well-kept fingernails. Unlike the Millers, who went barefoot ten months out of the year, his feet were narrow, the arches high, not flat and callused and broad.

      “Who are you?” she wondered aloud.

      There was no response, not that she’d expected one. Evidently, he had used the last of his store of energy dragging himself up the hill to safety. That alone, she thought as she busied herself filling the kettle and dragging her washtub in off the back porch, was enough to tell her that his presence must be kept secret from those in the valley. He’d come up the hill, not down toward the settlement, when anyone knew that going downhill would have been easier.

      His ribs were injured, that much she’d concluded by the way he’d reacted whenever he was forced to move his torso. A broken rib could cause untold internal injuries, which he might already have suffered. After getting him out of his underwear she should have insisted on looking him over for evidence of further injuries, but she hadn’t. He had suffered enough for the time being.

      Besides, she’d been too embarrassed.

      Sooner or later, though, she would have to examine his body. His back, his sides, his—the rest of him. He might even be bleeding internally, in which case, where on earth did one apply a bandage?

      She took out her washboard and tossed a sliver of soap into the tub, making a mental note to request more soap the next time her supplies were delivered.

      As the kettle began to simmer, she filled the tub half full of cold water, thinking about the first time she had sent down a shopping list, naively thinking someone would be going to the nearest town to shop. She’d ordered three bars of French lilac soap, hard milled so as to last longer, a tin of lilac-scented talc and a stiff new hairbrush, as her own was all but useless.

      Two days later one of the twins had ridden up the hill with her order. Three chunks of homemade lye soap and a box of cornstarch. No brush. Not even a new comb.

      That had been the beginning of her awakening.

      Shoving back a length of tangled curls that had slipped free of the pins, she went through the pockets of his Levi’s before dropping them into the tub. They were empty. No surprise there. Whoever had beaten him had obviously robbed him as well. Nevertheless, she felt in the pocket of his faded chambray shirt before tossing it in after his Levi’s. Next went his single sock. If his ankle got worse, one might be all he would need, perish the thought.

      As for his coat, it could probably be salvaged, but it would never be the same. It was ripped in two places as if it had snagged on something. One of the sleeves had nearly been torn off. It would have to be sponged and dried slowly so the leather wouldn’t stiffen before she could even attempt to mend it.

      She slid her hand into the outer pockets. Nothing there, either. Hardly a surprise. It was in the lining that she came across a flat pocket. A money pocket? She knew less than nothing about men’s clothes, only that their hosiery needed darning far more often than her own. Cautiously, she slid two fingers inside…and pulled out a folded piece of paper that looked as if it had been through the wars.

      The kettle began to rock just then, and laying aside the paper, she finished filling the washtub.

      “I don’t know when you’ll be leaving,” she muttered to herself as she swished the soap around to make suds, “but you’ll want something to wear. Did I tell you СКАЧАТЬ