Page 29 of Her Rake Fiancé

Coals crackled softly in the fireplace’s black cast-iron grate, bringing blessed warmth.

“Jane…” he rasped. “I appreciate your help, but I am fine. I’ll send for our family physician in the morning. This is nothing.”

She dipped a bloodied cloth into a basin of water standing on the night table next to her bed. The crimson water reddened even more. “It is not nothing. I need to stitch you. It would take you at least thirty minutes to reach Sumhall.”

She did look a little pale and worried, he thought, as she ran the wet cloth over his undamaged skin to clean the blood away. The cut must be around two or three inches long, and blood oozed in a thin, constant stream.

“I won’t bleed to death,” he said as he watched her big, worried eyes behind her spectacles. “Besides, you are touching me. Against your own rules.”

Her sharp, angry gaze met with his and she stilled. He was afraid for a moment she’d agree with him and tell him to leave. Even if he kept insisting on going home, he hated the idea of it. He liked her hands on him. He liked her room.

And most importantly, he liked her, flushed and breathing quickly. He’d never met a woman who didn’t need his protection. Back in the Red Donkey, she hadn’t. She’d probably have been fine even if Richard hadn’t interfered.

And touching her…the feel of her skin, her scent that set his blood on fire and left him wanting so, so much more.

She put the wet cloth back into the basin of water and picked up a clean piece of gauze. She folded it into a rectangular piece and pressed it against his cut, but the pain was a dull, distant ache, no doubt thanks to the drink she gave him.

“I will need some additional courage before the next part,” she said.

He watched her walk to the sideboard where her medicinal basket stood, pour brandy into a small glass and drink it, then shudder.

“I do not usually drink,” she said as she walked back to him with the basket in her hands. She dropped to her knees in front of his bed and took out a hooked needle and a thread, which must have been made of catgut. That was what he heard anyway.

With a distant fascination, he watched the needle pierce the two sides of his cut, which sent a piercing pain through him that made him suck in a quick breath, and then a tugging pain as Jane pulled the thread through.

“Where did you learn how to do that?” he asked in a raspy voice as her swift fingers pushed the needle through his flesh again.

“Thorne,” she said as she pulled the thread through. “He comes back sometimes with cuts and bruises. His men, too. Atticus, Reuben, others. Broken arms. Split lips. Brace, one of my brother’s close friends, is a skilled physician. He taught me because I wanted to help. Thanks to him, I know how to clean wounds, suture them, and bandage them. Of course, not as well as him…”

As she kept working, Richard went silent, breathing through the pain, his mind spinning like ash in the wind. Stitch after stitch, he wondered what lady of the ton would stand the sight of blood without blinking. Not to mention suture a wound.

That was because she wasn’t one.

She was so, so much more.

“You should slay those dragon matrons of the ton like you just slayed that man back in the Red Donkey.” He chuckled and added, “Figuratively, of course.”

Jane said nothing, but the corners of her lips stretched as she suppressed a smile, devils playing in her eyes. She had already done five stitches and was about halfway through.

“You didn’t need me at all,” added Richard, wincing as the next jab of pain came.

“I told you that you didn’t need to worry about me.”

“Indeed.”

To distract himself from the ache, he looked around the room and his gaze landed on the heaps of books on her desk.

“Does it take a long time to prepare a lesson?” he asked.

She briefly followed his gaze, then came back to her torturous work. “It depends. As I have never been taught how to teach others, I find myself making mistakes. But I improve and things get better. Last one, Lord Richard. You did well.”

She pierced him for the last time and tied the knot, then cut the thread with scissors.

He breathed out with relief. “Your potion helped.” He chuckled. “Is that the doctor’s recipe?”

“It is,” she said. “Please, sit up.”

Richard pulled himself up and sat. Her gaze dropped down his naked chest and returned to his eyes, her cheeks reddening. He liked that he affected her because she most definitely affected him.