Chapter Nine #2
Martin was moving before he consciously decided to act. He threw himself from his own horse, reaching for her as she fell, but he was too far away and his fingers closed on empty air as she tumbled from the saddle and hit the ground with a cry of pain.
"Vanessa!" He was at her side in an instant, dropping to his knees beside her prone form. "Are you hurt? Can you move?"
She was sitting up already, her face pale but composed. "I am well. Merely startled."
"You are not well. You cried out."
"It was surprise, not pain." But when she attempted to rise, her face contorted and she sank back down. "Or perhaps... perhaps a little pain."
"Where?"
"My ankle. I think I landed on it badly." She gestured toward her left foot, which was twisted at an awkward angle beneath her skirts. "It is nothing. I simply need a moment."
"Let me see."
The words were out before he considered their impropriety. A gentleman did not examine a lady's ankle. The very suggestion was scandalous, the sort of intimacy reserved for husbands and physicians, not acquaintances in a public park.
Vanessa's eyes widened. "I beg your pardon?"
"Your ankle. I need to see if it is broken.
" Martin kept his voice calm, professional as if this were a perfectly reasonable request, as if he asked to inspect ladies' ankles every day.
"I have some experience with such injuries.
If it is merely sprained, you may be able to ride.
If it is broken, we shall need to send for a carriage. "
"I cannot…you cannot…" A flush crept up her cheeks. "This is highly improper."
"So is leaving you sitting in the dirt while your injury worsens." He met her gaze steadily. "Your groom is twenty yards away and riding closer. Nothing untoward will occur. I simply wish to ensure you are not seriously harmed."
She stared at him for a long moment. Something flickered in her eyes, uncertainty, perhaps, or fear, or something else entirely.
"Very well," she said finally, her voice barely above a whisper. "But quickly."
Martin nodded, not trusting himself to speak. His heart was hammering against his ribs, a ridiculous reaction to a practical necessity, and yet he could not seem to control it. The groom had reached them now and dismounted, hovering uncertainly a few feet away.
"See to the horses," Martin instructed without looking at him. "Her ladyship has injured her ankle. I am going to examine it."
The groom, a young man with a worried expression nodded and moved to collect the reins of both horses. The mare that had thrown Vanessa was still skittish, dancing sideways and tossing her head, but the groom handled her with practiced ease.
Martin turned his attention back to Vanessa. She was watching him with an expression he could not quite read, something between apprehension and anticipation. Her cheeks were flushed, her breath coming a little faster than normal.
"May I?" he asked, gesturing toward the hem of her habit.
She nodded, her teeth catching her lower lip.
Martin lifted the fabric carefully, revealing the polished leather of her riding boot. The boot itself appeared intact, but the ankle above it was already beginning to swell, visible even through her stocking.
"I am going to remove your boot," he said. "It may hurt."
"I understand."
He worked as gently as he could, easing the boot off with careful fingers.
It was a delicate operation, the leather was fitted close, and the swelling had already made the ankle tender.
Vanessa inhaled sharply at one point, her gloved hand clutching at the grass beside her, but she made no sound of complaint.
He found himself admiring her fortitude. Most ladies of his acquaintance would have been in hysterics by now, calling for smelling salts and carriages and perhaps a physician from Harley Street. Vanessa merely sat with her jaw set and her eyes fixed on some middle distance, enduring.
She had always been thus. Even as a girl, she had possessed a core of steel beneath the feminine exterior.
He remembered a house party years ago when she had fallen from a tree she had been climbing, an activity entirely unsuitable for a young lady and had picked herself up, brushed off her skirts, and walked back to the house with a sprained wrist she had not mentioned to anyone until the next morning.
Edward had been furious when he found out. Martin had been... something else. Impressed, perhaps. Or concerned. Or some complicated mixture of both that he had not wished to examine too closely.
The boot came free at last, revealing a slender ankle wrapped in fine silk. The swelling was worse than he had feared as the joint was puffy and discoloured, already turning an ugly shade of purple that spoke of damaged tissue beneath.
"Can you move it?" he asked.
Vanessa tried, wincing. "A little. It hurts, but I can move it."
"Then it is likely a sprain, not a break. That is good news." He should stop there. He should replace her boot and help her to her feet and pretend this had never happened. The examination was complete. The injury was assessed. There was no medical reason to continue touching her.
And yet.
He found himself reaching out slowly, giving her every opportunity to pull away and placing his fingers against her ankle.
Her skin was warm beneath the silk, impossibly soft. He could feel the delicate bones beneath, the swell of the injured tissue, the rapid flutter of her pulse against his fingertips. His own pulse was scarcely slower.
"Does this hurt?" He pressed gently against the swollen tissue, professional concern warring with something far less professional.
"A little." Her voice was strange…breathless, unsteady. "It is... tender."
"And this?" He rotated her foot slightly, checking the range of motion. His thumb traced the curve of her ankle, mapping the injury.
That was what he told himself he was doing. Mapping the injury and being thorough.
She gasped, and he stilled immediately. "Forgive me. I did not mean to cause you pain."
"It is not…" She stopped, swallowing hard. Her cheeks had flushed a deep rose, and when she spoke again, her voice was barely above a whisper. "It does not hurt. Not precisely."
Their eyes met.
The moment stretched between them, fragile as spun glass.
Martin was suddenly, acutely aware of everything, the warmth of her skin beneath his palm, the rapid rise and fall of her breath, the way her lips had parted slightly, the flush that had spread from her cheeks down to the collar of her habit.
He had touched women before. He had conducted affairs, taken lovers, engaged in all manner of physical intimacy. None of it had ever felt like this.
His hand was on her ankle, and yet it felt as though he were touching something far more intimate, far more forbidden.
He should release her. He should stand up and step away and restore the proper distance between them.
He did not move.
"Martin." Her voice was barely a whisper. "What are you doing?"
It was a reasonable question. He wished he had a reasonable answer.
"Examining your ankle," he said, though they both knew that was not what she had meant.
"You have examined it quite thoroughly, I believe."
"I wished to be certain."
"And are you? Certain?"
He looked at her and saw the uncertainty in her eyes, the hope she was trying so hard to conceal, the flush on her skin that had nothing to do with pain or embarrassment.
She felt it too. Whatever this was between them, this charge in the air, this tension that made the simple act of touching her ankle feel like the most significant thing he had ever done and she felt it too.
"I am certain of very little these days," he admitted. "I find my thoughts... disordered. My judgement compromised."
"By what cause?"
By you, he thought. By the words you wrote that were never meant for my eyes. By the knowledge that you want me as I have wanted you, and the impossibility of doing anything about it.
"That," he said, "I am not at liberty to say."
He released her ankle and sat back on his heels, putting distance between them. The spell was broken or at least fractured, though something of it lingered in the charged air between them. His hand still tingled where he had touched her. He wondered if she felt it too.
"Can you stand?" he asked, his voice rough.
"I believe so…with some assistance."
He rose and offered her his hands. She took them, her fingers small and warm in his grasp, and he pulled her carefully to her feet. She wobbled, her weight shifting to her injured ankle, and without thinking he caught her around the waist to steady her.
She was in his arms.
Not an embrace, nothing so deliberate, but close enough that he could feel the heat of her body through the layers of fabric between them. Close enough that he could count the faint freckles scattered across her nose. Close enough that if he lowered his head, his lips would brush hers.
He did not lower his head.
"Steady?" he asked.
"Yes." But she did not pull away, and neither did he. "Thank you."
"You should not ride back. The jostling will worsen the injury."
"Then how am I to return home?"
"I shall send your groom for a carriage. In the meantime, there is a bench nearby. You can rest there while we wait."
It was a sensible plan. A practical plan. The sort of plan that any gentleman would devise for a lady in distress.
It was also, Martin realised, a plan that would keep her in his company for at least another half hour.
He told himself this was a coincidence.
***
The bench was situated beneath a spreading oak, its wooden slats worn smooth by years of use. Martin helped Vanessa to it, keeping one arm around her waist as she hobbled along, acutely aware of every point of contact between them.