Chapter Ten
Chapter
TEN
Leo didn’t know which was worse—the constant throb in his lower leg or the hunger pangs clawing in his stomach. What he did know, however, was that he wasn’t going to get a wink of sleep while they both plagued him simultaneously.
He was also sick to the back teeth of his bed, which he had been confined to since yesterday thanks to Abigail and his housekeeper.
They had taken to heart all the advice from the overcautious physician who had been adamant that Leo needed to keep the weight off the bad sprain for at least a week.
Therefore, they had both decided to treat him like he was knocking on death’s door.
That meant bed rest and plenty of what his housekeeper called “a fortifying convalescence diet” to get his strength up.
A diet that basically consisted of thin, tasteless soup, awful dry rolls baked with bird seeds and served without butter, and pints of a foul herbal tea that were brought to him in an invalid’s cup with a bloody spout.
So instead of doing as he was told and ringing the bell if he needed something, he decided that he was all done wasting away on gruel and penance bread. He would treat himself to a clandestine midnight feast in the deserted kitchen instead.
He shuffled to the edge of the mattress to throw his legs over and tentatively stood.
His ankle protested and he almost reached for the cane that the physician had insisted that he use until the swelling went down, but rebelled again.
He despised the old-man’s cane as much as he did the child’s drinking cup, and was thoroughly convinced that he didn’t need either.
Instead, he used the furniture to support himself while he wriggled himself into some breeches and a shirt, then used the walls to assist him as he part shuffled, part hopped out of his bedchamber.
Barkington and Snifferson immediately rose from their usual sleeping position directly outside of his door and, still yawning, loyally followed him as he hobbled and hopped his way to the stairs.
Three painfully slow stairs down and Leo realized that he might be expecting too much from his battered ankle.
It had really begun to hurt with a vengeance now, but as it would be a cold day in hell before he hollered for help and was inevitably chastised for not following doctor’s orders, he decided to sit himself down and shuffle down them on his arse instead.
A solution that, although undignified, worked a treat.
In no time at all, he was hopping along the narrow corridor to the kitchen where the promise of some real food lured him like a siren.
He was almost there when Barkington hurried forward and gave his traditional three yaps to signal a change in the wind.
“Shhhh, boy.” Miss Kendall’s soft whisper floated from the kitchen. “Remember our deal. We don’t want to wake the whole house up, so you only get a treat if you stay quiet.”
The word “treat” was all it took to excite Snifferson, who clean forgot his solemn duty to protect Leo with his life and barreled past him to get to her, forcing Leo to limp the last few yards unaccompanied while he listened to his disloyal hounds being made a fuss of.
She was crouched on the floor, tickling both of their bellies by the time he got to the door and clearly, thanks to the excited dogs, hadn’t heard his approach, so he took a moment to take in the scene.
Or more specifically her. Because he had been thinking about her all day.
Or more specifically, how intimately intertwined they had been yesterday and how the womanly feel of her soft body pressed against his seemed to be indelibly printed in his mind.
He was so busy drinking her in that it took several seconds before he noticed that she was still in her coat and bonnet. Which coincided with the exact moment that she lifted her gaze and gasped as she spotted him.
“Your grace!” Her eyes were wide as she shot up. The soft light from the only lit lamp in the kitchen made copper flecks dance in her dark irises. “You made me jump!”
“My apologies.” He used the wall to edge closer. “You are back late, Miss Kendall.” And that really bothered him. “I trust your mother’s neighbor still dropped you home?”
She blinked and then nodded. “Of course, your grace.” Then she frowned. “What on earth are you doing out of bed? You are supposed to be keeping off your ankle.”
“I am dying of hunger thanks to being put on starvation rations, so I am on the hunt for food.”
“Should I ring for someone?”
“Only if you have no pity in your soul, Miss Kendall. The staff are all under strict instructions to only feed me gruel and I am in urgent need of some real food—hence this clandestine forage to the kitchen.”
She smiled at that while untying her bonnet, then turned to place it on the side. “I saw your supper being prepared and it did look grim.”
“It was beyond grim.” Leo pulled a face. “It was foul.”
“Poor you.” She smiled. “Would you like me to make you something? My culinary skills are severely limited, but I can manage a sandwich, or if you would like something hot, I can also make toast.”
The thought of a couple of thick slabs of toast slathered in butter made him salivate.
The way she shrugged out of her pelisse to reveal the tight bodice of a pretty, short-sleeved summer dress made him salivate some more.
She had always cut a pleasing figure in her dark and sensible chaperone’s gowns, but this simple, embroidered muslin did something wonderful.
The scooped neckline showcased the merest glimpse of the upper swells of her breasts and the utter perfection of her English rose complexion against her dark hair.
Reminding him, in no uncertain terms, that she was a young woman in her prime.
And a beautiful woman to boot. With undulating curves in all the right places and a bottom that reminded him of a peach. A juicy one that—
She turned back for his response to her offer, and he only just managed to wrench his gaze from her arse in the nick of time.
“Toast sounds like the nectar of the gods, Miss Kendall, so long as it is made with proper bread made from real flour and not the stuff the cook has been scraping up from the stable floor. Nobody should have to suffer those grim invalid cannonballs she bakes to complement my tasteless sickroom gruel. Although why the blazes they have decided to treat my stomach when I am as right as ninepence everywhere except from below my left knee is anyone’s guess. ”
She laughed. It was a warm, earthy, seductive sound that he liked a great deal. “That does seem a little harsh.”
“Harsh is an understatement. I doubt they even serve anything that bad to the prisoners in Newgate.”
“I sincerely doubt that, your grace. Conditions in Newgate are purported to be horrendous. I read a troubling article about it recently that was the stuff of nightmares.” Despite her habitual need to put him in his place, she must have noticed that he was struggling to stand as she pulled out a chair at the table, then rushed over to grab his elbow so that he could hop to it.
It was a kind and almost motherly gesture, so he felt slightly ashamed that his body thoroughly enjoyed the gentle press of her bosom against his bicep as she steadied him while he sat.
She left him to fetch another chair but the alluring scent of her still lingered in his nostrils. Orange blossom merged with the fresh night air from outside in a heady mix that, although delicate, somehow suited her.
When she returned, she placed the chair in front of him, topped it with a cushion and then bent to help him heave his bad leg onto it, inadvertently giving him a splendid view right down her cleavage in the process.
Instantly, his groin tightened.
“Would you like some ice, your grace?”
“P-please.” What the blazes was the matter with him?
He wasn’t usually the sort to ogle. And he definitely had never been the sort to think improper thoughts about a woman in his employ.
That went against all his upstanding gentlemanly principles and those of his father before him.
Clearly the hunger had stopped him thinking straight.
Except it wasn’t just food that he craved now.
“If it’s not too much trouble.” That she was finally warming to him after a week of standoffishness wasn’t helping him either.
“It’s really no trouble at all.” She disappeared to fetch it and that gave him a bit of time to regroup and give himself—and his groin—a stiff talking-to.
Miss Kendall worked for him. That meant that she was out of bounds. Which meant no looking and definitely no wayward thoughts of touching!
And certainly no inappropriate stirrings!
To reinforce that, he readjusted his breeches as he huffed at himself in disgust, then caught Snifferson staring at him intently as if he could see all the way inside Leo’s filthy mind. “I know! I’ll repent by stuffing some of the ice down my bloody waistband!”
“What did you say?” Because of course the competent Miss Kendall had returned with the ice already.
“I was just letting Snifferson know that I would remind you that you promised him a treat.” Both dogs stared at him in disappointment then, and he didn’t blame them.
If he could find some excuse to dash away so that he could flagellate himself for all his improper thoughts, he would.
But he knew that if he tried to escape, she would come to assist him and that wouldn’t help the twitch in his breeches one bit.
“I did, didn’t I?” She handed him the wrapped ice and turned to the dogs. “What a naughty Portia I am.”
The absolute last thing Leo needed to hear were the words “naughty” and “Portia” in the same sentence because both gave him ideas, so he gritted his teeth and focused on placing the icy bundle on his ankle rather than watch her caress Barkington’s ears.
All the while silently wishing she was caressing his instead.