Chapter 9
Unable to sleep, Emma had pulled out her embroidery hoop and was sewing an intricate sparrow on a branch as she thought about the day.
Lord Ashton had been the perfect gentleman, and he had chosen to stay with her through the evening, partnered with her for a badminton match, and then served her food at the picnic tables after.
It was possible that after so many years, this season could be hers and he could be the one; Ashton was perfection. He looked like a prince from fairytales, and she shivered when she remembered how his lips would tilt when he murmured to himself in Catalan.
Out of nowhere, the memory of another mouth assailed her. Hard, sensual lips and dark eyes that held so many secrets and were made for sin. Heat flooded her insides as awareness throbbed in her blood.
Shaking her head, Emma went back to her sewing; as the time went on, she rubbed her eyes here and there, but still, sleep wouldn’t truly come. At one point, she heard the dull echo of the grandfather clock down the corridor chime midnight and sighed.
“Why can’t I forget him…”
Dropping her sewing, she went to the drawer where she kept the cards Vincent had sent her.
One good turn deserves another as they say, but seeing as you brought me back from what could have been the brink of death, I think I owe you more than one turn—Vincent.
The second read, For a moment, I thought you were the angel of death.
Do you prefer Romeo and Juliet or Atalanta and Hippomenes? Was the third.
Smile. I am still alive. The Fourth.
I would like to ask you how—or what—led you to me that night, but I would not question fate. That was the fifth and final note.
She wished she could answer him, but there was no return address on any of the notes—made from premium card stock, she’d noted. Vincent, whoever he was, had means, but she still did not know who he was or why he had been attacked and left for dead.
She remembered the mask that her toe had skittering across the floor and recalled a horn on the side of it. He’d gone to the masquerade ball as the devil and the hounds of hell had found him.
A faint tap at her window had her glancing up—a branch, she decided, and dropped her eyes back to the cards. When it came again, more deliberate this time, she frowned and set them down.
She went to the window and pushed up the panes, leaning out into the cool night air. Below, half swallowed by shadow, stood a cloaked figure.
Her heart leaped into her throat as the man lifted a lantern and pulled the hood from his head.
It was Vincent.
For a moment, Emma wondered if she was dreaming or having an out-of-body experience. Had this man truly come to her home in the middle of the night? Why had he come here at the witching hour?
What was she to do? Knot a rope of her bedsheets to lower so he could climb into her room? Her hand flew to her mouth when he turned down the lamp and moved in the direction of the back entrance of the house.
Frantic, she pulled away and threw on her nightrobe, then, as gently as possible, descended the stairs to the back door. Chest pounding—this was a mistake, this was a mistake, this was a mistake—she pulled the door in and found him there, the tails of his cloak fluttering in the night breeze.
Her heart lodged in her throat.
“W-what are you doing here!” she whispered furiously.
“I need your help again.”
She shook her head wildly. “You need a doctor with the proper medical instruments. I—I cannot help you anymore. I could have killed you!”
“And yet here I am,” he purred, and the curve of his mouth was not kind exactly, but it was something.
He let the silence stretch a beat before he spoke again. “I have come with a proposal. My wound needs tending—properly, this time. In return, I will compensate you enough to see you and your brother comfortable. For as long as that is necessary.”
Emma gaped at him. “How do you know about my brother?”
He watched her with unsettling calm. “With the resources I have, there is little I don’t know, pet.”
Still, she shook her head. “I cannot. If you need support finding the right physician, I can—”
“One hundred pounds,” he interrupted her. “As a start.”
Her knees went weak. One hundred pounds? God above, that was a fortune. It was ten times what her grandmother got in a month! This was not right, this was not ethical, but Vincent did not seem to consider any of that; nor did he look like he was willing to be dissuaded.
“My lord—”
“Vincent,” he gruffed, then softened his tone. “Just Vincent, please.”
She wilted into the doorjamb, then stepped back, “Come in, but please, be quiet. My grandmother sleeps light and will come to investigate if she hears something off.”
Turning to the stairs, she preceded him up to her attic room, and while she felt him following her, she did not hear him—at all. His footsteps were ghostly, and as they entered her room, she turned to ask, “How is it that you walk so silently?”
“By design,” he said vaguely as he ducked under the doorway. His eyes swept through the room in seconds as he set down his lantern. “Suffice to say, once upon a time, I’d been forced to… adjust.”
She blinked. “That is as clear as mud.”
“Good,” his lips flickered.
Emma stood away as he undid the cloak; his broad hands and callused fingers rested the inky cloth over her second chair. He was dressed in faded dark trousers, a black shirt, and scuffed wellingtons, all in shades of the night that mirrored his hair.
She then realized he’d hidden a satchel under the cloak, and when he drew it over his head and upended the contents on her bed—she saw surgical equipment. The proper needle and thread for stitching skin, expensive cleaning liquid, and bandages.
“I…” she hesitated, only to hear the rustle of cloth. She looked up to see him stripping his shirt away and felt her head go light.
Her novels had given her some vague education in the male form. They had not prepared her for quite the reality of it.
He was—there was no other word for it—a sculpture.
With the kind of sculpting that came not from leisure but from use.
Broad shoulders tapering to a lean waist, his chest carved into distinct planes, a trail of dark hair running down the centre of his abdomen to disappear beneath his waistband.
His arms, even at rest, were corded with muscle and vein.
She turned her focus on the wrap around his lower abdomen and where she had sewn the wound. He gently removed it as she bit the inside of her cheek. The wound was not as bad as she’d feared; the skin did not look pulled, nor were there any hints of gangrene.
“What do you want me to do?” she whispered.
“Take out and replace the stitches you did before, only with better tools this time. Needles, catgut, vinegar and scalpel, clean cloths and bandages.”
“I—” She looked around the small room, thinking. “I suppose you should lie down on my bed then. While I assist you.”
He didn’t wait to be asked twice. He moved to the bed and lowered himself onto it, and Emma saw immediately that he was too long for it—his legs from the shin down hanging off the end entirely. She scraped a chair to his side and sat.
A breath. Then she wetted the cloth with vinegar, pressed it to his stomach, and reached for the scalpel.
With slow, terrifying motions, she began to remove the thread she had used to sew his skin together.
She kept her eyes on her hands and nowhere else, which was a discipline in itself given the expanse of him laid out beneath her fingertips.
When the last stitch came free, the skin held. She exhaled.
“Your wound, my lor—” She caught herself, eyes lifting to his. “Vincent. It looks as if it is healing. Do you truly need me to redo the stitches again?”
“Yes, but only the line here.” He slid a finger over the stripe of scarred tissue. “Please.”
She took the needle and strung it easily, then, as she meant to pierce him, stalled. “How are you going to bear this pain?”
“I’ve taken enough laudanum to put down a tiger,” he waved away. “Believe me, I am prepared. Please, proceed.”
Biting her lip, Emma gently slid the needle in and out, mopping the pricks of blood as she went, creating a continuous, over and over suture that ended in six passes of the needle.
With tender relief, she closed the final stitch and sat back, nervously reaching for the vinegar to wipe his skin again, and when he sat up, he wrapped it up in bandages.
“There,” she bit her lip. “It’s done, and you—”
He caged her chin and brought her face up to him. She noticed the lines etched on his brow and around his mouth suggested a habit of frowning—but his eyes… his eyes blazed in the moonlight, and she felt mesmerized, and her heart gave a silly hiccup.
“Don’t do this,” he murmured, while using his thumb to free her bottom lip from between her teeth. “Don’t maul your lip, pet.”
Tension raced up her skin, washing her from head to toe as she saw his eyes dip to trace over her lips, while he held her captive. His thumb brushed over her lower lip with a tenderness that made her throat constrict.
Is he going to kiss me?
“Vincent?” she whispered.
He pulled away, but the heat of his touch lingered. “Thank you, Emma.”
Weak, she fell back in her chair as he redressed. “What do you… what do you know about my brother?”
He stalled for a second while tugging his shirt over his head, and the corded lines of his body birthed an unexpected heat inside her belly. Uncomfortable—and extremely insecure—she dragged her eyes away from his body and met his face.
Vincent pulled the shirt down and raked a hand through his hair. “I know that doctors and tutors deemed him mentally incapacitated—”
“He is not!” Emma snapped, then swallowed her needling rage. “James is smart and sweet, but the ways—the way they want him to be smart is just—just not him. Boys his age used to make fun of him, tease him and take advantage of him, but James has always been pure-hearted and kind and—”
A soft knock at the door froze them both.