Page 39 of Lady Diana's Lost Lord
“Itlookslike you’ve reopened your wound.”
What? Diana glanced down to see the streak of blood that marred the otherwise clean surface of the bandage. “Oh,” she said. “So I have.”
Ben muttered something beneath his breath that sounded terribly unkind as he stalked across the kitchen to collect a fresh bandage and the ointment. “What were you thinking? I thought you might’ve broken your fool neck with the racket you were making.”
“Well, the washing tub is quite a bit heavier than it looks, you know. It wasn’t easy to get it down here on my own.” He seemed to have forgotten his insistence that she bandage her own wound, and even if she could feel the exasperation rolling off of him in waves, it was nice to have him cradle her hand in his own as he wiped away the bit of blood she’d shed from the small scab that had opened.
“If you had wanted a bath,” he said, and a muscle jumped in his jaw that suggested he was more than a little annoyed, “I would have heated the water for you. You had only to ask.”
“I managed,” she said, as he wound a clean bandage around her palm.
“You might have burned down the cottage.”
A wretched exaggeration; Diana rolled her eyes. “I am not so inept as all that,” she said. “And besides, it’s not for me. It’s for you.”
“It’s—” It seemed that she had taken him aback. “It’s for me?”
“You can’t bathe in the pondeverynight,” she said, and tossed a glance toward the window, where little flicks of lightning skipped along the murky grey clouds that had hung overhead for most of the afternoon.
“Hm.” Probably he disagreed. Or at least he might have been willing to risk death by lightning strike rather than suffer her presence. Well,sufferwas not precisely the right word—but he had certainly gotten rather jumpy of late. Like he suspected he was in imminent danger of being ravished upon the dinner table, right atop the shepherd’s pie.
Which held a certain appeal—or would have, if not for Hannah’s company.
Diana gave a little shrug. “I would have put it in your room, except—” Except the room he now occupied was little better than a closet, with room only for a tiny cot that she had trouble imagining would have comfortably accommodated a child. She had thought herself unfortunate to have been consigned tohisbed, with its sagging ropes and mattress that had lost more feathers than it had retained. But somehow he was making due with so much worse than that.
“Hm,” he said again, and his dark eyes cast her a faintly chiding glance, as if she had invaded his privacy by violating the sanctity of his room—even if ithadonly been to offer him a bath.
“I could wash your back for you.”
A startled laugh erupted from his chest. “No, you damn well couldnot.”
Well, she had tried. Diana sighed, rolling her eyes. “At the very least you could make use of the bath,” she said. “I did go to quite a lot of effort to prepare it for you.”
“Why?” he asked, and his eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“Well, because—” Because he carried bathwater up to her room each and every morning, and now she knew it was a half-hour or more only to heat the water, which was to say nothing of lugging those heavy buckets up the stairs. Because she’d never given a moment’s thought before now to theeffort it took to do so, and yet he’d done it without complaint. Because he worked hard enough for any ten men, even though he was a damnedearland shouldn’t have had to do so. Because every night he returned looking wearier than the last, the dark circles beneath his eyes deepening. Because he prepared supper each evening with clean hands, even if the rest of him was covered in dirt. And because every night he bathed in the frigid waters of the pond, and while it could cleanse him of the dirt of the day, it was probably hell on sore, overworked muscles.
“Because I wanted to do something for you,” she admitted. “You carry so much weight upon your shoulders.”
“It was my choice,” he said, and his thumb brushed over her knuckles. “Don’t ruin your hands to spare mine—mine are ruined already.”
But they weren’t. They were good, strong hands.Capablehands. Even when he had dirt wedged beneath his nails, it served only as a reminder that he would let nothing come between him and whatever goal he’d set. Those calluses were a testament to his determination, his perseverance in the face of trials that would have felled a lesser man than he.
He slid a faintly longing glance to the bathwater, from which puffed several small plumes of steam. Probably a hot bath had been something of a luxury just lately. “I’ll take the bath,” he said. “Thank you.”
“Oh,” she said as he released her hand at last. “You’re quite welcome.”
For a moment they simply stared at one another.
Ben pressed his lips together, but an exasperated snort erupted through his nose. With the fingers of one hand, he pinched the bridge of his nose and tilted his head back. “Diana?”
“Yes?” She canted her head to the right in inquiry.
“The water is growing cold.”
“Is it?”
“Leave.” He made a little shooing motion with his hands.
