Page 43 of A Night of Secret Surrender
Loosening his trousers, he sat down in front of her, the leg a lot more swollen than she remembered it to be. When she removed the bandage she saw the full extent of the red and angry wound.
‘Did they bring salt with the meal?’
‘There.’
He pointed to a small dish that she had not seen and she lifted it up to place it on the grey blanket next to him. Water was easy. Mixing them both together in the plate, she poured it across his wound, seeing him tense and grimace as the pain of it set in.
‘You need to be staying off your feet with such an injury...’
‘Lying around waiting to be discovered? Hardly.’
‘If this had happened anywhere else, you would have been in bed for a week keeping it still.’ She could hear the irritation in her words, not aimed at him but at the situation they found themselves in.
‘The powders helped last time.’
‘But I am not a healer like Caroline Debussy. I’m not certain of the mixes.’
‘Choose one and dress it with that. Anything is probably better than nothing.’
Celeste looked at the twists of paper and chose the next shade up from the last one she had applied. This she mixed into a paste with the final dregs of the wine and spread it across his leg, waiting for a moment while the poultice dried before binding it again with a clean roll of fabric.
‘I think we need to make for the coast, Major. Six hundred miles of travelling south on that leg no longer seems feasible.’
When he smiled, her irritation melted, the goodness within him as much a salve for her heart as the powders had been for his leg.
‘I missed you for a long time after I left Sussex.’
‘Between your other lovers?’ There was no gentleness in his retort, but she could not be angry. They were her own words to him repeated back, after all.
‘And spouses.’ She made much of tidying away the powders. She was rarely as forthcoming as she was with him, but the years of distance between them had left a mark that was not easily discarded and lust had only a certain timeframe before its golden edges dulled. Anna was good and sweet and kind and had been his wife for three years. Her few months of friendship culminating in her prickly gift of virginity seemed like nothing in comparison.
A man like him would not be falling at her feet and offering his heart, even should she want him to. And she didn’t. There were too many dangers in it, too many unknowns.
‘Tonight we will camp in the woods. It will be safer than being in a town.’
Her body warmed at the words. She wished they were there now, in some secret glade with the stars overhead and hours before them. That thought worried her because sex had always been about gain and business, and this pleasure she had glimpsed was dangerous.
* * *
The day outside was a fine one and Summer was as watchful as ever. It was such a welcome change to allow someone else to be vigilant whilst she was lost in the sheer delight of air that smelt of trees and earth and honesty. There was a freedom here that she had not felt in years, a wide and open horizon holding an energy that made her breathe in deeply. Other ghosts of the past slid back, further distanced, less immediate. The aching anger in her bones was weakened by the warmth of the sun and the beauty of the world all around.
‘You look happy.’ Summer was close now, his horse reined in to walk next to her own on the wider pathway.
‘I used to ride in England, but I haven’t here. It’s nice to be on a horse again. I’d forgotten just how nice.’
‘Life makes one forget a lot of things. Remember how we used to race across Langley to see who could reach the river first? I couldn’t believe that a mere slip of a girl could sometimes beat me.’
Her laughter floated between them, the audible embodiment of her feelings. ‘I seldom did and that was the trouble. Your horse was so much bigger and stronger than mine.’
‘But Mirabelle was agile and she could skirt under the trees in a way my mount never could.’
‘You even remember her name? My God, I can hardly do that.’
‘I remember a lot about those times. The spill you had on the road just before the village comes to mind...’
‘Because I bled all over your new jacket?’
‘No. Because you were brave and calm even in the face of such an injury. Most other girls would have made more of a fuss.’
