Page 13 of When the Marquess Was Mine
“Oh, he travels very lightly,” lied Georgiana without hesitation. “I expect he thought only to make a brief visit to surprise me.” A wave of longing swamped her. What wouldn’t she give for that lie to be true, for Sterling to be here now, not beaten but with his charming smile in place.Just thought I’d come see how desperately you’ve been missing me, he would say, his dimples showing as he kissed her hand.
“Of course.” Kitty caught sight of her face. “Georgiana, go rest. I can sit with him until the doctor arrives.”
“No!” Georgiana grabbed the cloth and made a show of soaking it in the basin. “I’ll stay with him.”
“You’re covered in blood,” her hostess pointed out quietly.
She shook her head, sponging at a streak of red on Westmorland’s shoulder. “I don’t care. I’ll change when the doctor comes to examine him.” Kitty hesitated, and Georgiana stripped off her blood-streaked riding jacket and flung it aside. “I’m fine,” she said firmly.
“All right.” Kitty touched her arm. “I’ll be close at hand if you need me.”
“Thank you, Kitty,” Georgiana said with honest fervor. “For everything.”Especially for not questioning me too closely.
“Of course.” Stained jacket in hand, Kitty left, closing the door behind her.
The silence seemed deafening. Georgiana took a deep breath and made herself look full into the marquess’s face for the first time since he’d hit the gravel drive outside. As wrong as it was to stare at his very attractive naked chest, it felt even worse to gaze right at him as she told lie after lie about him.
Someone had taken a few hurried swipes at his nose and mouth, but the rest of his features were still spotted and streaked with blood. She wet the cloth and gently finished cleaning his face. It didn’t change anything but he looked a step farther from death. Suddenly she wanted all the blood gone. It was too much, too violent, toored.
His hair was drying in stiff, dark spikes. She brought over the basin and awkwardly slid it under his head. The water went crimson in an instant as his long hair fanned out in it. Gritting her teeth against the thought of her hands being covered in blood again, she scrubbed it as best she could, flinching every time her fingers brushed his scalp and felt another gash.
It was wrong to do something so unspeakably intimate for a man she didn’t know. Westmorland himself would be the most appalled, if he ever knew that a silly, empty-headed girl like her had saved his life and cleaned him up. For a few minutes she contemplated that. His jaw would drop, she expected, and his eyes would narrow, and he would say something scathing and belittling—perhaps that she was rubbish at it, or that a lady ought to have left it to a servant.
That crushed any dark pleasure she might have had at the thought of him being in her debt. She couldn’t leave this—thisdisgustingjob to a servant because Westmorland might wake at any moment and start babbling that he owned this house and they would all have to leave. But it was scraping her nerves to be this near him, and she thought she’d scream in fright and fall unconscious on the floor if he suddenly opened his eyes and asked what the devil she was doing to him.
“You had better wake up humbled and deeply grateful for all this,” she whispered to him as she combed her fingers through his wet hair. “Or else I shall seriously consider pitching you back into the road.”
Her patient made no reply. He lay so very, very still, his face slack. It was unnerving. She had never seen him except at his cynical, elegant best, standing at the side of a ballroom, one fist on his hip, a glass of wine in hand, his hazel eyes roving the room in search of someone to mock. He was handsome—despite her dislike, even Georgiana couldn’t deny that—but aloof, with none of Sterling’s easy charm. That was what she found attractive in a man, she told herself: a man who could laugh at himself and not just at others. A man who wanted to be liked rather than feared. The Malicious Marquess did not care what others thought of him. He had his title and his fortune and his looks to make him feel superior to everyone else in the world.
But now he wasn’t. Now he was helpless, dependent on her... and her ability to maintain the lies she’d told.
By the time the doctor arrived, evening had fallen. True to her word, Georgiana hadn’t left his bedside. She’d sat in a daze, almost a stupor, afraid to take her eyes off him. It didn’t matter. Westmorland lay motionless, only the slight rise and fall of his chest assuring her that he still lived. When she heard the clatter of hooves on the gravel drive outside, she gave a loud gasping sigh of relief.
The doctor’s pronouncement was not much different from what she had expected. “Several hard knocks to the head,” he said after a lengthy examination. “That’s where most of the blood came from. Cuts on the head bleed quite persistently. He’s been beaten about the body as well, but I discern no broken bones, only bruising.”
“But he will recover?” demanded Georgiana.
He smiled. Kitty had already told him she was the injured man’s fiancée. “He is hale and strong. I have high hopes.”
“That’s excellent news, Dr. Elton,” said Kitty warmly.
“Even in the best circumstances he will take time to heal,” cautioned the doctor. “He must be tended. If he develops a fever, he should be bled at once.”
Georgiana’s stomach turned over at the thought of more blood. “I shall tend him,” she said quickly. “Kitty, would you send my dinner on a tray?”
Her friend’s brow creased. “I know you are worried, but you should have a care for yourself. Dr. Elton is here and can tend him tonight. Come down to dinner.”
“I want to be here.” Kitty drew breath to argue and Georgiana lowered her voice. “If it were Charles, would you leave?”
“No,” said Kitty at once, her face softening in understanding. “I will send a tray.”
Georgiana felt a pang of remorse at manipulating her friend so cravenly.It’s for a good reason, she told herself,and I will sort out how to deal with the truth later.And so Georgiana settled into her vigil, uneasily aware that she had dug herself a very deep, dark hole.
Chapter 6
He had an itch.
There was nothing in life more irritating than an itch one could not scratch. This spot happened to be on his head, above his temple. He burned to scratch it even as his hands refused to move. Frustration made his muscles tighten and flex, but with no discernible response from his hands.
