Page 5 of When a Duke Loves a Woman
Her heart hammering, she swung around. The bed? It wasn’t supposed to come next. The physician’s carriage was. “You’re not leaving him here.”
Graves closed up his medical satchel, straightened. “I don’t see that we have a choice.”
“We put his clothes back on—”
“Afraid I cut and tore them to get them off.”
“Well, that was a silly thing to do.”
“However, it was the most expeditious. Besides, they were ruined.”
But that left the man with nothing to wear, she wanted to shout in frustration as an odd emotion that resembled fear—when she’d never been afraid of anything in her life, except once—welled up inside her. He couldn’t stay here. What in God’s name would she do with a man in her bed?
“Then we wrap him in clean linen, a blanket, and cart him down to your carriage.” She was pleased her no-nonsense tone revealed none of her misgivings, her trepidation, her teetering toward terror.
“Bumping along in a conveyance is likely to reopen the wounds. He’s lost a lot of blood. I don’t think he’ll survive losing much more. It’s better if he remains here for the time being.”
“It won’t be a jarring ride if you travel slowly.”
“Gillie.” He gave her a pointed look that made her feel like an unreasonable child asked to sit still in a pew. “If you are willing to risk his dying after I’ve gone to the bother of stitching him up, why send for me at all?”
“I didn’t think he’d have to stay with me.”
“He’s going to be too weak to take advantage of you or the situation.”
She scoffed loudly and in a most unladylike manner. “As though that’s my worry. I have cast-iron skillets about that I can wield with determination, and I have a decent aim. One good whack and he’d be done for.”
“Then what’s your objection?”
A man in her bedchamber, in herbed. Nearly thirty years old, she’d never had a male in either. No good ever came from having a bloke in a woman’s bed. Her mum hadn’t found herself saddled with six by-blows because men were such saints.
“I have a business to run,” she stated succinctly, defensively.
“You have several hours before you open. Perhaps he’ll be recovered enough to move later in the day.”
Meanwhile, she’d have to keep watch over him, finish cleaning him. Although earlier she’d been regretting relegating that task to someone else, when faced with the reality of having a man between her sheets for hours, she was embarrassingly unsettled, which only served to irritate her more. She took a deep breath to calm herself, to set her trepidations aside, determined to overcome this concern. “Can you send a nurse over?”
“You want me to wake someone this time of night?”
Yes, absolutely. What a daft question.“No. But perhaps first thing in the morning.”
He gave a brisk nod. “I’ll see what I can do. Meanwhile...” He moved to the man’s shoulders and arched a blond brow. If he hadn’t once saved one of her brothers, she’d yank that brow right off his face.
She charged into her bedchamber and tossed aside the covers before joining the physician at the table. With care, she moved the sheet past the man’s knees, determined to keep the most male part of him covered, although every part of him was distinctly masculine. He had long legs, strong legs, muscular hairy calves, large feet. What she’d heard about men’s feet in relation to their endowments was apparently true.
The chaps who frequented her establishment often became ribald after too much drink and would say things a lady’s ears shouldn’t hear, but then she was no lady.
She slid her arms beneath his knees, lifted and, like a crab she’d once seen in a fishmonger’s stall, scuttled back. He was a sturdy load, and it occurred to her that if the odds had been slightly more even, he’d have triumphed. Thankfully the sheet stayed in place as they lowered their burden to the bed. Sprawled over it as he was, he dwarfed it, made it look like something in which a child would sleep.
“In some cultures,” Graves said quietly, “you’re responsible for someone after you’ve rescued them.”
“He’s not my responsibility.” She wasn’t very pleased that her words lacked conviction. Gently, she pulled the covers over him.
“I’ll leave laudanum for his discomfort and some salve to help with the healing, prevent infection. Bandages should be changed a couple of times a day. Send word if he becomes fevered and delirious. Try to get water and broth into him if you can.”
Her long drawn-out sigh echoed her displeasure. “He’s going to be a lot of bother.”
Chuckling low, he said, “The women I know would tell you most men are. But maybe he’ll be worth it.”
