David attempted a smile, but it felt more like a grimace. “I decided to walk over to McNally’s,” he admitted, sending Murdo a rueful look. “It wasn’t one of my best ideas.”
“That’s over two miles!” Murdo exclaimed. He turned so that they were walking in the same direction, toward the open front door, matching his pace to David’s. “What were you thinking? And where’s your cane?”
“I didn’t think I needed it,” David mumbled, answering the second question and evading the first.
“You’re limping,” Murdo observed unnecessarily.
“I overdid it, but I’ll be all right,” David replied. “I just need to rest my leg for a bit.”
Murdo let out a noisy sigh. “You’re as stubborn as a mule. I only hope you haven’t set yourself back with this.”
There were three steps up to the front door of the house, and David took them slowly, gritting his teeth against the pain that knifed through his knee with each step. He didn’t look at Murdo, but he felt the other man’s eyes on him, watching his slow progress and scrutinising his profile for evidence of how bad the pain was.
They stepped into the hallway together, Murdo closing the front door behind them. Since the hall was empty of servants, David allowed Murdo to help him off with his greatcoat. Then he glanced up the long flight of steps that led to his bedchamber on the first floor and suppressed a moan. Girding himself, he placed his foot on the first step.
“Don’t even think about it,” Murdo said behind him.
Before David could protest, Murdo was sliding one arm round David’s back and the other under his knees, sweeping his feet out from under him. David hissed a curse as Murdo lifted him, but Murdo just shifted David’s weight to balance himself and began to quickly mount the stairs.
“Christ, Murdo,” David said testily. “Let me down, will you?” It had been a few weeks since he’d had to submit to this particular indignity. He hated being carried like this—it unmanned him.
Murdo ignored him, and after the first few stairs, despite his mortification, David didn’t bother protesting any further. The truth was, he couldn’t get up these stairs without Murdo’s help.
By the time they reached the top, Murdo’s breath was coming hard, but he still didn’t let David down. He carried him another dozen steps to David’s bedchamber door before setting his feet back on the ground. Even then he wasn’t done. Steering David into his room, he guided him firmly to the featherbed David had been dreaming of for the last half hour, then went back to close the bedchamber door, turning the key in the lock. Returning to the bed, mouth set in a firm, determined line, he bent to remove David’s boots. This time David didn’t even bother protesting. It would do no good, and anyway, he was bloody exhausted. So he let Murdo ease the tight leather from his calves, then slowly strip away the rest of his clothing, piece by piece.
“Do you want me to ring for a bath?” Murdo asked as he peeled away David’s trousers, easing the fabric carefully down his legs so as not to jar him.
“I doubt I could climb in right now,” David admitted.
“A rubdown with some liniment, then?”
David couldn’t suppress the groan that emerged from his chest at that suggestion. “Please.”
“Lie back, then. I’ll strip down too.”
David did as instructed, passively watching as Murdo removed his elegant clothing, then crossed the room, naked, to fetch the jar of liniment from the armoire, his tall, powerful body beautiful in the late afternoon light that seeped into the room round the edges of the drapes.
Murdo knelt beside David on the bed and regarded his leg. “Let’s see what you’ve done to yourself.”
Weary to the bone, David let his eyes close. Moments later, the drifting scents of rosemary and camphor heralded the opening of the liniment. It was a scent with which David was very familiar—his mother had been making the stuff for years, ever since his father had taken a tumble off the roof of the barn at home and injured his shoulder. The smell of it now brought with it the promise of imminent relief.
The brisk noise of Murdo rubbing the stuff between his palms brought the scent forth again, more intensely, as it warmed on Murdo’s skin. And when Murdo laid his hands on David, every remaining thought in David’s head vanished. Murdo’s hands were strong and warm, their firm course eased by waxy lanolin and camphor oil as they broke into the knotted agony in David’s leg and straightened him out again.
David could barely keep his eyes open by the time Murdo was finished. He felt languorous and done in, like he could sleep the rest of the day and night away. Somehow, though, he managed to crack open his eyelids and smile at Murdo, who was kneeling at his side, watching him.
“Thank you,” David said softly.
“Better?” Murdo’s smile was tender.
“Much.”
“You look tired.”