A titter escaped Mary.
“Do not be alarmed,” he told the maid. “I shall sob quietly into my brandy.” He took a sip—and then nearly choked because Lady Olympia drew up his trouser leg, and her hand—her bare hand—touched his skin for an instant, and it was as though she’d applied an electrical machine. He didn’t leap from the sofa, but he must have twitched at least, because she looked up at him.
“Sorry,” she said. “Is it tender?”
“Erm. No. Just . . . nothing. Thought of something.”
“I shall do my best not to hurt you,” she said. “But I fear the area is going to be very sensitive.”
Several areas, actually.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve borne worse.”
He told himself to relax and enjoy it. By the looks of things, this was as close to womanly attention as he’d get this night, but as he saw her hand move to his garter, he said, “I can do that.”
“Really?” she said. “You know how to untie your own garters?”
“And pull up my own stockings,” he said.
And darn them, too, he could have added.
“Drink your brandy,” she said. “It’s better to leave this to me.”
“I’m not sure it’s proper,” he said. “Not that I remember what is and what isn’t.”
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” she said.
“Afraid!”
“I’ve done this any number of times. If it isn’t one of the brothers, it’s one of the cousins. Or their friends. You’re safer with me than with most doctors.”
“That I don’t doubt,” he said.
“Then be brave,” she said. “I’m going to untie the garter. Try not to cry.”
Gently, she untied the garter. His groin tightened.
She set the garter on the sofa. He stared at it and drank brandy.
She touched his stocking.
He swallowed a groan.
Slowly, gently, she peeled the stocking down his calf. The room grew hot and he tried to think of cold things. Like the mausoleum. And Ashmont. Yes, Ashmont, to whom she belonged. Ashmont, so cheerful, talking about getting married.
Slowly, gently, she drew the stocking down his foot.
Ripley’s heart beat faster, and it was no good trying to stop what was happening inside him. He was a man, and a woman had her naked hands on his naked skin. A woman was touching him, undressing him. This was what he knew. The rest—he, trying to reason with himself and not be a damned fool—the rest was noise, like the noise of the London streets.
He drank.
She slid the stocking off his foot and gave it to Mary, and he was aware of his breath, coming so hard, it seemed to whoosh like a wind through the library.
She, innocent that she was, hadn’t an inkling what she was doing to him.
He would have laughed if he could have mustered the breath for it.
She was so serious, concentrating fully on what she was doing.
He watched her work, her brow slightly furrowed above the spectacles, her lip caught between her teeth, as she made a mixture of ice water and vinegar. She soaked the cloth in it.
“It’s going to be cold,” she said. “Brace yourself.”
Cold, yes. He needed cold.
She wrapped the icy bandage about his ankle. And he nearly jumped off the sofa. And said a word even he knew one didn’t utter in front of women.
“Yes, I know,” she said. “But in a moment it’ll feel better.”
“Right,” he gritted out. Then it did feel better, in more ways than she knew. The cold shock worked wonderfully, numbing not only his foot but the frustrating sensations of a moment before.
With Mary helping, she continued her work, wetting more strips of cloth, and wrapping them about his foot. He told himself his suffering was his own fault. He should have insisted one of the menservants attend to him.
But Lady Olympia was so dictatorial that the reasonable thing to do hadn’t occurred to him.
And dictatorial, he told himself, was exactly what Ashmont needed.
And yes, maybe Ripley felt a qualm or two about a misspent life that had kept him away from such interesting girls. And yes, maybe he wouldn’t altogether mind being wrestled into order by a tyrannical female in spectacles.
But mainly what he felt was balked in every direction. Her ministrations had got him all excited, with no way of relieving the excitement. He hadn’t a prayer of dealing with his celibacy this night or of dealing with Ashmont. The chances of Ashmont running amok were very good. One could only hope he’d drunk himself unconscious before he could get into fights with members of her family.
Her voice dragged him out of the private hell he was constructing.
“I know that many medical persons recommend liniments or leeches or both,” she was telling Mary. “But mariners rely on cold and wet. They will hold a sprained part under the pump when the ship is pumped out, morning and evening—and you know seamen are wanted to be fit and strong again as quickly as possible. A number of medical men urge similar treatment. At least it isn’t wintertime. As the shock fades, the cooling sensation ought to be not entirely unpleasurable.”
She looked up at him, her brow wrinkled in worry. “Have I made the bandages too tight?”
“No,” he said.
“You’re scowling,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “I had a plan. I mentioned this, I believe. I would bring you here, then go back and deal with Ashmont and everybody else.”
“You can’t go anywhere,” she said. “It’s essential to rest the foot, and keep it elevated.”
“Drat you, Ripley, now what have you done?” came a familiar voice from the doorway. “Hardly back in England and in trouble already.”
Chapter 9
Aunt Julia remained for a moment on the threshold, fists on her hips, wearing the grim expression that had cowed him when he was a child. Even now it made him uneasy.
She looked harmless enough, fair and sweet-faced and while above-average height, not impressively so. She had the knack, however, of appearing impressively above-average formidable. She’d stood up to his impossible father when few men would or could.
All the same, she seemed to Ripley a pale imitation of herself—the ghost Alice had written about—and that wasn’t simply the somber grey dress, with its sensibly narrow but unfashionable sleeves.
Still scowling, she advanced upon him. She didn’t box his ears as he expected, but ruffled his hair as though he were still a boy before turning her attention to Lady Olympia. “And this, I collect, is the lady who shot you?” Her brow knit. “Plague take you, Ripley, it’s Ashmont’s bride. What on earth were you thinking?”
“Excessively intelligent, my aunt,” he said to Lady Olympia. “Knows everything about everybody. Did I mention that?”
“You never were good at pouring butter,” said his aunt. “No subtlety.”
“I daresay. Aunt, may I present Lady Olympia Hightower.”