She clenched her hands together and walked past him, trying very hard not to notice how, without his coat, the tight fit of his trousers was more apparent and his thin linen shirt did little to hide his muscled chest beneath.
In the corridor she hesitated, not certain whether she should take the servants’ stairs or the main stairway. She decided on the main stairway so she would not have to explain herself to Mrs. Koch. All the boys and Mrs. Dunwitty were still at their lessons. Mr. Goring and Jackson were absent, which meant it would be her and Wraxall alone together. She lifted her skirts and started up the stairs, feeling his presence right behind him. Since he’d eschewed shaving thus far today, he had a dark shadow on his jaw. His work on the roof had left a smudge on his cheek and several more on his hands. The overall effect was one of danger.
The fact he stalked after her like a leopard hunting prey did not calm her nerves.
Finally, they reached the second floor and she led him into her chamber. She wisely left the door open as she rummaged on her dressing table for the kit she kept of basic medical supplies—bandages, strips of cloth, cotton, and spirits to clean a wound if need be. She found it, then turned to see him standing beside her bed, looking about her room with keen interest.
Too late, she realized she had been in a hurry when she’d dressed this morning—after the embarrassing incident with Mrs. Dunwitty catching them in the parlor—and she had left all of her underthings strewn about. Not to mention her bed was unmade and her night rail lay on top of the coverlet.
His gaze met hers, and Julia swallowed at the heat she saw in his eyes. She had to say something—anything—to ease the tension they both felt.
“Take off your shirt.”
Quite possibly, that was not the correct phrase for this exact moment.
He raised a brow, probably considering all the naughty things he might say next. She cut him off. “I need to see to your injury.”
“It’s not an injury. It’s a scratch. What we really need to discuss are Billy and Walter.”
“Walter was not even involved in the incident this morning,” she protested.
“That’s because he and Billy are working together.” He moved closer, his gaze locked on hers. “For Slag.”
She remembered the conversation she’d overheard between Wraxall and Walter. Not Billy too. She shook her head. “Billy isn’t working for Slag.”
“I can’t prove it. Not yet, at any rate. But all the signs are there.”
This could not be happening. These were her boys. Slag could not have them. “I won’t let Slag turn my boys into criminals.”
“How will you stop him? It won’t be long before these boys are bigger and stronger than you, and then they’ll go where they like, when they like. I’m fairly certain Billy could best you.”
“He would never hurt me.” She knew Billy, knew that underneath his aloof exterior was a boy who just needed to be loved. She had to find a way to reach that boy and to show him that she would love him.
“My lady, forgive me, but I have fought with thousands of men and commanded hundreds. I know something about my own sex. All Billy knows is violence. He might not want to hurt you, but if you stand in his way, he will do what he knows best.”
“And your solution is to condemn him to life in a workhouse?”
“Never. It was a threat, but the idea behind it is sound. If he is a threat to the other boys, then you owe it to them to send him away.”
“No.” Her chest tightened, and she struggled to draw a breath. “I will never let you take him away. I won’t allow you to take any of them. They are mine, and you can’t take them from me.” To her shock, tears appeared in her eyes.
“Even if it’s for the best?” he asked.
“It’s best that they stay here with me.” He was not Lainesborough, she told herself. Not Lainesborough. But it was too late. She could not calm herself.
He leaned down so their eyes were level. “You are not Billy’s mother.”
“I am the closest thing he has to a mother, and I will not allow you to rip him out of my arms as he cries in fear because he’s being taken from the only people and the only place he’s ever known.”
She’d said too much. She knew it too late, and she pressed a hand to her mouth, but Wraxall’s shrewd gaze missed nothing. Instead of replying, instead of asking her what the devil she was talking about, he stepped back, turned, and walked to the bedchamber door.
She closed her eyes. He would leave now. He would go to her father and tell the earl to send footmen to drag her back to the town house or, worse yet, an asylum. Perhaps he’d even warn the board she was not sane enough to hold this position.
She heard the door click closed and opened her eyes. But he wasn’t gone. He regarded her as he leaned on the closed door. “Perhaps it’s time I allowed you to tend to my injury.”
She sniffled. “I thought it was merely a scratch.”
“Yes, well, even a scratch can become infected and fester if not properly treated.”
She nodded. Were they still talking of wounds or was he being metaphorical? And then she forgot her name, much less worrying about literal versus figurative language, when he moved away from the door, pulled his shirt tails from his trousers, and yanked the shirt over his head.
*
Neil had never been tempted to break his vow to abstain from coitus until he stood half-naked in Lady Juliana’s bedchamber and watched her brown eyes darken with desire when he removed his shirt.
She made him want to throw caution to the wind and take the chance that he might father a bastard.
His iron grip had always been steady and solid, even when he had a woman naked and willing in his arms. He’d always been able to give and receive pleasure without that one dangerous act, and though some women tried to entice him, he was steadfast.
Lady Juliana was doing nothing to entice him, and yet he felt himself harden. In his mind, images of her lying beneath him, crying his name as he drove into her, came again and again wholly unbidden.
He told himself this was not the time to give in to temptation. She was visibly upset—about Billy, yes, but about something far more traumatic. She needed a distraction and consolation. She did not need a man who could think of nothing but deflowering her.
Her pink tongue darted out to lick her bottom lip in a gesture that was obviously innocent but which fired his blood nonetheless. Abruptly, he sat on the bed and balled his shirt over the tent in his trousers, lest his arousal become patently obvious.
That seemed to compel her to action. She gathered her medical supplies and placed them on the bed next to him, then poured water from the ewer into a basin. “You are right, of course,” she said, her voice a little wobbly but growing stronger. “The reason we came in here was to tend to your wound.”
He glanced down at the scratch on his arm and resisted pointing out it really did not qualify as a wound. Distraction was key at present. When she had recovered herself, he could bring up the topic of Billy again. As to the other matter she had mentioned, he was curious, but to ask her about it would be a mistake. He was already in too deep here at the orphanage and with her. He could not encourage confidences. He could not allow emotions to whirl about them and spin a web binding them together.
Unfortunately, he was feeling some rather strong emotions when she knelt on the bed beside him and began to clean blood from his arm with a clean strip of linen.
Why the hell had he sat on the bed? She had a chair at the dressing table. Why hadn’t he sat there instead of this bed that conjured images of the two of them entwined together even before she knelt beside him on it? Some of the blood on his arm had dried, and she lightly gripped his arm as she attempted to clean it. He clenched his jaw in an attempt not to notice the softness of her fingertips, the swell of her breasts against the light-green fabric of her dress, or the tempting fragrance of roses that scented her hair.
“Am I hurting you?” she asked.
“No,” he said, not unclenching his teeth. “Why?”