Her Reluctant Groom (8 page)

Marcus dipped a cloth into the warm water and wrung out most of the excess water before bringing it to her legs. So much blood had trailed down her legs; he really didn't know exactly where the cut was or how large it was. “Emma,” he said softly. “You're going to have to trust me. Please.” He took the cloth and began to wipe the blood off the parts of her calves he could see. Gently, he grabbed her ankle that had crossed over the other and pulled it off so he could clean the inside of her calves. He dunked the cloth and squeezed it out again, tainting the water pink. This time her legs were relaxed and separated, allowing him easy access to wipe the blood off. Once they were clear of the dark red blood, he frowned. He'd assumed she'd gnashed the side of her knee judging by how much blood was on her calves.

He looked up to her face. She'd turned to face the far wall and he could only see a profile of her face. Her jaw was clamped and her eyes were shut. Her usually pale cheeks were tinged pink with what he presumed to be embarrassment. His gaze slipped. Her body was trembling violently covered only by her soaked, translucent chemise. He swallowed. Her chemise offered as much covering as spider web. His eyes caught on her hard pink nipples and his body instantly hardened in response. Jerking his eyes away, he cleared his throat. “Emma, take your chemise off,” he commanded more harshly than he meant to.

“
No. I believe you've seen enough already.”

He sighed. “I'm not trying to make up excuses to see you naked. Your body is shaking and you'll get sick if you keep it on. Take it off.”

“
Just finish, please,” she said, gesturing to her thigh.

He frowned. Her thigh? Why would she gesture there? He gripped the edge of her chemise and raised it a few inches. Before he could think better of it, a low whistle passed his lips. “This isn't a minor scrape,” he said sharply, grabbing a fresh piece of linen and holding it against her leg to put pressure on it. “I'll be right back. While I'm gone, you take your chemise off then hold pressure against this.” He turned to walk out of the room and stopped by the door. “I mean it, Emma. That chemise had better be off and you’d better still be in that bed holding pressure on that cut.”

“
Or what?”

He turned around. “If you don't have that chemise off, I'll take it off for you. And if you leave this bed, when I catch you—and don't doubt I will—I'll tie you to the nearest one, cut that chemise off you, and tend to your wound.”

“
You're just like all other men. You'll do anything you can to try to see a pair of breasts.”

“
No, I’m not,” he said with a slight frown. “As I explained earlier, your health demands you get out of that wet chemise. I'll not have you catch the ague because of your pride, Emma.” He sighed, and raked a hand through his hair. “If your concern is that I'll glimpse you naked, dismiss it. If that’s all I wanted, I wouldn't bother to insist you take off your chemise since leaving it on reveals just as much as taking it off.”

She looked down at the transparent fabric clinging to her breasts like a second skin. A noise of frustration sounded from her throat, and her arms crossed over her clearly visible breasts. “Have you been looking?”

Heat crept up his face. “I'd tell you no, but we both know that would be a lie.” He shifted to take his weight off his injured leg. “I’m not asking you to lie there naked, Emma. Use a sheet or my dressing robe to cover up.” Not allowing her another protest, he left the room in search of more medical supplies.

When Olivia had lived at Ridge Water, so had Mr. Thompson, their physician. Or so it seemed. He was here often enough that he left a small supply of medical goods for Marcus on the occasion he couldn't rush right over for one of Olivia's ailments. Marcus kept them in a crate on the bottom shelf of his library. Considering how much blood Emma had already lost and how big the cut was, he wouldn't be surprised if she'd be weak for the next few days. He picked up an almost empty bottle of brandy so he could clean her wound and a few pieces of suture. With all the blood around, he couldn't tell exactly how deep or wide it was, but he wanted to be prepared to sew it up if need be.

He walked back into the room and frowned. Emma was still wearing her blasted chemise. Before he could say something to her about it, she met his eyes. “I couldn't get it off,” she said with a swallow. “I'm sitting on it and when I tried to pull it up, I couldn't get it off without falling over.”

Marcus put the medical supplies down and walked over to her. Her skin felt like ice and her blue lips were quivering so rapidly her teeth chattered. He took hold of the hem and dragged it up her legs as far as he could. “Let go of the cloth, and use your hands and feet as leverage to push your bottom a few inches off the bed so I can pull this up.” His voice came out broken and ragged, and perhaps a bit nervous.

She glanced at him a second and his face flushed. Letting go of the linen, Emma put her hands palm-down on either side of her and used her palms and the heels of her feet to push herself about two inches off the mattress, giving Marcus just enough room to move the chemise out from under her.

“
You can sit back down now,” he murmured, peeling the chemise off her wet skin.

She shivered and raised her arms up so he could take it completely off. As soon as it was off, she collapsed against the pillows, offering him a complete view of her deliciously naked body. The crimson blush on her cheeks was the only telling sign of embarrassment.

Marcus tore his eyes away from where they had no business looking and stalked across the room to his dressing screen. A second later, he found what he was looking for: his navy blue dressing robe. He carried it back to her and laid it across her, covering her from her collarbone to just below her dark blonde triangle of feminine curls.

“
Thank you,” she said uncomfortably, bringing her hands up to rest against her covered upper half.

“
I didn’t mean to cause you embarrassment. I should have gotten that for you before removing your chemise,” he admitted with a swallow. Marcus peeled off the blood-soaked cloth stuck to her thigh and tossed it on the table beside him. Then he wiped the area clean with a fresh piece.

Fortunately, her cut wasn't as deep as he'd thought a few minutes ago, and not too wide, either. But it wasn't just a little scratch, and it would likely leave a scar about five inches long on her thigh. He picked up the bottle of alcohol and uncorked the top. He set the stopper down and picked up a clean strip of linen, folding it into a small square. He knew from experience this was going to sting and burn in the worst way. He needed to distract her. “Can I ask you something?”

She swallowed and nodded, still clutching onto his dressing robe as if it were a life preserver she’d been tossed while drowning in the ocean.

He put the folded square of cloth over the top of the open alcohol bottle and turned it over to saturate the cloth. “Why were you really staying with Caroline?”

She sucked in a breath and twisted his dressing gown between her fingers in such a way that the fabric spiraled. “I wanted to,” she answered with a shriek as he touched her cut with the cloth.

“
Is that so?”

She bit her lip and nodded frantically, two tears slipping out the sides of her eyes.

He slowly ran the cloth up her cut and winced each time she flinched. “Emma, be honest with me,” he said slowly. “Does the reason you've been staying with them have anything to do with the bruise on the bottom of your left breast?”

She gasped. “That's none of your business, Marcus,” she snapped, leaning forward to sit up and swat at his wrist with her right hand, her left hand doing its best to keep her covering from slipping. “Let go! Just leave me alone.” She wrapped her fingers around his wrist and tried to push his hand away.

“
No,” he said calmly, shaking off her grasp. “Answer my question, Emma.”

Her fiery eyes met his. “What makes you think that bruise has anything to do with my going to live with Caroline? Perhaps I got it today when I slipped.”

He shook his head. “Don't lie to me. I know better. That bruise isn't new. If it was, it would be red and purple. Seeing as it’s a brown and greenish-yellow color, I'd say it's more than a week old.”

She slapped at his wrist and tried to push his hand away again. “Get out.”

Marcus set the cloth on her leg and put his hands on her shoulders. “Emma, stop. I only want to help you. But I can't do that if you won't tell me what happened.”

“
I'm not going to tell you, so stop asking,” she responded evenly, keeping his gaze.

His heart ached at hearing those words almost as much as it did when he'd first seen the bruise a few minutes ago. He wasn't the most intelligent man on the planet, but he knew how she'd gotten the bruise; he just wanted her to trust him enough to tell him. He'd do anything he could to help her. She just had to ask. “I won't ask you any more questions,” he said flatly. “Now lie still and I'll finish.”

Emma sighed and fell back against the pillows, then relaxed her legs again for him to finish cleaning her cut with the alcohol and rub the salve on it.

“
It's going to scar,” he told her flatly as he put a piece of gauze over the cut. He wrapped the biggest piece of clean linen he had over the gauze and around her thigh. “But not too badly, I shouldn't think.”

“
Thank you, Marcus,” she said quietly while he was cleaning up the medical supplies.

He turned his head around to smile at her and assure her there was no need to thank him, but as soon as his eyes met her form, he scowled instead. “What the devil are you doing?”

“
Leaving,” she said, using her violently shaking fingers to attempt to tie a knot in the front of his dressing robe.

He dropped the things in his hands and took hold of her just in time to keep her from collapsing on her wobbly legs. “Where do you think you're going?”

“
Upstairs,” she said, not meeting his eyes.

“
No, you're not. You're going to get in that bed and stay put. If you start walking around, that's going to start bleeding again.”

She shrugged. “Then I'll take care of it. As I said, it's just a minor scrape.”

He snorted. “No, it's not. You're lucky I didn't have to stitch it up. Now, get into bed before I have to clean it again.”

“
Marcus, I don't need you to care for me. I'm old enough to do things for myself.”

“
I know that. But I want to help you.”

“
No,” she countered, crossing her arms. “You just want to stare at me naked.” Her cheeks were stained red and her voice was cold as ice.

Clenching his hands into fists, he shoved them in his pockets. “That's not true. I already told you it wasn't. I admit I may have glanced at you, but I didn't stare, nor did I have you remove your chemise for my amorous pleasure. There's no need to be embarrassed or upset.”

“
Oh really?” she said sarcastically. “All right, take off your clothes and I'll glance at you a few times, then you can tell me if you're embarrassed.”

“
That will not be happening.”

“
That's what I thought.” She inclined her chin.

He crossed his arms. “Emma, me taking my clothes off has no connection to me seeing you without yours. There was a medical reason for yours to come off. My thigh isn't bleeding.”

She pursed her lips, and he could have sworn she grumbled something about arranging for his thigh to be bleeding. “All right,” she said, turning away.

“
What's this about?” he demanded, clutching the sash tied around her waist before she could walk away.

“
Nothing. Just let me go.”

“
You think it's not fair, don't you?”

“
No, it's not fair,” she burst out. “You got to look your fill at me and I—I—. Never mind.”

“
You want to see a man undressed?” An odd sense of understanding came over him. As bizarre as her unusual desire might seem to some, he understood. “Sit down,” he said, then walked across the room. He bent down and glanced over his shoulder, to make sure she'd sat down and not run off.

“
Don't trouble yourself, Marcus. I'm past my embarrassment.”

He nearly snorted again. That was a lie if he'd ever heard one. “Just sit still. I vow, before you leave this room, you'll know exactly what a man's form looks like.”

Emma sat down and readjusted the tie on his robe.

“
Aha,” he said as he flipped through
Lady Bird's Ladybird Memoir
to the page he was looking for. He stood up and walked over to her. “Here.” He handed her the book opened to the picture on the second to last page. The picture was a simple drawing, really. Just a man alone on a rumpled bed. His eyes were shut, his body completely relaxed, giving off the impression he'd been sated by all the activities he'd been portrayed doing during the previous few pages, and his clothes strewn all over the floor. When Marcus had first received the book, he'd looked through all the pictures in the back before reading the stories and was rather confused as to why there was an image of a naked, content man. After he'd read the book, looked at the pictures again, and gained some maturity with the years, he still wasn't certain why it was there, but just now, he was glad the illustrator had included it. It would give Emma what she was looking for without seeing anything too distasteful.

Emma blinked at the picture then handed him the book back. “That was enlightening,” she said sarcastically, standing up.