Midnight Jewel (The Glittering Court #2)(48)

“Does it?” He knelt in front of me and reached toward my leg, then stopped and glanced up expectantly. I realized he was waiting for permission.

“Go ahead,” I said, still mystified that he hadn’t said a word about Silas’s orders yet.

Gingerly, Grant pushed my skirt up to my knee. “Hold it there.” He then took off my muddy shoe and gently probed around my ankle and foot, gauging my reaction. After that, he moved up to my calf. When he pressed on its inner side, I gave a sharp intake of breath and winced.

“Your ankle’s okay,” he said. “But you’ve been walking on it funny—putting your weight on the ball and the side? Probably trying to spare the ankle at the expense of the rest. That stresses the muscles and probably gave you a nice spasm getting over here. I can help.” When he poked the ankle again, I yelped and swatted his hand aside.

“That’s helping?”

“Part of the process. It’ll release, but yes, it’s going to get worse before it gets better. Up to you. I’m not the one who has to dance in strappy little shoes for the next few weeks.”

“Fine. Do what you’ve got to— Ow!”

He wasn’t kidding about it getting worse. I’d known all the muscles were sore in that part of my leg, but I hadn’t realized what a hard knot I had in my calf until he started digging his fingers into it.

“Relax this,” he ordered, straightening my leg. “No—you just tensed it more. Relax. Let it drop. Don’t try to do anything with it. Don’t even hold it up.”

I relaxed my leg as best I could and tried not to cry out as the brutal massage continued. I gritted my teeth. “What happened with Silas?”

“About what I expected.” Grant didn’t look up. “A lot of grumbling.”

“He—he didn’t seem very happy about me being here. I figured he’d end the deal. Tell me to go away and refuse to pay me.”

“No one’s getting rid of you. Not after you got such good information. He caught me up on the situation when I got into town. There haven’t been many ships coming in yet, but Craft’s trips always coincide with when one arrives. This is the first time Silas has gotten a heads-up before he left. And it’s all thanks to you and your brilliance.”

“Stop it. You’ve never been this nice to me. It’s unsettling.” That, and I still couldn’t believe he was lying to me. Or was he? Nothing he’d said was untrue. He just wasn’t telling me the whole truth.

I felt even more rattled when he looked up and smiled at me. Really smiled. It even reached his eyes, and it made something in my chest tighten. I’d never seen Grant so . . . happy. Like a normal, easygoing person—not some tense cynic who was always hyperfocused on his work.

“You, Mirabel, have just proven you’re worth fifty gold. But don’t think you’ll get a copper more.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I murmured, watching as he returned to his work. “So what do I do now? Go on with life at the Glittering Court? Get ready to charm and dance with all the men I can manage?”

He paused, his hands resting on either side of my calf. I couldn’t see his face so well from this angle, but it looked like that smile had faded a bit. “I suppose so. That’s what you’re here for. How’s the leg now?”

I tentatively pressed against the side of my calf. The knot hadn’t entirely released, but it was smaller and softer. The whole muscle had relaxed. Freed from the worst of the pain, I suddenly realized what a scandalous situation I was in. A man at my feet. My skirt hiked up. His hands on my leg.

But I wasn’t scandalized. Through some unspoken agreement, he and I had never mentioned the time I’d tricked the favor from him. We’d behaved as properly as male and female acquaintances should, only lapsing into informality when our lessons segued into banter or one of us outraged the other. I still studied those sculpted features sometimes, still thought back to when I’d run my hands over his hair and chest. But it was easy to shelve any lingering desire when I was focused on my larger goals in Adoria. It was very easy when I no longer saw him every day.

But here he was in front of me now, holding my leg in his hands. His skin felt warm against mine, and every place his fingers had traveled along my body had come to life. And places that hadn’t been touched hoped they would be.

Get a grip, I told myself. Turn this off, just like you have before. You have more important things to worry about. Remember when you talked to Tamsin? When you made going to bed with a man sound like something you could take or leave with ease? Leave this one.

But when I’d so flippantly told Tamsin that, I hadn’t been faced with a man who was so frustratingly attractive—and just frustrating in general. A man who was looking at me as though he too had suddenly realized the nature of our current situation.

I hastily released the skirt. His hands dropped almost as quickly. “Better,” I said. “Still sore, but the regular kind of active sore.”

“Good.”

An awkward moment seized us, and I wished I knew what he was thinking. He had his inscrutable mask back on. “How . . . how’d you know what to do?” I asked at last.

“Because once, in another life, I was apprenticed to a healer.”

“Really? When?”

“With my uncle. But like I said, that was another life.” Grant got to his feet and handed me my shoe. “This’ll all get better if you stop trying to spare your ankle when you walk. Let it do a little work sometimes, and then just rest when you can. Dancing’s not going to do you any favors.”