All About Seduction(27)

“Sorry.” His apology hardly sounded contrite, but he couldn’t call it back.

“No, it is all right. The surgeon said there would be a lot of pain for the first few days. I imagine it is hard to feel helpless.” The look of pity in her eyes was the worst thing of all.

His arms shook and a thin layer of sweat broke out all over his body, as he managed to half prop his back against the curved headboard. Exhausted by the Herculean effort, he leaned back and breathed deeply.

She pushed the glass into his hand and moved off the bed. “You lost a lot of blood. You’ll be very weak and likely light-headed for some time.”

If he hadn’t been such an ungrateful lout, perhaps she’d still be seated beside him on the narrow mattress.

Once his heartbeat slowed to normal, Jack would lift the glass and just wet his mouth. At least the room had stopped spinning, but he was all too aware that he would need to relieve himself soon. How he’d manage that feat without help, he didn’t know.

“But I have always heard impatience is sign of improvement in an invalid.”

“Or just a bad-tempered patient,” he offered. He needed to curb his frustration. Lifting the glass to take a sip, he ended up gulping the cool liquid down his parched throat.

She watched him silently, and he stopped to breathe. “Thank you for all that you are doing for me.”

She picked up her book and sat in the chair. “Would you like me to read to you? I have here A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. But I could fetch another book, if you read it last year when it was released in serial form.”

As if he could have read a novel released in serial form. Her earnest face suggested her question was sincere. “I have not read it. I would be glad to hear it.”

She opened the volume and adjusted her chair so the light from the fire fell on the book. After flipping through several pages, she began, “ ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was . . .’ ”

Jack let her voice flow over him. It was not so much melodic as even with understated inflections. He rather liked how she read, not as if he were a child, needing a narrator to create excitement. And the words were apropos. It was the best of dreams to be closeted in a room with her late in the evening, but a nightmare under the circumstances.

He watched her lips move and her hands as she turned the page. At times he closed his eyes and tried to ignore the pain. He would have fallen back asleep, except for the discomfort of his full bladder. Of all the ways he wanted to spend time alone with Mrs. Broadhurst, this was not it. Nor did he want to appear as an uncouth lout, but there was no hope for it.

He pushed himself up to sit and swung his legs over the side of the bed. One foot felt the cold floorboards, and as soon as the other touched down, pain exploded through his lower leg. He gasped. The warnings of the doctor echoed in his head. He couldn’t put his right foot down at all.

His head spun and he had no idea how he would get about.

“What is wrong?” she asked. “You should be laying down.”

Fighting the wave of nausea that accompanied being upright, he said, “I need to piss.”

“Oh.” Her chair screeched back as she stood. Red stained her cheeks. “Of course.”

He should have considered his words. He could have made his need known in a less blunt way. “Is there a chamber pot?”

She leaned and looked under the bed and came up frowning as she glanced around the room. “I should have thought . . . we should have . . .” She moved over to the cord by the door and gave it a couple of good yanks. “The water closet . . .” Her voice kept trailing off.

“I can’t wait.” He gripped the sheets on either side of him, the dizziness fading away. The urge to relieve himself was making his legs cramp. He really had waited too long.

She gave another yank on the cord, then opened the door and looked out into a dimly lit hall. Her anxious frown was a pretty good indication none of the servants were standing about to help.

“Just one minute,” she said, slipping out the door.

He didn’t have a minute. The front door that Jack had been carried through hours before was just across the tiled expanse. He could at least try to make it outside rather than making water on the floor. Using the chair she’d been sitting in, he pushed to stand on his good leg.

He winced, trying to figure out how he could make it to the front door. Picking up the chair, he plopped it down a foot in front of him and hopped closer.