All About Seduction(28)

The jolt shot pain through him. He paused trying to gather his strength, determined not to humiliate himself. Only he felt dangerously off balance and on the edge of losing control.

Mrs. Broadhurst swung back through the door. She had a walking stick with a carved handle in her hand. “I don’t know why no one is coming, but the water closet is just under the stairs. With my support and this, we can get you there.” She didn’t meet his eyes as she handed the ivory-topped cane to him and moved to his side.

She pulled his arm over her shoulders, letting the shawl drop to the floor and slipping her hand around his waist.

He shivered at her embrace. His throbbing leg got lost in the folds of her skirt as he lurched forward. She staggered under his weight, but Jack was determined to make it to the necessary. Yet, he was aware of the woman at his side. This was not how or why he wanted to wrap an arm around her.

Her skin was silky and he thought in a few more minutes his urgency might be staved off by wanting to touch her more. The crown of her head was just a little above his shoulder, and she fit perfectly against him. Her fingers dug into his ribs as she steadied him.

He grunted. Each step or hop was like a mountain climb, and it was all he could do to keep moving forward. As if the air were thin, he panted heavily.

“Only a little farther,” she encouraged.

Planting the cane, he leaned as much weight as he could on it rather than put the full burden of his weight on her. The ivory carved head bit into his hand and his arm shook.

An open door under the stairs led into a tiny room with a basin attached to the wall. A gaslight had been turned up inside, and with a few more lurches he was inside the door frame.

His head spun.

Mrs. Broadhurst let go of him, and he listed to the side, crashing into the wall.

Then from behind, her arms banded around his heaving chest. She pulled him upright. Planting his hand against the wall, he tried to stay balanced and not overset the both of them. Unable to use his injured leg, he was off-kilter, tilted in a way that couldn’t be corrected. Now that he stood in front of the commode, he struggled to lift the nightshirt that suddenly seemed made of a thousand yards of material.

“Here, let me help you,” she said. She shifted closer until he could feel her pressed against his back. Without loosening her arms from around him, she bunched the nightshirt in her crossed hands, drawing it upward.

He aimed and nothing happened. “Bloody hell.”

She shifted against him and reached. A loud squeak was followed by the tinkle of running water in the basin by his side.

It was what he needed.

The relief was heavenly. He sighed as his stream hit the porcelain bowl.

Her forehead pressed in between his shoulder blades, but she didn’t waver in holding him steady, even though he was weaving like a drunken man.

After he finished he hung his head and tried to catch his breath. He was humiliated, but what must helping a mere laborer to piss be like for the blue-blooded daughter of a lord?

Reaching around him, she batted about until she found the cord on the tank in front of him. She yanked. Water swirled around the bowl and down.

“If you turn a little, you can reach the soap.” She let the nightshirt drop and then shifted, almost as if she would carry him back to the room.

Jack shuffled his foot around and hopped to face the basin with the water running down a hole in the center. He was far too aware of rubbing against her body as he jerked about. “I’m sorry. That had to be horrible for you.”

“No,” she said slowly. “It wasn’t even the most unpleasant thing I’ve had to experience in the last hour.”

He wanted to twist and see her, but he might topple like Humpty Dumpty. Instead he stuck his hands under the running water. “I had no idea reading out loud to me was so unpleasant.”

She started against his back. “It wasn’t. I en—”

“I know,” he interrupted. “You were upset before you sat down beside me.”

It wasn’t his place to pry into her affairs, but anything was better than acknowledging he’d needed her help for the most basic of human functions. That she’d helped without the disdain he expected from a woman in her position surprised him. “If it is my presence causing problems between you and Mr. Broadhurst”—he couldn’t bring himself to call Mr. Broadhurst her husband—“I will be gone as quickly as I can.”

“I do not think you can control the rate of your healing, Mr. Applegate. Besides, I find being with my guests stressful, not the time I spend with you.”