No Earls Allowed (The Survivors #2)(58)

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?”

“You seem rather tense.”

Was it his imagination or did she sound as breathless as he felt. He turned his head to look at her, then thought better of. If he looked at her, he’d only notice the way the light made her coppery hair look as though it was aflame or the pale translucency of her skin or the fullness of her mouth.

Stop it. Think of… He struggled to imagine something or someone unattractive. Porter! Think of the Draven Club’s Master of the House. There was absolutely nothing remotely arousing about Porter.

“There, that’s clean. Now, where is the bandage?” She leaned forward to look for it, pressing her breasts against his bicep. Neil closed his eyes, but he couldn’t imagine Porter’s wrinkled face. All he could imagine were the soft curves of those breasts as they strained within the confines of the lace night rail. He gripped the bedclothes with his uninjured arm and could almost feel the silk of the night rail against his palm.

Opening his eyes, he realized his hand had landed on the damned night rail. How the devil was any one man supposed to stand strong in the face of these temptations?

“Here it is.” She sat back again. Neil thanked God only her hands touched him again. His nose caught the sharp smell of spirits right before she pressed a cloth soaked in whatever it was against his scrape.

“Bloody hell!” he swore. “You could warn a man.”

She looked up at him, eyes wide. “Did that hurt?”

Not so much as the straining of his cock, but he couldn’t do anything to ease that discomfort. “A little sting,” he said, his voice clipped.

“I’m almost done.”

He watched as she wound the bandage around his bicep. He was not about to take his eyes off her—not after she’d almost caused him to squeal like a child. She moved with grace and efficiency, and the scratch was covered in clean linen in no time. She tied it off, but having a difficult time making sure the knot was secure, she used her teeth to pull one end of the knot she made so she could keep the finger of her other hand in place.