Someone to Watch Over Me (Bow Street Runners #1)(10)

Although many valets were called upon to assist their masters with their clothes, Grant preferred to dress himself. He found the notion of standing still while some other fellow dressed him as more than a little ridiculous. He was an able-bodied man, not some tot who needed help with his skeleton suit. When he'd expressed this view to one of his socially elevated friends, the friend had told him with amusement that this was one of the essential differences between the lower classes and the aristocracy.

"You mean only the lower classes know how to fasten their buttons?" Grant had asked wryly.

"No," the friend had replied with a laugh, "it's just that they have no choice in the matter. The aristocracy, on the other hand, can get someone else to do it for them."

After tying his black silk cravat in a simple knot, Grant jerked the tips of his collar to neat standing points. He dragged a comb through his ruffled dark hair and gave a cursory glance in the looking glass. Just as he reached for his charcoal-gray coat, he heard a muffled sound from a few rooms away.

"Vivien," he murmured, dropping the coat at once. He reached the master bedroom in a few strides, entering without bothering to knock. The housemaid had already visited and had stoked a small fire in the grate.

Vivien was attempting to get out of bed by herself, the linen shirt twisted around the middle of her thighs. Her long hair fell in wild straggles down her back. She was standing on one foot, maintaining a precarious balance. Her sprained ankle was bound and swollen, and the pain it caused was obvious as she took one limping step away from the bed.

"What do you need?" Grant asked, and she started at the sound of his voice. She didn't look much better than she had the previous night, her face ghastly pale, her eyes still swollen, her throat bruised. "Do you want the privy?"

The blunt question clearly caused Vivien no end of mortification. A scarlet flush cascaded over her skin. The sight of a redhead blushing was not something to miss, Grant thought with a sudden flicker of amusement.

"Yes, thank you," she murmured, her voice hoarse and strained. She took another cautious hobbling step. "If you could just tell me where--"

"I'll help you." "Oh, no, really--" She gasped as he scooped her into his arms, her body small and light against his chest. Grant carried her the short distance to the privy, two doors down the hall, while Vivien tried in agonized modesty to pull the thin linen shirt farther over her thighs. The gesture struck him as odd for a courtesan. Vivien was known for her lack of sexual inhibition, not to mention her elegantly provocative style of dressing. Modesty had not been in her repertoire. Why did she seem so distressed now?

"You'll be stronger soon," he said. "In the meantime, stay in bed and keep off that ankle. If you want anything at all, ring for one of the maids."

"Yes. Thank you." Her small hands crept around his neck. "I'm sorry to trouble you, Mr...." She hesitated, and he knew that she had forgotten his last name.

"Call me Grant," he replied, setting her gently on the floor. "It's no trouble."

Vivien emerged from the privy a few minutes later, clearly surprised to find him still there. She seemed no bigger than a child, dressed in his shirt with the sleeves rolled back several times and the tail reaching below her knees. Her gaze lifted to his, and she returned his friendly smile with an abashed one of her own.

"Better?" he asked.

"Yes, thank you."

He extended a hand to her. "Let me help you back to bed."

She hesitated before hobbling forward. Carefully Grant reached around her slender body, hooking one arm behind her back and the other beneath her knees. Although he lifted her with extreme gentleness, mindful of her injuries, Vivien gasped as he brought her against his chest. Of all the women he had held in his arms, none had ever possessed such lush, exquisite delicacy. Her bones were slender, but her flesh was pliant, voluptuous, utterly desirable.

Returning to the bedroom, Grant eased Vivien onto the mattress, fumbling to arrange a stack of pillows behind her. She tugged the blankets upward, bringing them high over her chest. In spite of her bedraggled condition, or perhaps because of it, he was struck again with the disconcerting urge to cuddle and caress her. He, who was known for possessing a heart of granite, or some similarly impermeable substance. "Are you hungry?" he asked gruffly.

"Not really."

"When the housekeeper brings a tray, I want you to eat something."

For some reason his tone of command made her smile. "I'll try."

Grant stood frozen in place by her smile...lucent and warm, a flash of magic that illuminated her delicate face. It was so unlike the self-absorbed woman he had met at Wentworth's ball that he wondered briefly if she was the same person at all. Yet she was, unmistakably, Vivien.

"Grant," she said hesitantly. "Please, would you bring a looking glass?" She pressed her hands to her cheeks in a self-conscious gesture. "I don't know what I look like."

Somehow managing to tear his gaze away from her, Grant went to the gentleman's cabinet in the corner of the room. He rummaged through the narrow drawers and located a woodennecessaire covered in leather. The case was designed to hold scissors, files, and grooming items, the lid fitted with a rectangular looking glass inside. Returning to the bedside, Grant opened thenecessaire and gave it to her.

Vivien tried to hold the case near her face, but her hands still trembled violently from her experience of the previous evening. Grant reached over and steadied thenecessaire as she viewed her reflection. Her hands were very cold beneath his, the fingers stiff and bloodless. Her eyes widened, and she barely seemed to breathe.