Lifting the clock’s mainspring before his eyes, he squinted. Using the bloody crutch he actually needed to keep weight off his throbbing ankle, he looped it through his haversack’s canvas strap and dragged the sack across the floor. His spectacles were in a side pocket, hopefully unharmed in the accident.
Fitting them to his face, through corrective lens he noted that the bent coil was the issue. Older clocks incorporated exposed springs versus current timepieces that housed them in metal barrels to prevent twisting. He’d contact his friend, Christian Bainbridge, the foremost watchmaker in England, to get the piece he needed to make the repair. It wouldn’t hurt to have Bainbridge visit this estate to service every device in the manor, but that was Lady Amberly’s problem, wasn’t it?
Cort’s problem was convincing his savior to let him return home, in the back of a pony cart if need be, as soon as possible. This situation was more than he could master in a weakened state.
His senses were in overdrive trying to right themselves.
Her enticing scent roamed the air, sinking it’s cunning teeth in him. Stronger than the scent of the roasted meat he expected to be served at dinner. The sound of her silky voice as she instructed her staff striking his gut like a shot of whisky. Authoritative yet gentle commands he’d surrender his modest inheritance to hear her use on him. In bed. He’d woken just after dawn to find her slumbering in a tattered armchair she’d drawn close, her wondrous lips parted, her cheek propped shakily, adorably, on her fist.
She’d looked so young, he’d lost his breath for a moment.
Vulnerable, when he didn’t think this was the case.
Sweet, when she’d not once been nice to him as a lad.
She was only being agreeable now because he’d been dumped, bloody and as cracked as this clock, on her doorstep.
If he’d taken notice of the plump swell of her breasts outlined beneath her atrocious, ill-fitting gown, his shaft rising to pulse in time to his swollen ankle, he hadn’t found it in his power to halt the response. In fact, he’d drifted to sleep imagining peeling that faded scrap of satin from her body, unwinding the lopsided knot at her nape, and bringing her to him, his fingers tangled in her hair. Visions of her on her knees, beneath him, rising above.
It was a surprise, considering his medicated condition, that he’d not stained her sheets with a pubescent release.
He gave the spring a spin on the block. Who, he wondered, had undressed him? That ancient crisp of a butler or the chit who’d haunted his dreams since childhood? A chill raced over his skin at the image of her touching him. He dropped his chin to his fist, staring sightlessly into the distance.
He’d prefer being awake if it ever happened again.
At the squeal of the servant’s door, he straightened with a grimace. Chanced a glance at his trouser close, indelicacies appropriately hidden. Alexandra didn’t wait, however, strolling into the space, her nose jammed in her bouquet. Her gown was vaguely improved over yesterday’s selection, faded, but at least, a recognizable shade of blue. The scent of gardenias and daffodils danced in behind her, clouding his wits.
She halted just inside the door, the setting sun at her back, apparently shocked to see him. Her gaze roved his form in an improper manner he recognized, but perhaps she didn’t. Had there been a hint of hunger in her eyes? Or was he merely delusional?
With this woman, anything was possible.
She gestured with the posy, sending a golden petal drifting to the floor. “You’re repairing my clock. In the kitchen. When you should be in bed.”
Ah, he thought, she’d been looking at her timepiece, not at him. Brilliant.
He shrugged, trailing his fingertip over a ratchet wheel to add credence to his self-possession. He wasn’t bothered by her in the least and wanted her to know it. “I’ve slept as much as I can. I was going mad in that bedchamber, staring at the rather impressive crack in your ceiling. At some point, Lady Amberly, it will need repair. I thank you most humbly for taking me in last night, but if you could assist, I’d like to arrange transport home. I have the powders from the doctor and will keep off the ankle for another day or two.” Although he wasn’t at all sure about keeping this promise.
She crossed to him, and before he could move away, took his chin in hand. Tilting his head into the sconce’s muted light, she frowned, studying his injury. Her skin was soft against his, the scent of earth and flowers riding the air around her, moving in to catch him by the throat. His breath left him, a clear, helpless shot past his lips.
It had been ages, eons, since anyone had touched him for other than self-seeking reasons. Or that he’d allowed it.
“You have working staff there? Someone to help you navigate the stairs and assist with changing your bandage? Is your headache gone? Head wounds are dicey, nothing to laugh off without rest. You need supervision. We had to wake you every hour the first night, if you recall.”
Supervision. Bleeding hell, would he like to be supervised by this chit.
Instead, he removed his chin from her grasp before he yanked her across the table and into his lap. “Mrs. Crumley has been with my family since before I was born. We shall manage.” He used his impervious tone, his brother’s ducal stock and trade. It had worked well in the military, too. And that time he nearly burned down a medieval wing at Cambridge.
Alexandra shook her head and took a small step back—too small—still residing in his space. “Mrs. Crumley retired to Derbyshire to live with her daughter.”
Cort nudged his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. Damn. “Oh, um, yes, I guess I remember that,” he said, although he’d no clue what went on two miles down the lane and hadn’t cared after Waterloo. For a multitude of reasons, one sitting across from him, he’d avoided Hampstead like he would the pox. “In any case, someone must be there.”
“I don’t believe His Grace retains a full staff when he’s not in residence.” She bumped the posy against her thigh, forcing his gaze where it didn’t need to wander. “For mercy’s sake, you can’t leave your health to a gardener or a groom.”
Out of nowhere, a surge of temper whipped through Cort. “His Grace’s name is Knox. Remember those boys who chased you around the village? The two who looked so bloody alike they could be twins? Tugging on your braids and hiding insects in your cloak? Two days ago, one of them tumbled off his mount and ended up, bleeding and battered, at your doorstep. A man you chose to pretend you didn’t recognize. It would have been entertaining, had I been knocked so brainless I didn’t recognize you from first sight.”
Bracing her hip on the block, Alex grinned, a blindingly beautiful bit of amusement. He’d hated when she laughed at him when they were young. “So that’s why you’re cross. Because I was caught snooping in your satchel and pretended not to know who you were to hide my humiliation? This was my disgrace, Cort, not yours. It’s been years since I’ve seen you, and I must say”—she gestured the length of him and back with her wilting bouquet—“there’ve been changes. For one, I’ve never seen you, even across Swidden’s ballroom that time, with spectacles. I barely recognize you as that skinny lad with dirt smeared across his face. Truly, I can’t imagine why you’d be vexed with me when I’ve simply tried to help you.”
Why am I vexed, he wondered?
