“Sit,” she commanded.
Not because he was unsteady on his feet, but becauseherlegs were trembling.
“I obey no one’s orders but my own,” he said as he eased into his wheeled chair and handed her the crutches. “I happen to be done with those anyway.”
“Do not overdo it,” she reminded him as she leaned the crutches against the wall. “You’ll do more harm than good and be back in that chair for even longer.”
“I cannot wait to be done with this chair,” he muttered.
Virginia swallowed. She didn’t just hope to see him healed; she wanted to be the one who helped him. To be useful, special. To have made a difference in someone’s life.
But when she managed all that—ifshe managed all that—she would hate to see him go.
“How is your knee?” She knelt at his feet and ran her hands over the muscles of his injured leg.
He scowled down at her. “How does it feel?”
Good. Warm. Strong. The muscles of his leg were more familiar than her own. She could close her eyes at night and imagine every inch beneath her palms. To do so made her wish she knew the rest of him as intimately. For her fingers to explore not just the contours of his leg, but the breadth of his shoulders, the muscles of his chest, the strength in his arms.
“Are you comfortable?” he asked quietly.
Ever since the carolers had come to call, her patient’s habitual high-handed arrogance had become peppered with soft inquiries into how she felt, what she needed. Because she doubted he noticed he was doing so, each offhand question melted her heart.
Until Theodore, no one had ever asked how she would prefer the lighting or the temperature or the noise or anything at all. Everyone else either presumed they knew best or assumed her wishes exactly matched theirs.
Theodore didn’t just treat her like a person. He went beyond his normal comfort and behavior in order to ensure she would not have to. It was the headiest sensation Virginia had ever experienced.
What did she want?Him, blast it all.
She let her hands fall.
His head jerked up. “You aren’t going to massage me?”
“The swelling is gone.” She bit her lip. “You don’t need me to massage your knee.”
He muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, “I’d want you to massage me even if I were healthy.”
She started to push to her feet.
He held out a hand to help her.
She didn’t need help. She took his hand anyway.
After she rose to her feet, she shook the wrinkles from her skirts. “Shall we feed Dancer?”
He narrowed his eyes. “I thought you said I must sojourn to my one-bird aviary alone.”
She laughed. “I don’t count.”
“You count very much.” He wheeled not toward the front door, but toward the servants’ exit at the rear, where planks of wood had been placed just outside the door.
With a practiced movement, he launched his chair up and over the first hump and sailed down the ramp toward the outbuilding.
She smiled to herself. Theodore might not see it, but he was as capable now as he ever was. “Do you regret going to war?”
“I wish I hadn’t been injured, if that’s what you mean.” He turned his chair around to wheel into the outbuilding backward in order to hold the door for her. “I’m not sorry I went. Helping people in need is always the right decision.”
Her chest tightened. “I agree.”
