She winced when his mouth discovered a particularly painful patch of raw skin.
He took note and froze, lifting his head, a ferocious frown replacing the tenderness that had just been lining his face. “Are you hurt?”
“It is nothing,” she insisted, for she had injured herself in many kitchens. Cookery was, at its worst, grueling, dirty, dangerous work.
“Your reaction suggests otherwise,” he told her grimly, releasing her hands and taking her lightly by the arm instead. “Come.”
She knew where he was guiding her, of course. Across the chamber to the door connecting their rooms, like Hades leading Persephone to the underworld.
Miranda dug in her heels, forcing him to stop. “No.”
He huffed out an irritated sigh. “Miranda.”
She stood firm. “Not in your bedchamber. As I said, it is nothing. A commonplace burn.”
The wrong thing to say, she realized as he continued hauling her across the Axminster.
“You’ve been burned? By God, who is responsible for this? I’ll hang him by his ballocks.”
Her tired feet rushed after him, her sensible boots pinching her toes and rubbing her heels. All at once, her entire body felt as if it were aflame, and not just from lust, but from weariness and pain. She hadn’t the energy to fight him. Perhaps not even the will.
His bedroom was lit with blazing gas lamps, and she blinked at the sudden change as he pulled her into the light. “Tell me, damn it.” He held her hands in his oh-so gently, his head bowed over as if in prayer. “Which irresponsible wretch burned you?”
“I did,” she admitted. “I spilled boiled sugar over my hand when I was constructing the nougat paste baskets. I ought to have taken greater care, but I was in a hurry. I had a great many baskets to make, and I feared they would be lacking in the proper time to set.”
“My God, kitten. This looks as if it hurts dreadfully.”
The concern in his voice and touch reached a part of her she hadn’t thought existed any longer, and she found herself blinking furiously to keep the unwanted tears pricking her eyes from falling. Not tears of pain, but tears that were far more humiliating. Tears because he cared.
She cleared her throat, willing the unwanted emotion away. “I have experienced far worse.”
“Let me wash your hands. I have some ointment my valet keeps on hand for the rare occasions when he knicks my jaw with his razor. A feat which he loves to assure me only occurs when I stubbornly insist upon talking whilst he attempts to shave me.”
The wry humor in his voice softened the resistance within her. “Do you?”
“I am a man of endless wisdom,” he said. “I have a great many things to impart. Why must I be stopped by a mere shave?”
His bombastic proclamation won a reluctant laugh from her. The man was deadly when he chose to be charming. Look at how easily he had lured her into his lair, and now she was allowing him to lead her to a pitcher and basin on the opposite end of the room despite her insistence that the burn was a minor one.
“You needn’t tend to me,” she protested lightly, though in truth, she liked his touch. His concern too.
It made her feel…things.
Complicated, wondrous, utterly stupid things.
Things she would be better never, ever feeling, especially not for a dazzling rakehell like the Duke of Whitby, who presided over a licentious club and hosted orgies without a hint of contrition.
“On the contrary, I fear I must.” He guided her injured hand over the basin and, lifting the pitcher, sluiced cool, clean water over it.
She hissed in a breath as the water washed over the burn. The cook had wished to treat it with butter, but she had refused, knowing from experience that an application of butter only served to make burns worse.
“I’m sorry, darling,” he said softly, lathering soap on a small cloth before gently dabbing at her burn. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I know.” She forced a smile, still struggling with the new and unwanted emotions churning through her. “But truly, I have experienced far worse, and I shall again.”
He rinsed the suds from her skin with care. “Why do you toil like this? You make the finest creations I’ve ever tasted, but surely not even your divine confections are sufficient reason for subjecting yourself to injury.”
She was grateful for the root of his concern, which was for her and her welfare, not for the fact that her culinary aspirations were beneath her station. Ammondale had been disgusted by her “propensity toward being a servant,” as he had so disdainfully phrased her dream of running her own cookery school.
