Reid followed Elise’s instructions and sat down in a chair by the fire. She knelt before him and gently moved the left-hand panel of his banyan to the side, exposing his scarred leg. It was not a pretty sight, and he watched her suck in a breath at first seeing it. There was a pronounced divot in the meaty part of his upper thigh, and ropes of scar tissue distorted and twisted much of the flesh that radiated from the spot until reaching his knee.
“What happened?” Elise asked. “No, don’t answer that. I apologize—it’s not my business and I want to respect your wish not to discuss it.”
“Thank you,” he said. Reid watched in amazement as she opened the jar and scooped a large dallop of the cream onto her fingers before smoothing it across his distressed skin. Elise was all business, slipping into nursing mode, as she bent her head over his leg and began to knead the tortured flesh with determined strokes. He was amazed that she could separate herself in this moment, unaffected by their closeness or his half-naked state. He supposed with the work she did through her clinic at The Crown & Arms and occasionally assisting the doctor in the area she had seen naked limbs before, but it was such a contrast from the proper life she led otherwise.
Reid, however, was not unaffected. As the strong fingers she had used on his scalp worked their magic on the tired and overextended muscles of his thigh, he fought to tame the growing arousal he was feeling. Conscious that he was only wearing a thin piece of silk, he tried valiantly to control his body’s reaction. It was a difficult task as her fingers kept working closer to his inner thigh, moving higher with each stroke. Trying to focus on how lovely her treatment felt, he forced himself to think along clinical terms. Leaning back and closing his eyes, the soothing rhythm of her strokes began to relax him.
Before he even realized what he was doing, Reid began to talk to her about the injury. “It happened at Waterloo,” he said quietly. He felt Elise’s movements falter momentarily before continuing with her ministrations, and he could sense the tension she now held within her own body as she listened to him.
“The entire encounter was a horror show,” he recalled. “It was probably the worst day of my life. We’d been fighting for hours . . . we were exhausted, but finally,finally—it seemed like we might be reaching the end. Most of the men in my brigade had fallen, but Jonathan was still with me. The fighting was lessening, and the other side seemed to be in retreat. We thought we’d made it . . .” he said, now almost in a trance-like state as he recounted the day.
He heard Elise inhale sharply, temporarily bringing him back to reality. Reid wasn’t sure he wanted to continue, but part of him wanted her to know, to understand this part of himself that he shared with no one. Clearing his throat, Reid decided to jump right into the horrors of that day. “Out of nowhere, I heard a gunshot and watched Jonathan fall right in front of me. I immediately jumped on my horse to gain a better vantage point, but then I felt a bullet hit and lodge in my leg. Before the fact that I had been shot even really registered, my horse was shot as well . . . He crumpled, pinning the injured leg beneath him. I lay there, trapped, for close to a day before they found me. But the injury wasn’t the worst part. All I could see were broken men lying around me. I didn’t know if Jonathan was alive or dead, but I could hear someone moaning in pain for several hours until it just . . . stopped.”
Shaking his head, Reid tried to dispel the sounds and images from that day. Looking down, he saw tears running down Elise’s cheeks and reached out to catch one and wipe it away.
“Once I was found, they gathered a couple men to roll the horse off me and brought me to the medical tent. The leg was broken in several places and infection was already starting to set in from the bullet wound. After that it’s all a blur. I developed a raging fever and was in and out of consciousness for days. They had to cut out part of the skin and muscle as it became infected and started to die. But somehow, I survived. For a while I wished I hadn’t . . .”
Elise had stopped her movements and rested her hands on his leg as if she could heal him through her touch. Reid still had his hand on her cheek, and she leaned into it, closing her eyes. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that, but I’m ever so thankful that you survived.” Grabbing the hand that was on her face, she leaned over, kissing the back of it. Reid was already in a precarious place emotionally after recalling the events of that horrible day, and the gesture was so moving he feared he might cry. Feeling a dampness in his eyes, he quickly blinked it away.
“Thank you for sharing that with me,” Elise said before ever so gently running her fingertip over the divot in his leg where he had been shot. Her touch was so light he wasn’t even sure it had occurred except for the fact that his nerve endings were now on fire. Looking up at him, her eyes were wide and shimmered with a sheen of tears.
“Elise,” he whispered simply. It was all Reid could manage to get around the lump that formed in his throat, suppressing emotions that still threatening to well up. Suddenly, she was in his lap and grasping the sides of his face as she kissed him. He held her tightly as he returned the kiss with more passion than he had allowed himself the first time. Tracing his tongue across the seam of her lips, she willingly parted her mouth to the gentle pressure he applied. She gasped slightly at the first contact of his tongue against her own but didn’t pull back, leaning into the connection instead.
After a few moments exchanging heated kisses, Elise sat back with a start as his hand slid up her side and brushed her breast. Leaning away from him and breathing heavily, she looked slightly panicked. “I’m so sorry, I don’t know what came over me. I didn’t mean to lead you on. This can’t happen again—there’s no future here and we are only hurting ourselves if we continue to indulge like this.”
Scrambling off his lap, Elise rushed out of the room without a backward glance, leaving Reid in more pain that when she had first joined him.
CHAPTER22
By the next morning, Elise was still mortified. She couldn’t believe how she had allowed herself to become carried away the night before. She wasn’t ashamed for exploring her physical yearnings with Reid; rather, she knew indulging such instincts would be pointless and only lead to pain for both of them when there could be no relationship between them.
Elise had been trying her hardest to resist him in the weeks since she had so foolishly kissed him on the beach. She knew going to his room was a risky move, but had proceeded anyway out of a true desire to ease his discomfort and nothing more. But last night, the way he had opened up and trusted her had lowered her guard. She had been shocked when he began to tell her about the awful events that led to his injury; before then he’d been so reticent when his leg was alluded to. Now she feared she was in danger of becoming even more infatuated with the man.
Letting out a huff, Elise knew she could no longer avoid going downstairs and made her way to the kitchen. With a renewed determination to focus on anything other than the earl, she descended to the lower level of the house and found Evie chatting with Reid’s staff in the kitchen.
“Did you sleep well?” the young woman asked upon seeing her. “You look like you’ve been through the wringer this morning.”
Groaning, Elise leaned over the table and dropped her head onto her crossed arms.
“That bad, is it?” Evie said sympathetically while rubbing her hand in circles across Elise’s back. It felt nice, and Elise realized how much she had missed casual touches of affection since moving away from her family—and since Reid had reawakened her desire for physical connection.
“Oh, Evie, I don’t know what to do,” she said, needing a confidant.
“Is it about Lord Weston?” Evie inquired softly.
“How on earth did you know that?” Elise asked, snapping her head up.
“It’s not hard to see the attraction between the two of you,” Evie said with a sly smile. “Anytime the two of you are in proximity to one another, it’s like there’s a gravitational pull between you and you orbit around one another.”
“We do not!” Elise exclaimed.
“Oh yes, you do,” Evie said with a chuckle. “His eyes track you wherever you go, and you do a fair amount of watching him yourself. Others who don’t know you may not see it, but Jonathan says he asks about you all the time.”
This was bad. This was really, really, bad. Elise knew she had taken things too far already, and adding last night into the mix, she wasn’t sure she could keep maintaining distance between them. It was a mistake agreeing to come here, once again, softened by feeling after cutting Reid’s hair, she had let her emotions lead her decision making. Now, she was reaping the consequences.
Evie must have seen the distress on her face because she grabbed her hand, pulling her up from the table. “Come on,” she said. “Breakfast is in hand and you’re not needed for a bit. Let’s pour ourselves some coffee and set up somewhere we can talk.” Elise followed her into a small sitting room at the back of the house where they could talk undisturbed.
After settling, she looked across at the beautiful young woman, and poured it all out. “I really don’t know what to do, Evie,” she said after sharing the whole story.
