“Idiot,” she admonished herself as she returned her attention to tearing leaves from plants.
“Me, you, or that poor plant you’re destroying?”
She froze at the drawled question. Damn the man—could he not leave her in peace? It seemed not. Slowly she turned and caught her breath. There he stood, leaning heavily on the back of a bench in the middle of her garden. He had dressed himself. Poorly, of course. Perhaps because he was accustomed to the help of his valet. Perhaps because his injuries made it difficult.
The result of his being a bit undone was anything but to make him less attractive. He was roguish with his shirt half-untucked, his hair tangled around his face and his cheeks peppered with the dark beginnings of a beard. He looked like a pirate, not a duke. A pirate prince out for whatever treasure he could steal.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her tone sharper than she wished it to be. God’s teeth, but this man brought out the worst in her.
He met her gaze and gave a half grin. “I’m doing whatever I please. Isn’t that what you accused me of earlier?”
She dropped a tangle of herbs into the basket and folded her arms. “No, it was not. I said you are accustomed to everyone doing as you say. Though I assume it follows that you also do whatever you please without a thought to others.”
“Oof,” he said with a shake of his head. “I am truly a bastard, it seems. And you want to help me?”
He was smiling. Teasing her. And she caught her breath. When he smiled he was even more handsome than when he brooded, damn him. And his words, playful or not, hit her in the gut. Although she had been dragged into this by Stalwood, the fact was that shedidwant to help this man.
She drew in a long breath to calm her racing heart. “I was…sharp with you,” she said. “Perhaps that was unfair.”
He laughed once again. “On the contrary, I think it was entirely fair. I deserved it.”
She wrinkled her brow, for now she was uncertain of him again. Was he playing so that she would lower her guard? He was a spy, after all, trained to manipulate. “You are entirely frustrating.”
His grin broadened and the expression took years off his face. It brightened everything about him and made her wonder what kind of man he’d been before his injuries. Before the War Department. Just…before.
“Thank you,” he said.
“It wasn’t meant as a compliment,” she said, but she found herself laughing despite it.
He let out his breath and leaned heavier on the bench. “In truth, Idoowe you an apology,” he said, now serious. “I have not been easy since my arrival, I know that. I just don’t like to be…weak.”
She could see how hard that confession was for him. She understood it. Even after being inactive for months, no one could deny that the man standing before her had enormous strength. She could only imagine how easy everything physical had always been for him. Men were taught that was their greatest asset. Losing it had to crush some important part of him.
She moved forward and held out her hands. “Sit, won’t you?” she asked, motioning to the bench where he was leaning.
He nodded and let her help him into place. She bent, grabbed her basket and set it in his lap with a smile. “Hold this. At least you will be useful.”
He laughed, but she heard the strain in his voice as he said, “Useful was never something I had to work for in the past.”
She turned away, knowing that these admissions could not be easy. It was best to receive them with quiet, not to make too big a fuss.
“You are not weak, you know,” she said as she crouched and examined a few flower buds on the plant before her. “You are injured. I swear, you men.”
“Men?” he repeated as she set a few buds into the basket beside the other herbs she had selected before he came out. “Is this a problem with my entire sex, then?”
“Indeed, it is,” she retorted. “You tend, as a whole, to equate not being able to do something with weakness. It does you no good.”
“You’re so certain?”
She glared at him. “Setting aside their ability, think of those other men who tried to help you since your injuries. I would assume you argued and demanded and forced even before you came to be under my care.”
His sheepish expression told her everything before he said, “Well, er, yes, I suppose I did.”
She shrugged. “And that is part of why you’re not further along in your recovery. You cannot accept help because help is weakness. But you keep yourself injured and ‘weak’, as you put it, by not allowing someone else in to come to your aid.”
“I thought the problem was untalented surgeons,” he drawled.
“Stubborn patients are also an issue,” she retorted with a smile.
