She watched as he pulled the gown down her shoulders with quiet concentration, watching her face more than the fabric as if to catch any flinch she might try to hide. His fingers brushed her skin now and then, no more than necessity required, yet every touch seemed to leave her more aware than before.
He wasonlyhelping her. Only making certain she was not injured beneath the blood. Nothing improper was happening.
Nothing.
Nothing!
So why would her pulse not stop fluttering? What was this feeling underneath the fear and despair?
By the time the ruined dress lay pooled at her feet, Ava could hardly bear her own stillness. She sat in her shift, with her hands folded too tightly in her lap, while he grabbed a clean cloth, wet it, and bent before her.
“I must make sure none of the blood hides a cut,” he explained.
She could only nod.
He knelt close enough that she could feel the heat of his skin in the air between them. When the damp cloth touched her skin, she almost jumped. The water wasn’t exactly cold; he’d just been too careful.
She couldn’t believe this was the same man she’d heard of. TheSilent Death.
He cleaned the blood from her arms first, then from the side of her neck and collarbone, his face intent and grave all the while. The room had gone so quiet that she could hear the soft sound of the cloth moving over her skin, the faint hitch of her breath each time his hand steadied her.
She had never imagined that gentleness could make her feel so vulnerable.
The blood itself made everything worse and stranger. What he was wiping from her skin was the mark of what he had taken for her. Hisownwound.
The thought moved through her in a way she could not yet sort into separate feelings.
The blade was coming for her, and he had stepped in front of her to block it. Shouldn’t all she felt at this moment be gratitude?
At last, desperate for anything that might ease the thickening tension, Ava cleared her throat, the sound almost echoing around her. “Ye ken, ye should have that shoulder seen to instead of fussing over me.”
Ciaran arched an eyebrow. “I thought ye wanted to be pampered. Is that nay longer yer wish?”
The line was light, almost dry, but it shifted the air at once.
Ava looked away so quickly that she nearly hurt her neck with the movement. “That isnae what I meant.”
“Nay?”
She could not answer properly. If she tried, her voice would betray her. Her face already had. She knew it by the heat still burning there.
Ciaran said nothing more, only returned to the task with that same infuriating steadiness, and somehow that restraint was more unsettling than if he had teased her further.
He finished cleaning the last traces of blood from her skin, then helped her into the fresh gown. The clean fabric should have brought relief. Instead, it seemed to hold the warmth of his hands where he smoothed it around her.
Jack was dead. The attack was over. She was not hurt. Yet the center of her attention had shifted completely.
She was still shaken, yes. But she was no longer thinking only of blood and steel and escape. Something new had begun stirring under all of it, tangled and humiliating.
Was it comfort? Gratitude, as she had once thought?
Her body shuddered slightly as the final question settled somewhere in the crevices of her mind.
Was it something else?
When he finished, Ciaran rose to his feet. “There. All done.”
Ava swallowed and gave him a brief nod in response.
