Mary folded a thick pad of linen and pressed it against the cut. He winced. She felt his arm tense beneath her hands, the muscle rigid, and she held the pressure steady and did not let herself think about the warmth of his skin or the closeness of him or the fact that her fingers were wrapped around his bare arm and his pulse beat against her palm.
She tore a long strip from the cleanest cloth and began to wind it around his triceps, layering it over the pad, pulling it firm. She worked in silence. He watched her hands. She could feel his gaze on her fingers as she tucked the end of the strip and tied it off, and the awareness of being watched made her movements careful in a way that had nothing to do with medicine.
“There.” She stepped back. The bandage was clean and tight. Her hands were stained with his blood. “Tell whatever lie you need to tell the physician tomorrow. But you do not have to lie to me.”
The Duke looked at the bandage. He flexed his arm once, testing the hold, and his jaw tightened at the pull. “It is nothing to concern yourself with.”
“I am your wife.”
“In name.”
The words landed. Mary felt them settle into the bruised place beneath her ribs where she kept every reminder of what this marriage was and was not.
“In name,” she repeated. “In law. In the eyes of God and every person who watched us speak our vows. You may not have wanted this marriage, and I may not have chosen it, but I will not stand here and pretend I do not care when my husband disappears at night and comes home cut open.” She stepped closer. “I cannot do this. I cannot live in a house with a man who will not let me help him. I cannot?—”
“You need to stop.” The words came out rough and strained, as though each one cost him effort.
Evander sat in the kitchen chair with his shirt off and his bandaged arm resting on the table, and his eyes were not on her face. They were on her collarbone, where the neckline of her dressing gown had slipped, and the look in them was not cold, not controlled.
It was the look of a man holding a rope that was fraying.
“Stop what?” Mary asked. “Stop caring? Stop asking questions? Stop being your wife?”
“Stop standing that close to me.” His voice dropped. His gaze climbed from her collarbone to her mouth and stayed there. “In that.”
Mary looked down at herself. Her nightgown. Her wrapper, untied, hanging open over cotton so thin the kitchen firelight made it glow.
She had not thought about what she was wearing when she came downstairs. She had thought about chamomile tea, sleeplessness, and nothing else. Now, she stood two feet from a shirtless man with brandy on his breath and a wound she had just dressed, and the air between them had changed.
“I am wearing a nightgown, Your Grace. It is three in the morning. What did you expect?”
“I expected to come home without finding you in my kitchen.” His jaw tightened. “I expected to dress this wound myself and go to bed and not have to—” He stopped.
“Not have to what?”
Evander’s good hand gripped the edge of the table. The knuckles went white. Mary watched the struggle play out across his face, the control warring with something older and deeper.
She realized with a jolt that he was not angry with her. He was angry with himself.
“You should go to bed,” he said. But his voice had lost its authority, and they both knew it.
“Answer my question.” Mary held her ground. “Not have to what?”
“Mary,” he grumbled in warning.
“What?” she pressed, unwavering.
“Not have to look at you and want to devour you,” Evander growled, the words scraping past his teeth.
Before she could gasp, he stood and backed her up until her spine hit the edge of the heavy kitchen table.
“I expected to keep my hands off you,” he muttered, his gaze tracing the heavy pulse fluttering at her throat before locking onto her lips. “I expected to starve in silence. But you came down here looking like a temptation no mortal man could survive. And here, before you, Mary, I am a sinner.”
His thumb brushed roughly over her bottom lip, parting it.
She remained still, gazing up at him, her vision narrowing into him and only him.
“Evander…” she uttered almost breathlessly and leaned into his touch.
