Maitland nodded, taking his arm as if he needed her help and directing him towards the hearth where there was an empty space against the wall.
“Sit there,” she said, pointing to the bare wall. “I shall return quickly.”
As she rushed off, Thomas did as he was told. He made his way over to the spot she had indicated, away from the other wounded but near the hearth so that it was warm and dry. Wearily, he unfastened his belt and sheath, setting his broadsword on the floor, and removed the assortment of daggers he always carried with him into battle, laying each and every one down as well.
The de Wolfe tunic came off, carefully draped on top of the weapons, but his mail coat was under that and with his shoulder increasingly painful, he knew he couldn’t get it off without help. Just as he looked around to see which of his men around him were the least injured enough to help him with his mail, Maitland suddenly reappeared.
She had a wooden bowl of something steaming in one hand and things to tend the wound in the other. She set everything down against the wall before putting her hands upon Thomas with the intention of pushing him down into a sitting position.
“Please, sit,” she said. “You are simply too tall for me to tend your wound standing up.”
He held out his arms. “I cannot get my coat off without help,” he said. “When I bend over, pull it off.”
There had been rare occasions when Maitland had helped her husband dress, so she was somewhat familiar with the process. Taking hold of Thomas’ mail sleeves as he bent over, she began to pull. As he shimmied a bit, she tugged on the sleeves, eventually pulling the mail right over his head. It was heavy and dirty, and he took it from her quickly, handing it off to a nearby servant to have it cleaned. The last thing to come off was his padded tunic, sweaty and bloody, and he tossed it on top of his de Wolfe tunic.
“There,” he said, sitting heavily against the wall. “I surrender to your capable hands, my lady.”
Maitland heard his words… sort of. The man had just stripped down to his naked torso and, for a moment, she was dumbstruck. Having been married once, she’d seen a man naked before. Henry wasn’t shy about parading around with no clothing, but he’d had rather skinny legs and a large gut, which Maitland had never found attractive. In fact, she’d made a point of avoiding looking at Henry when he’d stripped off his clothing.
But with Thomas…
Looking at the man’s bare chest made her feel faint and flushed. It wasn’t just any bare chest; it was muscular and firm, with a few scars, and a soft matting of dark hair over it. His shoulders were enormous, including the muscles that adjoined his neck. It was into the muscle on the left side that the sword had carved into the flesh, and she could see the dark and caked blood around it. But with all of that staring, mesmerized by the sight, she suddenly realized she hadn’t taken a breath and she gulped air like a landed fish.
Thomas looked up with concern when he heard her gasp. “Is anything wrong, my lady?” he asked.
Feeling embarrassed that she’d been caught studying the man, Maitland quickly shook her head and knelt down beside him, next to the steaming bowl and the other things she’d brought.
“Nay,” she said. “I was just thinking of… your wound. It may be beyond my capabilities. I should send for your mother. Surely she has tended more of these than I have.”
Thomas waved her off. “I have faith in you,” he said. “Just clean out the debris and stitch it. I will heal.”
“But you say this so casually. I can see that you have other scars, so is this usual for you? Wounds like this, I mean.”
He nodded. “It is nothing,” he said. “You can do this. I know you can.”
Maitland appreciated his confidence in her, but she was rather worried. Timidly, she leaned in to his shoulder to get a better look, touching his flesh as she did so. His skin was hot and smooth, and the moment she touched him, she felt her stomach lurch in a most wonderful way. To gaze upon the man was one thing, but to touch him… it was entirely another.
Her fingers were warm and gentle as she touched the skin around the wound, inspecting the gash to see just how bad it was. All she could think about was his searing flesh beneath herhand, and so very near her face, and she resisted the urge to lick him. God, she would have liked nothing better at that moment than to lick him.
To taste him.
Long ago, when she first married Henry, he’d managed to arouse her once or twice before the dislike between them grew. She’d liked the feel of a man upon her, his body embedded within her. She thought she’d lost the ability to be aroused by a man but, clearly, she hadn’t. Thomas had unwittingly brought it out in her.
It was a startling realization.
Taking a deep breath, she struggled to focus, turning to her steaming bowl, which was really a bowl containing boiled water with wine mixed with it. As Lady de Wolfe had told her, the wine kept away the poison, so Maitland went about washing out the wound with the hot water and wine, using a soaked rag to rinse it out and rinse it again. The mixture rolled down Thomas’ chest and back as she cleaned, but he didn’t move, nor did he complain. He simply sat there, as still as stone, and let her work.
“See?” he said. “You are doing an excellent job already. I have had a good many battle wounds, so I know. You are doing quite well.”
Maitland smiled, a humorless gesture. “You are being kind,” she said. “I will be truthful– up until this evening, I have never tended a wounded man.”
“Your husband did not have an army?”
She shook her head, concentrating on removing a piece of mail that had been jabbed down into the wound. “Henry had a few soldiers, but nothing that could be considered an army,” she said. “He came from an old and distinguished family, the House of de Bowland, but his father was a bastard.”
“Is that so?”
She nodded. “He changed his name to Bowlin.”
