Tamed By A Dangerous Lady (Scandalous Liaisons Book 3)

by Ella Edon

  “Lieutenant! Are you alright? Have you been harmed?” Her heart almost stopped. She reached for him and was horrified when she saw blood, on his shoulder.

  “I was hit,” he murmured.

  She felt her stomach twist and was almost sick. She made herself think slowly and decide what to do. “ We have to get you up. Let me take you to the doctor…” She put her hands under his shoulders and struggled to get him upright. He was so heavy! She knew she would never be able to get him up. Not on her own.

  “I’m alright…” he groaned. He bent one knee and drew himself up to a half-sitting position. She felt her heart almost stop, looking at the white, drawn expression on his face.

  “We need to get you to someone who can help,” she said firmly.

  “It’s just a graze,” he insisted.

  Raymonde looked into his eyes, surprised by the anger she felt.

  “I can see the depth of it myself,” she said frostily. “And it needs attention if you’re not going to risk infection setting in. We will stay at this inn and you will receive treatment.”

  “And if the shooter comes back?” he asked, his voice thin and strained with the evident pain he was in.

  Raymonde nodded. “We still need to do something,” she said.

  If they stayed in the inn another day, they risked that whoever it was who had shot at them would get bolder. He’d missed the Lieutenant this time, but who was to say that his aim would not be better next time? It seemed too far-fetched that the shooter and whoever had aimed at her that night in the manor garden was not the same person. In which case, they had already tried more than once.

  “Come on,” Raymonde said gently. “We need to get you inside.”

  She linked her arms under the Lieutenant’s shoulders, trying to pull him to his feet. He winced and put his hand flat, rolling over slightly so that he could support himself with his left arm. She took his hand and helped him upright.

  “Lean on me. You need some help,” Raymonde said gently as the Lieutenant stumbled.

  “To add insult to injury, I’ve twisted my ankle,” he said. He was grinning, and under the circumstances, it was funny.

  They limped into the inn together.

  Upstairs, Raymonde opened her door – she still had the key in her purse. She helped the Lieutenant in and sat him on the bed, then shut the door behind her. It was only when she turned to him that they both realized, at the same time, that they were alone in her bedroom together.

  “I need to cut that shirt off you,” Raymonde said levelly. Inside, her body was trembling. Outside, she maintained a wall of calm.

  “It’s a fine shirt,” the Lieutenant said, pulling a face. “Can you not salvage it?”

  She silenced him with a look. “I need to take care of your wound. You won’t lose more blood than you need to, if I can help it. I have scissors in my suitcase… Just as well, I brought my embroidery things.”

  With as steady a hand as she could manage, she cut the shoulder of the shirt, then pulled it down, revealing the wound. She couldn’t help noticing his shoulder – it was firm and pale, and the collar-bone extended to a level plateau, muscle binding it to the well-rounded upper arm.

  He has a beautiful body.

  She swallowed, cheeks flaming.

  “It’s not that bad,” she told him, keeping her voice level. She tried not to think about the rest of his arm, where the pale flesh met the sleeve of his shirt. She wished she could see it, but that was a ridiculous thought. She was here to staunch his wound.

  “I said it was a burn,” he said, then winced as she started to sponge it off with a handkerchief soaked in the bowl on the nightstand.

  “Burns don’t bleed as badly as this. It nicked you quite badly,” she informed him as she sponged the blood away. When she had got down to the skin again, she could see that there was a large cut, about the width of her finger; a channel where the bullet had grazed past him.

  “Will you stitch it?” he asked. She could see how tense his face was. He clearly feared the idea.

  “It’s too wide for that,” she said, glancing down at it. Oddly, after the initial wave of nausea, she had gotten almost used to it. The smell was harder to face than the look of it – the iron wetness of how blood smelled turned her stomach.

  “What will you do, then?” he asked. He sounded curious, more than nervous.

  “I’m going to bandage it.” She went to her sewing-kit and got out the collar she’d been working on. She had not finished it off, but there was enough linen there to cut a bandage.

  He eyed her nervously at first, and she ignored his skepticism. She was going to mend his shoulder. It wasn’t that hard! She had, as a girl, seen her maid tend to a man who’d been wounded in a hunting accident. It didn’t seem altogether involved.

  Cut a length of bandage, long enough to encircle the wound several times. Cover it and bind it up. Make the knot tight enough that the blood stops flowing.

  She pressed the length of linen over the wound gently. It soaked up the blood thirstily. She winced as the color changed to red, taking a deep breath to steady herself.

  “What does it look like?” the Lieutenant asked, craning his neck nervously around.

  “It looks like a wound with a bandage on it,” she said blandly.

  He chuckled. “You are comforting, aren’t you?”

  “I’m truthful.”

  She wrapped it around a few more times, then pulled the ends to make it tight. He sat still, but she heard the sharp intake of breath as she wound it tight.

  “There,” she said. “I have to tighten it, or it’ll be as good as useless to stop the bleeding. Can you make a fist?” she asked, watching as he clenched and unclenched his fingers. “Good,” she added, then grimaced as she tied the knot. The linen had stopped soaking up blood, the outer layers of the fabric unstained, for the moment.

  That looks better.

  She rinsed her hands in the bowl of water, watching the red-stained fluid as it changed color around them as she did so. She was surprised by how completely calm she felt, as if this was part of her world, and she did it every day. Feeling a surge of confidence that was utterly foreign to her, she glanced across at the Lieutenant.

  “It feels better,” he allowed.

  “Tell me if it starts hurting,” she said. “I might have tied it too tight.” She studied his fingers where they were balled in a fist. His skin looked pale, but not unduly so.

  “No, not at all,” he said, rolling the shoulder experimentally. “It feels fine.”

  “Don’t move around too much,” she said levelly. “I don’t want aught going wrong with it.”

  He looked up at her, his eyes a mix of sullenness and unmasked admiration. Her eyes met his and she smiled. It felt like a communication – thanks, praise and regret all woven into one. She nodded fractionally – apology accepted, praise acknowledged.

  “So,” she said, clearing her throat. “It looks like we will be heading on to Alford after all?”

  He raised one brow and nodded, a small smile twisting his mouth. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  She laughed. He grinned. In the gray morning, it seemed there was a little sunshine, after all.

  She realized that they were in her chamber; he was sitting on her bed not two paces away. His shoulder was bare, and he was already trying to work the shirt-sleeve down his arm. She drew a steady breath.

  “You should not be here,” she said softly.

  “No,” he said.

  Their eyes held. She didn’t move and neither did he. He let go of the shirt-sleeve, which was now hanging against his torso, his entire left arm bare, and held out his right hand.

  “You could have just saved my life,” he said softly. “I would like to thank you.”

  She swallowed hard. Nobody had ever shaken hands with her, and certainly not in circumstances like this. She took a deep breath.

  “It was nothing, I assure you,” she said softly. His hand took her own. His fingers – cool
and strong and firm – closed on hers. She felt her heart start to throb uncontrollably. His naked shoulder gleamed a little in the pale light as he shifted his weight slightly on the bed. He was beautiful, and his hand was warm in hers.

  “It was everything,” he said.

  Still holding her gaze, he took her hand in both of his. She felt her heart stop.

  “Lieutenant… We should leave,” she said. Her voice was tight and unnatural. “I think the coach is waiting for us.”

  “Yes,” he said. He let her fingers drop. He stood. “I suppose we should go.”

  Neither of them moved. Raymonde’s heart had started beating again, with a vengeance. It was thudding so fast she thought it might stop altogether.

  He was less than an arm’s length away. He stepped forward, closing the gap. Before either of them could think about it, she was in his arms and his lips were pressed to hers.

  She gasped, but it felt so good to be held so close to him. Her body tingled as he held her, and she felt his bare skin under her fingertips as she traced his back with her hands. She felt a strange longing start to fill her and she sighed as his tongue filled her mouth, tasting her. Her body throbbed as he held her close.

  He drew her against him more tightly, and she felt his hips press to her own. He was crushing her to him strongly, his hands stroking down her body and her hips, straying to the curve of her buttocks. She felt a tiny flare of alarm in the back of her mind as she realized how much she wanted this to never stop, how much she longed for him to push her onto the bed and to do what she knew nobody should do until after matrimony.

  “Lady Raymonde,” he said gently. He stepped back, chest heaving, voice grating. “I’m sorry. I should go.”

  She stepped back, her heart almost stopping. She didn’t want him to go, but she also knew that it was essential that he did so. She nodded, though every bone in her ached for him to stay.

  “Yes,” she said softly. “We should go. You go first.”

  He nodded back and went to the door. “Yes, My Lady,” he said.

  He went out into the hallway and Raymonde watched him go. He shut the door behind him and she sat down on the bed, fists clenched, mind a tumult.

  On the one hand, she ached for him to come back, for them to be able to do what she had never realized she longed to do – and with only him. On the other hand, she was glad he had gone, and was shocked at how near she had been to forgetting everything she knew of society’s rules.

  “Raymonde Hunsford, you are quite forgetting yourself,” she said to herself firmly.

  All the same, when she stood up from the bed and looked at herself in the mirror, she realized that her eyes were shining and her skin seemed to glow. She looked utterly unlike herself. She looked confident and assured. She looked happy.

  She fixed her hair and then headed, at an even pace, down the stairs.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Arriving Home

  Cutler sat in the coach opposite Raymonde, trying to still his racing thoughts. All through the previous day, after his injury and her tending it, they had been distantly polite. They’d talked and consulted one another on decisions, eaten lunch and dinner in perfect amicability, and stopped at an inn, but it was all in a cool, polite mood. He thought that they were both standoffish because they were embarrassed.

  I can’t believe myself sometimes.

  He had been close, closer than he could believe possible, to pushing her onto the bed and undressing her, the passion uncontrollable inside of him, the longing almost winning entirely. He couldn’t believe the surge of longing he felt, and that he had been hard-put to suppress it.

  And it’s not for lack of a chance to sate myself in the army, either.

  He could have had uncounted women – there were always women around the camps, and he was an officer, able to offer support and nominal protection to anyone he bedded. But he hadn’t felt an insensible desire to do so then, and he did not feel that now. This was different. It was more.

  It was her.

  He glanced over at her. She was looking out of the window, her face turned towards it. She was calm and composed, as always. He had never seen a woman who stirred his blood like she did, never met a woman he admired more. She was an enigma, and he liked mysteries. She was gentle, and he longed for her.

  She saw him looking at her and raised a brow.

  “We have a long drive ahead, do we not?” she asked, polite as ever.

  “Um, yes,” he agreed. “We do.”

  “Good.” She nodded peaceably and turned back to the window. Some sewing lay on her lap – embroidery of some sort. She looked like a statue, tranquil and calm. She reached over and picked up her work.

  He watched her, and recalled how he had felt when she had fixed his shoulder. How she had been so collected, so succinct. She had barely noticed the repugnant aspects of the wound, or if she had, she hadn’t shown it.

  “Another two hours, sir!” the coachman called down to them.

  “Thank you!” Cutler called back.

  As they drove onward, Lady Raymonde was absorbed in her sewing, Cutler found himself feeling a little queasy at the prospect of his return. He was fairly sure that whoever had shot at them in Westmore House was the same person who had shot at him now, in the street in York.

  Is it him?

  He shuddered. He couldn’t say, though Uncle Gray had certainly been at Westmore – Luke had seen him, and Lady Raymonde confirmed it. But would he truly go so far as to kill him? And why shoot at Raymonde?

  All he could do was speak with his old steward, and hope he knew what to do.

  He felt himself start to fall asleep, but his thoughts were troubled, and his dreams were dark. He was in the drawing-room of his childhood again, and something was hunting him. He could feel it coming, but he couldn’t move and he couldn’t turn around.

  “Whoa!” the coachman called, and Cutler felt the strange pushing sensation that one always felt as a coach came to a stop.

  He woke, shaking himself, and sat up straight. Opposite him, Lady Raymonde was already sitting up, her sewing on her lap, eyes wide and alert.

  “We’re here,” he said.

  “I see.”

  They both looked at each other. Cutler swallowed hard, feeling a lump forming in his throat. He glanced around, feeling afraid. He had not seen his former home for five years.

  “Come on,” he said, through a throat too tight for words. “Let’s get out.”

  He opened the coach door and jumped down, holding up a hand so that he could help her out. She followed him wordlessly as he walked up the path to the cottage that he had occupied for twelve years.

  This is my home.

  He swallowed, trying to breathe around the lump that had formed in his throat. He put his head back, staring up at the building.

  A cottage with two floors, the front gabled, the roof thatched, the place had a neat, cared-for look about it. It should have been homely, but strangely, it had never felt so to him. It had a neutral, imposing quality to it – institutional rather than home-like. Returning home from school had always felt like a step sideways, not a step up.

  “Would you like me to wait?” Raymonde asked, as he walked slowly up the path.

  “No. Thank you,” he added, turning to face her.

  He had become so used to the fact that she could sense his feelings, that she deferred to what he needed without asking, that he only realized, as he walked up the steps alone, that she had sensed his fear and his need to face it alone and stepped into the background without his needing to ask.

  “Thank you,” he murmured, but the door opened before he had a chance to elaborate further.

  “Mr. Hanford,” he said. His voice was tense and it came out brittle and broken. He cleared his throat, feeling embarrassed.

  “Cutler Wingate,” Hanford said. His voice was neither welcoming nor cold; a professional tone that held little warmth, but also no unkindness. It was perfectly neutral, like his appearance. Tal
l, dressed in his customary black coat and white shirt, the man had certainly aged, but his voice was identical.

  “Greetings,” Cutler said. He held out his hand and Mr. Hanford shook it. His grip had lost much of its former strength, and Cutler winced, feeling the first stirrings of compassion for the man. His face was more wrinkled, his eyes somewhat cloudy. When he spoke, his voice had softened too, though it still held no compromise nor pity.