Alison DeLaine - A Promise by Daylight

“Mr. Germain...”

“Of course,” she said quickly, tearing her eyes away from where they should not have strayed, helping him off with his shirt, seeing now that his other physician had dressed a handful of wounds down the left half of his back and his left thigh. Much of his torso was wrapped completely around with bandages and plasters to keep the compresses in place, and where the skin wasn’t covered, it was badly bruised.

Dear God.

She lifted the edge of a bandage on his back and sucked in a breath at the ragged wound beneath. He had to be in considerable pain. Gently she checked the others, found thankfully that the first was the most serious. “What a miracle none of the pieces struck you on the head or neck,” she said, more sincerely than she’d intended, and felt him tense.

She touched his skin, lightly, and heard him hiss. “How long before I’m fully recovered?” he asked.

“Weeks, certainly.”

“Weeks. What can you give me to hasten the process?”

“Only the natural course of time and healing will do that, I’m afraid.” Assuming the wounds didn’t fester and bring on a new fever.

Holding up his shirt like a shield in one hand, she moved around him and reached up to press the back of her fingers to his forehead. “Have you felt warm? Any sign that the fever is returning?”

“No warmer than usual,” he said.

She let her hand fall. And now she became too aware of his bare chest, the dark hair dusted across it, the bare hips visible on either side of the shirt hanging limply from her fist.

She looked him in the eye. “When was the last time you were bled?”

“Good God. Yesterday.”

“Hmm.” Perhaps she ought to bleed him again, just to be safe. But if it had only been yesterday...

She moved behind him again, leaned close to sniff the poultices. Yes, definitely turpentine. “I’d like to re-dress the wounds, as I suggested earlier. But I’ll need to prepare the dressings first. It shouldn’t take long.” She ran her fingers along a length of gauze that stretched across his lower back and heard him inhale sharply.

She pulled her hand away, and a warm sensation skittered up her arm.

His hand reached back. “My shirt.”

She gave it to him. Had to help him again, because he could not put it back on one-handed. He walked a few steps to the bedside table, keeping his back to her, and picked up his drink.

“Prepare the dressings,” he said a bit shortly. “I shall be ready.”

* * *

AND WHEN SHE RETURNED, Winston thought as she left, his body would have stopped responding to her touch and begun responding to the liquor he would need in order to bear the pain when she changed the bandages.

He glanced down at his tented shirttails and knocked back a swallow of liquor, a little disgusted with himself. He’d sent away all the beauties, so his anatomy was making do with what was available.

And what was available was a medic whose cheeks had pinkened during the examination, who had inspected him with eyes averted from his crotch, and whose small, capable fingers were too easy to imagine wrapped around his cock.

Or around a surgical knife. Good God.

He’d do well to dismiss her. Today, now, before she could do any damage.

But already he preferred her methods to that Parisian doctor whose thoughtless handling had nearly hurled him into unconsciousness from the pain. And something in her tone had him suspecting that whatever she planned to use on his wounds actually stood a chance of having some effect.

Miles Germain would stay. He would take her to Greece, perhaps even continue to entertain himself at her expense. But he’d be damned before he’d let her near his privates again.

CHAPTER THREE

“THIS ISN’T LIKE HIM, you know,” Harris said early that evening, taking a quick sip from a glass of wine before lowering himself into an armchair in Millie’s dressing room. Across the room, Millie busied herself arranging her medical supplies inside a small cabinet whose contents she’d transferred to the cupboards below the bookcase. “Not like him a’tall, and it’s making me bloody nervous.” He stretched out his legs in front of him and crossed them at the ankles. “And you getting to be upstairs. Wish he’d put me upstairs. Make it a good deal easier to access the side benefits.”

It wasn’t difficult to imagine what those side benefits might be.

Sacks, the duke’s valet, refilled his own glass. “You’re certain he said no visitors?” Sacks asked.

“No visitors,” Harris said emphatically, sipping his wine and frowning. “What can he be about?”

“Only let that princess present ’erself below, and ten to one ’is Grace would—”

“None. He said no exceptions.”

Millie smiled to herself as she arranged her new lints and bandages. Apparently His Grace was finally taking her advice seriously. He’d been appropriately clothed when she’d returned to change the dressings—at least, as much as was practical, given that he’d needed to disrobe almost entirely in order for her to remove and replace all the bandages. But there had been no more talk of copulation. In fact, he’d scarcely talked at all.

He’d flinched only a little and, during the worst parts, she’d heard him hiss.

“Perhaps,” she said over her shoulder to the two manservants, “what he’s about is rest. His wounds are quite serious,” she said. “They’ll be some time in healing, and I’ve advised him against all activity.”

“And all company?” Harris sat forward. “Good God, man, you’ll drive us to the madhouse!”

“Understand,” Sacks told her, putting his glass down and walking to the chamber stool in the corner, “’tis more than just the injuries. He hasn’t been ’imself.”

Millie turned back to her medicines when Sacks reached for the front of his breeches.

“His Grace not being himself is bound to have a negative effect on my own self,” Harris groused.

Sacks made a noise while he rearranged his breeches. “Side benefits are bound to be significantly reduced. You’ve got to restore ’im quickly,” he said to Millie, as if it were that simple.

“I’m not a miracle worker,” she said.

“’Twas your news about the widow that got ’im started on all this,” Sacks accused Harris now.

“I could hardly keep the news from him,” Harris said irritably.

“What widow?” Millie asked.

“Wife of ’im that died in the accident,” Sacks told her. “’Is Grace keeps asking after them. Finally learned her whereabouts today—her and ’er five young ’uns.” He shook his head. “Pity, that is.” And then, to Harris, “But you could’ve waited a day or two.”

“The burial is tomorrow.”

“He’s not going anyhow.”

“But we couldn’t have known that, could we?” Harris snapped. “He ordered five hundred pounds sent this afternoon.”

“Five hundred!” Millie exclaimed, and almost knocked over a bottle of linseed oil.

“His Grace seems fixated on that accident,” Sacks said. “And now—” he shot a frown at Harris “—on the widow and young ’uns. If you ask me, it’s interfering with ’is recovery. What if he decides to go to that burial, after all?”

“His Grace will not be attending the funeral of an accounting clerk,” Harris said irritably, then tilted his glass toward Millie. “And you mustn’t allow him any manner of activity that will prolong the healing process.”

“Get him back to ’imself quickly,” Sacks said, “and you’ll have no end of interesting pastimes in these rooms.”

“I haven’t the least—” She caught herself and, instead, raised her brows in what she hoped was a semi-interested expression.

“No need to worry about the dangerous side of things. Just look in that drawer there.” He pointed to a side table with one small drawer. “Go on,” he grinned. “Find all the armor you need, just in case His Grace’s entertainments conveniently spill over into the adjoining rooms.”