best if he stay the night here in my room. He doesn’t need to be out with the others. Whoever he is, he has money. I think he would be rather dismayed to find himself amongst the consumptives and typhoids.”
Squeezing her shoulder, Richard passed behind her, studying her skill with the needle. “It’s unfortunate the college doesn’t allow women in, Jane. You’d be a superb surgeon. Lucky bastard, I doubt he’ll even have a scar.”
That was praise, indeed. No other compliment could have meant more to Jane. It carried far more substance than one based on the superficialities of beauty and feminine wiles. She was not a beauty. She knew and accepted it. But she was smart, and eager to learn all she could. She was a woman of worth, and would continue to be so, despite her looks.
“How do you do it?” Richard asked, peering over her shoulder. “Your stitches are so slight.”
She laughed despite the closeness of Richard at her back, and the stranger’s face at her front. “Sometimes it pays to be a woman,” she whispered, smiling secretly to herself.
“We’ll, you’ve a fine hand, and a quick mind, Jane. I’m glad I found you first.”
Chapter Three
Warm water sluiced from the cloth over the large expanse of the man’s shoulders and chest. The water turned to rust, taking the remnants of dried blood away from his skin.
His skin tone was darker than most, tanned almost, she mused as she dipped the cloth once more into the basin and squeezed it over his pectorals. The water shimmered over the blue ink of the tattoo, and she bent closer trying to see what the image was of.
She still couldn’t make it out. Tracing it with her finger, she saw him flinch and she pulled away, afraid to waken him—afraid to touch him.
Like a child caught stealing a sweet, Jane felt utterly guilty to be taking delight in washing this stranger.
Even with his head and eyes bandaged, he was beautiful. His nose, straight and refined, told of his aristocratic breeding. His lips, however, full and soft yet masculine, were made for pleasure.
Jane didn’t dare touch them. She had wanted to, but had not allowed herself the wicked pleasure of such a thing. He was her patient. It was wrong. Had she not long ago given her two new charges the devil for their misconduct? Moral responsibility, Jane reminded herself. Respectability.
Yet Jane could not stop thinking of how hard he felt beneath her fingertips and how her body seemed to soften as her hands gently touched him. She had never once been physically affected by a patient. She had never felt the slow deep burn inside her, the vague tightening of her loins and her womb. Not even Richard had this effect on her. She knew the words that made her feel this way, but was at loss to explain why they suddenly consumed her.
Desire. Attraction—compulsion. Desire and attraction were what she felt at this precise moment. Compulsion was what she was trying so diligently to fight.
Her gaze fixed on his chest, watching how slowly his chest rose and fell. She allowed her hands to traverse the width of his torso under the pretence of counting his respirations. She heard the breath enter his lungs, felt his heart beating slow and steady against her palm. Saw his lips part as the air escaped through them.
Even when she was certain he was breathing easy, she could not push away. Her hands simply would not let go of him.
It was wrong to be this close to him, to sit on the edge of his small cot, to be leaning over him as she watched him sleep. He was clean now, yet still she bathed him, refusing to take her hands off his body.
He stirred against her, the bandages hiding his brow and facial expressions. Every once in a while, he would tremble, and his mouth would move as if he was trying to speak. His head would then begin thrashing, his body tensing despite the deep sleep produced by the ether.
What demon gripped him? She knew it was something evil that held him now. He should be peaceful from the ether, not grimacing and tensing, as if he was trying to fight.
Perhaps he was dreaming of his attack.
He cried out, his head arching back as his torso and buttocks lifted from the cot. The white sheet slid down, exposing the line of fine black hair that continually captured her attention.
“Shh,” she soothed, pushing him gently back with her hands on his shoulders. “You’re safe here.”
He settled easily, falling back into the slow, even breathing of before. His body was still. His muscles quiet.
As Jane sat back and watched him, she allowed herself to take her fill of his naked chest. She had never seen a man like this before. One who was so large and muscled. One whose shaving soap and cologne still clung to his skin.
His chest was smooth and hairless, all except for the line of onyx down that swirled around his navel and worked its way lower. Without thinking, Jane ran her forefinger along the pathway of hair, marveling at the softness and the steely muscles beneath his skin. It was a contradiction, how something could feel so soft and innocent, yet just beneath so hard and unyielding.
She was utterly captivated by him, by the secrecy of his identity, not to mention the mysteries to be found on his body. Like a child with a new doll, she could not stop looking at him, or prevent herself from running her hand along his chest.
What would it feel like to have his length atop her? To be encased by his strong arms? To lay her head on his chest and listen to the steady cadence of his heart beating as she traced the outline of his tattoo?
What would it be like, she wondered, to have a man this handsome and virile buried deep within her?
As if he could discern her wayward thoughts, the sheet moved as his penis began to swell, the outline of which was pressed urgently against the thin, graying cotton.
Jane was not an innocent. She did not smother a cry of horror and launch herself from the bed. Instead, she allowed herself to pull the sheet down, slowly exposing the man to her curious eyes.
He was as large and beautiful there as he was everywhere else.
His erection continued to fill, and Jane watched, mesmerized as the pink rod filled with blood. He was long and thick. The foreskin pulling back, revealing a heavily veined staff and engorged head.
She was consumed by the thought of feeling him, touching the hardness that still grew. The devil whispered in her ear, and she obeyed, reaching out to skim her fingertip along the veined shaft.
He moaned, and hastily Jane pulled the sheet up, ashamed by her actions. She had no idea what had gotten into her. She had seen many male patients naked before, and never once had she been tempted to touch them, to learn whether or not the skin was as smooth and velvety as it looked.
Perhaps she had her mother’s harlot blood after all, for that could be the only reason for these new thoughts that suddenly began to cloud her thinking and judgment.
“Are ye done yet?” Givens, the night man asked as he entered the room. “We’ve brought a bed and we’ll get him onto it for you.”
“Yes,” Jane said in a voice that belied her thoughts. “I’m finished. But do be careful, he took a nasty blow to his head. I’m afraid I’m going to have to check on him frequently tonight to ensure he wakes up.”
She had seen many patients die in their sleep from blows less severe. Tonight she would have to return to him hourly and wake him, ensuring that he did not slip into unconsciousness and ultimately death.
One of the men reached for his ankles, and the other, his wrists. The third shoved the bed closer so that the mattress of one was pressed against the wooden operating table. Beneath his weight, they grunted as they lifted him, affording Jane a glimpse of how tall he was. Well over six feet and solid as marble.
“Ye better take good care of ’im, miss,” the one grunted with exertion. “’E’s part of the fancy and there’s no tellin’ what will ’appen