What? Breathing hard, she blinked up at him, pushing the straggling hanks of wet hair away from her face.
And really looked at him.
To her amazement, she realised he was not leering at her. There was not even the faintest trace of lust mingled with the scalding anger blazing from his one eye.
He was not, she suddenly perceived, another Lord Sandiford, the man who, according to her informant, had started the bidding for her virginity. He would not have cared whether she was willing or not. On the contrary, Mr Carpenter had warned her that he would have enjoyed making her suffer as much as he possibly could.
It felt like a reprieve. She was still in considerable danger, but having the threat of violence removed from the equation left her feeling weak with relief.
As she slumped down into the pillows the Captain’s lips twisted into a sneer.
‘Though how on earth you could think that a skinny little half-drowned rat like you would be capable of rousing any man’s lust is beyond me.’
He looked so full of contempt that her whole perspective suddenly changed. She was little more than skin and bone these days. Skin and bone, clad in a sodden, torn, stained dress, wild-eyed with panic, and her hair all over the place. Though earlier he had said he found her pretty, that had obviously been a piece of idle flattery, intended to win her over. Now that she had angered him, the truth was out.
It set the seal on her humiliation when he said, ‘God only knows what Jago was thinking to bring you here. I told him to pick a woman who could at least look as though she belonged in society.’
He bent down and yanked the wrinkled stocking over her rapidly swelling ankle, making her gasp with the pain.
She thought she caught a look of remorse flicker across the Captain’s face, but it was swiftly replaced by a glare so fierce, she decided she must have imagined it. Particularly when he swore colourfully, and said, ‘It is your own fault! Now you won’t even be able to leave in the morning, like as not, which you could have done had you told me to my face that you did not want to marry me!’
He turned away from her abruptly then, as Billy came in carrying a bowl of crushed ice, and a pile of what looked like somebody’s neckcloths. And so he missed her soundlessly gasping, ‘Marry you?’ The shock of hearing him speak of marriage was so great her voice had dried up completely.
‘Tell me what I need to do,’ he was saying to Billy, while she pressed one hand to her forehead.
Aimée’s mind was reeling. When had he ever said one single word to her about marriage?
Surely that proposition he had made to her, outlining his willingness to shower her with jewels and servants, had not been one of marriage? Why, it had sounded exactly like every single one of the many other dishonourable propositions she had received since her mother died.
Could she really have just fled, in total panic, from the only proposal of marriage she had ever had?
Or was ever likely to have.
There had been only one occasion before, when she had thought she stood a chance of marrying, and thereby crossing the boundary that existed between her precarious existence and that of a decent, respectable woman.
Young Mr Carpenter had professed himself wildly in love with her. He had written her odes, comparing her to ‘Beauty enmeshed by poverty’ in which her father figured as a bloated spider. He had declared he would be her champion, and took to following her father to some of the lowest haunts he frequented, in a vain attempt to put a brake on his downhill slide.
Instead, he had returned with the tale so vile she’d had nightmares about it ever since. Lord Sandiford and Lord Matthison had only just begun the bidding when Mr Carpenter left the Restoration Club and ran to warn her she must flee.
‘Where will we go?’ she had naïvely asked him, assuming that the time had come to stop holding him at arm’s length and accept his protection, even though she did not love him.
‘Oh, but, ahh … d-don’t exactly have the blunt to set you up. Not right now,’ he had blustered.
‘Take me to your mother’s house then. Just until we are married—’
‘Married?’ he had squeaked, actually taking a step back and going pale.
And she had seen that in spite of the number of times he had declared he would do anything for her, that anything did not encompass making the ultimate sacrifice of giving her his name.
‘N-not that I don’t adore you, sweet one, but … bring a man like your father into my family?’
The scales had fallen from her eyes. When Mr Carpenter married, it would be to a fresh-faced, innocent débutante with a handsome dowry and a cast-iron pedigree, not the daughter of a pair of vagabonds whose escapades had scandalised half of Europe.
He had fled from her lodgings, with the air of a man making a narrow escape, and she had finally seen that she would never have anyone to rely on but herself. Nobody would ever come riding to her rescue on a white charger. She was on her own.
And so she had pocketed the down payment Lord Matthison had sent to ensure her compliance, God forgive her, and used it to go into hiding.
That was when she had seen Captain Corcoran’s advertisement. It had seemed like the perfect solution. If she could persuade the man who interviewed her that she had what it took to be a governess, she could support herself, honestly, and in total anonymity. Or so she had thought.
Billy brought the bowl and towels to the nightstand beside the bed. She closed her eyes while he gave the Captain detailed instructions about how to form a compress, and the best way to strap it on, shutting him out while she rapidly reviewed the only lengthy conversation she’d had with Captain Corcoran.
Where, or when, had there ever been any hint that what the Captain was seeking was a wife? All he had said upon the topic of marriage was that his needs now were very different from the expectations he’d had as a callow youth. Naturally she had assumed he meant he saw no need to actually marry a woman he wanted to bed.
Her eyes flew open in shock as the Captain applied the first, icy cold layer of bandages to her ankle. But then, this seemed to be a night for shocks. First of all in hearing him admit he had no wife or children, followed by what she had thought was an indecent proposition. And now finding out that he had been speaking of marriage. To her.
She could still not quite believe it. She looked at him closely, not as a prospective employer, or a would-be ravisher, but for the first time as a suitor.
And her heart turned over. His hair was dripping wet, and so was his coat. Yet he was selflessly tending to her injury before making himself comfortable. She had already discovered how strong he was, yet now his fingers were gentle as he deftly wrapped layer after layer of ice-cold cloth round her swollen joint.
He was handsome, in spite of his scars, and strong and affluent.
And capable of reining in his anger. It was a rare thing, in her experience, to see a man exercise any selfcontrol, let alone to such a degree. He had been furious with her. Completely furious. Yet even though he had shouted, and, yes, sworn at her, he had still managed to consider how she would have felt if he had delegated the task of carrying her back to the house to one of his men.
‘You’d better give ‘er some of this, too,’ Billy was saying, pulling a small brown vial from his pocket.
‘No …’ she whispered, shaking her head as Billy unstoppered what was clearly a bottle of laudanum.
In a voice as cold as the iced water in which Billy had soaked the towels, Captain Corcoran said, ‘She clearly suspects that you are offering it only so that I can tear her clothes off and ravish her the moment she loses consciousness.’
It was probably just as well she did not want to marry him. The woman affected him far more than he would like. It