life—this Decima was experiencing the most wanton fancies. She wanted Lord Weston to kiss her, she wanted to feel the breadth of his shoulders under her palms again, not when she was shivering with cold, but now, when they were warm and safe inside. She wanted to touch his hair, run her fingers down the line of that determined jaw, know what it was like to have that expressive mouth covering hers.
This was dangerous folly, she knew it. However honourable a gentleman, it was asking too much of him to have an available female positively quivering with desire under his very nose.
Still, she thought, struggling to get her fantasies under control again, when he did look at her properly in good light at least there was the comfort that he knew the worst already and she would not have to see surprise be succeeded by pity or contempt in those grey eyes.
He was aware of her height, had carried her weight, and he had probably even noticed the freckles, the disastrous final straw as far as her looks were concerned, so he couldn’t be too surprised. He’d had enough warning to manage to keep the reaction off his face at any rate.
There were two basic ways men looked at Decima. Depressed resignation if they were male relatives, or alarm if they were potential suitors lured into meeting her and finding themselves confronted with a befreckled, awkward beanpole. In return, she judged them simply on whether they were polite enough to cover their dismay for however long it took them to tactfully disengage themselves from the encounter.
Except for Sir Henry Freshford, of course. Henry came up to her eye level and quite cheerfully agreed with her that the last thing they wanted to do was get married to each other, not while they were perfectly good friends and could sympathise with each other over the matchmaking wiles of their respective relations. With the exception of Henry, she had felt hideously self-conscious with all unrelated men. Until now.
She came round from her reverie to find herself the subject of an equally thorough, silent, survey.
‘Well, Decima? Do I pass muster?’
How long had she been silently studying him, and how long had he been aware of her doing just that? Decima smiled brightly. Keep it light. Apparently the words wanton virgin seeks kisses were not emblazoned across her forehead, or if they were he was well able to ignore them.
‘You do. Provided you can keep that range in.’
‘I’ve put bricks in the oven to heat and the kettle on the hob.’
‘Oh, good. Nothing has exploded, then?’ She sank down in one of the Windsor chairs and untied the strings of her cloak. ‘Pru’s gone to sleep. I’ve lit fires in all the rooms, including yours. I drew the curtains as well.’
One dark eyebrow rose, very slightly. ‘You lit the fire in my bedchamber? Thank you, Decima.’
Decima felt herself flush at the fancied criticism. ‘I do not see why you should go to a cold bed simply to save me from the shocking sight of a gentleman’s chamber, my lord.’
‘Indeed not, and with any luck Mrs Chitty had cleared away the scandalous prints, the empty brandy bottles and the more outrageous items of underwear. And my given name is Adam. Will you not use it?’
As he had no doubt hoped, the ridiculous nonsense provoked a smile from her before she could decide to be stuffy about first names. ‘Very well, as I imagine we are going to be housekeeping together for several days. Adam.’
It was a good name, and it suited him. Decima let herself relax a little.
‘Can you cook?’
‘Oh…more or less,’ she replied cheerfully, suppressing the truthful answer that she couldn’t boil water and they would almost certainly starve if it was up to her. Perhaps Bates could cook. ‘Shall I have a look and see what food there is?’ After all, how hard could cookery be?
She had just put her head around the door of the larder when the crash and the yell came. Adam was across the room, the back door banging, before she could wrap her cloak around her and snatch up the largest lamp. In its light she saw the sprawled figure of Bates in the middle of the patch of treacherous, glittering ice that spilt out from the base of the horse trough.
Even from that distance there was no mistaking the implication of the way Bates’s lower right leg was twisted at an angle that was totally unnatural. The snow had ceased and everything sparkled with a hard cold.
Ducking back inside, Decima snatched up Pru’s cloak and made her way gingerly across the glassy surface. ‘Here.’ She tucked it around the groom’s shoulders. ‘Have you hurt anything besides your leg?’
‘No, and that’s enough of a bl…No, miss, thank you.’ He was white to the lips and, as Adam touched his leg, he recoiled convulsively. ‘Hell and the devil! Leave it be, damn it!’
‘Oh, yes,’ Adam said sympathetically. ‘I’ll just leave you here, nice and comfy, to freeze to death, shall I? And watch your language while Miss Ross is within earshot.’
‘Let him swear,’ Decima urged, ‘I’m sure it will help. We really ought to splint it before you move him,’ she added.
‘No time. It will hurt, but that’s better than frostbite. Up you come, Bates.’
The resulting language as Adam hoisted the man up and carried him across the yard made Decima clap her hands to her ears, then cautiously remove them out of sheer curiosity. The groom did not seem to repeat himself once. She shut the door behind them and regarded Adam. ‘Here on the kitchen table? It is warm and the light’s good.’
‘No, I’ll take him upstairs. I don’t want to have to move him once it’s set. Which room did you light the fire in for him?’
‘First on the right.’ Decima ran on ahead up the stairs and cast a rapid glance around the room. The bed would have to move. She dragged it out from the wall, her muscles protesting, and shoved it back at right angles so there was access to it on either side. As Adam came in she pulled off the top bedclothes, then lit all the candles. ‘There. Now, what do we need?’
‘Go downstairs, please, Miss Ross.’ Adam was bent over the bed, his gaze rueful as he met the groom’s eyes. ‘I do not think we are in for a very enjoyable quarter of an hour.’
Decima sighed. Men. Even this one, whom she had put down as sensible and non-patronising. She began to think out loud, counting off items on her fingers. ‘A sharp knife to cut off the boot and his breeches. A nightshirt so we can get him into that first to save moving him later.’ Bates sent her a look compounded of shock and outrage. ‘Splints, bandages and laudanum. I’ll go and see what I can find.’
When she returned Adam had got the groom out of his upper clothes and into his nightshirt, draped modestly to preserve everyone’s blushes. She handed him the knife and began to pour laudanum into a glass. ‘Miss Chitty has an admirable stillroom, thank goodness. Here, Bates, drink this, it will help. Do you think some brandy as well, my lord? I’ve brought a bottle.’
The groom swigged back the drug and Adam shrugged. ‘Give him a stiff tot, it can’t do any harm; he has a head like teak.’
‘I’ve got the best straight kindling wood I could find for splints and I’ve torn up a sheet that was in the mending basket.’
‘Thank you, Miss Ross, you are most resourceful.’ Adam pulled off the boot from the uninjured leg, then fell to studying the other thoughtfully. ‘Now go away, please.’
Decima turned to the door. She did not want to stay and see Bates suffering. She certainly did not want to see whatever removing that boot revealed and what would happen next. But it felt like cowardice to go meekly off downstairs like a good little woman when she could be helping.
She got as far as the landing before the sobbing intake of breath drove her back into the room and onto her knees next to the bed. ‘Shove off, miss,’ Bates snapped.
‘You swear as much as you like,’ she said encouragingly, hoping she wasn’t as green in the face as he was. ‘Just