"I deserved that, I suppose," he murmured. "Are you all right?"
Her shoulder hurt, her heart hurt, and humiliation sat like a heavy blanket on her shoulders. "Yes."
He bent his head, his dark eyes searching her face. Her misery must have been evident, because he reached out to take her hand in his. "It"s only a vase, Kate."
"It"s Lord Brentworth"s Lord Brentworth"s vase," she countered. vase," she countered. That That was the point. It wasn"t hers to break. was the point. It wasn"t hers to break.
"I"ll fix it for-"
"You can"t fix it." She gestured angrily with her free hand. "It"s ruined. I ruined it."
"Everything can be fixed." His eyes darted to the vase. "Or replaced."
"Oh, please please go away." go away."
"Not quite yet." He let go of her hand to brush an errant lock behind her ear. "Here now, stand up before someone comes along. You"ll only feel worse if anyone sees you on the floor."
"I don"t think it"s possible to feel worse," she muttered.
"That someone could be Miss Willory."
She let him pull her to her feet. She was going back to her room and staying there, she decided. Coming downstairs had been a dreadful idea. It would have been much more sensible to have crawled back into bed and caught up on the sleep she"d lost last night. She was always more sensitive when she hadn"t enough sleep, and when she broke someone"s vase, and when the man she"d been growing steadily more attached to unfairly accused her- "You"re bleeding."
She blinked at Hunter"s hard tone and followed his gaze to the injury on her shoulder.
"It"s just a scratch," she said. It was always always just a scratch, just a bruise, just someone else"s vase. Why couldn"t it ever be just a perfectly graceful walk from point A to point B? just a scratch, just a bruise, just someone else"s vase. Why couldn"t it ever be just a perfectly graceful walk from point A to point B?
"It"s not just a scratch, and I haven"t a handkerchief at the moment. We need-" Hunter broke off midsentence when she pulled three handkerchiefs from a pocket in her gown. "You carry three handkerchiefs about with you?"
"When I"ve somewhere to put them." Three was a minimum, and too often insufficient. She dabbed at her injury and hissed at the resulting sting.
Hunter scowled at her shoulder for a second, then retrieved a small leather satchel from a pocket, and within a minute, had a door across the hall swinging open.
Kate gawked at him, momentarily distracted from her wretchedness. "You just picked that lock, didn"t you?"
Rather than answer, Hunter placed a hand on the small of her back and ushered her into a small parlor that looked to have gone unused for years. Most of the furniture was shrouded in dust covers, and the rest was covered in dust. He pulled the cloths off two chairs and led her to one. "Sit down. Let me see your shoulder."
"It"s only a scratch," she insisted. "And I need to clean up the vase before someone trips over it." She moved to stand, only to have him nudge her back in the chair.
"Wait here."
It took him less than a minute to step out into the hall, pick up the pieces of the vase and return to dump them into an empty planter by the window.
"Now," he said pointedly, taking the seat across from her and pulling it forward until their knees brushed. "Let me have a look." He drew her hand away from her shoulder. "It"s a nasty cut, Kate."
Frowning, she watched as Hunter carefully widened the tear in her gown, exposing the wound. It was was a bit nastier than she"d realized. It was nearly two inches long and seeping more than she"d realized. She felt a trickle of warmth slide down her arm. "It"s not very deep, is it?" a bit nastier than she"d realized. It was nearly two inches long and seeping more than she"d realized. She felt a trickle of warmth slide down her arm. "It"s not very deep, is it?"
He refolded the linen to produce a clean square. "It should be all right."
"Should be?" That wasn"t the most encouraging a.s.sessment of an injury that one could hope to hear.
He tenderly dabbed at the blood around the cut. "It"s a clean slice, that helps."
"Helps?" She traded frowning at her shoulder for frowning at the top of his bent head. "You"re not very good at this sort of thing, are you? Atrocious, really." She traded frowning at her shoulder for frowning at the top of his bent head. "You"re not very good at this sort of thing, are you? Atrocious, really."
He glanced up at her. "Would you rather I lie?"
"Well, no, but couldn"t you...I don"t know, soften the truth a smidge?"
His lips twitched, but the humor didn"t quite reach his eyes. "I think we can save your arm."
"Atrocious was too generous a description."
"You"ll be fine, Kate." He took the hand of her uninjured arm and lifted it to place a kiss against her palm. "All right?"
The warmth of that kiss spread along her skin, bringing on a slight case of nerves. She found that rather annoying as she hadn"t forgotten he"d called her honor into question. Carefully, she pulled her hand away. "Yes. All right."
Hunter nodded. "Good. Think you can sit still while I remove the shard?"
Warmth, nerves, and annoyance were immediately, and thoroughly, brushed aside by shock. "What?"
"The...you didn"t notice, did you?" He winced sympathetically. "You"ve a shard of porcelain in the cut, sweetheart. It needs to come out."
"It doesn"t. I don"t." She twisted her neck in an effort to better see her wound. Oh, good heavens she did. did. She"d been distracted by the size of the cut and the blood coming from it and had not seen the small piece of ivory porcelain caught in the corner of the wound. How buried? she wondered uneasily. How small? It was difficult to tell from the angle of her perspective. She"d been distracted by the size of the cut and the blood coming from it and had not seen the small piece of ivory porcelain caught in the corner of the wound. How buried? she wondered uneasily. How small? It was difficult to tell from the angle of her perspective.
"Is it very large?"
"I"m sure it"s not."
How could he be sure? For all either of them knew, the piece was buried an inch deep. But that would hurt more, wouldn"t it? It hurt now, to be sure, but not terribly. "I"m surprised it doesn"t hurt more."
"I"m afraid it"s going to hurt a little more when I take it out."
"Oh." She grimaced. "Yes, I imagine it will." Blast. Blast.
"I"ll be gentle," he promised and pulled out his leather satchel once more to retrieve something small and metal.
She turned away, quite certain the experience would not be enhanced by knowing precisely what the tool was, nor what he was going to do with it. Biting her lip, she concentrated instead on sitting perfectly still as he began to prod at the wound.
"You"ll tell me first?" she asked wincing at a sharp sting. "Before you pull it out?"
Keeping the tool in place, he leaned over suddenly and brushed his lips softly across hers. "Of course I will."
The warmth spread quickly this time, before anger and annoyance had any say in the matter. "I..."
He pulled the shard out with a quick draw of his hand.
The pain of it was absolutely stunning. She jerked, cried out, and swatted at him. "Oh, ow ow! Oh, you rotter rotter!"
"I"m sorry, sweetheart." He crooned to her as she rocked in her seat, gripping her shoulder above the wound and hissing through her teeth in pain. "I"m sorry. Shhh, it"s done."
He tried to kiss her again. She swatted at him again. "You lied. lied."
"I did. I"m sorry. I thought it might be easier if you didn"t see it coming."
"Well we won"t know now now, will we?" she managed through gritted teeth.
"Not unless you care to break another vase?"
She stopped rocking to gape at him. "Are you making fun of me?"
"I am," he admitted and reached up to brush the back of his fingers against her cheek. "But only to distract you. Is it working?"
It was, rather. The pain had dulled to a throbbing ache. "It"s possible."
"Poor Kate," he murmured and leaned in to press his lips to her forehead. "It"s been a rough morning for you, hasn"t it?"
It had been a rough night as well, but she didn"t want to think of their argument in that moment, not while she was hurting, and he was being so kind. She"d think about their argument when she felt better and he was back to being a high-handed oaf.
She closed her eyes and sighed as the throb lessened. "I"m sorry I called you a rotter."
"Don"t be. I did lie." He tapped her chin gently until she opened her eyes. "Better now?"
She nodded as he pulled away to retrieve her handkerchief. He used it to stem the fresh flow of blood.
"You"ll need to take proper care of this," he told her, his voice taking on a serious tone. "Keep the wound clean, and keep it covered when you go to bed. I"ll hunt up some bandages for you."
"Yes. Thank you." She glanced to where he"d set the shard he"d pulled out. It wasn"t an inch, she was relieved to note, but she wouldn"t have described it as small either. It was triangular in shape, with the base a good quarter inch wide.
"I can"t believe this happened," she said, somewhat awed. "I never hurt myself. Not seriously...Well, I did give myself a black eye with a door once. And I think I may have broken a toe when I fell out of father"s curricle, but-"
Hunter"s head snapped up. "You fell out of a curricle?"
"There were no horses attached to it at the time." She gave him a sheepish smile. "A game of hide-and-seek with Evie when I was ten."
"Ah." He cleaned the cut a moment longer, then returned the handkerchief. "No one goes through life without acquiring an injury or two, Kate. Don"t overthink the matter."
"I can"t help it. Overthinking comes naturally to me."
"I see." He sat back in his chair and studied her. "And have you had second thoughts about speaking with Whit, yet?"
"No." It was a lie. She had had reconsidered speaking with Whit, but she wasn"t yet ready to hand Hunter that victory. reconsidered speaking with Whit, but she wasn"t yet ready to hand Hunter that victory.
Hunter"s lips twisted wryly. "And you accused me of being spiteful."
"I"m not being spiteful," she countered. "I"m being vengeful. It"s entirely different."
"I can"t believe I"m going to ask this," he muttered, "but how is it different?"
"Only the latter implies one is standing up for oneself," she explained.
"Vengeance isn"t a virtue, Kate."
The smile she gave him was Machiavellian. "Oh, it can be."
He didn"t smile back. "Would it make any difference if I were to apologize for last night?"
Apologies, when genuine, always made a difference. But she wasn"t ready to hand him that either. "I suppose that would depend."
"On?" he prompted.
"Why you were apologizing, and what you were apologizing for. If you"re going to offer a vague and sweeping sort of apology for "last night" or "the argument" just to make me more biddable, then I a.s.sure you it won"t help. But if you"re quite sincerely sorry about something specific-"
"I am," he broke in. He caught her gaze and held it. "I am genuinely sorry I called your honor into question. It was wrong of me."
"Oh, well, yes, that does make a difference." All the difference, or quite a bit at any rate, there was still the question of whether he believed it. She looked down and plucked at her skirts. "When you say wrong, do you mean wrong because you know it isn"t true, or wrong because it isn"t something you should say even when it is true?"
"Kate, look at me." He waited for her to stop plucking and look up. "I knew it wasn"t true, but I was willing to ignore that because I was angry with you and wanted to twist the conversation to my benefit."
She nodded slowly. "Very well, apology accepted."
He nodded in return. "Excellent, now-"
"Are you sorry for initiating the threat to tell Whit as well?" she asked, not because she needed for him to be, but because she was curious.
"I might have been, had you not turned it back on me so quickly." His lips curved up. "I had no idea you were capable of such cold disdain."
"The benefits of being Lady Thurston"s daughter are many."
He laughed at that. "I imagine they are. Is that where you acquired your stubbornness as well?"
"Oh, no, that I developed on my own."
"It"s not a flaw I would have attributed to you without seeing it firsthand."
"I recall mentioning I have loads of flaws. Everyone does." She smiled at him sweetly. "Some more than others."
"I am aware of my flaws," he replied dryly, "thank you."
"Are you?"
"Certainly. Did I argue when you called me unpatriotic and selfish?"
He hadn"t, nor did he look at the moment as if he was at all unsettled by the idea of being considered both. "It"s true that others would consider those flaws. Do you?"
There was a brief pause before he answered. "No."
She briefly wondered if he was in earnest, before deciding he couldn"t possibly be. Everyone considered selfishness a flaw. Like as not, he was attempting to ruffle her feathers again. "What flaws are you aware of, then?"