“Let me help you,” he offered, knowing it was a bad idea but wanting to play the part of a gentleman to go with his knight-in-shining-armour routine. She’d already turned down his offer to take her coat and muffler. It was as though she held on to them like weapons, or her only belongings in the world. Her coat was still buttoned right up to her chin while the well-used muffler sat neglected about her shoulders. She obviously hadn’t heard him following her in the forest on account of all the layers she had wrapped around her.
He sat only in his shirtsleeves and trousers but she was too polite to have mentioned his lack of wardrobe. Perhaps that was why she had so much trouble meeting and holding his gaze? She did spend an inordinate amount of time staring at the flames in the hearth. Puzzling still.
“Please let me help you,” he offered again when she couldn’t untie the laces of her worn boots with her thick gloves on.
“It would be highly inappropriate.”
“Would it also be improper for you to remove your gloves? Perhaps your coat?”
She shook her head again. “I won’t be staying long enough to make myself comfortable, thank you.”
Stubborn? He wouldn’t have picked it when he first laid eyes on her and it didn’t bode well for his plans. Society ladies were supposed to be meek and timid and agreeable. “Either take off your gloves or I will remove your shoe. What will it be?”
Muttering beneath her breath, Eliza straightened and held her foot out. It wasn’t the option he thought she would choose but he wouldn’t sit and continue to watch her struggle. Taking her ankle gently in his hands, he slowly untied her laces and slipped her worn boot off onto the carpet. Beneath his fingertips was some swelling but he couldn’t assess the damage while she had her hose on still. When he flicked her skirts back, she shrieked and tried to back away.
“What are you doing?” She pushed at his hands and resettled her petticoats.
“I need to remove your stockings to see how much bruising there will be and where to place the compress.”
“No you don’t.” She leaned forward and slapped the compress against her well-covered foot.
“You’re going to be wet now. And cold.” He added obstinate to the growing list of her flaws.
“It’s not nearly as bad as I first thought anyway,” she responded with a flex of her toes and a ginger turn of her limb.
“Why do women get so caught up with the sight of their own feet?”
“It’s not the sight of our feet,” she tried to tell him with an accompanying huff. “It’s not proper to reveal one’s skin to a member of the opposite sex who is not your kin or your husband. You, sir, are neither. Did you grow up in the wilds or somewhere equally as uncivilised?”
He wouldn’t tell her he grew up right here under this very roof. He wouldn’t tell her that his manners had been impeccable and his morality unquestionable, though his hygiene had been. All those years ago, his grandfather had spent every night grooming him to be a gentleman for the day Darius’s father finally accepted him and gave him his name. As days turned to week and weeks to months, months to years, he had to hide his breeding from the other servants lest he be treated differently, badly.
His name day never came. He still wasn’t sure if he was fortunate or not. He’d rather be invisible and forgotten as a servant than pitied and scorned as a bastard. He’d rather be both than have to admit to others who his sire was.
All of that was moot anyway and he’d since learned there were far worse names a man could call another man.
Clearly Eliza waited for an answer even though he’d assumed her question rhetorical. “It has been some years since I’ve had to have a care for propriety so I apologise if you find my behaviour offensive.”
*
Offensive? Eliza stared hard at her new neighbour. No, offensive wasn’t the right word for how she felt. She was nervous and anxious but those emotions bothered her very little. It was envy that gnawed away her insides and unsettled her. It wasn’t fair that Darius had a great burning fire in the grate when she and her siblings had barely enough fuel to ward off a chill in only one room of their home. It wasn’t fair that he was strong and in control when she felt weak and out of sorts. It also wasn’t fair that he’d been nice and gentle or that his voice, when he spoke, warmed her more than the heat from the roaring fire. She should hate this agent of fate more than anything in the world but as she met his gaze, weary and wary, her stomach flipped over and she almost smiled. Almost.
“What brings you to the county?” she asked, hoping her question sounded more like inane small talk rather than life-altering inquiry.
He paused before answering, his jaw clenched, his hands also. “I have business with a few gentlemen in the area.”
“Out here in the countryside? In winter? When most are kicking up their heels in the capital?”
He shrugged but only said, “I am not most men and the gentlemen I seek were not there when I paid calls. Why are you rusticating, Miss Penfold, rather than dancing your nights away at some ball in the arms of a beau?”
Staring back at the flames once again, Eliza didn’t know how to respond to that. She couldn’t tell this veritable stranger her father’s fabricated illness kept them confined, otherwise he would assume he was at
