Tempting Fate by Kerrigan Byrne (best free ereader .TXT) 📕

of duty,” she insisted. Gesturing to the wide ledge in which the tub was cast, she silently bade him to sit.

“In here?” he queried dumbly, thinking of the discarded bloody towels and the one getting bloodier beneath his shirt.

“We can go elsewhere if you wish,” she suggested. “Your room, if that’s more comfortab—”

“No.” Anyplace with a bed was a terrible idea, injured or not. “No. Here is fine.”

She looked at him askance. “Very well.”

He lowered himself to the ledge, suppressing a grunt, and clasped his hands in front of him to make the protection of his torso appear natural.

Felicity opened the tin and carefully bent to set the lid next to him, affording him a chance to take in the aroma of her soap and warm skin and lock it into his lungs.

Straightening to stand in front of him, she dipped two fingers into the tin and frowned. “Oh dear, the salve is a bit less congealed than I usually make.” She rubbed her thumb and two fingers together, testing the texture of the stuff before lifting her hand to hover above his brow in preparation. “Here, close your eyes.”

“No.” The word escaped him before he thought the better of it.

She cocked her head. “But you must, you might get some of this in your eye and that would sting something horrible.”

“No,” he repeated, more gently this time. “I’ll brave the sting if I must.”

“But… but why?” She looked down at the tin. “I promise this is no ghastly potion. It’s only a salve of herbs gone a bit slippery with too much tincture and not enough beeswax.”

“Do you remember what you told me about fear?” he asked, tilting his chin slightly to look up at her. “I cannot bring myself to close my eyes. I have this need. This… proclivity. No matter what, I must see what is coming at me. I must not be caught unaware.”

“I understand.” He could feel her sympathetic gaze touching at the many parts of his ruined face, and he wished the caress was real. “You live a life where weapons fly at you from the dark. It’s no small wonder to me you don’t want to miss a thing.”

After such an admission of his weakness, he couldn’t seem to summon a reply.

She bent closer, her whisper both consoling and conspiratorial. “It is only you and me here. Nothing unseen. Nothing in the shadows.”

That didn’t matter, his soul still itched to crawl out of his skin at the thought of giving up a sense that he relied upon to fight.

“Trust me, Mr. Severand.”

Trust. It was a word he didn’t recognize. A concept he never learned.

“I would never hurt you. I promise.”

She didn’t understand that she was the only person alive who truly could.

Watching her retch in the garden, his heart had bled along with the rest of him. She hadn’t been able to look at him without being sick. What he’d done, who he was, repulsed and dismayed her. As it should.

He’d murdered three men.

“Please?” she pled, her expression beseeching. “You saved my life tonight, and I… I must do something for you. I cannot sleep if I think your wound might fester.”

Denying her, it seemed, was something he was incapable of doing.

Taking in a deep breath, he let his lids fall.

He couldn’t suppress a flinch when she touched his shoulder, but as her hand rested there to steady herself, he found that connection of their bodies made him almost preternaturally aware of what she did. His other senses roared to life, experiencing her in ways he’d not yet done.

Her scent imbued him with lavender and something sharper emanating from the tin. The scratch of satin against his trousers as she moved between his legs was possibly the most erotic sensation of his life. The soft feathering of breath against his hair. The chilly glide of the salve over the scratch, her touch barely more detectable than a butterfly’s wing. The throaty murmur of compassionate encouragement. Bereft of words but full of meaning.

Gabriel swallowed a groan.

“This is not so deep as I thought it might be,” she remarked, using a soft cloth to catch a drop of the salve before it ran into his eyebrow.

“Head wounds tend to bleed more than others, appearing worse than they are initially.”

“Oh.” She applied a second coat of the stuff, being exceedingly thorough.

Or, perhaps, lingering? It’d no doubt been a traumatizing night for her, perhaps she was frightened to be alone. Perhaps she’d come to him seeking solace, something he’d never quite had to give.

“What you saw tonight… what happened… I wish I could express how sorry I am that you had to witness—”

“Can I tell you something?” she interrupted, her voice as steady as he’d ever heard it.

“Of course.” He wanted to know everything about her.

“Tonight was terrifying. But I wasn’t sick because of what you did. I mean, I was, but it’s the blood, you see. The sight of blood makes me ill, sometimes enough that I faint.”

At that, his eyes opened. Could it be all this time, her reactions had not to do with him? Even when she’d looked upon his face after the Midnight Masquerade…

He’d been splattered with the blood he shed to get her out.

“But you volunteer at a hospital,” he wondered aloud.

Her gaze skittered away. “I thought if I was around blood and such all the time, I’d inure myself to it. But after so many swoons, I was considered more of a risk than a help, and was delegated to sit with people as they recovered, and assist with paperwork.” She brightened as she reached for the lid of the tin. “I also create herbal tinctures that my brother-in-law Dr. Conleith uses as remedies for his patients’ more treatable ills.”

“Oh? And what do you make?” She must be particularly good, as upon application of the salve, the smarting of his head wound ceased.

“Well, mustard and comfrey poultices for chest ailments. Peppermint and wintergreen tinctures for sinus and lungs. Valerian and chamomile