The emotion in her eyes was clear and unsettling. “Afraid.”
The word struck at his core, and he was reminded of another time. Another girl. Equally afraid, standing before him, begging him to save her. But he’d been a boy then, not a man. And while she had died, Sophie wouldn’t. “You won’t—”
She shook her head, interrupting the insistent assurance. “You don’t know that.”
“I—”
Her gaze found his again, full of certainty. “No. You don’t. I’ve seen fevers, my lord.”
He remained silent, his gaze flickering to the bandage on her shoulder, to the blood dried on her clothes, on her skin—that smooth, unsettlingly soft skin. It shouldn’t be bloodstained. She was young and wealthy, the daughter of an earl. She should be clean and unscathed. She should be laughing with her sisters somewhere far from here.
Far from him.
He turned his attention from her, hating the guilt that flared, dipping a long length of linen in the basin of water, now pink with her blood. Wringing it out, he began to tend to her stained skin.
At the first touch of the cloth, she started, and he imagined she would have pulled away at the sensation if she’d had the strength. Or the room. Instead she lifted her good arm and captured his wrist, her fingers cool and stronger than he would have imagined, considering the events of the last several hours. “What are you doing?”
“You’re covered in blood,” he pointed out. “I’m washing you.”
“I can wash myself.”
“Not without moving, you can’t.”
They stared at each other for a long moment, and he wondered if she would let him help her. He bit back the words that he was somehow desperate to speak. Let me take care of you.
She wouldn’t like them. Hell. He didn’t like them.
But damned if he didn’t want to say them.
Damned if he didn’t want to beg her to let him tend to her.
Thankfully, he didn’t have to. She let go. And he began to wash her in careful strokes, clearing her arm and chest of dried blood, wishing he could will it back into her. Wishing he could reverse time. Wishing he could change this course.
“You should go,” she said quietly.
His gaze snapped to hers. “What did you say?”
“You should leave me here. You have a life to lead. You were on a journey before I made a hash of it.”
“A journey that brought me here.”
“I’m simply saying that I can make my own way,” she argued. “I am not your problem.”
The words stung—how many times had he said them to himself? How many times had he said them to her? “I’m not leaving you alone.”
“The doctor seems kind,” she said. “I’m sure he will allow me to stay until—”
Over his rotting corpse. “You are not staying with the doctor.”
She took a deep breath, and he heard the exhaustion in it. “I don’t have your money.”
“What does that mean?”
“If that’s why you’re staying. It was in a bag. I left it in the coach. It’s gone now.”
He didn’t care about the money.
“That’s why you followed me, isn’t it? For the money.”
“No,” he corrected her. “I followed you on principle. You can’t simply sell a man’s curricle wheels. He might need them.”
“Why did you have so many?”
“In case I broke a wheel saving an unsuspecting female from highwaymen.”
She gave a small laugh at that, one that ended in a gasp when the movement forced her shoulder to make itself known. He reached for her, immediately wishing that he could stop what had to be a beast of a pain. “Sophie—”
She turned away from him. “You should go.”
He shook his head. “I’m not leaving you.”
“Why not? You don’t even like me.”
She’d been a thorn in his side since the moment he’d met her and she’d stolen his boot. She’d lost him his carriage wheels, a half-dozen races, and a large portion of his sanity. Yesterday, he’d begged her to leave him alone.
But today . . .
“I’m not leaving you.”
The doctor chose that moment to return with a cup in one hand and a pouch in the other. “The fact that you do not have a fever now does not mean you won’t develop one,” he said to Sophie, as though King were not in the room. He held up the pouch. “These herbs might keep it at bay.”
“Might?” King asked. “Why exactly were you tossed out of the Royal College?”
“I share an unpopular belief that creatures invisible to the eye cause infection.” King raised a brow and the doctor smiled. “It’s too late for you to refuse my help. She’s already bulletless.” He reached to help Sophie sit up. “The herbs might help to kill them and keep you well. Add them to hot water three times, daily.” He helped her to sit up. “Here is your first dose.” She drank from the steaming mug, and he turned to King then. “Even a sane doctor would suggest you stay here for several days.”
King nodded, looking to Sophie. “I was just telling your patient that I planned to stay.”
She deliberately did not look at him, instead focusing on the doctor, who nodded. “Excellent. You’ll need a room.”
King nodded. “Already secured.”
That got her attention. Even more so when the doctor said, “Your husband is an exceedingly competent man, madam.”
Sophie sputtered her herbal swill. “My . . . what?”
It wasn’t King’s preferred way of her discovering his lie. But the universe was on his side, as the doctor did not have the opportunity to repeat himself.
“Mrs. Matthew?”
The name echoed through the small cottage, bellowed from the now permanently open doorway by a young boy, who materialized on the heels of the sound, followed by a girl not much younger than he was.
“John, we don’t wander into people’s homes,” admonished a young woman who brought up the rear. King recognized them instantly as the children who’d nearly seen Sophie killed on the road. The woman’s gaze fell on the doctor and her eyes went wide. “Cor,” she said. “You’re handsome.”
Did everyone have to notice the damn doctor?
The surgeon smiled. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” replied the stupefied female.
“The door was open,” John said.
“The door wasn’t even there,” said the doctor, dryly. “I take it you are here to see the patient?”
“Mrs. Matthew!” the boy repeated when he saw Sophie. “You’re alive!”
Who in hell was Mrs. Matthew?
Sophie smiled at the child. “I am, indeed, John. Thanks in large part to you and this fine doctor.”
“We thought yous was dead,” said the smaller girl, pressing her face right up against Sophie’s. “There was oodles o’ blood.”
“As you see, I am not dead,” Sophie assured her.
“You still could be,” John pointed out, coming closer, pushing a surprised King aside.
“John!” said the woman with them. “That’s not very heartening.”