His face was white as paper, apart from the shocking red weal. She bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. She wouldn’t let him be dead. And not just because his demise made him as troublesome deceased as he ever was alive.
Coherent thought gradually seeped into her numb mind. A pulse. She should check for a pulse.
What the devil was wrong with her? That was the first thing she should have done. Usually she was coolheaded in a crisis, but Ranelaw’s kisses had turned her into a hysterical fool.
She fumbled at his cuff until she pressed her fingers to his powerful wrist. Immediately her stomach clenched with sick relief. The hard, strong beat confirmed she hadn’t killed him.
Tumbled prayers of gratitude filled her head.
Surely she could revive him, send him on his way, forget tonight. One thing was for sure. After this, he’d never want to come near her again.
Which should make her happy.
But in this quiet room, she admitted something she’d never admit to another living soul—something heinous but starkly true. After so many dull, chaste years, she’d relished tasting a man’s desire again.
And from such a man. Strong. Virile. Beautiful.
She was irredeemably wicked. Ranelaw tugged at her senses the way a magnet drew a rusty nail. With steely determination, she mashed the unwelcome perception deep down in her soul, into the darkness where it would never rise to the light. Once, ten years ago, she’d stared into an abyss where whoring herself had loomed as the inescapable future. She’d never let herself sink so low again.
She had to get him on his feet and send him on his way. Fast. She wiped again at the blood.
“Wake up. Please.” Below the pooling redness, a long scratch extended. It didn’t look serious, but she wasn’t qualified to say with certainty. “Ranelaw, I beg of you, wake up.”
“You called me Nicholas before,” he murmured, without opening his eyes.
Her ministrations paused while thankfulness vied with aggravation. As so often when she was in Ranelaw’s presence, aggravation emerged triumphant. “You’re alive,” she said flatly.
“Of course I’m alive.” He didn’t open his eyes. “It requires more than a slip of a girl to send me to my heavenly reward.”
In spite of the giddy relief stewing in her belly, she gave a dismissive grunt. “There will be nothing heavenly about your final reward. Why didn’t you say something earlier? I’ve been sick with worry.”
“You deserve to be. That was one hell of a whack.”
“You wouldn’t stop,” she said, even as her conscience pricked her. She’d never before struck anyone in violence. Ranelaw brought out the absolute worst in her.
At last he looked at her. Or at least he opened one eye. The side she’d hit was swelling. By tomorrow he’d have an impressive black eye. “You didn’t want me to.”
Beating back another twinge of remorse, she pressed more forcefully on his injury. “You’re such a vain coxcomb.”
He winced. “No need to try and kill me again.”
“I’m cleaning up the blood,” she snapped. How could she have regretted trying to murder the clodpole? He deserved clouting with a poker. He deserved clouting with a ship’s mast.
His lips quirked with familiar amusement. “Can’t you kiss it better?”
“No, I can’t.” She wrung the cloth over the bowl. Despite her irritation, her gorge rose when blood stained the water bright red.
He struggled into a sitting position. “You look a little pale there, Miss Smith.”
Violently she wrung the cloth again. “It’s late. I’m tired. It would serve you right if I had killed you.”
“If I died kissing you, I’d die a happy man.”
She arched her eyebrows in disbelief and dabbed again at his wound. The bleeding almost stopped but the bruising became more spectacular by the second. He’d bear the memento of her assault for a few days.
“Do you get results with lines like that?”
He laughed, then winced, raising one long-fingered hand to press her palm to his head. “You’d be surprised.”