She gave a bitter little smile. ‘That’s what you think. I think they’d prefer to see me married to anyone than being...being...oh, why are we talking about marriage? You don’t want it, any more than I do.’
‘It isn’t a question of wanting it, or not. I haven’t anything to offer a woman. Let alone a lady. I can’t marry.’
Her eyes flicked down over his naked torso with a certain sort of gleam.
Good God! She seemed to think he did have something to offer a woman. His heart beat a little harder. His plan to get her to let him kiss her didn’t seem so far-fetched, after all. She was attracted to him. How that could be when she’d seen him at his very weakest, when he could hardly sit up for five minutes, when he was covered with cuts and bruises, he couldn’t think.
But she’d definitely given him a hungry little look. Even if she had swiftly wiped her face clean of expression and resumed her mask of polite, ladylike respectability.
She already looked on him as a kind of symbol of rebellion. How far, he wondered, could he get her to rebel? Against the n
arrow confinement of her life? Against the injustice of having to put up with men like Bennington Ffog slavering over her?
‘I’m sorry I got cross. I don’t want to fight with you, Tom. I just...’ She rubbed wearily at her forehead.
She probably didn’t want him slavering over her, either. She was only just beginning to change her mind about kissing him. He’d better not push his luck, after that one slim sign of encouragement, or she’d bolt like an unbroken filly. He’d have to persuade her to trust him, before making another move.
What? What was he thinking? He never bothered to persuade a woman to trust him, or attempted to woo her gently. But then no other woman was like Lady Sarah. Wasn’t she worth making an effort for?
Besides, he wasn’t going anywhere. And neither, to judge from her spirited resistance to Flint’s orders, was she.
And his aim wasn’t full congress. He knew he could never be with her, in that way. All he wanted was a kiss. Just one. Willingly given.
‘You’ve worn yourself out looking after me,’ he said, reaching up to soothe the little frown line pleating her brows. She didn’t slap his hand away, but closed her eyes and sort of sank into his caress. The innocent little gesture of gratitude made his heart skip more than it would have done had another woman come in here and stripped naked.
‘If I had any decency about me,’ he growled, ‘I’d offer to leave here and go to a hospital or something. That would be the honourable course to take. But I’m not going to.’
Her eyes flew open. She regarded him with frank curiosity. ‘Because you aren’t an honourable man?’
Hell, no. He wasn’t in the slightest bit honourable. Or he wouldn’t be planning ways to gain her trust so that he could take advantage.
‘More to the point,’ he said with what he hoped was a disarming grin, ‘because you haven’t asked me to leave. For some reason, which I suspect has nothing to do with me at all, you want me right where you’ve got me.’
She flushed. Moved away a little, so that her forehead was out of his reach. He let his hand fall back to his side.
‘You’re right.’ She lifted her chin. ‘I do want you to stay here with me. It may be terribly shallow of me, but while I’m looking after you, while you have to depend on me for everything, I feel as if my life has some purpose, for once.’
‘Well, I’m happy to stay as sick as you like, for as long as you feel you need to nurse someone.’
‘Oh, Tom, don’t say that. I want you to get well. You have to get well. To show everyone that...and to myself that—’ She broke off, shaking her head. ‘It’s terribly selfish of me, isn’t it? To be nursing you just to prove a point?’ She peeped up at him from under lowered lashes.
He reached out and took her hand.
‘I’m sure you have perfectly good reasons for everything you do. I know, better than anyone, that people are apt to judge others on their actions, without pausing to consider what their motives might be.’
She gasped. Clasped his hand a little tighter. ‘That’s very generous of you.’
He gave a wry smile. ‘Not really. But after the way Major Flint jumped to all the wrong conclusions about us, because of what he saw—me naked, you clasped in my arms—’ he quirked one eyebrow suggestively ‘—he assumed guilt. People always assume the worst. Though how he could have thought the worst of you...’ He scowled, not only because Flint had suggested it, but also because he minded that Flint thought it.
He’d never cared what anyone thought of any of his women before. Not that Lady Sarah was his woman.
Perhaps he felt protective towards her because no other woman had ever gone to such lengths on his behalf before. Even if it was only to prove a point.
‘Tom, you have got to stop thinking I’m some kind of angel. I’m not. I stumbled into looking after you for a whole series of stupid, selfish, reasons. Not one of them was the slightest bit angelic, I assure you.’
‘Tell me, then. I should like to know how you came to stumble upon me. What someone like you was doing on a battlefield at all.’
* * *