Amy Lake Read Online Free Page B

that she smelled very good, a combination of roses and vanilla. He also realized that he was thirsty.
    “Water?” he asked. He had any number of questions, but his throat felt too parched for anything more than a few croaked words.
    “Of course,” said the woman—Fiona?—and she poured him a glass from a ewer on the nightstand.
    “Don’t move your leg,” she added, and put an arm behind his shoulders, helping lift his head enough to swallow. At first he was conscious only of her proximity, a woman’s touch, tendrils of her hair brushing his cheek, but suddenly—
    His leg?
    Gods. Lord Ashdown couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed it before, because the leg was quite painful, extraordinarily so, and it felt like nothing he’d ever experienced before. What had happened to him?
    “Your right leg is broken,” said the woman, as if he had asked the question aloud. “And there was an infection. You’ve had a bad fever.”
    He stared at her, then drank a bit of water, and settled back down into the bed.
    “It cannot be,” he said, finally.
    She laughed. “And why not?”
    “Well,” said the marquess. “For one thing, I’m still alive.”
      * * * *
    The marquess never remembered the rest of that conversation. The scent of vanilla and roses faded, and he dozed more comfortably than before, without dreams. The next thing he heard was a booming, male voice.
    “Ah, excellent! Madelaine says our patient is awake.”
     Colin’s head felt clearer than before. This must be a doctor, he supposed, a profession that he’d had little to do with since his childhood. The marquess shifted carefully in the bed, glancing toward the door.
    “Good morning!” said the man, striding into the room. He was an imposing individual. Lord Ashdown himself was tall and well-built, but the doctor was a bear, with a barrel chest and the arms of a dock worker. He had a thick, well-trimmed beard—unusual in those days, when a clean-shaven face was the common style—and a wide smile.
    Colin tried to sit up.
    “Oh, no, my boy—not yet.”
    A strong hand pushed him gently back to the bed. Lord Ashdown’s eyes narrowed. Weak and injured, he was still nobody’s boy, and for a moment the habits of a marquess—habits he generally forswore—returned. Doctors, in London, were considered gentlemen, and were acceptable society, but still— He expected to be introduced, and inquiries made as to how he was feeling, and certainly to be told what on earth he was doing lying on a too-short bed in what was evidently a rather modest cottage , although Lord Ashdown could see nothing, of course, other than the one room. The doctor was not cooperating. He advanced to the marquess’s bedside without hesitation, and threw back the sheet covering his right leg.
    “Oh, I do say—”
    Too late. The doctor was examining the leg closely—the marquess could see the evidence of a gash just beginning to heal, slightly redder than the surrounding flesh, but healthy enough, he thought. Then he realized who else was in the room.
    His eyes flashed to the green-eyed woman’s face and she gave him a small smile and a tiny shrug. Was she the doctor’s assistant? She seemed entirely unaffected by the sight of a strange man’s leg, and Colin realized that she had probably seen the leg, and perhaps more, on several occasions while he was unconscious.
    Gods.
    He somehow felt that the woman should apologize to him. Or should he apologize to her? His head had begun to ache abominably, and the question was simply too difficult. Lord Ashdown closed his eyes, ready to sink back into sleep. But the doctor’s voice brought him around.
    “A splitting headache, I’ll wager. Fiona, would you be so kind and make up another willow bark poultice?”
    Fiona. Yes, he remembered now.
    “Of course,” she said.
    “Can I come in?” A child’s voice.
    “ No ,” said the three adults, as one.
      * * * *
    Dee examined his patient’s leg more thoroughly after Fiona had