She held the glass with both hands and tipped it, first drinking hesitantly, then less so. The taste was strong and biting, but surprisingly not unpleasant. The liquid burned a fiery path to her stomach, filling her with warmth.
“Easy there,” he warned, closing his hand over hers.
She coughed.
“Maybe a little bit at a time would be better.” He took the glass from her and set it on the elaborately carved rosewood bedside table. “I want to have a look at that ankle. I need to take your stocking off.” He met her gaze. He was neither smiling nor frowning. “Is that all right, Sapphire?”
She nodded slowly, still not feeling fully conscious. Maybe it was everything that had happened, or maybe it was the brandy.
Blake was being so kind to her, this man who was her enemy, this man who kept her from what she wanted most in the world. It didn’t make any sense. Charles had said he loved her, and yet he had behaved in such a despicable manner toward her. And this man, who would not even respond to her requests to talk with him, was caring for her injuries as tenderly as any beloved nursemaid might do for a mischievous child.
“Do it if you must,” she heard herself say.
Blake held her gaze with his penetrating eyes as he untied her white velvet garter ribbon and slowly began to roll down what was left of her silk stocking.
He’s done this before, she thought, feeling as if she were floating. Removed a lady’s stocking. Already the brandy had eased the pain in her hands and knees and ankle and she was feeling only its warmth and the security it seemed to offer…warmth and an unfamiliar tingling in the pit of her stomach.
When he reached her ankle, she flinched.
“Pretty tender,” he said as he slipped the torn, soiled stocking off her foot and sent it sailing to the floor.
“It’s…not broken, is it?”
He turned it one way and then the other and she gritted her teeth against the pain, determined not to cry.
“Move your toes.”
She wiggled them.
“Point your foot.”
She grimaced but complied.
“Good. No, I don’t think any of the bones are broken.” He reached back for the cloth in the washbowl, wrung it out and then laid it over her ankle, wrapping his fingers around it.
She closed her eyes and pressed her lips together to keep from crying out.
“The cool water is good for it,” he told her, moving his hand to rest it on her shin. “It will help keep the swelling down.”
All she could do was nod.
“Have some more brandy.”
Again, it wasn’t a request but an order and she found herself obeying him. As she drank, he removed the cloth from her ankle, rinsed it in the cool water and applied it again to her swollen ankle.
She had finished the brandy by the time he rinsed the linen cloth a third time and began to slide it up her shin. Sapphire felt herself relax as she sank deeper into the soft pillows beneath her. She felt her eyelids flutter and she parted her lips slightly, sighing. The cool cloth felt so good, his warm hand almost better.
When he reached her knee, though, she tensed again. The cloth suddenly felt rough and it smarted as he tried to gently scrub away the bits of dirt embedded in the flesh.
“Good thing you were wearing all this clothing,” he said teasingly as he pushed away a billow of silk skirt and ruffled petticoat. “Otherwise, you might have been more seriously injured.”
She felt her mouth turn up in a half smile. “I…I want to thank you for—”
“I don’t want to hear it. Honestly, I can’t believe you would agree to be alone with a man like him. In a group, I’m sure he’s fine, but—” Rather than finishing what he was going to say, he frowned and dropped the cloth dotted with her blood into the washbowl. “Some of these scrapes are rather deep, and I suppose that the responsible thing would be to call a physician and have him treat the injuries, but we could hardly do that without drawing attention to ourselves, could we?” He swirled the cloth in the water, then squeezed it out with one hand. As he went through the motion that was now familiar to her, she found herself staring at his muscular forearm.
She knew he owned a shipping company in Boston, but she hadn’t suspected he’d ever done any physical work. Though Armand was a wealthy plantation owner he had made a point of going to the fields or the drying house to toil side by side with his workers. He said it kept him close to the land and to the coffee that provided the luxuries he reaped with his profits.
Blake’s forearms were the arms of a man who could lift a heavy weight and carry it a long way. She wondered if he worked on the docks or in the warehouse with his hired men. Had he ever trimmed the sails on a sailing ship or rowed a boat to shore?