Marrying His Cinderella Countess

She reached for him and he realised that his hand hurt like the devil—because he had slammed it into broken wood wrapped in rose briars. Splinters and thorns studded his bruised fist, and blood trickled down his wrist and over her fingers as she held him, the crimson shocking against her white skin as it stained the lace cuff of her gown.

‘That must hurt so much. Come inside quickly, so I can clean it and get those splinters out. And it is your right hand too.’

Blake looked down at her bent head, felt the tenderness with which she held his throbbing hand, saw her concern over something that had been his own stupid fault on top of an incident which must have hurt her deeply, whatever her feelings for him. This was one reason he had married her, he realised. She did not sulk or bear grudges. She was honest with herself over her feelings, and she was honest with him too. And she had a heart that was generous and giving.

‘Ellie,’ he said, and she looked up. ‘I married you because I like you.’

And that was nothing but the truth.

Chapter Eighteen

‘Well, then,’ Eleanor began, and a smile flickered over her lips and was gone. ‘That is a good thing, because it is why I married you too. Whether you will still like me when I have finished with your hand remains to be seen.’

‘Duncombe will deal with it.’

His valet would be exceedingly efficient and aloofly incurious about what Blake had done to injure himself.

‘I will.’

She walked beside him back to the front door, managing not to fuss over him and without so much as a glance at her own stained cuff. Felicity would probably have fainted, he thought, and realised that Eleanor’s practical approach was rather refreshing under the circumstances.

‘Hot water to his lordship’s dressing room, please, Tennyson, and some linen for bandages and salt. I will see you there,’ she added to Blake. ‘I must find some tweezers.’

Duncombe came with the hot water and helped Blake, cursing and wincing, out of his coat. ‘Do you wish me to remain, my lord? It is rather…gory for a lady,’ he added as he rolled up Blake’s shirtsleeve.

Blake regarded the throbbing results of his lack of control. ‘I have every confidence that her ladyship is perfectly capable of dealing with any amount of gore, Duncombe.’

Eleanor came in, her gown changed, her cuffs turned back, her hands full of items that Blake decided not to look at too closely. She poured salt into the hot water and stirred it.

‘Put your hand in that and I will clean it so I can see clearly. I worry that anything left behind will fester.’

Blake submerged his hand, thinking ruefully that if the doctor or Duncombe were doing this he could curse and relieve his feelings at will, whereas stubborn masculine pride was going to keep him tight-lipped for however long this torture would take.

‘Put your elbow on the towel and hold up your forearm,’ Eleanor said after a few minutes. ‘The light here is perfect.’

She sat down, picked up a pair of tweezers and leaned close to his hand, her nose almost touching it as she squinted at the splinters and thorns.

‘I never really thought you would strike me,’ she said after a minute. ‘I rather lost track of who you are for a moment.’

She said no more, and he could find no words to answer her.

It took almost half an hour and another soak in fresh water before Eleanor was satisfied that every last fragment was removed, and then there was a tussle over just how much bandaging was necessary.

His wife won, of course. She tied off a neat knot and put down the scissors. Her hands were shaking, and she did not meet his eyes as she began to tidy up the equipment.

‘Eleanor? Ellie?’

She looked up and her eyes were bloodshot, just as he had predicted, her cheeks were tear-streaked and her hair, even in its modish new crop, was a mess. She must have been weeping silently all the time she had been tending to him.

‘Eleanor, why are you crying?’

‘Because I was hurting you,’ she said as she dumped the bandages and picked up a square of linen. She scrubbed at her eyes—not improving things one iota—then blew her nose defiantly.

‘You were much gentler than Duncombe would have been,’ Blake said. ‘And in any case I deserved it.’

‘I think it was a disproportionate punishment for not looking at what you were punching,’ she said, and the ghost of a smile touched her mouth.

Blake stood up, pulled her to her feet one-handed, and kissed her. This was his wife, and his bedchamber was just the other side of that door, and his senses were full of the taste of tears and newly awakened sensuality and the now familiar essence of Eleanor.