Injured myself.
Fell.
Branch.
Tree.
Tree?
He shook his head. “What were you doing in a damned tree?”
“As far as I am aware, the tree was not damned.”
Was she making a joke? Bloodlust and the need to avenge her were still making his hands tremble. He flicked an irate glance up to her, which proved a mistake.
She was smiling at him.
Impishly.
And she had been in a tree.
“You did not answer my question, minx. What were you doing in a tree?”
“Using it to climb from my window.”
Satan’s teeth.
“Are you dicked in the nob, woman? You are lucky you didn’t break your neck.”
Someone had to protect her. From herself, if no one else.
That someone is not going to be me, he reminded himself sternly.
But another voice rose in his mind. A question he could not answer. Why not?
“The branch I fell from was quite low-hanging and my neck is just fine, as you can see.” Primly, she gestured to her pale throat.
He thought about setting his lips there. About licking that soft, inviting skin to see if it tasted as heavenly as she smelled. Somehow, he knew it would. If he used his tongue and teeth on her, would she be shocked?
Something told him that she would not.
But she had mentioned branches, she had hurt herself, and she was climbing about in trees. To say nothing of her continued mockery of his orders for her to remain far from The Sinner’s Palace. In addition to being utterly mad, she was a menace.
“Why were you climbing about in trees this evening?” he demanded, catching her hem and flipping it up once more to examine the wound on her calf. “This needs to be cleaned.”
And Caro, the healer amongst them, was not here to offer aid. Fortunately, she regularly brought her salves and other medical supplies to The Sinner’s Palace now that she was a married woman. He could not deny that the chance to tend to Lady Octavia himself appealed.
“It is merely a scratch,” she said, flicking her skirts over his hands and her ankles both. “I can take care of myself.”
“No you cannot. Your skirts and stockings are torn, you don’t do as you’re told, and you fell from a tree.”
“You cannot tell me what to do, Sutton,” she countered stubbornly.
“Yes I can, minx.”
He rose and crossed his office, going to the pitcher and basin where he kept water for a different reason entirely than tending to wounded aristocrats. Rather, this was the water he used when he had to rely on his fists to make his opinion known in this chamber.
Thankfully, that was no longer as often as it had once been.