and was shaking off the astonishment before winding up to throw his own fist.
“Do you need assistance with your buttons?” he queried through clenched teeth.
Her knees quivered, but not for the reason one might have assumed. “No. I can manage.”
Nora turned away from him, back toward the window, and lifted her fingers to the buttons of her bodice. Even though she still wore her sling most of the day, he’d encouraged her to use her arm to strengthen it, including getting dressed in the morning. She’d abandoned the sling for tea with Morley, and still felt fairly well off without it.
She’d only sent for dresses that buttoned up the front and—since she’d thought it unfair to ask a lady’s maid to hide away with her—generally prevailed upon one of her sisters to arrange her hair in a loose braid down her back.
As she gingerly shucked the bodice down her shoulders, she felt more exposed in her chemise and loose, low-slung corset than she had certain times when she’d been nude.
It might have been the way Titus’s gaze snagged the edge of her corset, where it barely came high enough to cover her nipple. He immediately looked away, his gaze affixing to some distant point behind her as a vein appeared on his forehead.
“You’ll excuse me for not attending to this earlier. I was escorting Mrs. St. John to Lady Trenwyth’s.” He made a terse gesture for her to sit on the chaise before him, which she did. “Higgins is still there getting her settled,” he offered by way of explanation as he rummaged in his bag for a minuscule yet wickedly sharp pair of scissors.
He pulled the table in front of her forward and perched on the edge. Their knees had to mingle in between each other’s in order for him to get close enough to reach her stitches.
She tried not to notice the outline of his thighs against the fabric of his trousers.
Despite his apparent ire and sharp, jerky motions, he was infinitely gentle and precise as he snipped through the stitches on her shoulder and plucked them out with clever metal tweezers.
He’d brought the scent of the city indoors with him, soot and the hint of crisp air as summer gave way to autumn. The aromas underscored other fragrances she was beginning to associate with him. Something sharp and clean, like stringent soap softened by the camphor-like essence of his aftershave.
He was fastidious with his hygiene, his teeth clean and cared for, his thick hair tamed by pomade, at least in the mornings. By this time in the afternoon, that wicked forelock, the color of burnt caramel, escaped to brush his eye, making him appear even younger than his thirty years.
Her fingers itched to smooth it out of his warm whiskey eyes. To trace the topography of his stern features with a cartographer’s fervor. To rediscover terrain she’d mapped just over a decade ago. Not just with her fingers, but with her lips, as well.
She wondered if he tasted like he used to.
Her mouth watered so violently her cheeks stung with it.
“Thank you for seeing to Mrs. St. John with such alacrity.” She lowered her chin, tilting her head as if she might catch his gaze.
It remained firmly upon her shoulder as he worked.
“It is my responsibility to look after my patient’s wellbeing. Your gratitude isn’t necessary.” He discarded the last of her stitches onto a tray and stood, stepping around to stand at her back, where he expertly went to work on the exit wound.
A rebellious ire welled within her breast, overflowing until she thought she might choke on it.
What had he to be so annoyed about? He’d the perfect chance to be rid of her, and he’d insisted she stay. She’d not embarrassed him in front of his paramour, which had been utterly well done of her, considering that she’d been tempted to scratch the woman’s eyes out. So, what had ignited his remarkably long fuse?
With each stitch he pulled free, that much more of her self-containment was likewise undone, until, when he set his instruments down on the tray with a clatter, she could contain herself no longer. “I’m enjoying your hostility today. It’s quite naked.”
His exhale contained the long-suffering of every man who’d ever been trapped alone in a room with a confounding woman. “I’m not hostile. I’m aghast. For the past decade, I’d accepted that I’d been thrown over so you could be the woman you were portrayed as in the society papers.