food, and all the while, Nick stayed seated at Leah’s hip.
“Drink, lamb,” Nick urged, putting a cup of tea in her hands and wrapping her cold fingers around it. “And blessed, benighted Jesus, we need ice for your jaw.” He rose and went to the door, bellowing for shaved ice, arnica, and a towel.
“You have ice?” Leah marveled, though to Nick it was a curiously mundane thing to focus on.
“It’s not yet May. Of course we have ice. I have Jennings’s warehouse deliver it. Drink your tea, to settle my nerves if nothing else.”
Leah sipped obediently, her expression disturbingly blank.
“Talk to me, lovey,” Nick said, putting all the reassurance he could into his voice. “Say anything. Tell me about your journey from Kent, what you had for breakfast, what you were doing in the park so much before the appointed hour.”
He reached over and stroked her back in slow, rhythmic circles. She might not have been aware of his touch for all she seemed to heed it, but touching her soothed Nick.
Leah cocked her head. “It wasn’t before the appointed hour. You sent a note telling me when to meet you there.”
“Did you see the note?” Nick asked, his hand going still between her shoulder blades.
“I did not. William told me a boy brought it to the kitchen door, though he thought it was from Darius. But you’re telling me you didn’t send it?”
“I did not,” Nick said, his hand moving over her back again. “Who knew you were going to the park, Leah?” His tone was curious and relaxed, but inside his skin, he felt the urge to bellow with rage. Leah’s disclosure eliminated any possibility the attack had been random mischief.
“Emily knew, Darius, and my lady’s maid, who reports directly to Wilton. Anybody those people talked to, you, whomever you told, and Lady Della. I’m always strolling there. It’s the only place where I can go and think in peace.”
“Drink your tea,” Nick said, downing his at one gulp. “I cannot like this, Leah. It implies somebody in your own household colluded to have you attacked. I don’t want to let you go back to Wilton’s household.”
Her father might be behind the attack, a notion that acquainted Nick with the sensation of his blood running cold.
“I don’t want to go back there.”
“Leah, tell me what you’re thinking.”
“Those men told me that where I was going I’d be taught respect, because the rough trade was always eager for haughty bitches like me, even if I was slightly used goods.”
Nick’s voice was much steadier than he felt. “I want to hold you, but I also want to treat the bruise on your jaw. I’m sure there’s ice and arnica waiting just outside the door, and you will bruise less and hurt less if we see to you now.”
“All right.”
“There’s my girl.” Nick gave her an approving nod—though she wasn’t his girl, wasn’t his anything, yet—and rose to fetch the ice. “If you’d sit on the table? You are lucky,” Nick said as he hunkered before her a moment later. He had the towel over his shoulder, the bowl of ice in his hand. “This could have easily laid you open.”
He blotted some cold water on a corner of the towel and dabbed carefully at her chin. “You’re going to be sore. The bruise is rising from here”—he grazed the point of her chin with his finger—“to here, and then back along your jaw to here.”
“Soft food,” Leah said. “Soups, fresh bread and butter, and willow-bark tea for the ache.”
“And ice,” Nick reminded her, gently applying the freezing towel to her jaw. He rose and stood beside her so she could lean against his hip while he held the ice against her face. “I am sorry,” Nick said. “So sorry, Leah.”
“You didn’t cause this.”
“We will find out who did. That’s a promise.”
A knock on the door interrupted his assurances but didn’t move Nick from his post. “Enter.”
Benjamin Hazlit walked in, taking in the scene with a frown. “I beg your pardon, Reston.” His dark gaze shifted to Leah. “Lady Leah, I presume?”
“Hazlit.” Nick didn’t move away from Leah. “I am pleased to see you.”
Hazlit smiled sardonically. “And astonished, no doubt. While I will invariably ignore a summons, I will honor the occasional request, particularly when violence to innocent ladies is involved. How are you, Lady Leah?”
“I have all of one bruise,” Leah reported. “Nicholas, would you introduce us?”
“My apologies.” He would have danced on his head and spit pennies had she