Sweet Rogue of Mine (The Survivors #9) - Shana Galen Page 0,14
you see, I didn’t realize.”
“You didn’t realize.”
“Yes. I saw you were stuck in the mud and offered you assistance, but I didn’t realize you were blind.”
The word blind shot through him like a lance. He hated it. Hated to be reminded of his defect. But the blow was tempered by his genuine confusion. “Wouldn’t you be more likely to offer a blind man assistance?”
“Me? Oh, no. Definitely not. I never offer to help the blind.”
Nash wasn’t certain he had heard her correctly. “You don’t offer to help the blind?”
“Never. I don’t help the lame either. Or the deaf and dumb. I simply won’t do it.”
He must have stared at her with open-mouthed bewilderment because she spoke again. “You seem confused.”
“You are a confusing person.”
“Because I don’t help the crippled?”
“Yes.”
“But surely you understand why I won’t lend assistance.”
“I can’t claim to understand, no. It seems exactly the sort of thing the child of missionaries would do.”
“Oh, it is, but I hope you don’t consider me a typical child of missionaries.”
He did not consider her a typical human being. She was odd. Very odd, but in an almost endearing way. “I will not make that mistake again.”
“And I will not make the mistake of offering you assistance again.”
He supposed that was what he wanted. He hadn’t asked for her assistance in the garden and had even rejected it. “Are you saying that you did not realize I was partly blind the other day?”
“Have you not been paying attention? That is my whole point.”
“I have been paying attention,” he said. He had the low throb in his brain to prove it. “But you might explain it again.”
“Of course.” She sounded as though she were speaking to a small child. As though what she said made perfect sense rather than being absolutely backward and inside-out. “It’s very simple, really. Those who are blind or deaf or crippled want to be treated with the same dignity as everyone else. You told me in the garden that you did not need assistance. You wanted to extricate yourself from that mud alone. Had I known you were blind, I would have left you to it.”
“You offered assistance because you thought I had perfect vision.”
“Exactly. I thought you were just being a typical man and refusing help out of stupidity.”
Nash all but choked at that statement.
“But it turns out you were just being determined. I have been scolded by enough one-legged beggars to know that they would rather do it on their own. It’s a point of pride. To offer assistance would be to imply I thought you were not competent. I did not mean to make you feel so.”
“That’s certainly an...interesting way of thinking about the world.”
“I shall take that as a compliment.” She sounded satisfied with herself, and Nash felt even more confused by her. Why was she sitting here speaking to him? He’d threatened to have her arrested for trespassing. He’d pointed a pistol at her. And yet she sat beside him chattering as though these were the most normal things in the world.
“I suppose you have not wanted to ask anyone for help with your house,” she said after a moment. He could imagine she was looking at Wentmore. He did not know what she looked like and even the brief feel of her beneath him in the informal garden hadn’t given him much more than a vague impression of woman.
“No,” he said. He hadn’t expected the vehemence in his voice.
She laid a hand on his arm again. “I was not about to offer assistance. I told you, I will not do that again.”
He did not pull his arm away from her touch this time. He was too busy thinking that perhaps there had been something to her earlier gibberish about never helping the blind or crippled. He was easily offended at even the idea that someone might think he could not take care of his own affairs.
“I imagine it was once an enchanting home. Not too manicured but just wild enough to provide fodder for the imagination. Do you have brothers and sisters?” she asked.
“Of course.” Why was he answering her? Why did he not tell her to go away?
Why was her hand still on his coat sleeve?
“Did you run about playing at being Guinevere, Launcelot, and Merlin? When my sister and I had to stir a large pot at the hearth, we would always pretend we were Merlin and that was our cauldron. We’d toss in a spice and say a spell.”