of floral soap told him she’d washed, her hair remained dry, released from the braids of her coif and brushed into a glossy cloud of rioting fluff that fell in unruly waves past her shoulder blades.
“I was told you requested stitching, and wanted to… to check for myself that your head wound is not too serious,” she told the doorframe.
Touched by her concern, he reached for her medical offerings. “It’s nothing. It’s not even bleeding anymore.”
At that, she flicked a glance up at him from beneath her lashes before lifting her chin to properly look at him.
“Oh good.” Her shoulders peeled down from her ears. “No need for these then.” She brushed past him into the washroom, and discarded the needle and thread to the countertop. “I brought you a salve of honey, oregano, and goldenseal to protect it against infection.”
When he reached for the tin, she pulled it from his grasp. “Please, let me.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“It’s the least I can do since you were wounded in the line of duty,” she insisted. Gesturing to the wide ledge in which the tub was cast, she silently bade him to sit.
“In here?” he queried dumbly, thinking of the discarded bloody towels and the one getting bloodier beneath his shirt.
“We can go elsewhere if you wish,” she suggested. “Your room, if that’s more comfortab—”
“No.” Anyplace with a bed was a terrible idea, injured or not. “No. Here is fine.”
She looked at him askance. “Very well.”
He lowered himself to the ledge, suppressing a grunt, and clasped his hands in front of him to make the protection of his torso appear natural.
Felicity opened the tin and carefully bent to set the lid next to him, affording him a chance to take in the aroma of her soap and warm skin and lock it into his lungs.
Straightening to stand in front of him, she dipped two fingers into the tin and frowned. “Oh dear, the salve is a bit less congealed than I usually make.” She rubbed her thumb and two fingers together, testing the texture of the stuff before lifting her hand to hover above his brow in preparation. “Here, close your eyes.”
“No.” The word escaped him before he thought the better of it.
She cocked her head. “But you must, you might get some of this in your eye and that would sting something horrible.”
“No,” he repeated, more gently this time. “I’ll brave the sting if I must.”
“But… but why?” She looked down at the tin. “I promise this is no ghastly potion. It’s only a salve of herbs gone a bit slippery with too much tincture and not enough beeswax.”
“Do you remember what you told me about fear?” he asked, tilting his chin slightly to look up at her. “I cannot bring myself to close my eyes. I have this need. This… proclivity. No matter what, I must see what is coming at me. I must not be caught unaware.”
“I understand.” He could feel her sympathetic gaze touching at the many parts of his ruined face, and he wished the caress was real. “You live a life where weapons fly at you from the dark. It’s no small wonder to me you don’t want to miss a thing.”
After such an admission of his weakness, he couldn’t seem to summon a reply.
She bent closer, her whisper both consoling and conspiratorial. “It is only you and me here. Nothing unseen. Nothing in the shadows.”
That didn’t matter, his soul still itched to crawl out of his skin at the thought of giving up a sense that he relied upon to fight.
“Trust me, Mr. Severand.”
Trust. It was a word he didn’t recognize. A concept he never learned.
“I would never hurt you. I promise.”
She didn’t understand that she was the only person alive who truly could.
Watching her retch in the garden, his heart had bled along with the rest of him. She hadn’t been able to look at him without being sick. What he’d done, who he was, repulsed and dismayed her. As it should.
He’d murdered three men.
“Please?” she pled, her expression beseeching. “You saved my life tonight, and I… I must do something for you. I cannot sleep if I think your wound might fester.”
Denying her, it seemed, was something he was incapable of doing.
Taking in a deep breath, he let his lids fall.
He couldn’t suppress a flinch when she touched his shoulder, but as her hand rested there to steady herself, he found that connection of their bodies made him almost preternaturally aware of what she