Winter's Woman (The Wicked Winters #9) - Scarlett Scott Page 0,6
a study in determination as he went about his task, dashing more whisky on the bloodied cloth before using it to wipe her wound once more. She tried to box his ear but he caught her wrist and held her still as he finished cleaning her bloodied arm.
“You are hurting me,” she gritted through her clenched jaws and a haze of tears.
“I am helping you.”
It hardly seemed so from her perspective.
“You are punishing me,” she countered. “You do not like me. Your disdain for me was evident yesterday.”
His full lips quirked, but he did not remove his gaze from her wounded arm. “Disdain. Fancy word for a fancy duke’s daughter. Not so fancy when you’re shot, are you?”
“Not so excellent a guard when the woman you are tasked with protecting is wounded, are you?” The bitter accusation left her before she could think better of it.
He did not say a word, and if her taunt had upset him, there was no sign of it. Not a hesitation or a tightening of his lips. Why was she staring at his mouth? She had never in her life consumed whisky until this evening. Being soused and shot, after having suffered a loss of blood, was having an ill effect upon her mind.
Instead, he worked in silence, finishing cleaning her wound before taking up a small pot and unscrewing the lid.
“What is that?” she demanded.
“Horse piss.”
She blinked at him. Surely she had misheard?
“Rat shit,” he said, and then stabbed two of his cloth-covered fingers into the jar, pulling up a generous glob of thick, amber-colored syrup.
He was not serious, was he? He was saying something horrible, was he not? The delusions were settling in now, surely. She felt faint.
He slathered the solution on her wound with slow, gentle motions. “May not need to be stitched up after all.”
The burning pain eased. In its place, coolness and a strange sense of numbness settled in. She watched him as he worked, his expression intense. The pain seemed to ease with each brush of the thick ointment. The scent of it filled the air between them. Sweet and herbal.
“Honey?” she asked.
“Amongst other herbs.” He finished his work and began winding a length of clean cloth around her arm in a loose grasp. “You may call for your physician as you like, my lady, but I do not think you will need any stitches on this wound. If you are fortunate, it will not fester.”
Everything inside her felt brittle and bright. His face was too handsome. His fingers scraping over her tender flesh as he bound her wound too intimate, too warm.
“Horse piss,” she said, repeating what he had told her. “And rat shit? Mixed together?”
His gaze jerked to hers. Bluer than the sky and the ocean combined. “Pardon?”
Had he already forgotten his crude words? She was experiencing a curious combination of pain, spirits, and shock. The aftereffects left her feeling as if she were afloat in an ascension balloon. High above and giddy.
“The salve you applied to my wound,” she clarified, playing his game. “Is it horse piss mixed with rat shit? Or were you deceiving me, Mr. Nothing?”
He blinked. The corners of his too-full lips twitched. Almost as if he was tempted to smile. Evie did not think she had ever seen a true smile from Devil Winter yet. A challenge, that. The urge to cause one rose within her, warring with everything else.
“Mr. Nothing?” he repeated, tying off the bandage on her arm with easy, facile motions.
His fingers were long.
His hands were tremendous, just as large as the rest of him.
She found herself strangely entranced with them.
“Devil or nothing,” she reminded him. “That is what you said. Therefore, Mr. Nothing it is.”
A dark brow quirked. “Is that so, my lady?”
“Evie,” she said, and she did not know why.
A second brow joined the first. Such an exquisite display of emotion from his often-stark face. She was most pleased with herself for having caused it.
“Evie,” he repeated in his low baritone.
The voice that rumbled down her spine like a forbidden caress.
“Yes.” She was feeling deliciously warm and dizzy once again. “More whisky, if you please?”
“I reckon you have had enough.” He swallowed, his gaze dipping to her lips.
Or had she imagined it?
“One more sip.” Her tone was wheedling, she knew. The stuff tasted awful, but it had knocked the edge off her pain. Or mayhap that was his honey-and-herb concoction.
He stared at her, that impossibly blue gaze seeming to cut straight through her. An indeterminate span