breath. Our flight and the journey uptown had cleared my head so I no longer felt tipsy, but I didn’t want my employer to dismiss me for drunkenness.
He didn’t appear to notice anything amiss. “Good, good,” he said with a vague nod. He paused, frowned as if in thought, then seemed to come to a decision. “Now, might I ask a small favor of you? Matthews is off on an errand for me, and I hate to disturb Mrs. Talbot.”
“Of course, I’d be happy to help.”
“I would most appreciate it. Come, this way.” He led me toward his study, then he turned back, frowning. “I hope you don’t have a problem with blood.”
IN WHICH I GET BLOOD ON MY HANDS
“A problem with blood?” I repeated dumbly, standing dead still in the hallway.
“You don’t faint or become ill? You certainly don’t seem the type.”
“But … blood?”
“I need your assistance with a minor medical matter. I would take care of it myself, but it’s so awkward working with just one hand.”
All thoughts of the evening’s earlier excitement fled as I faced a new crisis. He opened the study door with his left hand and gestured me inside before closing it behind us. A wave of his left hand made the lights brighter while sending so strong a magical tingle through my body that I had to bite my lip to keep myself from gasping out loud.
“I need help getting this coat off, first,” he said, sounding as calm as if he were asking for the sugar at the breakfast table rather than help in undressing. I suddenly felt very conscious of being alone in the room with him. He extracted his left arm from the sleeve, then had trouble with the right. I dropped Lizzie’s notebook on the desk that sat beside the door so I could peel off the right sleeve for him, and I gasped at what I saw beneath.
The whole right sleeve of his white shirt was red. I noticed then that my hands had become bloody from handling his coat. The fabric was a dark wool that hadn’t shown the stain, but it was damp with blood and there was a jagged tear in the upper arm. I had never seen quite so much blood, all at once, and although I had a strong constitution, I felt queasy.
He must have heard my gasp, for he hurried to say, “It’s nothing, really. I was merely observing nocturnal insects when I caught my arm on some jagged protuberance. It was most inconvenient.”
“You’d—you’d better sit down,” I stammered, putting his coat aside. He lowered himself into the desk chair. I fought for and found my inner resolve and firmed my voice to ask, “Do you have medical supplies?”
“In a box in that lower right drawer.” I followed his directions and found a box clearly marked with a red cross. “While my hobby is not generally dangerous, I am accident-prone, so it pays to be prepared,” he added. I noticed that he was very pale, and beads of sweat were forming on his upper lip and forehead. He’d managed a breezy tone, but he was in pain.
I gingerly touched his sleeve to try to see the wound through the torn cloth, and he said, “There are scissors in the kit. Just cut off the sleeve. The shirt’s ruined anyway.” In giving instructions, his voice lost its customary vague quality.
I snipped around the sleeve, trying not to look at the blood. But then that meant I found myself staring resolutely at the skin my scissors revealed. The sight of his flesh was almost as unsettling as all the blood, though in a different way. I wasn’t sure where to look. I turned my attention to his wrist, where I removed the cufflink so I could pull the damaged sleeve off his arm. The cloth had already stuck to the drying blood, so I had to touch him to remove it. The way he flinched at my touch made me wonder if he was as aware of the strange intimacy of our situation as I was.
My stomach heaved when I saw the wound. It was a bloody groove across his upper arm. “Are you all right?” he asked, looking at me with deep concern.
“You need to see a physician,” I said. “I can’t do anything for this.”
“It’s not as bad as it looks. You just need to clean the wound. I’ll direct you.” There was an unexpected pleading tone to his voice, and he