Mercy whispered with obvious disgust. “Maybe we shouldn’t touch him.”
Elliot decided it was time he woke up. He moaned softly and opened his eyes, to behold a pair of surprised and worried gray eyes in a very pretty, almost childlike face topped with a tousle of blond curls. The young woman wore a lace shawl over a pink dress of plain, albeit good quality fabric.
He gave her a wan smile, and then looked behind her to the person who was obviously the older sister. Both women had fine and delicate features, as well as smooth, satiny complexions and blond hair. Yet while the girl kneeling beside him looked like a concerned cherub, the older one, with her smooth, golden hair, ringlets, suspicious brown eyes, frowning full lips, and severely plain navy blue dress looked more like a judgmental angel.
A strikingly lovely judgmental angel. Her form was astonishingly fine, quite as shapely as any Elliot had ever seen, even in that hideous dress that looked like something the leader of a strict religious sect would design. Her features were flawless, and her complexion such as one only found in England. Indeed, she had the potential to be a rare beauty, if she had the proper clothes and hairstyle, whereas the younger one would never be anything more than wholesomely pretty.
Nevertheless, Elliot realized that it was going to require considerably more effort and charm to secure the older sister’s aid, and he was absolutely certain she would be the one to decide his fate.
“Where…where am I?” he murmured, putting a hand to his head and contriving to make it sound as if the very act of speaking was an incredible ordeal.
“Barton Farm, Lincolnshire,” the elder sister said warily. “I am Grace Barton, and this is my sister. Who are you? How did you come to be lying in the road?”
“The…road?” Elliot repeated.
“Grace, perhaps we shouldn’t press him with questions now. Can you sit, sir?” Mercy Barton asked, bending down and putting her slender arms around him.
Elliot allowed her to assist him, secretly enjoying the sensation of her embrace before he glanced at the older woman to see what she thought of this activity. He expected outright disapproval; to his chagrin, he realized her expression was one of the most inscrutable he had ever seen on a woman’s face.
Nevertheless, she was obviously a cautious creature, so in all likelihood she did not approve.
“I think he can sit without your help,” Grace Barton said to her sister evenly before addressing him again. “Where do you wish to go?”
“Grace, please!" the kindhearted Mercy pleaded. “Can’t you see he’s hurt?”
Elliot thought Grace Barton’s expression softened a little, so he gave her a winsome smile, a thing that had stood him in good stead many a time. Several woman had confided that his lopsided grin had been instrumental in making them fall in love with him.
“I hope you will understand, sir,” she said as calmly as if they were discussing the weather, “that this shed is all we can offer by way of accommodation.”
Grace Barton seemed singularly immune to the power of his grin.
Elliot nodded, then decided that it might be wise to indicate that he had not been without some means before Grace Barton had found him. “My horse…?”
“Gone, I’m afraid,” Miss Barton answered, and he thought she thawed a little more.
He saw that slight change with unmitigated triumph, his natural optimism and confidence in his attractiveness to the opposite sex reasserting itself.
His delight was short-lived, as a sudden draft blew in through a large crack in the wall near him. When he shivered, it was not playacting.
“Oh, Grace!" Mercy cried. “He cannot stay out here all night. He’ll be too cold.”
Elliot quite agreed. He would much prefer the warmth of a house, and the company of these two lovely women. Therefore, with every effort to sound weak and helpless, he began to cough.
“Oh, Grace, we must let him come into the kitchen!”
Elliot watched the two sisters and suddenly realized that if he was adept at manipulation, his skill was nothing compared to the way Mercy Barton was using her large gray eyes to compel her sister to agree. She contrived to create an expression in their depths that was both begging and accusatory. Why, even the most hard-hearted of men would find it difficult to resist.
And then, just as suddenly, he felt that her efforts on his behalf were somewhat misplaced, and that expression was aimed at someone who didn’t deserve it. Grace Barton had already helped him, and with considerable personal effort. Why, her slender arms looked barely strong enough to drag a ten-pound sack of flour any distance, let alone him, and in the rain and through the mud, too. If she now saw fit to refuse a stranger entrance to her house, that was not weakness or cruelty. It was only wise.
Nevertheless, he felt quite pleased when Grace Barton finally spoke. “Very well. This one night.”
As the handsome young man struggled to his feet, Grace tried to convince herself that they were not taking a foolish risk. Her rational mind told her she was, but she had never been able to resist Mercy’s pleading looks--not when her sister had gotten into innocent mischief, or when she had brought home yet another wounded animal, or when she saw a particularly lovely bonnet, or even now, when they might be putting themselves in danger by inviting a stranger into their home.
Grace consoled herself with the observation that he seemed too weak to cause any trouble, even if he wanted to. Her hand went to the pocket of her skirt, where she could feel the cold steel of her father’s old pistol, and she felt a little more confident. She wasn’t a good shot, but she felt safer knowing the weapon was there. Just in case.
Mercy hurried to help the young man, yet it was not to Mercy he looked. His bright blue eyes narrowed for the briefest of moments as his gaze followed Grace’s movement, then he smiled, and in those eyes, she saw that he not only realized that she was concealing something, and that he could tell what it might be, but also that he didn’t begrudge her the caution. Surprisingly, she also saw a kind of respect there, which made her blush.
Don’t get silly or stupid, Grace reminded herself. Mercy was the sentimental one, not her, and she had best remember that.
It was also abundantly clear that Mercy’s assistance alone would not be enough, so she, too, put her shoulder beneath his and slipped her arm under his jacket and around his waist, which was slim, like his hips.
With her body up against his, his chin beside her cheek and his damp shirt offering the thinnest of barriers to his skin, her heart started to beat wildly in a most unfamiliar rhythm.
I must be fatigued from the effort of dragging him here, she told herself, especially when a quick glance at Mercy showed that her younger sister was apparently quite unaffected by her proximity to the stranger.
She gave him a sidelong look, to catch him regarding her with gratitude in his eyes, and that amazingly attractive lopsided grin on his face.
Grace blushed again and told herself to concentrate on the task at hand, which was getting him inside the house.
“Just for tonight,” she said firmly, as much to herself as the company. “And he must remain in the kitchen.”
