willing it to rise and fall, and realised when it did that she was shaking with relief. Relief? For this man? A man who…But, no, she must not think of that now.
Quietly and carefully Marianne made her way to the side of the bed opposite the window, closest to his injured leg.
Congealed blood lay thickly on top of the wound, which would have to be cleaned before she could bandage it. Marianne raised her hand to place it against the exposed flesh, to test it for heat that would indicate whether the wound was already turning putrid, and then hesitated with her hand hovering above the master’s naked thigh. Eventually she let her hand rest over the flesh of the wound. A foolish woman, very foolish indeed, might almost be tempted to explore that maleness, so very different in construction and intent from her own slender and delicate limbs.
Marianne stiffened as though stung. There was no reason for the way she was feeling at the moment, with her heart beating like a trapped bird and her face starting to burn. In the workhouse she had become accustomed to any number of sights and sounds not normally deemed suitable for the eyes and ears of a delicately reared female. Naked male limbs were not, after all, something she had never seen before. But she had not seen any that were quite as strongly and sensually male as this one, with its powerful muscles and sprinkling of thick dark hair. And, shockingly, the flesh was not pale like her own, but instead had been darkened as though by the sun.
An image flashed through her head—a hot summer’s evening when, as a girl, she had chanced to walk past a local millpond where the young men of the village had stripped off to swim in its cooling waters. Over it her senses imposed the image of another man—older, adult, and fully formed in his manhood. This man. A fierce shockwave of abhorrence for her own reckless thoughts seized her. What manner of foolishness was this?
Deliberately Marianne cleared her head of such dangerous thoughts and forced herself to concentrate on the feel of the flesh beneath her hand as though she were her aunt. Was there heat coming up from the torn flesh, or was the heat only there in her own guilty thoughts? There was no flushing of the skin, but her aunt had always said that a wound should be properly cleaned before it be allowed to seal.
Marianne wished that the nurse might arrive and take from her the responsibility of judging what should be done. She had seen what could happen if a wound turned putrid when a young gypsy had been brought to her aunt’s back door, having been found on neighbouring land caught in a man trap. His leg had swelled terribly with the poison that even her aunt had not been able to stem, and he had died terribly, in agony, his face blackened and swollen.
Gripped by the horror of her memories, Marianne’s hand tightened on the Master’s thigh.
When he let out a roar and sat up in the bed, Marianne didn’t know which of them looked the more shocked as she snatched her hand away from his flesh and he stared in disbelief.
‘You! What the devil? What are you about, woman? Is this how you repay my charity? By trying to kill me?’
‘Dr Hollingshead said that I was to bandage your leg.’
‘Hollingshead? That fraudulent leech. If he has let that filthy man of his anywhere near me then I am as good as dead.’
Instantly Marianne tried to reassure him. ‘I took the liberty of suggesting that I should be the one…That is…since he had—wrongly, of course—assumed I was your new housekeeper…’
‘What?’
‘It was a natural enough mistake.’
‘Was it, by God, or did you help him on his way to making it?’
For a man who had lost as much blood as he had, and who must be in considerable pain, the swiftness of his comprehension was daunting, Marianne acknowledged.
‘I…I have a little nursing experience through my aunt, and if you will allow me, sir, I will bathe your wound and place a bandage around it until the nurse arrives. She is to bring a draught with her that will assist you to sleep.’
‘Assist me to sleep—finish me, off you mean, with an unhealthy dose of laudanum.’ He moved on the bed and then blenched, and Marianne guessed that his wound was causing him more pain than he was ready to admit.
‘The bed will need to be changed when the nurse arrives, and that will, I’m afraid, cause you some discomfort,’ she told him tactfully. ‘I suggested to the doctor that maybe a medicinal tot of brandy would help. However, he said that it was unlikely that I would find any, so I have taken the liberty of ordering some from Mr Postlethwaite, to be brought up with some other necessary provisions.’
He stared at her. ‘The devil you have! Well, Hollingshead was wrong! You’ll find a bottle in the library. Bottom cupboard on the left of the fireplace. Keys are in my coat pocket, and mind you bring them back. Oh, and when young Charlie gets here, tell him he’s to go to the mill and tell Archie Gledhill to get himself up here. I want to talk to him.’
‘You should be resting. The sickroom is not a place from which to conduct business,’ Marianne reproved him, earning herself another biting look of wonder.
‘For a charity case who only last night was begging at my door, you’re taking one hell of a lot of liberties.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘And if you’re thinking to take advantage of a sick man, then let me tell you—’ He winced and fell back against the pillows his face suddenly tense with pain. ‘Go and get that brandy.’
‘I really don’t think—’ Marianne began, but he didn’t let her continue, struggling to get up out of the bed instead.
Worried that he might cause his wound to bleed again, Marianne told him hurriedly, ‘Very well—I will fetch it. But only if you promise me that you will lie still whilst I am gone.’
‘Take the keys,’ he told her, ‘and look sharp.’
Marianne had to try two sets of doors before she found those that opened into the library—a dull, cold room that smelled of damp, with heavy velvet curtains at the window that shut out the light. There was a darker rectangle of wallpaper above the fireplace, as though a portrait had hung there at some time.
She found the brandy where she had been told it would be. The bottle was unopened, suggesting that the Master of Bellfield was normally an abstemious man. Marianne knew that here in the mill valleys the Methodist religion, with its abhorrence of alcohol and the decadent ways of the rich, held sway.
There were some dusty glasses in the cupboard with the brandy so she snatched one up to take back to the master bedroom with her.
When she reached the landing she hesitated, suddenly unwilling to return to the master bedroom now that the master had come to himself, wishing heartily that the nurse might have arrived, and that she could leave the master in her hands.
She heard a sudden sound from the room—a heavy thud followed by a ripe curse. Forgetting her qualms, she rushed to the room, staring in disbelief at the man now standing beside the bed, swaying as he clung to the bedstead, his face drained of colour and his muscles corded with pain.
‘What are you doing?’ she protested. ‘You should not have left the bed.’
‘I hate to offend your womanly sensibilities, but I’m afraid I had to answer a call of nature,’ he said, glancing towards a now half-open door Marianne had not seen before, which led, she realised, to a bathroom. ‘And now, since I am up, and you, it seems, are intent on usurping the role of my housekeeper,
