Vixen by Jane Feather Page B

his hair. “I can manage on my own. Go on up to bed.”
    “But you can’t,” she said, coming toward him. “It has to be properly cleaned, and I know just what to do.”
    He put out a hand as if to hold her away from him. “Samuel can do it. Go to bed.”
    “But it’s silly to wake him when I’m here.”
    She had no idea of what she looked like … of what she was offering. How could she be such an innocent at seventeen? But then he thought of her life … ten years in a seminary, except for a few days at Christmas at her reclusive mother’s bedside. How could she know anything?
    And there was no one to instruct her but himself. He spoke with studied dispassion. “I want you to go up to your room and put on a robe. And I don’t want to see you ever again wandering around this house so scantily dressed.”
    Puzzlement, followed by chagrin, flashed through her eyes, darkening the blue. She glanced down at her body, saw the soft swell of her breasts, the darker shadow at the apex of her thighs. Her cheeks were pink as she looked up at him, saying awkwardly, “But it wasn’t cold and I wasn’t expecting to see anyone.”
    “I understand that. Don’t do it again.” He went to the table and sat down, lifting his injured leg onto a chair opposite. “Hurry up. I’m bleeding all over the floor, and it hurts like the devil.”
    Chloe glanced around the room. Hanging from a peg by the back door was a long overcoat muddied at the hem. She thrust her arms into the sleeves, wrapping thequantity of material around her body. “Will this satisfy you, sir?”
    He glanced up, and despite the preceding taut exchange couldn’t help smiling. “You look like an abandoned waif, lass.”
    “Not provocative, then?”
    For all her innocence, she’d put two and two together quickly enough. “Not in the least,” he agreed. Not provocative but enormously appealing. “Could we get this over with?”
    She took a knife from the dresser and went to the fire. There was silence in the kitchen. Hugo endured as Chloe opened the puncture wounds with the searing knife tip. He’d suffered worse. He distracted himself with contemplating her surprising competence. Her touch was sure, her knowledge unfaltering, and while she clearly tried to cause him as little pain as possible, she didn’t flinch at doing what had to be done.
    “Do you have any brandy I could splash on before I bandage it?” she asked, raising her head, a frown of concentration between her brows.
    “What a waste.” He leaned back with a sigh of relief, the ordeal over. “It’ll do more good inside me than out.”
    “Do you drink too much brandy?” she asked seriously.
    “Probably. You’ll find a bottle in the library.”
    Dante trotted after her as she left the kitchen, and Hugo closed his eyes, trying to forget both his throbbing leg and that disquieting arousal. A governess in a discreet, ladylike house in Oldham or Bolton would be the answer. There would be other families in town with young girls about to be launched into Lancashire society, such as it was, and it was inevitable Chloe would be introduced. It wouldn’t be London, but it would keep her out of trouble, and with luck she’d meet some idealsuitor and he could be rid of the disturbing responsibility Elizabeth had laid upon him.
    C hloe was awakened the next morning by Beatrice’s insistent miaows as she stood on her hind legs, futilely tapping at the latch on the door.
    “You are clever,” Chloe said, sliding out of bed. “Can you find your way outside by yourself?” She opened the” door.
    Beatrice didn’t deign to reply but ran off down the corridor, Dante scampering behind her. The parrot offered a coarse greeting from the windowsill and fluffed his feathers. She scratched his poll and he whistled at her.
    Chloe scrambled into her petticoat and stockings and the hideous serge dress. If she wanted water to wash with, she’d presumably have to fetch it from the kitchen. She brushed her