In truth, she was no more comfortable with inspecting Christian’s wound than he was in allowing her to do it now that he was fully conscious and aware of the intimacy. But she really had no choice in the matter. The wound must be looked at, and re-dressed if necessary.
The Comte’s jaw tightened even as he slowly released the bedclothes. ‘I believe you are enjoying my discomfort far too much, Lisette!’
Was she? Perhaps. It had been a long and eventful twenty-four hours, and she really had no patience, or strength, left to fight such a silly battle as this one.
Of the two, she was perhaps the most embarrassed as she and François carefully removed the bandage she had applied last night, Lisette’s cheeks feeling hot with that embarrassment as she inadvertently touched the warmth of Christian’s other inner thigh.
‘I am sorry,’ she muttered awkwardly as her hand instinctively pulled away, taking the bandage with it, which unfortunately was stuck to the wound at the front of his thigh. She winced as she saw a well of fresh blood instantly appear at the wound’s surface.
It looked clean enough though, and there was no redness about it, so hopefully there would be no inflammation if she kept applying clean bandages; her foster mother had sworn by this method of avoiding inflammation to a cut or wound.
Tears filled her eyes as she now thought of the couple who had brought her up as if she were their own, and these horrible weeks since Helene Rousseau had brought her back to Paris with her.
No doubt this weakness of emotion was brought about by her tiredness and exhaustion, but that did not stop the emotion from being real. She missed the Duprées, and the quiet and simple life she had led with them, more than she could say.
‘Lisette...?’
She brought herself back to her surroundings with a start—indeed, she was not sure how she could possibly have allowed her thoughts to stray in the first place, when she had a half-naked Christian Beaumont lying on the bed in front of her!
‘I am very tired, monsieur.’ She straightened. ‘Perhaps, for your own safety, François should finish applying the rest of this clean bandage?’ She looked questioningly at the butler, although he looked almost as tired as she did.
Christian frowned as he easily saw the signs of Lisette’s exhaustion, in the paleness of her face and the slightly glazed look in her eyes. Her hands were also shaking slightly.
He turned to his butler. ‘François, arrange for breakfast to be brought up to Mademoiselle Lisette in the blue bedchamber, followed by a hot bath, after which she is not to be disturbed for the rest of the day.’ He had no doubt Lisette had already incited the wrath of her mother again by not returning to the tavern last night, so he couldn’t see what further harm it could do if she did not return there for another day.
Her auburn brows rose. ‘I see you are back to being your usual dictatorial self, monsieur.’
‘Did I ever stop?’ He eyed her ruefully.
She seemed to give the matter some thought before answering. ‘No, I cannot say that you did.’
‘And I see that you have developed a sharp tongue overnight,’ Christian drawled.
‘I am too tired to be any other way,’ she admitted wryly.
‘François will now take you to the blue bedchamber, arrange for breakfast and a bath to be brought up to you,’ he decided briskly. ‘And then both of you are to go away and get some sleep. The household can run without you for one day, François, a maid or footman can see to Pierre, and I am quite capable of wrapping a fresh bandage about my own leg—’
‘Oh, but—’
‘You will go with François now, Lisette,’ Christian added firmly. ‘Eat, bathe, rest.’
‘If you undo all my good work—’
‘Then I can expect to feel a further lashing of your tongue.’ When he would much rather feel the soft caressing stroke of her hot, moist little tongue against any part of his anatomy.
Obviously, being shot in the thigh had not lessened his desire for this young woman in the slightest, Christian acknowledged self-derisively.
She nodded. ‘That is exactly what you will feel, yes.’
Christian gave a throaty chuckle. ‘Go, Lisette, and do not come back until you are completely rested and refreshed.’
Lisette really was too tired to argue any further as she followed François from Christian’s bedchamber a short distance along the hallway to the ‘blue bedchamber’, a room so luxurious, with its white ornate furniture and blue carpets and blue satin drapes, both at the windows and about the huge four-poster bed, that she felt positively overwhelmed.
She turned to François. ‘I do not need the use of such a lovely bedchamber as this—’