Devon gave her a glance of mingled rage and protest. “Are you going to use that against me for the next nine months?”
“No, darling, only for the next seven and a half months. After that, I’ll have to find something else to use against you.” Kathleen went to him, hugging herself against his rigid form. As his arms went around her, she slipped a soothing hand over the nape of his neck, coaxing him to relax. “You know I can’t let you murder people before dinner,” she murmured. “It throws the entire household off schedule.”
Rhys was in too much pain to pay attention to the exchange. He remained on his side, half-curled, his healthy bronze complexion bleached of color.
Sitting on the floor beside him, Helen eased his black head into her lap. “Where are you hurt?” she asked anxiously. “Is it your back?”
“Shoulder. Dislocated . . . this morning.”
“Have you seen a doctor?”
“Aye.” Letting go of her skirt fabric, Rhys flexed his fingers experimentally. “It’s all right,” he muttered. Moving stiffly, he began to sit up, and paused with a groan of agony.
Helen moved to help him, wedging herself beneath his good arm. She felt him jolt as she accidentally pressed against a sore place on his side. “It’s more than your shoulder,” she said in worry.
Rhys let out a scraping laugh. “Cariad, I haven’t a single moving part that doesn’t ache.” He struggled to a sitting position and propped his back against the edge of a nearby settee. Closing his eyes, he let out an unsteady breath and tried to accommodate the multitude of pains that assailed him.
“What do you need?” Helen asked urgently. “What can I do?” A few locks of heavy dark hair had tumbled over his forehead, and she stroked them back with tender fingertips.
His lashes lifted, and she found herself staring into hot, black-brown eyes. “You can marry me.”
Smiling in spite of her worry, Helen laid her palm against his lean cheek. “I’ve already said I would.”
Devon, who had come to stand behind her, asked irritably, “What the devil is the matter with you, Winterborne?”
“You slammed him against the wall,” Kathleen pointed out.
“I’ve done worse in the past, and it’s never sent him to the floor.” The two men routinely boxed and trained at a club that taught both pugilism and Savate, a form of combat that had originated on the streets of Paris.
Helen twisted to glance at them as she explained. “Mr. Winterborne’s shoulder was dislocated this morning.”
Devon looked surprised and then furious. “Damn it, why didn’t you say anything?”
Rhys’s eyes narrowed. “Would it have made a difference?”
“Not after the rubbish you were spouting!”
“What rubbish?” Kathleen asked in an excessively calm tone, stroking her husband’s arm.
“He said that Helen went to visit him yesterday. Alone. And they—” Devon broke off, unwilling to repeat the offensive claim.
“It’s true,” Helen said.
It was rare to see Devon, who’d become accustomed to frequent surprises over the past year—caught so entirely off guard. But his jaw sagged like the lid of an unlatched valise as he stared at her.
“I’ve been ruined,” Helen added, perhaps a bit too cheerfully. But after twenty-one years of being shy and predictable and sitting quietly in corners, she had discovered an untoward enjoyment in shocking people.
In the stunned silence that followed, she turned back to Rhys and began to unknot his silk necktie.
Rhys reached up to stop her, but flinched in agony. “Cariad,” he said gruffly, “what are you doing?”
She pushed back the lapels of his coat. “Having a look at your shoulder.”
“Not here. I’ll have a doctor see to it later.”
Helen understood his desire for privacy. But there was no way that she could allow him to leave Ravenel House while he was injured and in pain. “We must find out whether it has been dislocated again.”
“It’s sound.” But he grunted in pain as she pulled the coat carefully off his shoulder.
Immediately Kathleen came to help, kneeling by his other side. “Don’t move,” she cautioned. “Let us do the work.”
They began to divest him of the garment. Rhys steeled himself, but as they tugged at the coat, he shoved them back. “Argghh!”
Helen paused and looked at Kathleen in worry. “We’ll have to cut it off.”
Rhys was trembling, his eyes closed.
“The devil you will,” he muttered. “I’ve already had a shirt cut off me this morning. Let it be.”
Kathleen cast an imploring glance at her husband.
With an explosive sigh, Devon went to pick up something from the library table, and returned to the group on the floor. As he approached, he flicked open a silver folding knife with a long gleaming blade.
The sound, quiet as it was, caused Rhys to flinch reflexively, his eyes flying open. He moved to confront the threat, and cursed with pain, sitting down hard on his rump.
“Easy, arsewit,” Devon said acidly, sinking to his haunches beside him. “I’m not going to kill you. Your valet will do that for me when he realizes you’ve ruined two bespoke shirts and a coat in one day.”
“I don’t—”
“Winterborne,” Devon warned softly, “you’ve insulted my wife, debauched my cousin, and now you’re delaying my dinner. This would be an excellent time to keep your mouth shut.”
Rhys scowled and held still while Devon employed the blade with meticulous skill. The knife slid along the seams of the garments until they began to peel from his body like bark from a silver birch. “My lady,” he said to Kathleen, and paused, his breath hissing between his clenched teeth. “I apologize. For how I behaved that day. For what I said. I”—a groan escaped him as Kathleen gently pulled the sleeve from his aching arm—“have no excuse.”
“I’m equally to blame,” Kathleen said, folding the coat and setting it aside. Meeting Rhys’s surprised gaze, she continued resolutely. “I acted on impulse, and created a difficult situation for everyone. I knew better than to go to a gentleman’s house alone, but in my worry over Helen, I made a mistake. I accept your apology, Mr. Winterborne, if you’ll accept mine.”
“It was my fault,” he insisted. “I shouldn’t have insulted you. I didn’t mean a word of it.”
“I know,” Kathleen assured him.
“I’ve never been attracted to you. I couldn’t desire a woman less.”
Kathleen’s lips quivered with a repressed laugh. “The repulsion is quite mutual, Mr. Winterborne. Shall we cry pax and start over?”
“What about what he’s done to Helen?” Devon asked in outrage.
Rhys watched warily as the knife sliced through his shirt.
“That was my fault,” Helen said hastily. “I went uninvited to the store yesterday and demanded to see Mr. Winterborne. I told him that I still wanted to marry him, and I made him exchange my ring for a new one, and then I—I had my way with him.” She paused, realizing how that sounded. “Not in the store, of course.”