Gideon Fletcher was Invictus!
Josie was still reeling, still couldn’t believe it was true! Even as she waltzed with him among the other dancers, as he held her close and smiled down at her with his beguiling blue eyes. As she smiled back at him, her heart racing with dread, and tried to pretend that nothing had changed between them.
The live drop with Invictus should have been the simplest of operations. She’d completed more than a dozen since joining MI6 at the beginning of the war, in far more complex locations than her own village. She would have identified Agent Invictus by more than just the Spitfire badge he’d be wearing on the right side of his coat. She’d have known him by his intent, the exchange of glances, an almost imperceptible nod of confirmation. Followed by the precisely choreographed dance of the trade, further confirmation; passing and circling each other in the smallest increments, finally settling into an unremarkable position on a bench or in the press of a crowd. They might even have exchanged pleasantries, or commented on the weather. Ordinary.
She had planned the live drop with Invictus as she would have with any other agent, in broad daylight, in the midst of a crowd of spectators. Any other agent would have marked her intent, noticed her glances then would have either met her in the wing of the Shy for a face-to-face transaction or allowed her to pass the note to him when they exchanged his ticket for the wooden balls he would throw at the coconuts.
Simple. Professional. In any other situation, with any other operative, except this one.
She’d smiled and waved at the man from the stall only because he was Gideon and he was smiling back at her, and he’d kissed her that morning as though he couldn’t get enough of her. She’d been delighted, flattered, when he came to chat her up in the wings, couldn’t keep her hands off him.
And then she’d put her hand on the Spitfire badge and realized, like a devastating bolt from the sky, that he had shifted it from his left pocket where she’d so blissfully pinned it, to his right.
Realized, too, that he’d only found her because his gaze had been sweeping the crowd for Arcturus, that he’d come to the Coconut Shy to make the live drop, that of all the men at the fete today, only Gideon Fletcher could be Invictus.
Feeling gut-punched and too stunned to proceed, she’d called off the live drop in the next breath. Not because it would have been awkward or dangerous to continue, but because Invictus had dismissed her out of hand, had never once in his misogynistic expectations ever considered that she, Jocelyn Regina Stirling—a woman—might just be the Arcturus he was searching for.
Now that she’d had time to consider the situation, the fact that Gideon Fletcher was Invictus made perfect sense; the clues had been plain to see since the moment they met. A highly experienced intelligence officer of the SOE posted to a farm in rural Somerset. Hadn’t she even remarked to him that his posting seemed unusual?
His disappearances at all hours, even when his staff had been in the Hall. Good grief, she’d been exchanging messages with Gideon at the dead drop all this time.
And now, with soft music playing to the beat of her heart, as she gazed up into his eyes, blue and lit by an inner fire, as he held her close against his chest and smiled down at her with those fine lips, she wanted nothing more than to kick him in the shins. Or higher.
“You surprise me, Gideon,” she said instead, to this man of way too many surprises, “you dance very well for not having done so since college.”
“You’re too kind for saying so, Josie, considering.” He was actually a very careful dancer, held her close but didn’t travel far with her in his arms, rarely turned, and then only slightly. A sheen of perspiration had begun to collect at his temples and on his close-shaven upper lip.
“Are you feeling all right, Gideon?” He was pale, blinking and breathing deeply.
“Not getting enough sleep.”
“You and your men do come in late every night. Stomping up the backstairs.”
“Sorry about that. Night work suits us for security purposes.”
There was the gaping breach between them. “Tiring work, keeping secrets from civilians.”
Whatever dodgy excuse Gideon had been about to make was interrupted by the arrival of her father, looking fresher, smarter this evening that he’d been when she’d seen him eight hours before. Where did he get the energy?
“Care if I take a turn around the floor with my darling daughter, Colonel?” Her father seemed in a fine mood, had checked in on her from time to time during the fete and now spun her away from a smiling Gideon, who gave her such a conspiratorial wink she wanted to haul him aside and tell him exactly what she thought of him and his bloody prejudices.
“Everything splendid between you two, Josie? Gideon seems off his feed and you’re looking—can’t say exactly how, but I’ve seen you happier.”
She had been blissfully happier—not that long ago. “Let’s just say that I’m feeling invisible at the moment.”
He laughed. “Impossible, my Josie Bear! You are the center of every circle, the spark that makes that man’s heart keep beating.”
“I doubt that, Father,” she said as the mayor stepped onto the stage, “and it looks like it’s time to sit.” She took his hand as the music faded and the other dancers began leaving the floor.
Gideon was waiting for her at their table. His staff officers were standing about in their boisterous good cheer as she approached with her father.
“Lt. Colonel Fletcher,” her father said, with a click of his heels as he offered Josie’s hand to Gideon, “I return your partner to you, none the worse for our foxtrot.”
“You put us all to shame, Edward.” Gideon’s gaze lingered softly on Josie, though his smile seemed almost forced.
“But now I must join my fellows at the Home Guard table. You’re all a bit stuffy for the likes of us.”
Gideon and his men seemed to adore her father and always made room for him in their company, sought him out for games of chess, and bridge, and visits to the pub. Men as fine as Gideon. She’d shared many conversations with his officers over the past weeks, mostly in passing, but had enjoyed their wit and banter, learned about their homes and families, their adventures in the war, and yet she felt older and much wiser than any of them.
Gideon himself was oddly quiet, standing bolt upright behind the chair he’d kept for her, smiled as he held the back and gestured for her to sit, which she so badly wanted to refuse. She was his colleague, his equal in all things. Yet, in his single act of rejection, she’d been reduced to being his date.
It was impossible not to sense him behind her as she sat and they listened to the mayor present prizes for the ‘best’ and the ‘most’ and the ‘biggest.’ Impossible not to feel the searing heat of his hand through the gabardine of her dress as he caressed her shoulder. Very hot, clammy, as though he’d become over-heated.
“And now, ladies and gentlemen of Balesborough Parish, it’s time to announce the sum raised today for our Spitfire campaign.” Lots of cheering, hooting. “And who best to make the announcement than the organizer of the fete, our own Miss Josie from Nimway Hall.”
She disliked this moment at the end of every local event, when she was recognized for doing exactly what anyone else would have done in her position as lady of the Hall. Which nearly everyone in the parish did every day of this terrible war—they willingly gave their all.
Gideon bent down to whisper, his large hand on her shoulder, hot as before. “You’ve got a major success on your hands, Josie. Let them love you for it.” He gave a brief squeeze to her upper arm then let her go.
“Thank you, I will—” as though she needed his approval or direction! Wanting nothing more than to call the man out for his chauvinism, Josie left Gideon without looking back and made her way toward the stage, winding through the tables and across the dance floor where the children were all seated.
“A miracle of a day, Miss Josie,” Mayor Wharmsley whispered, grinning madly as he handed Josie the slip of paper from the fund-raising committee. A quick glance at the total told her the reason!
Josie thanked the fete committee for their tireless work, the donors of so many goods and services, and her friends and neighbors “—for so generously opening your hearts and emptying your pockets for the war effort.”
Which seemed to delight the crowd and made Josie very proud of them all.
“Now to the figure you’ve all been waiting to hear. Due to your generosity and hard work today, we have added £4,388 and thruppence to Balesborough’s Spitfire Fund Campaign.”
The audience began to applaud and the band struck up a tune, but Josie raised her hand and the sound stopped.
“Before the drumroll, gentlemen, can any of our brilliant young students seated below me add that sum to our current total of—” she checked the slip of paper “—£878?”
Almost instantly Molly raised her hand and shouted correctly “—£5,266!”
“And thruppence!” added Lucas. Making the crowd roar and Josie’s heart swell with pride.
The mayor waved his arms to quiet the tumult. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have bought a Spitfire!”
The band struck up a blaring tune and the dance floor filled again, scattering the children and swelling the hall with the noise of celebration.
Josie had purposely not spared even a glance in Gideon’s direction as she made the announcement, hadn’t wanted to witness his disbelief.
But as she stepped down from the stage she saw him whisper something to Crossley, then slip out the backdoor. The bloody coward! Couldn’t even wait long enough to face her ‘I-told-you-we-could-buy-a-whole-Spitfire!’
Well, good riddance to you, Colonel Fletcher. The fete hadn’t been the time to reveal to him that she was Arcturus. There would be time enough in the next day or two.
Josie worked her way through the press of dancers and well-wishers, taking her time returning to the table where Gideon’s men were tucking into plates of cabbage, sausage and potatoes.
“Congratulations, Miss Stirling!” Crossley stood with the other men, raised his spoon in salute. “What a roaring success!”
“Look there—” Durbridge pointed to five model Spitfires sitting in the middle of the table. “We bought enough game tickets and scrumpy to fund an entire squadron.”
“We’ll be giving those to the children at the Hall,” Easton said, inspecting one of the toys. “The colonel said he watched our little evacuees donate their rose-hip money to the cause.”
“Did they?” And did Gideon take time to watch them?
“He also asked if we would pass along his congratulations to you,” Easton said, raising his pint to Josie. “His leg was giving him fits, so he thought it best to head back to the Hall.”
“His leg?” Had the girls been right about Gideon’s injury?
“Didn’t bring his cane with him to the fete and I think he came to regret it, especially after the Coconut Shy.” Crossley shared a nod with his comrades, then lowered his voice. “Was in gobs of pain when he left here just now, though he’d never let on, not even to us. Wouldn’t limp in front of strangers, if it killed him.”
But they had become so much more than strangers. “How did it happen, Lt. Crossley? Has he said?”
“Not a word to us. But we do know he was seriously wounded on a covert intelligence operation last spring, nearly didn’t make it home.”
Gideon, nearly killed in the line of duty, a chance that they would never have met. A chill settled on her heart as she turned away and noticed what looked to be a smear of oil on the wooden floor where he’d last been standing. She brushed it with her fingertip and came away with blood.
“How was the Colonel getting back to the Hall?”
“Walking, I assume. Wouldn’t ask for a ride.”
Foolish, prideful man!
“Thank you, Lt. Durbridge. Gentlemen.” She grabbed her things and raced through the near-dark to where Bess was parked beside the deserted WI stall. She slammed the rear doors on the stacks of empty crates, slid into the driver’s seat and sped off west through the village toward the lane that turned up to the Hall.
When Gideon wasn’t there, she knew exactly where he would be heading—to the dead drop at the back wall of the churchyard.
And there he was, in the pale light of her headlamps, standing outside the lych gate, her Invictus, checking the gate post for a signal from Arcturus.
It’s not there, you exasperating dolt!
Josie pulled alongside and honked Bess’s horn. “Get in!” she shouted out the driver’s window.
“Josie?” He turned, sheltered his eyes from the light. “Is something wrong at the Hall?” His pace was slow and upright as he approached the passenger side, his pain as poorly disguised in the dim light as his unsteady gait.
“You’re bleeding, Gideon.” Josie got out of the van, went round to the passenger side and opened the door. “Leaving a trail that any child could follow, let alone an enemy agent.”
“Enemy agent? Don’t be absurd.”
“Get in, or I’ll throw you in.”
“Josie, please leave me be. I’m fine. Go back to the fete.”
“Don’t tempt me. And you’re not fine. Get into the van and I’ll drive you to the Hall where you can continue bleeding all over the marble floors, if you’d like. Or you can let me see this gaping wound you’ve been hiding from me, and I’ll staunch it. I know how. I’m trained in first-aid.”
“I don’t need your help—”
“But you do need a ride.” She gave him the slightest nudge toward passenger seat and he dropped in, frowning as he turned to face the front.
Josie dismissed the feeling that she had just bagged a live tiger, and with it the worry about his temper when she finally let him loose.
No matter that he was a thick-headed lout, was stubborn and too handsome for his own good, Gideon Fletcher was a fallen colleague and it was her duty to take him safely off the field of battle and see to his wounds before another minute passed.
The showdown between Arcturus and Invictus would have to wait until the man could at least stand upright.
Bloody hell, if he hadn’t been showing off like a schoolboy for Josie, he wouldn’t have re-injured his leg at the Coconut Shy, wouldn’t have risked the live drop which had doubtlessly sent Arcturus back into hiding.
He’d been so damn proud of Josie when she announced the success of the fete, astounded by her faith and determination. She had proved that a village like Balesborough could bind together to buy an entire Spitfire.
By that time his knee was nearly blinding him with pain; he couldn’t dance, couldn’t stay and didn’t want to ruin her celebration with questions about him.
And he’d been hoping that Arcturus had left the fete after abandoning the live drop and managed to slip the intended message with the Aux Unit names into the dead drop. He’d been beyond disappointed not to find a chalked signal on the lych gate post.
And, though he would never admit it to Josie, he was beyond grateful to her for insisting she drive him back to the Hall.
What had begun as a noticeable wrench deep inside his knee when he’d heaved that last ball at the coconut had grown into a throbbing, near-blinding ache. The blood on his trousers could only have come from the raw-edged surgical incision, was more dramatic than life-threatening. Still, the pain was like an inferno and he’d wondered how he would have made it back to the Hall on foot.
He held on tightly as Josie flew up the lane and into the drive, stopping long enough for the young sapper on guard at Nimway’s gate to peer into the van, salute Gideon and wave them on. Minutes later she pulled up to the rear of the darkened house, grabbed her electric torch from the glove box, then met him on the passenger side as he was opening the door to get out.
“Gideon, are you sure you can do this on your own?” She caught his elbow as though he were an invalid.
“I’m sure.” He wasn’t sure at all, swallowed a gasp as he swung around in the seat and stepped out with his left leg, didn’t even try to stand until he was square on his right, then braced himself upward with his hand on the back of the seat and stood upright. “There.”
“Not even close, Gideon.” She seemed impatient and angry as she slammed the door behind him, raised the bonnet and removed the rotor arm. “Everyone is at the fete for the next hour. We’ll go in through the pantry and then back to my office.”
“I’d much rather go up to my room–“
“I need to fix that—” she flicked on the torch and shined it on the stain on his trousers “before it worsens.”
“It won’t.”
She ignored him, caught his elbow and headed toward the kitchen stairs, fixing the beam of light on the hard-packed gravel just in front of him. “The Land Girls told me weeks ago that you had a limp and walked with a cane. I don’t know how I haven’t noticed in all our time together. But I see now how you’ve been able to mask the pain.”
“Have you, then?”
She left him and watched carefully from the top of the kitchen steps, the same way she must do when one of her livestock went lame. “There. A hitch, as you rise on your right, your left leg slightly stiff. Carrying the pain in your shoulders as well. Over-working your right leg.”
Winded, he stopped when he reached the top and braced his weight on the wall. “Do you mind?”
“Can you bend your knee fully?” She held the door wide as he hobbled through.
“Not at the moment, unless you want me to bleed all over the pantry.”
“No, but can you normally bend your knee fully?”
“With effort on a good day, nearly impossible today.” He steadied himself for a moment on the edge of a sink. “I’d like to thank you for the lift, Josie, and for a most marvelous day. But, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll retire and take care of th—”
“No, Gideon, I won’t excuse you; you’re not getting rid of me until I have seen this wound of yours in the flesh.” She scowled. “And blood.”
“It’s nothing, really.”
“’Nothing’ doesn’t leave a trail of blood. Doctor Wealty is in town tonight for the fete—it’s either me or him.”
“Josie, it’s an old injury. I’ll not bleed out.” Though he could feel new blood seeping down his leg.
“The first aid supplies are in my office. It won’t be but a minute for me to take a close look and see what’s needed.”
“A minute then.” Even so, he refused to hobble as he followed her through the kitchen, resisted propping himself against the worktable when the pain jarred him.
“This way, Gideon!” she called from her office, wheeling her chair to the side of her desk by the time he entered. She turned on the lamp and crooked the light toward the seat. “Sit here. I’ll get your shoes off. I don’t think you can reach your left one.”
Wary of every comfort she was offering, Gideon lowered himself into the swivel chair and extended his left leg, exposing the patch of blood, dark and clotted, at the knee of his trousers.
“I don’t mean to be fresh, Gideon,” she said as she knelt and unlaced his shoes.
“Go right ahead—” he leaned forward to be nearer, “takes my mind off the pain.”
“Very well.” He caught her in a brief smile as she slipped off his shoes and set them aside, then gently slid his trouser leg upward toward his knee “—hold this, please.”
She left him holding the hem, went to the workbench sink, ran water and returned with a damp towel. His left sock was stuck to the top of his calf where blood had congealed with hair and the knitted wool.
“Were you just planning to bleed to death?” She dabbed the wet towel against the crusted blood, wetting his leg and the ribs of the sock.
“That was my plan, yes.”
“I know this is an old injury, but what happened? How did you re-open it? Did you fall?”
“No.” I was showing off for you, Josie. “I just stepped badly.”
“And did all this damage?” She was still wearing her shapely dress from the fete. Looked even more lovely now than before. When she bent to pull off his socks, her neckline gaped, revealing more than he ought to be taking in, her breasts soft and round and promising. The birthmark she spoke of so lightly, hiding just out of sight over her lovely shoulder.
He’d never been undressed by a woman. It was always the other way around. Not that the number of women was great. Certainly none lately, save for the parade of stern-faced nurses who had raised him from the dead and then sent him home to be nursed by his mother. But in his misspent and unrepentant youth, there had been a few.
None came close to matching the heart of the woman kneeling before him, not in grace, devotion, wit or intelligence, not to mention beauty.
“Fair warning, Gideon, this might—” she yanked his sock down his calf, pulling out hair that was still dried to his sock “—hurt.
“It didn’t.” Barely distracted him from the throbbing in his knee, the spasm in his back.
“I can’t see much of the wound itself for your trouser leg, but at least it’s not still bleeding.” She stood, pointed to his trousers. “Time to take them off.”
“Take what off? My trousers? Really, Josie, you’re straightforward.”
“Can you make it upstairs to your room? I’ll follow shortly with my first aid bag. But I warn you, if you’re not out of your trousers and in your dressing gown when I arrive, I’m straightforward enough to take them off for you.”
She handed him his shoes and socks and he made his way up the backstairs to his room, his knee stiffening with every step. The blasted woman was right, he did need her help with his wound, at least tonight.
He’d let her patch up his knee tonight then take better care of it himself as he’d done for months now. He’d grown tired of applying surgical tape over a bandage, over a dressing. The incision had mostly healed, the sutures long gone but the healing had left a mighty fierce looking pirate scar that was still weeping, and bled when he wasn’t careful.
He hobbled through his sitting room into his bed chamber and dropped his shoes and socks on the floor beneath the wardrobe. It took every bit of concentration to drop his trousers over his throbbing knee, to balance on one leg as he removed his braces, tie and dress shirt, leaving him standing in his olive-drab military-issued knickers and vest.
He was just tying his sash around his dressing gown when she gave two raps on his door and entered carrying an enormous veterinarian bag, an enamel pitcher and basin. She stopped and stared, bold as brass.
“Ah, good, you’ve changed.”
“You’ve changed as well.” Into a pair of khaki work slacks and a slim-fitting, white cotton-knit Henley shirt. Every inch the country vet.
“My calving uniform.”
“I remember.” An unforgettable night, assisting her with the birth of Jill’s calf. “But you needn’t do this for me, Josie. If you leave a few bandages and a dressing, I can take care of it myself. I’ve done it before on the battlefield, for myself and my comrades.”
“You’re not on a battlefield, Gideon.” She set down the bag and basin on his dressing table, then made for the bathroom that adjoined his sitting room, talking all the while. “You’re in Nimway Hall. I have no idea what the orb thinks of this moment but I imagine its influence can’t possibly hurt.” She returned with the pitcher full of water and a stack of towels tucked under her arm, gave the room a quick scan. “I think you’ll be most comfortable if you sit there on the bench at the foot of the bed.
“Good Lord, woman I’m not giving birth.”
“No, but you’ve made as big a mess with whatever you did to your leg—” she yanked aside the left side of his robe and peered at the wound “—bloody hell, Gideon.”
“It is a mess, isn’t it?” He hadn’t dared look closely at the damage he’d done, until now. The incision was ten inches long, was again oozing blood and fluid.
“This needs a dressing at all times, Gideon, until it’s fully healed.”
“Seemed to be doing well enough lately, so I stopped using the gauze bandage and dressing.”
“On doctor’s orders?” She raised her brows at him, waiting for his confirmation. “As I suspected. Now sit on the bench and tell me how you did this.”
“Do you mean today’s incident, or originally.”
She moved a set of pillows to the end of the bed. “Both would be helpful to know.”
Seeing no point in resisting her any longer, Gideon backed up to the bench, caught his hands behind him and lowered himself onto the tufted silk, relieved to see the left panel of his dressing gown slide off his left leg and the right panel settle modestly between his legs. That the woman had stopped breathing as she watched was far more arousing than was safe. He was wearing knickers, but they were hardly a barrier to his erection, so he hunched forward, straightening his injured leg.
“I broke my fibula, this bone, in my calf—” he pointed to the left side of his left leg “—near the top, and tore up my knee at the same time.” Took a bullet in his right arm and right calf, but they had long ago healed.
“How, Gideon?” She was on her knees, peering closely at the gory mess that would daunt most other women. “It takes a lot of force to break a leg bone.”
It was a long story that he wasn’t free to tell. “Let’s just say it happened in an ambush on a snowy precipice.”
She sat back on her heels, her eyes wide and worried. “So you were on the ground in Norway with the SOE operation back in early April, before the invasion.”
How the devil would she know about the SOE in Norway; not many did. But then she seemed to be involved in numerous local defense organizations, could easily have heard through channels. To ask how she’d learned of the operation in Norway would be to confirm the information.
“Let’s just say it was dark and I fell–“
”Off the snowy precipice?” She slipped his hand between both of hers, soft and warm and healing. “That would make sense, Gideon, a fall like that could easily break a bone. Did you take anyone with you, I hope? Off the precipice, I mean.”
“Three Germans went with me into an icy stream. We fought, they lost.”
“Three against you?” He hoped it was admiration for his prowess that pinked her cheeks. “And then what?”
“I managed to climb back up the cliff side to my unit—“
”In the dark, with that horrible broken leg? How?”
“Doesn’t matter how. Only that by the time I reached them, we had lost two of our fellow officers in a fire fight and then another during our escape.” Images he could never erase. Would never want to.
“I’m sorry.”
“So were the dozen bastards who ambushed us. We brought out our fallen comrades, made it back to the fishing boat before we were spotted, and only there, in the chaos of leaving the pier did someone notice that my leg seemed to be broken.”
“Someone else noticed? Not you?”
He’d suspected that something was wrong when he landed below the cliff, but he’d been trained that if he could move through the pain, it wasn’t serious. “Too busy, I suppose. Too damned cold to feel much of anything.”
“Hmmm... if you say so.” She finally released his hand, sorted through her supplies for a wad of gauze, then upturned a bottle of tincture of iodine and dribbled a few drops onto the pad. “Keep talking, Gideon.”
“I don’t have many memories of the fishing boat—it was a British intelligence asset.” She began dabbing the pad against the trail of blood that had run down the side of his calf, working her way upward toward the wound itself. “Apparently, I caught a fever early on and wasn’t fully conscious again until I woke up in an evacuation hospital somewhere in Kent. Woke again in still another hospital ward and discovered that my surgeon had given me that ugly thing when he opened my leg and reconnected my fibula to my knee.”
“It’s a thing of beauty, this incision.” She smiled up at him from her gentle tending, had placed a warm compress of mint and lemon over the entire length of the incision. “I hope you thanked him.”
“For ensuring that I’ll never again see the front lines? I did not.”
“Bugger that attitude, Gideon! The man gave you back a normal life. Your knee will heal.”
“Well enough to keep me posted here in the hinterlands, alongside the rest of the stay-at-home army, waiting for an invasion that will never come, paddling around like ducks in a pond.”
“How dare you!”
“I dare, Josie, because it’s the truth. My truth. I’m a soldier by trade, that’s all I know, all I want to know. I’m trained in special operations behind enemy lines, not writing reports and approving engineering drawings.”
“And I’m just a duck, paddling around in a pond? You still believe that?”
He wasn’t sure what he believed. Only that his leg had begun to feel better within minutes of her touch, the wound cleansed and looking less inflamed. “I believe that you are a miracle worker, Josie. But all the surgeons and all your tender nursing can’t mend me well enough to send me back to the front lines where I want to be.”
“Have you even tried?” She was frowning hard as she began dabbing the raw flesh dry with a gauze pad, as efficiently as any duty nurse.
“Over-tried, ouch!”
“Sorry, Gideon.” She gentled her motions, then inspected the entire length of the incision. “Over-tried? What does that mean?”
“Tried to rush my recovery, according to the surgeon, my mother, the rehabilitation unit nurses then the private physical therapist hired once I was recovering at home with my family.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “That would have been during the evacuation of Dunkirk.”
“It was.” Drained by the memory, he dropped back on his elbows against the end of the bed, soothed by Josie’s gentling touch against his skin as she dressed and wrapped the wound in gauze, secured it in surgical tape. “Yet, the closest I could get to the action was a few hours spent watching from the terrace of one of our cliffside farms near Broadstairs. Fishing boats and steamers heading toward Margate, passing under my position on their way to and from Ramsgate, returning with all those soldiers, more than three-hundred thousand saved by—”
“—the stay-at-home Navy?”
He felt his chest flush with anger, shame. “All I could do was sit and watch.”
“That was your assignment at the time, Gideon.” She rose suddenly, rested her knee on the bench beside him, hovered in her umbrage. “To let others do their best for the war effort when they were called up.”
“I should have been there.” He sat up, feeling exposed, besieged by Josie and his own anger.
“How? With your leg like this? You’d have been a liability. Or do you mean that those fishermen and yachtsmen, the fireboat pilots were less brave than you would have been, less patriotic because they hadn’t commissions and weren’t wearing combat uniforms?”
“That’s not it, Josie.” Wasn’t exactly his meaning. “Of course, I admire and respect their miraculous achievement. I do. Their Dunkirk Spirit.”
“But you could have done better, is that it? Because if that’s your thinking, that you must do it all, Gideon, then it explains why your body is wracked with tension.”
“I’m fine.” He actually felt more relaxed than he had in months.
“You’re not. Lean back. I’ll show you.” She pressed her hand into the middle of his chest, able to force him backward against the bolster of pillows only because she was kneeling over him, enchanting him, smiling softly, her hair falling around her shoulders. “Will you lie still?”
“Probably not.” He propped himself on his elbows, wary of the challenge in her smile. “What do you plan to do?”
“I promise not to hurt you.” She backed off the bench and carefully braced his good leg across the seat of his dressing table stool.
“I’m not in the least worried about you hurting— Oh, gad, Josie!” He sat upright, would have rocketed off the bench had her hands not been encircling his thigh, kneading the muscles above his knee, sending waves of pleasure straight to his groin. He clamped his hand over hers, stopped her from moving any higher. “What the devil are you doing?”
“Showing you that all your hitching around on your bad leg just to prove something to yourself, has made every muscle in your body as hard as a rock.” Seeming to demonstrate, she flexed her fingers beneath his hand—creating a jolt of rawboned lust that would have brought him to his feet with Josie in his arms, but she had managed to pin him down in the only way possible. His good leg on a stool, his bad leg useless, and the luscious woman standing between them.
“That’s enough!”
She straightened, her hands on her fine hips. “Do you see what I mean? How much tension you’re living with?”
A dangerous woman, that’s who he was living with. “I do see, Josie, very clearly.”
He stood, caught his sash around his waist and stepped away from the woman’s little infirmary.
“Where are you going?”
“We’re finished here, Josie. I appreciate you dressing and bandaging my injury. It much feels better. Now, if you tell me where you keep that kit, I’ll do it myself next time.”
She pulled the stool to the center of the room. “Plasters and surgical tape might protect your incision, but that won’t help with your biggest issue.”
“Which is?”
“Sit here.” She patted the seat of the stool. “I’ll show you. Or don’t you trust me?”
“Give me a single reason why I should.” He could count them in the dozens. In a few short weeks the woman had turned his life upside down.
“Because I can see from here that every muscle and tendon in your body aches like fire. Am I right?”
Damning himself for a besotted fool, he closed his eyes, took an instantaneous inventory of his limbs and torso, and found no part of himself that didn’t ache. Only cramping spasms radiating from his injured leg, shooting into his back and shoulders, his arms, his chest. She was staring at him when he opened his eyes, her head cocked as though she’d been listening for his pain.
“Suppose you’re right, Josie, and I do ache all over; what can you possibly do about it?”
Her smile grew soft and kind, the wry slant of it thrilled him. “Sit and I’ll show you.”
Knowing full well that he was walking toward his doom, Gideon sat carefully on the stool, bracing his bad leg in front of him. He listened to her puttering behind him, was fine until she slipped his dressing gown off his shoulders.
“What are you up to back there? Ohhhh—” Her fierce thumbs found the knotted muscles on the ridge of his shoulders, knot on top of knot, the exquisite pressure hissing the breath out of him like fire and ice.
“Good, yes?”
“Yes.” So good. So unlike the hands of any therapist he’d consulted. Hers were warm and fluid, followed through to his deepest pain, lifted it, dispelled it with her magic.
“This works best, Gideon, if you relax each muscle as I address it.” Her breath brushed against the back of his neck. “Feel this knot?”
“I do.” And the warm shifting of her breasts across his back as she moved her kneading pressure down his left arm, leaving him growling and sighing like a beast. His bare arm hung limp in her skilled hands and yet quickened with energy as though she were resurrecting his limbs. By the time she finished his right arm he was hunched over his knees, boneless and nearly incoherent when she took away her touch.
“You’re not finished?” He didn’t want her to be, not yet, not ever.
“I just need you to take off your vest. I’d do it myself, but my palms are full of liniment.”
He turned, only one eye willing to fully open, found her standing close, both hands raised like a surgeon’s before a procedure. “What do you plan to do with those?”
“Massage your back, and then your arms again.”
He groaned at the thought of the pleasure. “I won’t be able to walk.”
But he shucked out of his vest and gave himself over to her healing generosity, steeled himself against her touch, the rhythmic movement of her chest against his back as she pressed her thumbs along his spine, followed every rib all the way down to the band of his knickers.
He wondered suddenly at this particular talent, upon whose aching muscles she had learned. Which man she had treated with such intimacy? “Do you do this sort of thing regularly?”
“Why?”
“Because you’re very good at it. At getting right to the—ahhh, the spasm, the knot of things. How did you learn?” He hoped his question sounded casual, when he was beginning to resent whoever this other man was.
“Promise you won’t laugh?” She came around and knelt in front of him.
“Old Godby?”
She laughed, touched his good knee. “I leave that to Mrs. Godby. No, my only patients have been lame horses—”
“That stuff is horse liniment?”
“Medicinal herbs from our own garden, concocted in our own kitchen by Mrs. Lamb to ease the aches and pains of man and beasts of Nimway Hall.” She pulled a blanket off the end of the bed and covered the spread. “Now. stand up and lie here on your stomach so I can do the same to your legs. The muscles of your back were a jumble of knots and gnarls, your arms nearly as bad, but your legs have been taking all the punishment as you compensate for your injury.”
The only sense he’d made of her explanation made him ask, “You want me laid out across my bed?”
Her smile, her eyes, the perfect rise of her breasts, more worldly than virginal. “I’d not put it that way, Gideon, but yes, I do.”