Regency Christmas Gifts: Scarlet Ribbons / Christmas Promise / A Little Christmas. Lyn Stone
the second time you’ve suggested such,” she retorted with a moue of feigned fright. “You’d cane a poor cripple?”
“Leave off,” he growled. “This sniping serves no purpose.”
She tossed him an insincere smile. “Oh, but it does, Captain. It serves to distract us.”
He leveled her with a glare. “You are a spoiled, self-indulgent excuse for a lady if I ever met one. Is that all you do all day? Sit around throwing verbal darts at anyone who wanders by?”
She inclined her head as if considering the question in new light. “I suppose I do. It passes the time. That’s bad of me, I know.”
“Have you even tried to stand?” he asked, surprising himself with his own directness.
Her humor, black as it was, fled on the instant. “Yes, of course I have.” Her voice sounded so small.
“You make me want to kick myself,” he muttered.
“Now there’s a picture!”
Alex smiled in spite of himself. He just didn’t know what to make of this person. He began to suspect she harbored exactly the same frustrations he did, only she had endured them longer. And she seemed to have lost her hope, something he was terribly afraid of doing himself. He suddenly realized a deep-seated need to help this girl despite the fact that she nettled him so mercilessly.
“So, tell me of this doctor of yours,” he said by way of turning the subject.
“Oh, Raine’s pleasant enough when you say what he wants to hear, I suppose. He’s not overly fond of me, as you might imagine.”
“He expects too much of you, eh?” Alex guessed.
She slipped into a thoughtful mood, laying her brittleness aside for the nonce. “Yes, he does. He brought this Amazon with him not long after he began treating me. Magda, she’s called. Frightful woman. She pummels and stretches my limbs unmercifully each day. Twice! It’s quite painful.”
“I see. Then you do have feeling in your…limbs.” He smiled again. Legs were not mentioned in polite company. He should have remembered that earlier. Neither were backsides.
“Tremendous feeling,” she admitted with a grimace. “Though no action at all.” Her curiosity got the better of her. “You?”
“I work the muscles as often as I can now that the bone’s healed. Hurts less now than it did.”
“Truly?” Her interest aroused, she queried further. “How can you do that alone?”
“Have to,” he explained patiently. “You see, if the muscles atrophy—and I suspect that’s why your Amazon is so avid in her task—there’s no chance you’ll ever regain the strength to use them.”
“Mine must have atrophied then,” she said in a quiet voice, as though speaking to herself. “They’re of no use whatsoever. Perhaps Dr. Raine and Magda began too late with me.”
“Let me see,” he demanded, his former training over-ruling any thought to impropriety.
Her eyes rounded with shock. “Sir! How dare you suggest such a thing?”
Alex scoffed. “Spare me the hysterics. I’m a trained physician. It’s not as if I’ve never seen a woman’s legs before. Lift your skirts.” Meanwhile, he busied himself with the wheels of his chair, arcing them so that he faced her, knee to knee.
“You’re a doctor?” she asked, frowning. “Seriously?”
Alex finished lifting her skirts halfway up her thighs, employing the swiftness and businesslike manner imperative in examining a female patient. “Not so seriously these days, but I trust I can still recognize a withered limb when I see one.” His gaze traveled over the smooth ivory skin of her legs while his hands judged the amount of slackness of tendon and muscle beneath it.
“Quadriceps femoris seems firm,” he muttered, reaching beneath her leg. She jumped and made a little sound. “That hurt?”
“No,” she said breathlessly, then bit her lip.
“Good. Facia lata seems a bit lax to me. Flex it.”
She gasped. “Flex what?”
“Your leg!” he ordered impatiently. “Try to lift it.”
Suddenly she yelped and punched at his shoulder frantically with her fists.
“What’s this?” Michael shouted. “What are you doing?”
Alex groaned, snatched his hands away and jerked down her skirts.
“He’s a doctor!” Amalie cried. “He was only—”
“I know what he was doing!” Michael thundered. “Captain, if you were not…incapacitated, I should call you out on the instant!”
Alex grabbed the wheels of his chair and rolled himself backward, no small task given the thickness of the carpet. “Settle your feathers, Harlowe. You know I’m no threat to—” He broke off when he looked over at Michael and saw the baron standing beside him, sagging under the inert weight of a woman Alex supposed was the baroness. She had fainted dead away.
“He is a doctor!” Amalie wailed. Alex didn’t blame her at all. He felt like wailing himself.
“They’ll have to marry now,” her father declared in a woebegone tone.
“Milord…” Alex let his words trail away, knowing it was no use. No matter that he couldn’t manage a seduction right now if his life depended upon it or that the idea had not even occurred to him. He had thoroughly compromised Miss Amalie Harlowe beyond all redemption in the eyes of her parents and her brother. He’d been squarely caught with his hands up her skirts. And, since he had never confessed his former profession to Michael, any claim of purely medical interest under those ruffles would never be believed.
Even if he sent for his license to prove it, he still had no excuse. The lady had a physician already and no reason at all to be soliciting the opinion of one who had given up the practice.
He bit the bullet he knew he was expected to bite, and looked Amalie straight in the eye. “Miss Harlowe, I was just on the point of asking you. Would you kindly do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
She stared at him as if he’d grown horns. “You are mad, sir!”
Alex had to agree. “Assuredly, but I shouldn’t think that would be an impediment you would notice much around here. So, will you, then?”
She dropped her gaze to her lap, then stared pointedly at his, her thoughts so apparent and well focused on any future attempt at consummation, she might as well have spoken them aloud.
Then she raised her head, looked him straight in the eye and shrugged one dispirited shoulder. “Why not?”
Chapter Three
Amalie had cursed her foolhardiness all through dinner and well into the night. Now, this morning, she suffered from lack of sleep that could very well make today even worse.
What in the world had come over her yesterday? Usually she maintained very tight control, both of her temper and the people around her. At the moment, she felt even more helpless than she had then.
“It has surely been half an hour! Stop!” She lay on her stomach on her bed while Magda tortured her, deliberately ignoring any demand to cease. This was nothing new, however. Amalie had grown used to it and accepted it as her ongoing punishment for past sins. But she didn’t accept it silently or with good grace. Magda was used to that, too, and only dug harder into Amalie’s calf with those beefy fingers.
Yesterday, Magda had plunked her in the library after she had finished and dressed her. There was nothing to do there but spend hours on end reading books already read a dozen times each. The limit