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She was good at this, he realised after a minute. She did not dab, overcautious and hurting him more as a result. She was firm but gentle, her hands moving on his body with an assurance that only served to fuel his hopeless fantasies.
‘There,’ she said with a final wriggle of the probe to lift the dressing free. ‘That is better now.’
‘Yes, thank you.’ And it was—the heat and tightness around the wound were immediately relieved.
‘But it needs cleaning,’ she added, reaching up to the shelf.
‘Oh, no—’
‘Oh, yes. This might sting a little,’ she said, tipping the contents of a small phial directly on to the half-healed wound.
‘Blood and sand!’ Nick reared up off the bed and was promptly pressed back down again.
‘I am sorry.’ She did not sound remotely regretful as she used a piece of soft cloth to sponge the liquid into the raw area. ‘Now I will kiss it better. That is what Mata always used to say.’
‘Does it work?’ He could hear the desperation in his own voice, even if she could not. There was only so much will-power a man could exert.
‘Tell me,’ she suggested and bent to drop a kiss on the skin just beside the wound.
‘It does not help at all,’ Nick said with complete truth, unfisting his hands from the sheet before he tore it.
‘A pity.’ He could not see her face, but she sounded regretful. ‘Now I will bandage it again. Can you sit up?’
Nick sat and she swayed upright with him, her fingers light on his shoulder. ‘I have clean dressings and the old bandage is all right to use again if I cut off the ends.’
‘Good,’ he managed as she redressed the wound and began to wind the bandage around his chest and over his shoulder. Which was fine, provided he could ignore how close she had to sit or how her arms went around his rib cage and how her fingers brushed across his skin, which he had never considered particularly sensitive and was now acting like one large, throbbing erogenous zone.
‘Anusha.’
‘Yes?’ She frowned in concentration as she tied the end securely.
‘Thank you.’ He could do this. He could behave like a gentleman, thank her and get out of the cabin safely. Nick produced what he hoped was a friendly, grateful smile. ‘I will just go and—’
* * *
‘Please, wait.’ Anusha bit her lip, her lashes lowered so he could not see her eyes. This is so difficult... ‘There is something I must say to you, something I should have said before now. When you came for me to Kalatwah, I hated you because you are the agent of my father and because I had never met a man like you.’
‘You have not met many men,’ Nick said. He sounded uneasy.
‘No, that is true.’ She glanced up and looked him directly in the eye. ‘I did not trust you. I learned quickly that I was wrong when I worried about trusting you with my body. But I did not trust you with my future,’ Anusha added doggedly.
‘Your future? I do not understand.’
‘I need to be free, to be independent, to discover who I am. That could not happen at Kalatwah, I was beginning to realise it. But it can happen in Calcutta if I can be accepted into society there—and you have begun to teach me, and you have given me confidence.’ And it was true. She had not realised how frightened she had been, deep down, at what awaited her. ‘Otherwise I would be shut up in my father’s house and not able to go out and be free if I did not know how things were to be done.’
‘But your father will find you teachers and older women to guide you,’ Nick explained.
‘Yes, but they will be thinking about finding me a husband.’
‘And that would not be a good idea?’
‘No, of course not. Why should I want a husband if I can be free? I have turned down suitor after suitor at Kalatwah because I do not want to be tied.’ And because somewhere, out in the wide world, there might be love, like Mata found. Only this time a love that lasts.
‘My father is a rich man, so I am rich, am I not?’
‘He will give you a dowry, yes,’ Nick agreed cautiously.
‘So you see? I did not know how to behave and whether I would have any money, so I was planning to sell my jewels and run away from you before we got to Calcutta. But now you have been kind and explained things and looked after me so I do not need to run away.’
Nick stared at her. ‘Jewels?’
‘It is all right, I have them hidden.’ He looked worried, but he had no need to be—she had kept them well concealed.
