Page 37 of An Engagement with the Enemy

“Let me see if I can be of assistance.” She tapped her long, tapered finger against her pursed lips. “Perhaps a cad? An imbecile. A bounder. A ruffian, perhaps? Oh, I know. A knave.”

He dropped his face in his hands. “There’s that sharp tongue again,” he said, tone light even though a miserable, pinched feeling had invaded his stomach. He’d never said a kind word to her. The only exception in recent memory was the apology he’d made after wounding her.

“You do find it my best feature, it would seem.” She grinned as he peered between his fingers at her. Then stuck that tongue out at him as she had when they were children, seated across the aisle at church from one another. He’d been caught by his mother when he tried to return the gesture and received a sharp elbow in the side for it.

The effect of her sticking out her tongue now was quite different from what it had been then. He’d been annoyed, as a boy of twelve. As a man, staring as her pink lips curved upward in that devious smile, he found himself wanting to lean forward, to attempt to catch those lips in his own.

A shiver coursed through him, and he sat back to try and hide it but forgot the oak behind him. His head slamming against it reminded him quite unpleasantly. He barked a single, sharp word in his pain.

“James!” Jessica leaned forward, her eyes wide and alarmed. Ottis bounded away, startled by her movement. Her bare hand brushed his as she put her fingers to his head. “Let me see.”

Too shocked to protest, he allowed her to turn his head and bend it forward while she knelt in the grass, so close he felt her breath stir his hair as she examined him, probing with gentle fingers. His ears had started to buzz, his neck flooded with heat, and he gripped the grass on either side of him with a desperation to keep his hands on the ground. He didn’t know what they would do if he let go, but it likely would be very, very bad for him to find out.

* * *

James had soft, silky hair that waved just enough to make her wonder about its texture. It wasn’t coarse, but thick, and tickled the tips of her fingers as she sought out the lump at the back of his head. The feel of the strands as they slipped through her fingers nearly made her forget her purpose.

An injury. She needed to find the injury. And she shouldn’t enjoy the search so much.

He sucked in a sharp breath as her finger grazed a bump. “Sorry,” she muttered, gently parting the hair around that area to find where his skin was swelled—and a small cut from the bark. She bit her lip and kept the wound exposed with one hand while she waved the other in front of his face. “Handkerchief, please?”

His movements were stiff as he reached into his coat with one hand and tugged a square of linen free from an inside pocket. She took it from him, then placed it over the blood and withdrew it again to check the severity of the break in skin. The blood returned quickly, so she covered it and held the cloth there.

“It doesn’t look terrible, thank goodness, but it will likely bleed for a minute or two. Nothing to worry about.”

His head tipped up slightly, and as she still bent over him this brought their faces alarmingly close. She could count his eyelashes, if she wished. They were thick and long, framing his brown eyes in a way that made them quite charming. Attractive, even.

They stared at each other, her hand holding the cloth to his head, her elbow against his shoulder and her body bent over his. Jessica’s mouth had gone dry, and she swallowed with an audible gulp that ought to embarrass her.

Though James’s right hand remained on the earth between them, the other came up. Slowly. And he reached for her, his fingertips grazing her cheek while her lungs ceased to function. Her mind went completely blank as her whole attention focused on his touch on her skin. Tucking a curl behind her ear, his fingers grazing her skin, his gaze never left hers.

Her heart pounded like a drum behind her ribs, the sound echoing so loudly in her ears she thought James had to hear it too.

Panic ought to have set in. Truly, many of the symptoms of her episodes matched what she felt now. Racing heart. Constricted lungs. Blank mind. Uncertainty.

Yet this was different, too. Because despite her uncertainty, she knew James was safe.

Safe?

James? Her sworn enemy?

A whip cracked within her mind, and Jessica jolted to her feet. She thrust the blood-spotted handkerchief at him. “You ought to find some tea. For your headache.”

“Jess—”

“And I had better return home. There is much to do to prepare for Tom’s arrival. And our guests. We can speak of our plans another time.”

He rose to his feet with a wince, clutching the linen in one fist. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

She laughed, the sound higher and almost shrill, even to her own ears. “Don’t be silly. I am quite well. As you said, we have a reprieve. No matrimonial prospects this week. We can meet again. In a week’s time. There won’t be a need until then, of course. Look after your injury. And don’t forget the tea.”

She whirled on her heel, her skirts spinning to catch up with her movement, and walked with determined speed to the gate. She didn’t look back until she was safely on her side of the wall, and she found James staring at her, standing exactly where she had left him, his eyebrows pulled together, and his lips turned down in a dark frown.

Saints above, what had she been thinking? A woman never touched a man as she had, even an injured one, unless he was a relative. Or a husband. Certainly not when they were only neighbors. And barely friends.

She hadn’t even been wearing gloves! But she hadn’t been thinking about propriety. She’d been thinking about playing with Ottis. And she’d told herself it was “only James” who would see her.

Then she lost all reason. All propriety. All good, common sense, because he was foolish enough to slam his head into a tree.