Page 86 of A Bluestocking’s Secret Courtship

“It’s nothing,” he said as she grabbed the hem of his shirt and pushed it high on his chest to run her finger parallel to the cut.

“It isn’t too deep, but it could still fester.” She held his hand. “Come with me. Kiya will take us to the healer.”

“No, we should leave quickly.”

“Nekara still has my uncle. We must do as she says and see the healer.”

Thirty-two

Jonathan stopped resisting and followed Evangeline and Kiya to a nearby tent. A middle-aged woman turned away from a rough wooden table laden with clay jars and mortars and pestles. Dried herbs were strung up with rope above the table—lavender, thyme, sage. He didn’t recognize the others.

The healer spoke to Kiya.

“She wants you to remove shirt,” Kiya said.

When he hesitated, Evangeline crossed her arms and frowned. “Do as she says.”

“Erm…”

He discarded the notion of asking her to turn her back. They were pretending to be married, after all. Snatching the hem of his shirt, he lifted his arms, wincing.

“Let me help.” Evangeline gently pulled the shirt over his head and stepped back to examine his wound. Her eyes widened. “Oh!”

The healer returned to the table, rattling jars as she grabbed the ones she wanted.

Kiya came closer to peer at the cut. “Only a scratch. I wait outside.”

“Thank you,” Evangeline muttered, her gaze locked on Jonathan. Unabashedly, she studied him as if he was an artifact in a museum.

His body heated as her gaze slid over his chest and abdomen, dropping even lower where a bulge was beginning to show.

“A-hem.”

A pink blush spread across her cheeks, but she still didn’t look away. Her curiosity made him smile.

“Do you want to paint my portrait, love?”

“You’re already a work of art.”

He swallowed a groan and forced himself to go sit on a stool farther away.

The healer returned with a light yellow salve and showed her how to spread it thinly over his wound. Evangeline sniffed the jar.

“It’s a little like dried hay.”

“Calendula,” he said. The orange flowers grew in the medicinal garden at Dom’s villa.

The healer covered the cut with a clean cloth and secured it with a long strip of linen wrapped around his torso. After she tied it off, she called for Kiya and handed the jar of salve to Evangeline, along with a few rolls of linen and a pouch of herbs. Kiya translated her instructions.

“Change every day. The herbs are for fever or pain.”

Jonathan pulled his shirt over his head, and Kiya led them to Nekara’s tent where she’d first received them.

Charles Wedmore was seated at her table with a platter of dried figs, olives, nuts, and what appeared to be venison set in front of him.

“Eat,” Nekara said when he tried to stand.

The muscles in his jaw bulged, but he sank back onto the cushion. Nekara rose to greet them.