Free Sarah Gabriel by To Wed a Highland Bride Page A

enticing curves.
    “I’ll fetch you a blanket,” James said. She nodded and began to remove her jacket. His own coat of superfine was drenched in places, but he could not properly remain in shirtsleeves in a lady’s presence. He had to endure the discomfort.
    Turning, he looked about for a blanket or a shawl to give her, opening drawers in a highboy to find linens and candles and papers, then opening the front panel of a desk, only to find writing materials, paper stock, inkwell, quills. He was not familiar with much of Struan House beyond the study, the library, and his private rooms. In a low chest under a window, he found a dark tartan lap robe and brought that to her. She tucked it over her, murmuring thanks.
    Reaching for a tapestried footstool, he pulled it toward her, and she set her left foot on it. “Where are you injured?” he asked. “If I may inquire.”
    “My foot.” She leaned forward to draw her skirts up, then glanced at him. “Turn away, sir, or your fine city manners might be offended. I must look at my ankle.”
    He nearly laughed. “I’m hardly offended. I’ve a little medical experience, if that will help. The first years of my college education were in medical studies before I changed to another science. May I be of assistance?”
    She nodded, and James dropped to one knee to ease off her shoe of sturdy laced leather. He looked at her stockinged foot, resting on the stool: pretty little ankle, small toes, muddy stocking. A swelling filled out the inner ankle.
    “Are you a doctor like your brother?” she asked. “The one I met in Edinburgh?”
    “No, William is better suited to it than I. Though I began medical studies, I later changed my pursuit to natural philosophy. Geological science,” he added. He omitted the real reason for changing his mind—a bloody field on the day before Waterloo, when despite his own injury, he had done his best to help in that futile aftermath, though his own cousin and friend had died in his arms. Devastated, he had returned to Scotland and took up the study of rocks and minerals, a subject he had always loved, after that. As it turned out, it suited him.
    He looked up at Elspeth MacArthur. “May I?” Complying, she drew her skirts higher. James cupped her heel and turned her foot side to side, running his fingertips along the delicate shape and contour. “It’s a bit swollen. I had best compare the two feet.”
    She lifted the other foot, and he untied the shoelaces to remove her low boot. As he rotated and stroked gently, James felt a deep thrill go through him. Herheel pressed into his palm and her injured foot rested over his bent knee, where he had set it for a moment. Drawing a breath, he let go of her uninjured foot and took up the left foot again to ease his thumb over the ankle, the top of the foot, the bottom. Glancing up, he saw that she had inclined her head backward a little, eyes half closed.
    “Oh,” she said in a small voice. “Oh.”
    “Does that hurt?” he asked.
    “No.” She gathered the blanket closer around her, blushing.
    James set her foot down and rose to his feet. “You could use faster warmth than that blanket, and something for the pain,” he said. Seeing a decanter and glasses on a table, he went there to open the bottle, sniffing its pale amber contents. “Whiskey. A few sips will do you some good.” He poured a little into a glass and brought it to her. “I know ladies generally do not indulge in strong spirits unless they’re out on a hunt, or—”
    “Whiskey is perfectly acceptable to Highland ladies,” she said, taking the glass from him. She tipped it to her lips, swallowed easily, paused, and took a little more, smoothly, without a cough or a tear in the eye, though bright color sprang to her cheeks. She handed the glass back to him. “Sir, your turn. There is an old Highland custom of passing the welcome dram, even between genders.”
    “Aye then.” He drank from the glass quickly, the sweet, mellow