Amanda Rose Read Online Free PDF Page B

the fact that the bleeding had stopped several times, only to start again. In order for the flesh to heal properly, she guessed, he would have to remain quiet for some time.
    “What are you trying to do, memorize it?” he demanded testily. “Bandage the thing and have done with it.”
    Amanda flushed at the thought that he might imagine her to have been staring at his body, and reluctantly set to work. Folding a scrap of petticoat into a pad, she laid it over the wound. Then she picked up the strips that would bind the pad in place.
    “Lift yourself up, please,” she said faintly, trying and failing to achieve a fair imitation of Sister Agnes’s no-nonsense voice. Sister Agnes was a weathered, salt-and-pepper-haired former fisherwoman who had taken the veil ten years before after losing her husband and two sons, fishermen all, in a sudden off-shore squall. Her keen eyes and brisk efficiency, to say nothing of her sharp tongue when provoked by slow or incompetent helpers, had won her the respect of every resident of the convent and, indeed, of the entire village. She had a knack for healing—Amanda often wondered if it didn’t have a great deal to do with the fact that the sick were simply afraid not to get better when she ministered to them—and had taken on the role of lay doctor to half the population of the county. Amanda, whose unprecedented refusal to swoon or get sick when presented with a gruesome injury had won the old woman’s curtly nodded approval, was often called upon to assist her. With females and children, of course. Sister Agnes tended to the needs of the men and boys herself.
    “Yes, ma’am.” There was a spark of humor in his voice that sent her eyes flying up to meet his. She must have been mistaken, she decided, meeting those stony eyes and seeing the hard, unrelenting set of his mouth, which was just barely visible through the bristly beard. Her eyes dropped back to her work; with commendable efficiency she wound the strips of petticoat around him, trying to make as little contact with his bare skin as she could. She couldn’t help but notice that, from the feel of it at least, the lower part of his back was not covered with hair like his belly and chest. The pattern of hair on his front side was very interesting, she decided almost subconsciously as she knotted the ends of the bandage directly over the pad. His shirt was pulled up around his ribs, leaving bare the lower part of his chest and abdomen to where the breeches rested low on his hips. There seemed to be a thick growth of hair on his chest—at least, what she could see of it—that narrowed until it was hardly more than a silky trail once it got past his navel. From there the trail began to widen again down the center of his abdomen until the breeches abruptly cut off her view. She wondered how much hair he had lower down—and was horrified at the thought. This time her blush was almost painful. To hide her confusion, she quickly pulled the breeches back up over the bandage, apparently hurting him in her haste because he grunted. But he didn’t say anything, and she sat back with a feeling of relief, leaving him to fasten the buttons himself, which he did one-handed. His other hand showed no signs of releasing its tether hold on her hair.
    “Good job,” he said approvingly as he fastened the last of the buttons. “Now see if you can dry my hair. It feels like it’s turning into icicles around my ears.”
    It took Amanda an instant to realize that he meant for her to use what was left of her petticoat for that purpose. Hesitating only a moment, she picked up the ragged garment and, inching closer to his head, began rather gingerly to dry his hair. The icy wetness of the curling black strands soon penetrated the thin linen of her petticoat, chilling her fingers. He was soaked to the skin; she could feel the muscles of his neck and shoulders trembling with cold. If she hadn’t been so afraid that he meant to murder her at any