What is wrong with him ?

*Zac*
Once inside, she helps me out of my jacket. While she goes to drape it over a chair, I stand beside my bed and watch her, mesmerized. The efficiency in her movements appeals to me. Opening a cabinet, she removes a couple of towels and returns to my side. She has no doubt known where to look because a similar cabinet is in her bedchamber.

I take a towel from her and begin rubbing it over my hair, holding her gaze, wondering how long it will take her to realize that in order to see my leg she is going to see a good deal more. I might have been amused by the prospect, if I wasn’t shaking so badly from the cold and the agony.

“Let’s get you out of the remainder of these wet things," She says. The words are delivered with the flat tone of a dozen nurses who had tended to me, no hint of allure, but still my body jerks with arousal that I steadfastly push down. My waistcoat and cravat are quickly dispensed with and find their way to the floor.

My shirt comes off more slowly, her fingers tormenting me as they skim along my sides after she has gathered the hem and begins lifting it over my head. She stops, continues on, stops again, and I know she is cataloging the scars that are revealed.

“I suppose my chest looks very different than before," I say quietly, wondering if we had made love in the light, as is my preference.

My shirt lands on the discarded clothes, then she is looking up at me, her hands hovering within a hair's breadth of my skin. Does she think I will shatter if she touches me? In all likelihood, I might. It is an aphrodisiac to know that I have been with her before and to wonder what it might have been like. It is also unsettling. Not to know how I had brought her pleasure, what I might have introduced her to, what still remains to be shared.

She reaches past me, her breasts brushing along my shoulder and arm. In spite of my pain, her touch goes straight to my groin like lightning striking the earth, making my dragon roar in my head. I am not going to be in a position to unfasten my trousers. Although having been with me before, she shouldn’t be surprised by my arousal.

Straightening, she drapes a blanket around my shoulders, overlapping the ends to spare my modesty of which I possess not an ounce. She, however, obviously does. In the dark then, I must have taken her in the dark. Why is she so shy, when I am so skilled at introducing a lady to the particulars of a man’s body, making her comfortable with it? Although never before have that intimacy, or those lessons, resulted in a squalling baby.

“You should remove your trousers," She says, stepping back.

“Why the blush, Callie?" I ask as I do as she asked. Her name sounds strange on my tongue, as though I have never before spoken it. But surely I have.

“The hour is late," She says.

Is that her true reason? Or simply her feeble attempt to deflect the question? Tending to the wounded, she surely has been exposed to more naked bodies than mine.

Trying to remove my soaked trousers and drawers while holding the blanket proves an impossibility, especially with my leg refusing to support my weight. “Give me a few moments of privacy and then return,” I order.

With a quick nod, she makes a hasty exit. A strange reaction. Perhaps it is simply the intimacy of being in my bedroom, bringing forth reminders of another night when passion had flared between us. With great difficulty, I manage to shed my trousers
and drawers, sitting on the bed, and wrapping the blanket around me for her modesty, not my.

“Callie!” I call out.

The door opens a fraction and she peers in, reminding me of someone fearing a monster. I want to laugh, but removing my trousers has brutalized my leg. I should have cut the damned things off rather than subject my leg to the struggle.

She kneels in front of me, and I wonder if she has knelt for me before. A tremor of desire rakes through me, causing me to shudder. What the bloody hell is wrong with me?

I am reacting like a randy hatchling in spite of everything. If not for the pain shooting through my leg, I might already have her on top of the covers, her nightgown a distant memory, her body bared.

“My apologies,” She whispers, easing the blanket up over my leg. “I’ll be gentle.”

Only I do not want gentle. I want rough, fast, passionate. I want ..

“Oh, my dear God, " She gasps in horror.

The pain burst through my leg, sending me off the bed, the blanket fluttering to the floor. “Christ! I told you not to touch it!”

It is only then that I realize I have grabbed her wrist and jerked her to her feet. Her gaze darts down and then back up to my eyes. Hers are wide and she is trembling as much as me. The pain has diminished my arousal but it doesn’t mean I am not a sight to behold.

“Why the shocked look?" I ask. “Why the blush, the panting? You have seen it before.” Felt it. Welcomed it.

She swallows, licks her lips, and in spite of the burgeoning agony, damn it all, I want to lean in and taste her.

Distraction. I need a bloody distraction.

“It’s … it's been … some time," She stammers. “I'd forgotten …”.

I know I shouldn't be insulted that she has forgotten my endowment, after all, I have forgotten her completely. Still it stings, providing me with an inkling of understanding regarding what it means to be unmemorable. How devastated might she be to know I have no memories of her at all, other than those I have gathered since her arrival this afternoon?

Then to my utter surprise, she thrusts up her chin and takes on a mulish expression. “I also know you’re attempting to distract me. How long has your leg looked like that?" She demands.

Swollen, red, hot to the touch.

“A few days now. I've been riding, walking, striving to get it to heal more quickly. It protests. I’m certain if I just rest it …," I start saying.

“I need to examine it more closely," She mumbles.

I shake my head, “You see what happens when you touch it.”

“You endured much worse during the war without so much as a whimper. Sit. Now,” She commands.

Her commanding voice is not that of an angel. But it intrigues and arouses me. And she has provided me with a hint of our past. I want to mull on it. She has known me wounded. Perhaps she had nursed me back to health. When had she arrived at the hospital? Which of my scars does she know the origins of?

I sit and flick the blanket over my good hip, leaving the other slightly exposed for her perusal. Again she kneels. As her fingers nears, I brace myself.

Her touch is feathery-light but it is still agonizing. It is as though she is taking a dagger to me.

“I believe there’s something in there,” She says, sitting back on her heels.

I look at her in stunned disbelief and then examine my leg more closely. Tensing in anticipation of the onslaught of pain, I skim my fingers over it, detecting a hardness, is it possible? Is that why it has seemed so slow to heal, the reason the pain never went away? “You might be right.”

“You silly man. What were you thinking? You need a physician,” She huffs.

I half shrug, “I thought I'd simply overworked it.”

“With that swelling and redness? I’ve no doubt it's infected. You might even have the beginnings of gangrene. It’s ghastly. You absolutely cannot delay sending for a physician.” She looks at me sternly, but I see worry too.

“You could tend to it.” I suggest.

She shakes her head. “It requires far more skills than I possess.”

Gazing up at me, she looked so earnest, so young.

“You've nothing to fear,” She says softly. “I'll watch over you."

I do not doubt her. Not for a single moment. “Then we should indeed send for a physician instantly. Do not, however, alarm my mother. My brother can see to the matter.”

With a brusque nod, she rushes from the room on bare feet that barely makes a sound. But to my immense delight, she has left behind her fragrance.