Scandalous Summer Nights by Anne Barton Page A

oozing something. She peeked at her outstretched foot and was relieved to find it the same—grotesquely fat, but the same.
    “Good God.” James held her shin with one hand and cradled her foot in the other. “I’m so sorry, Olivia.”
    “It’s not as though I’m on my deathbed,” she quipped, but the truth was she could use a good cry.
    “This must hurt like the devil.”
    It did, as a matter of fact, and talking about it wasn’t helping one bit. “A two-mile walk seems out of the question.”
    He gently placed her foot back on the floor and lowered the hem of her dress. The slight weight of her hem against the top of her foot felt almost as bad as the time Lord Kesley trampled it during a quadrille.
    “You definitely cannot walk,” James said soberly.
    She checked the urge to make a snide remark even though she
had
told him so.
    “If it weren’t raining and muddy, I might be able to carry you—”
    “No,” Olivia cried emphatically. After enduring two rejections from him in the past week, her pride simply would not allow it.
    “You’re right. The ground is too treacherous. We shall have to wait here while Terrence goes for help.”
    Olivia tilted her head, hoping she’d heard him incorrectly. “
We
?”
    “I’m not leaving you alone.” James pointed at her ankle and made a face like he smelled a three-day-old fish. “Especially not with your foot like that.”
    “It’s not as though it’s going to fall off while you’re not looking.”
    He shrugged like he wouldn’t want to make that bet. “Without two good feet, you’d be even more defenseless than usual.”
    “I’m not nearly as helpless as you might think.” She smiled in a thinly veiled threat.
    James grinned. “I’m sorry you’ll have to endure my company a bit longer.”
    “Hildy could stay with me,” Olivia said hopefully.
    “She can if you’d like. But even the pair of you cannot remain here alone. It will be dark by the time Terrence returns. He’s unhooking the horses now. I’ll inform him of our plans so he can be on his way.”
    He started for the door, then stopped, his brow wrinkled in concern. “Would your foot feel better if you propped it up on this bench?” Before she could respond, he said, “Let’s try.” He knelt on the floor and lifted her leg with the same care she was certain he’d have given to an ancient Egyptian princess’s mummified leg—though he would no doubt have been more enthralled with the latter. With a traveling blanket that he found beneath his seat, he swaddled her ankle and let it rest on the bench. The throbbing lessened slightly.
    “Thank you,” she said. “That helps a little.”
    James nodded and ducked out the door to speak with Terrence. The moment he left, Hildy cleared her throat. “You’ll want me to stay with you, then?”
    Olivia would have thought the answer obvious. “I think that would be best. Do you have any objection?”
    “No, of course not,” Hildy said. But she gazed longingly out the window.
    “But you would rather walk to Sutterside in the rain than wait here with me in the dry coach?”
    “Oh, it sounds awful when you put it like that,” Hildy said. “You know I’ve never been good on long rides.”
    “You can’t have motion sickness—we’re not even moving.”
    “I know, my lady.” The maid blushed scarlet. “It’s not the movement that’s the problem so much as the small space. Now that Mr. Averill is traveling with us, the carriage seems that much smaller. It makes me light-headed.”
    “Here. We can open the door.” Olivia awkwardly leaned over her outstretched leg, undid the latch, and pushed the door open. A damp breeze blew into the cab. “That’s better, isn’t it?”
    Hildy shot a skeptical look at the door. “I suppose.”
    But just then, another gust slammed the door shut.
    Blast. There was no good reason Hildy should suffer on her account—at least no more than she already had. “On second thought, I think you should