Page 59 of A Treacherous Treasure

“Exactly. That would be quite helpful.” Rebecca sighed.

Suddenly, she saw a large rock several feet away and started toward it. It was big enough to sit on, too big to be moved without at least one mule or horse and much effort.

Her foot sank down. She tried to yank it up, but it was too deep and she fell, her ankle wrenching and twisting.

She pushed herself up with her hands, now on her hands and knees, and gasped in pain.

Chapter Seventeen

“Are you all right?” Thomas was bent down beside her.

“Yes. Can you help me?”

He took hold of her under both arms and pulled her up. She was able to pull her foot out and stand, but when she put her weight on the injured foot, sharp pains shot up her leg from her ankle.

“Looks like you stepped in a badger’s hole. That’s a good way to break your ankle.”

“I wouldn’t have stepped in it if I had seen it.”

The look on his face was a half frown, half smile, but it quickly vanished. “Of course, forgive me. Can you walk?” Thomas was still holding onto her.

“I don’t know. I hope I didn’t break a bone.” She tried to take a step and almost went down again.

“Don’t put any pressure on it. You can put your arm around me.” He bent and put his arm around her back, and she held onto him.

She breathed in his scent—the smell of outdoors and a hint of warm, earthy, oil of bergamot cologne. She closed her eyes, her knees going weak for a moment at how good he smelled, and how good it felt to be this close to him, to feel his muscular arm and his warmth.

Her ankle did hurt, but she was almost glad.

He walked her over to the very rock she’d been moving toward and helped seat her on it.

“I can carry you back to the house, if you need me to.” He was looking at her with concern.

His expression was so different from what she had come to expect from Arthur. Her husband had made her feel as if she was a burden. He resented it when she needed or wanted something from him, even when she was sick, after she lost the baby. He’d avoided her, and never once did he look at her with half the concern in Thomas’s expression.

She’d told herself that that was just how men were. Men weren’t meant to care for the sick or injured, or to show compassion. Men were hunters, fighters, and procreators. But was that true? Perhaps there were men who cared, who showed compassion and care for others, especially when they were sick or injured.

If Thomas Westbrook was everything he seemed to be, then Rebecca was even more convinced that she’d chosen the wrong man, that she’d married the wrong person and had cheated herself out of love and happiness.

She realized she hadn’t answered him. “I am sure I can walk back, after I rest my ankle for a few minutes.” She didn’t want to be a burden, after all, to see his expression of concern change to resentment, to have him help her grudgingly. She wasn’t sure she could bear it.

“I am no expert, but I heard a surgeon once say that if there is a great deal of bruising and swelling, there is a good chance that the bone is broken, but it’s harder to tell with ankles.”

“Was that when you were in the army?”

“Yes, in the Peninsular War. I carried a fellow officer to the surgeon’s tent when he injured his ankle.”

“Was it broken?”

“I don’t know. I had to return to the battle, and I never saw him again.” He stared off through the trees. “I hope he was sent home, but I never heard.”

She desperately wished she could read his thoughts. “I can’t imagine how difficult fighting in a battle must be.”

“Some men seem to enjoy it, but I hated it.” He looked down at his hands. “I did come to know several good men, men to whom I would give my right arm if they needed it. How does your ankle feel?”

He turned his eyes on her, that wistful look gone and the concern back in place.

“Maybe a bit better. I think I can walk on it.”