“She refuses to be treated,” Aunt Esther said with an enormous sniff. Bronwyn felt a stroke of guilt as she met her aunt’s red-rimmed eyes. No doubt she’d been traumatized by the incident, and here Bronwyn was, more intent on eavesdropping than reassuring her aunt that all was well.

Thornbury closed the distance just as Bronwyn had resigned herself to the examination, his windblown hatless form making her breath hitch for an instant. “May I?” he inquired in a deep voice.

She blinked at him. “May you what?”

“Check your injury.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to retort that he wasn’t a physician, but the steely look in his eye stopped her short. Her tongue slipped out to wet her lips and she nodded, tilting her head to the side. “Very well, see for yourself.”

Gentle fingers grazed her neck, pushing her hair out of the way, and she winced as the ends caught in some of the sticky, congealed blood. With a soft murmur, Thornbury blew on it, and she swore the entire area caught on fire. Bronwyn froze, her feet glued to the pile of the carpet as his fingers stroked the three-inch length of the laceration from her earlobe to her chin. She felt that touch in between her breasts and all the way down to her abdomen to her tightening core.

“It’s not too deep,” he said in a low rasp. “But we should clean it to prevent infection. Now we have matching scars.”

Bronwyn was too busy keeping her body from combusting into a heap of ash at his feet to do anything but give a weak nod. She didn’t miss the look her aunt sent her way either and focused on keeping herself together while the doctor exchanged places with the duke to dab the cut with a damp cloth and apply a thin salve. “Keep it clean,” the grump of a doctor told her, likely because she’d quite rudely refused him earlier. “It will likely scar.”

“Better than a bullet hole,” she replied, and the man’s eyes went wide.

Thornbury sent her a wry look as her aunt burst into tears. Bronwyn hurried over to her side and gathered her into her arms. She really had to watch her words. In a man’s world, no one would ever worry about a scar or being shot at, and yet have it happen in a woman’s world, and everyone went a bit mad. Her life was worth the same as the duke’s. If that man had been a worse shot, Thornbury could have been a casualty as well. Amber eyes pierced hers from where he still stood, his face hard and unreadable. Bronwyn was sure he wanted to encase her in wool and ensure her safety at all costs.

“You c-could have been k-killed,” her aunt blubbered.