Amanda closed her eyes, sent a brief SOS to God, and did as he’d told her. The material of his breeches was coarse and cold and wet under her hands; the furred, tautly muscled flesh beneath was fiery hot in contrast. He wore no underdrawers, Amanda noted with embarrassment as she eased the breeches down over his hips. The sight of a neat, round navel cozily nestled beneath a covering of curling black hair brought more color flooding to her cheeks. She averted her eyes abruptly, looking at the sky, the sea, anything except him. He groaned a little, bringing her eyes swinging back around, first to his face, which had paled, and then to his now-bared abdomen. She had uncovered the wound. It was, as he had said, fairly high up on his hip, a jagged gash plowed perhaps a half inch deep into his side. The edges of the wound did not mesh properly, which was probably why blood continued to ooze sluggishly through the opening, which was about six inches long. Dried crusts of blood here and there attested to 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.