Chapter Two
Adelaide Bursnell knew she was not a good girl. A good girl would not have been seduced by a man she hardly knew. A good girl would not have surrendered her virtue without a wedding ring. A good girl would not have faked her own death rather than return to her family in shame and humiliation. A good girl most certainly would not shoot her former lover, no matter how much he deserved a bullet to the flesh.
And yet, if the red liquid spilling from Nick’s arm was any indication, she had done just that. She stared hard at the crimson seeping through the white linen of his sleeve, willing it to go back where it belonged. When it did not, she did the only thing she could do when confronted with such ugliness of her own making.
She fainted.
Or she tried to, anyway. A good girl would have been able to accomplish a ladylike swoon, she had no doubt. But Adelaide was not a good girl, and the best she could do was a facsimile of the real thing. Her eyelids fluttered closed and her body swayed delicately before collapsing in a silken heap on the floor.
His footsteps came close and paused. The cool metal of her pistol slipped from her grip. She held her breath. Maybe he would leave to find help and she could make her escape? But no. She heard a clunk as he set the weapon down somewhere—a table, perhaps. Then his footsteps returned.
Drat.
Nick nudged her hip with the toe of his boot. She ignored it. He nudged harder. When she still did not respond, he squatted down and shook her roughly by the shoulder. She opened her eyes, and there he was, so close that he filled her vision, blocking out the room and all its contents. All she could see were his ice-blue eyes and scowling lips. Even with the purple bruise on his cheek and the small cut above his left eye, he was beautiful.
Her heart raced. She commanded it to stop that nonsense forthwith.
“Adelaide,” he said in that rich, growly voice that did nothing to slow her heart rate. “You can’t faint. I’m the one who’s bleeding.”
“Yes, but I can’t do anything about that,” she said. She permitted herself a small sense of—well, not victory, exactly, but rightness. Here, at least, she was just as she should be. Ladies were supposed to be decorative, not useful. They could paint watercolors, play the pianoforte, or sing. Matters of blood and guts should be left for the men to handle.
Nick made a sound of resignation. Then in one elegant motion, he scooped her from the floor with his good arm and deposited her on a hard wooden stool—across the room from the pistol, she noted. Apparently he was leaving nothing to chance. He moved away abruptly and she teetered briefly at the sudden loss of support before she gained her balance.
“What are you looking for?” she asked.
“Anything I can use as a bandage.”
He wouldn’t find anything. The hired rooms were nice enough, but it was still a coaching inn. There was a bed, a writing desk with a chair, and this absurdly tall stool upon which she now sat. Adelaide crossed her legs at the ankle to keep from swinging them like a child. She detested high stools. They made her feel so small. Which she was, but there was no need to rub salt in the wound.
Nick must have come to the same conclusion about the lack of bandages, because he stripped off his torn shirt and ripped it in half with his teeth. He handed the cloth to Adelaide. “I’m a man of many skills, but tying a knot with one hand isn’t one of them.”
Such a humble man, her Nick.
No, not her Nick.
She took the linen, wrapped the cut, and tied the knot with as much efficiency as she could muster given the exceedingly trying circumstances of him standing too close and smelling too good. He winced. Perhaps she had pulled the knot a little tighter than strictly necessary.
“Your family believes you are dead,” he remarked.
“And your family believes you are a murderer,” she returned.
“It seems that both our families are veritable fountains of misinformation.” He flexed his wounded arm—to see if it still worked, she imagined. The muscles bulged and relaxed. “Shall we enlighten them, do you think?”
“I haven’t a choice,” she said frankly. Nick was a soldier and a spy and heaven knew what else. He would divine the truth regardless. “A woman in my position has precious few options.”
“Adelaide.” His voice was gentle. “I did not receive your letter. I would have come, had I known you were with child.”
Would he have, truly? She found that hard to believe. He had left like a thief in the night, somehow managing to sneak into her aunt’s home to slip a note beneath her pillow. Yet he hadn’t woken her. He hadn’t said goodbye.
But it was the contents of the note that had broken her heart. There were no words of love, only polite regret. And then the address at which to reach him, should the need arise.
She didn’t suppose Nick counted love as a need.
But perhaps he would have come, had he received her letter. As the son of an earl—a fact he had not divulged during their ill-fated affair two summers ago—he knew what was expected of a gentleman. He would have married her out of guilt and a strong sense of duty, if nothing more. And then what? He would not have stayed long enough to be a true husband and father. He would have left them both to do…whatever it was he did, now that the war with France was over.
Perhaps if he had received her letter, she would not have been sent to that horrible nunnery for her confinement. Perhaps now her arms would not feel so achingly empty without a child to hold. But what did that signify? She could not live in a world of what-ifs.
“What’s done is done. It does not matter now,” she said. “The babe did not survive his birth.”
He glanced sharply at her. “I had heard the same about you. Yet, here you are, with a pistol, no less.”
A shiver of trepidation ran down her spine. Why was he looking at her as though awaiting her confession? She would not confess.
When she said nothing, he continued, “You blame me for his death. Is that why you tried to kill me?”
“I did not try to kill you,” she said, because she hadn’t.
She had found his room at the inn and knocked on the door, pistol in hand. She had only wanted to frighten him, but then he had opened the door. She had forgotten how large he was. And then…and then…
Well.
How was she to know that the blasted thing would go off from such a little squeeze?
It had been a mistake, and an unfortunate one, at that. Now what was she to do? She could not hope to best Nicholas Eastwood in either physical strength or a battle of wits. The pistol had been her one hope to emerge the victor. She glanced desperately to where it lay useless on the table. She must get it back. She must.
“Hmm,” he said, and then he did the last thing she would ever expect.
He stepped away from her, toward the window, and turned his back.
She saw her chance.