Six
JAMIE HAD RALLIED enough that he could feel his fury beginning to strengthen him. He shouted once more in Gaelic, since ladies shouldn’t hear what invective he said, even if they were evil.
At last he heard footsteps coming down the hall, and he could tell from the delicate tread that it was the younger one. Daria. Seated upright with his back to the stone wall, he watched the door slowly open, creaking loudly on its hinges.
A head of honey-gold appeared. Her gaze met his, and her eyes widened slightly.
Jamie did not speak; he could not trust himself to speak civilly.
“Ahem.” She stepped into the room. Her eyes skated over his bare chest and arms and his hair, which had felt matted and rough when he’d touched his head earlier. She was holding a bowl and some rags, both of which shook. And tucked up under one arm was a rather large knife.
He smirked at that, which seemed to unnerve her; she suddenly moved and put everything down on a small table, then grasped the knife, holding it down by her side, her fingers curling around the hilt. “I have come to change your bandages,” she announced grandly.
Jamie couldn’t help a small smile or the cock of his brow.
She lifted her chin. “And I will not tolerate any foolishness.”
An interesting thing to say, given that he was the one who had suffered all the foolishness in this house.
She stood as if she were expecting him to agree to her terms, and when he did not, her grip on the knife tightened. “Why do you not speak?”
Jamie could see every frayed nerve in her, every quiver, every shortened breath. He looked pointedly at her knife, then lifted his gaze to hers again. “Do you fear me, then, lass?” he asked quietly.
Color began to seep from her cheeks. “It’s rather a big knife,” she said, as if he hadn’t noticed. “Should you not fear me?”
Foolish chit. If Jamie ever had a daughter—and God help him if he did, for he found females to be the most exasperating and confusing creatures on earth—he would explain in no uncertain terms that if a man wishes to subdue a woman, he will. There is nothing—no knife, no club—that will stop him. Not even a one-legged man with a hole in his side and a wee bit of renewed strength could be stopped from subduing her if necessary.
“I mean only to change your bandages,” she added, as if he might believe she was accosting him. “The wounds must be kept clean.”
Jamie shrugged. “Then change them.”
The chit pressed her lips together and frowned at his bandages. The witch had wrapped them around his torso and his thigh, knotting the ends together. This one would have to crawl onto the bed to change them, since he was sitting up. He could see that she’d worked that out for herself, and he almost chuckled at her expression. An English rose, as fresh as the morning dew, unhinged by the sight of a man. “I’ll no’ bite, if that’s what gives you pause.”
Her gaze flew up to his; her cheeks were stained an appealing shade of pink.
“Come, then. Have done before I expire.”
She drew a breath so great that her shoulders lifted with it. She moved hesitantly to the edge of the bed and stood, clearly expecting him to move, to put his legs over the side and give her room to work. But Jamie was in no mood to help her. To her credit, she did not demand it. She put the knife on a pillow—just beyond his reach but well within hers—then hiked up the hem of her gown to give her a bit of leg room and put one knee on the bed. Then the other. She still wasn’t close enough—she tried to lean over and untie the ends of the cloth, but she couldn’t leverage her body at that distance. She sat back on her heels, her hands on her knees, examining the situation.
Jamie smiled.
“Don’t you dare smile at me as if this is some sort of game,” she said, her voice low and full of warning. She shifted closer, studiously avoiding his gaze as she gingerly worked the ends of the bandage free.
Jamie couldn’t take his eyes from her. Her skin was remarkably smooth, unmarked by the effects of childhood illness or even a single freckle. Her wine-colored lips looked especially full against her pale skin, and Jamie felt a faint stirring deep in his groin. He thought of Isabella, and wondered if he’d ever seen her as clearly as he was seeing this English rose.
His gaze fixed on her lips. He remembered that hazy kiss, the plump, firm flesh of her lips, the moist warmth against his mouth. She was now biting one of those lips in concentration. He scarcely noticed what she was doing to his body; he only knew that the moment she lifted her gaze to his, triumph shone in her eyes at having untied the bandages. Eyes that, under the right circumstance, could be a man’s undoing.
The right circumstance. That was laughable, for he wasn’t entirely certain that she wouldn’t try to kill him, too.
When she saw him looking at her as he was—a man taken with feminine beauty—she froze. Their faces were only inches apart, and her golden-brown eyes—flecked with a silvery blue, he noted—locked on his. “What are you doing here, so far from home?” he murmured, and casually lifted his hand to touch her cheek.
Her eyes widened. But she didn’t pull away; she held his gaze. “How do you know that I am far from home?”
“You speak like a Sassenach.”
Her lashes fluttered uncertainly.
He brushed her cheek with his knuckles. Smooth. Silk and cream. “And you’re no’ sturdy enough to survive life in the Highlands . . . your knife notwithstanding.”
Her brows dipped. “I’m sturdy—”
“No,” Jamie said, shaking his head. “You wish you were in England, with your tea and your feathers—”
“Feathers?”
He gestured to her head. “For the hats.” He’d never seen such ridiculous millinery as he had in London.
The color in her cheeks deepened. “I am sturdy enough, I assure you, if one considers that I came to see my grandmother and discovered that not only has she lost her mind, but there is a strange and completely incapacitated man in her house. And now, I am tending to his wounds. Wounds which he has no memory of receiving,” she added suspiciously. “I rather think no one can fault me for being a bit hesitant, but I assure you, I am sturdy.”
He gave her a lopsided smile. “Aye, no one can fault an English rose for changing a poor man’s bandages.” He let his hand drop, brazenly brushing her décolletage as he did.
Her blush deepened and she leaned back on her heels. “Please sit up a bit so that I might . . .” She made a circling gesture with her hand. “Unwrap them.”
“Why is it you, then, and no’ the old woman to tend me?”
She did not answer. Jamie did not take his eyes from her as he put his hand on her shoulder. He felt her flinch, heard her sharp intake of breath, and gave her a slight smile as he used her as an anchor to pull up and away from the wall, clenching his jaw against the pain this caused him.
She had to reach around him to unwind the bandage on his torso, giving him a lovely view of a flawless décolletage and the creamy mounds of flesh that rose out of her bodice. At any other time, in any other place, he would have persuaded her to allow him to touch her breasts, to bury his face in them. Jamie was not unsuccessful in wooing women to do as he pleased. But at that moment, he was far more concerned with personal survival and escaping this bloody cottage, and he contented himself with merely looking. Openly and admiringly.
“I believe your wounds have impaired your sense of propriety, sir,” she said with a pointed look.
Jamie smiled. “Perhaps a wee bit,” he conceded. “I heard a man outside, aye?”
She did not respond except to frown, then leaned into him once more to unwrap the bandage.
“Who was it, then?”
“No one.”
“No one,” he repeated.
“A passerby,” she said, leaning in to reach around him once more.
“Aye, and what did the passerby want?” he asked as he breathed in the scent of rosewater.
She hesitated in her work, then said softly, “You.”
Duff. Duff had found him, he was certain of it. And if he had, he’d be back, for Duff was the canniest, most perceptive man Jamie had ever known.
“Are you surprised?” she asked, peeking up at him. “Does it not give you cause for concern?”
“What concern should I have, lass?”
“What if he is the man who shot you? What if he would like to finish what he failed to do the first time?”
Jamie smiled a little. “I suppose, then, that you’d have to protect me from him, aye?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Why are you trying to save me now? Why have you no’ summoned someone to come for me?”
She dropped her gaze again. “I don’t rightly know, to be quite honest.” She pulled the bandage completely free of his body, then her face fell. “Dear God.”
Jamie bent his head to see the wound the old woman had inflicted upon him. He probed it gingerly, wincing in pain.
She gasped. “Don’t touch it!”
“It’s no’ as bad as I feared,” he said with some relief. “The lead went through.”
It hurt like hell, but at least it didn’t burn like fire any longer.
“Leave it be, please,” she begged, and scooted off the bed, fetching the bowl and the clean bandages. “I am to apply this liberally to your wound,” she said apologetically.
“What is it?”
She looked down at the bowl. “I am not certain, in truth. I only know that she scoured the woods looking for the right plants to make the salve.”
“The right plants,” he scoffed. “There are plants that grow in these hills that are poisonous.”
“She’s been working very hard to save your life since she found you in the woods.”
Surely the chit did not believe the old woman had found him in the woods! “I wonder,” he said casually, “how she managed to bring me here.”
“The Brodie lads helped her,” the English rose said as she dabbed a cloth into the bowl.
“Ah, of course. One wonders why the Brodie lads have no’ come round to find out why I’ve been shot, aye?” Or to complete the killing the old woman had botched. He could well imagine there would be any number of Brodies queuing to have a go at that.
Her gaze met his for a moment before she turned her attention to the wound, applying a salve that smelled foul and stung like nettles.
“Were I your . . . Mamie,” Jamie continued, “I’d seek help. For all she knows, I am the one who shot first, aye?”
That brought her head up. “Did you?”
“I donna know,” he said, steadily returning her gaze.
She flushed, dipped the cloth into the bowl, then dabbed it on the wound. Jamie tensed, his jaw clenched against the burn.
She put the bowl aside and picked up the new bandage. “It would be helpful if you could remember what happened.”
“Did you say, then, where the wi—your grandmamma has gone?”
“I didn’t,” she said distrustfully. “As it happens, she has at last gone for help.”
Ho now, here was an interesting turn. The old bat must believe that since he claimed not to remember, she might actually convince the authorities of her innocence.
The English rose made quick work of the bandage and tied it off neatly, then stepped down off the bed to admire her handiwork.
“Well done,” he said, a little breathlessly; his side throbbed painfully. “Are you a nurse, then?”
“A nurse?” She smiled as if that amused her. “No.”
“Then who are you, leannan? What is your name?”
“You’d like a proper introduction?” She folded her arms across her middle. “Miss Daria Babcock of Hadley Green. It’s a village in West Sussex. Who are you?”
He smiled. “I hope we will learn that together. Now then, what of the hole in my leg? Do you intend to change that bandage as well?”
Daria Babcock of Hadley Green glanced at his leg. He was reminded of that hazy image of her standing in the middle of the room, gaping at his naked body when he’d been half-mad with the concoction the old woman had given him. He slowly, deliberately, pushed the bed linen from his wounded leg, revealing his bare thigh and leaving just enough to cover his groin.
The English rose paled. Her gaze flicked to the bulge between his legs, still covered by the bedsheet, then back to the bandage. “Ah . . .”
He bent his knee, bringing his thigh off the bed so that she could reach around it. “You look like a ghost, Miss Babcock.” He couldn’t help grinning.
Her expression darkened. “You must think me very naïve, Mr. No Name.” She moved to the bed and began to tug at the knot in the bandage around his thigh. She made quick work of unwrapping it, grimacing when she saw the wound. This shot had not been so clean, and was made even uglier from the removal of the lead. It looked as if someone had dug with a shovel in his thigh. Miss Babcock was looking a little gray at the sight of it, and honestly, Jamie felt a little gray himself.
He took the cloth from her hand, jabbed it into the bowl she held, and ignored her gasp as he dabbed the ghastly stuff onto the wound. He hissed at the burn, then did it again, putting a generous dollop into the cavity of the wound. He’d either die of gangrene or he’d heal, but in either case, he would move things along.
The English rose was still gaping at his wound, so he grabbed up the fresh bandage and wrapped it around his leg himself, then tied it off. “There’s a good lass—fetch my plaid.”
“What?”
He nodded to the plaid, folded neatly and draped on the back of the chair.
She did as he asked, fetching it from the chair and unfolding it, approaching him as if she meant to drape it over him like a blanket.
“Lay it flat on the bed beside me,” he said, patting the bed. “Aye, that’s it. Now, please turn your back.”
“Why?”
“I intend to dress,” he said, and began to move the sheet from his body. “And I fear your tender nature will cause you to faint.”
She whirled about so quickly that her braid swung out wide. “You mean to dress?”
“To don clothing. But as the buckskins I was wearing seem to have disappeared, I shall dress in the traditional garb of the Highlanders. Is it no’ what the English tourists prefer from a Scot now? To see us clothed in the breacan feile?”
“I don’t prefer anything from a Scot,” she said. “I am quite content with England, thank you.”
Bloody good for her.
“But you can’t dress. You can scarcely sit up in your bed.”
“You don’t know the will of a Highlander,” he said, and clenched his jaw against the pain as he eased himself onto the plaid and wrapped it around his waist, rolling a bit to get it around him.
“Perhaps not. But I am well acquainted with the stubborn nature of men in general,” she said pertly.
Behind her, Jamie rolled his eyes. He grabbed up the soiled bandage she’d unwrapped from his leg and used that to belt the plaid to him. “All right then, give us a hand.”
She glanced over her shoulder; Jamie was slowly inching his way to the edge of the bed. He beckoned her near, but the lass seemed dumbstruck. With a grunt, Jamie tried to stand. His injured leg buckled beneath him and a wave of dizziness came over him. She rushed to him then, and he quickly pulled her against his side with an arm draped heavily around her shoulders. Leaning against her, he tested his weight as she braced her hands on his back and abdomen, struggling to hold him upright.
“Augh,” he uttered as he shifted forward, moving his injured leg.
“I beg you not to do this! Please go back to your bed before you hurt yourself. It’s too soon!”
“Never known a man to heal by lying about in his bed,” he muttered. Something wasn’t right. The far edges of his vision were beginning to swim. The salve. Jamie cursed in his native tongue. That witch—if she couldn’t force it down his throat, she would put it in his wound.
“Oh dear, you don’t look well at all,” he heard the lass say, but her voice seemed disembodied. He looked down at her and watched her features melt just before he felt his legs give way beneath him.