"Leave it alone, for pity’s sake!" he snarled. "Haven't you done enough damage?"
She grabbed up a wad of petticoat from the jumble of garments stuffed in a nearby basket and jabbed the cloth in the vicinity of his wound none too gently.
"Ouch, blast it!" he snapped. "What? Shooting me wasn't enough? You have to find new ways of causing me pain?"
"You're supposed to apply pressure to stanch the flow of blood!"
"I know!" He jerked away, clamping his arm tightly over the bunched cloth.
"I hope you are satisfied!" she shouted, clinging to her fury. "My escape is completely ruined."
An oath hissed from between the rebel's clenched teeth. "That bullet didn't do much for my jacket, either." Long artist's fingers snagged in the charred holes that the bullet had made as it entered and exited. "More infernal mending." He groaned. "You should've aimed for my heart. Nice, clean bullet. Over in an instant. But I suppose I should be grateful you didn't blow the whole cave to kingdom come."
"That pistol was loaded perfectly! I've been shooting since I was eight years old! If I wanted to wound you, Master Cowardly, you wouldn't be suffering from some—some paltry gash."
"Well, pardon me for not being wounded in a more dramatically satisfactory way. And for mucking up your great escape." He attempted to lever himself away from the wall, but he sagged back against the rough stone, his teeth clenched. "Sorry I didn't play my part to your high standards of excellence."
A rumble of shouts echoed from the other part of the cave, the oaken door slamming open with a force that should have brought the cave roof tumbling in on their heads.
"What's happening? I heard a shot!" a masculine voice shouted. "Did that cur Dunstan discover—" The sentence ended in a roar of pure fury. "What the devil!"
Rachel turned to see Adam, pistol in hand, his face as feral as a bear's and twice as frightening.
"Curse you, woman," Adam roared as he charged her. "If you've hurt him, I swear I'll wring your neck."
Rough fingers closed on her shoulder, and she expected to be flung to the far corners of the cave by this terrifying giant of a man, but the Glen Lyon intervened by merely raising one hand.
"Stop, Adam. This is my fault."
Those quiet words stopped Adam when Rachel was certain nothing else could have.
She gaped at the Glen Lyon. The man leaned against the wall in a manner almost—well, casual—as if he were shot every day of the week. Astonishment bolted through her as she gazed into gray eyes brimming with wry humor, despite his grimace of pain.
"I'll go stark raving mad if you go defending the wench out of some misguided notion of chivalry!" Adam jammed his pistol back into the waistband of his breeches and charged toward the rebel leader. "She may be a woman, but they can be accursed vipers."
She knew the instant Adam saw the blood. Pain darted into those warrior features. Far more pain, Rachel was certain, than if the big man had been wounded himself.
The Glen Lyon must have glimpsed Adam’s expression as well, for he pushed himself away from the wall, and took a few unsteady steps to his chair. He sank down on it, his wounded side hidden by the desk. What in the name of heaven was he doing?
"I have it on Mistress de Lacey's authority that this is nothing but a paltry gash," the Glen Lyon said with a forced laugh.
"Wonderful!" Adam snapped. "Did you inform her royal highness that if the pistol ball had been a few inches over you’d be dead?”
The notion that she might have killed a man made Rachel’s head swim. She buried her hands in the folds of her robes, but the smear of red left on the dusty fabric made her stomach pitch. "I didn't mean to shoot him. I never intended to."
"Mama Fee," the giant called over one shoulder. "Get me some water—hot and clean. And some fresh linen."
"It was my own clumsiness that caused this," the Glen Lyon insisted. "Tried to grab my gun."
"The little witch tried to grab your gun? You should've knocked her over the head with it! No doubt you were trying to be gentle."
"You don't understand." The Glen Lyon grasped the side of the desk, and Rachel wondered if she was the only one who noticed how white his knuckles were. "She had the gun when I came into the room. I tried to . . . get it from her."
"Don't be ridiculous!" Adam cast a glare at the German silver pistol that lay at the foot of the desk. His brow furrowed. His eyes clouded, a befuddled haze drifting over them. "How the devil could she have your gun?" Adam snorted. "You were carrying it when we met with Sir Dunstan."
The Glen Lyon raised his eyes to the stormy face of Adam, and Rachel could see his chest begin to shake—shake with suppressed . . . could it be laughter?
"Thunder in heaven," Adam cursed, stunned. "Tell me you didn't forget your pistol!"
"Don't look at me like . . . that," the Glen Lyon choked out, but tears of mirth were welling in the corners of his eyes. "Hurts to laugh."
Rachel gaped at him. He had to be mad, laughing with a bullet wound in his side, defending her when she had just shot him.
Adam slammed his fist against the desktop, curse words raining out of him in a hail that echoed off the cave's walls. "It would serve you right if I left you to Mistress Hellcat's tender mercy! Blast it, but you deserve each other!" He kicked the basket of garments, the thing spinning wildly across the cave floor, spilling out clothes that scandalized Rachel.
Garish garments fit only for courtesans tumbled out in tawdry array, crushed beneath Adam's hulking boots as he stalked the chamber.
"Please. If you have any mercy in your heart, Mistress de Lacey, you'll tend my wound," the Glen Lyon implored, his face pale, drawn, his eyes still shining with laughter. "I fear if my brother gets too close he may finish the job your pistol ball started."
"Serve you right if I did!" Adam blustered, flexing his massive fists. "Hellfire and damnation! What if Wells had drawn fire on you?"
"I suppose I'd be in approximately the same condition I am now, only I'd be feeling a damn sight more foolish." Those pale lips gave an ironic twist. "If that is possible."
"Lads, lads! You stop this squabbling at once!" The old woman came bustling in, a bowl in her hands. Rachel looked up, hoping to find some semblance of sanity in this madness.
"Now, you tell Mama Fee what is amiss this instant!"
"She shot him!" Adam roared, stabbing an accusatory finger in Rachel's direction, "and he doesn't have the bloody sense to give a damn!"
"Don't be absurd," the woman's laugh rang out, crystalline, lovely. "Why would Miss Rachel shoot our boy? She has the eye for him, she does. Going to marry him, don't ye know."
"Marry him?" Rachel felt as if the woman had dumped the bowl of water over her head. "Are you insane?"
She felt a gentle hand on her wrist, the Glen Lyon's fingers, warm and insistent. There was a plea in his eyes, one that struck her silent.
"Mama Fee, now if you keep talking thus, you'll be scaring her off. I thought it was our secret that I was to woo her."
"Woo her? Of all the—" But Adam stilled as well, silenced by the expression on the Glen Lyon's face.
"Gavin," Rachel gasped. Was that the rebel lord's real name?
"How else is Mama Fee to get the grandbabies she wants so badly?" the rebel lord asked in such a reasonable tone Rachel wanted to scuttle to the far end of the cave.
"Babies!" Rachel sputtered. "You promised you wouldn't ravish me!"
"Mama Fee." Glen Lyon gestured to the old woman. "Could you do me a favor and . . . take Adam out of here? You know how clumsy he is with the ladies. He'll have her running back to her mama before he's done."
The woman nodded sagely, one hand stealing out in a tender caress to smooth the dark-gold tangle of hair back from the Glen Lyon's brow. Rachel wondered how the woman failed to notice how pale that brow was.
"Adam," the Scotswoman called over her shoulder, "be takin' yerself out o' here afore I chase ye out with a broom! For shame, troublin' my dear Gavin so."
"Som
ebody has to take care of that wound!" Adam protested. "Look at him! He's bleeding."
For the first time the old woman's gaze strayed to where the Glen Lyon held the cloth clamped to his side, the crimson of his own blood staining his fingers. A darkness threatened to engulf her eyes, a void so vast that it terrified Rachel. The woman's lovely face seemed to become even more brittle, fragile as porcelain ages old.
Rachel saw the Glen Lyon reach out surreptitiously with the toe of his boot, nudging the fallen pistol out of sight beneath the tangle of clothes.
"It's only the tiniest scratch, Mama Fee," he said, dismissing his wound. "I was cleaning my pistol and the blasted thing went off. I suppose it was to be expected since I was dreaming about the lady instead of paying attention," the rebel leader confided with a self-deprecating grin, only a mere shadow of his pain still visible on his face. "Let my sweetheart tend me. You know how the ladies love to . . . play angel of mercy."
"I'm not—" Rachel started to protest, but at that moment, the Glen Lyon levered himself to his feet. One hand tangled in the waves of her hair. A cry was trapped in her throat as he pulled her toward him, his mouth capturing hers in a hard kiss. He was leaning on her, heavily, as if without her support, he'd crumple to the floor. But she couldn't have moved if the fate of England depended on it.
The Glen Lyon's mouth burned hers—insistent, hot—searing itself onto the soft curves of her mouth. Even her outrage was trapped in her throat.
"Please." One word, for her ears alone, he whispered as he drew away.
"Oh for heaven’s sake!" Adam roared. But he bit off a curse as a smile wavered on the older woman's lips—tentative, fragile as the finest spindle of glass—quieting them both.
"It's all right, Adam," the Glen Lyon insisted, sinking back down into the chair. "Trust me."
"Trust you? Trust you! Last time I did so, you all but got yourself killed!"
Rachel expected the giant of a man to stand his ground against the Glen Lyon, but after one last mutinous glare, he only growled. "If anything happens to this man, Mistress de Lacey, I know a hundred people who would slit your throat—be damned that you're a woman. And I promise you, I would be the first in line!" With that, Adam stormed out, leaving Rachel shaken.
She caught a glimpse of Mama Fee and was appalled to see the older woman close the space between them. Rachel stiffened as arms enfolded her in a butterfly-gentle embrace. "Take care of him," she whispered in Rachel's ear. "He's tender of heart, my boy is, yet stronger than ye can imagine."
"I . . . we . . . he's not . . ." she started to stammer a denial, but her words tangled, until she stood there like an absolute dolt, watching while the old woman made her way out of the chamber. At the door, the Scotswoman paused to cast them a grin. "I'll be closin' the door to give ye sweetings some privacy. Mind ye be a gentleman, now, my darling."
Hot spots of color rose on the rebel leader's high-slashed cheekbones, but Rachel saw a devilish grin tugging once again at his lips. It was as if he was thinking of the absurdity of Mama Fee's chidings: be a gentleman scoundrel, a gentleman rebel, a kidnapper who minds his manners, God forbid he should commit a faux pas—especially while he was bleeding from a bullet wound!
The door shut, and Rachel heard Adam slam the bar down across it again with a vehemence that made her certain he wished the Glen Lyon 's thick head was beneath it.
The sound echoed through the room, then faded into a silence that chafed at her.
She turned on him, her eyes fired with fury. "Don't you ever dare to kiss me again!”
"Mama Fee would have chastised me for my rudeness if I'd told you to shut your mouth, ma'am You have amazingly soft lips for so formidable a lady."
"You're insane. All of you. The old woman, that mountain of a man. And you! You're the worst of all. Completely mad."
"Without a doubt," the Glen Lyon murmured. She heard the chair scrape back against the cave floor, a soft, guttural moan as the rebel leader stood up, starting toward the heather pallet that served as a bed. "But, then, sanity is highly overrated."
The words were lost in a sudden thud, and Rachel turned to see the Glen Lyon sprawled on the cave floor. His face contorted in pain. The wad of cloth had fallen away from his wound. Rachel's stomach plunged to her toes at the amount of blood that darkened his jacket.
"Sweet heaven! You really are hurt!" she said accusingly, rushing to his side and dropping to her knees.
"You did shoot me, if you remember," he said rather gently.
"You said it was a mere gash!"
"No. You said it was a paltry gash. I merely chose not to correct you."
She fumbled with the blood-soaked cloth of his jacket and the fastenings of his waistcoat, peeling them off of his shoulders.
She ripped off the linen of his shirt as well to expose sleek, tanned muscle, dusted with dark-gold hair, the gaping crimson mouth of the bullet wound obscene where it tore a six-inch gash along his ribs. Her stomach threatened outright rebellion at her handiwork.
God in heaven, how had the man stayed on his feet during the argument with Adam? How had he managed to conceal that he was badly hurt?
"Why didn't you say something?" she breathed. "I have to tell them."
"No! Please!" His right hand shot out, capturing her wrist. "Adam worries too damn much already. Not about to give him an excuse. And Mama Fee. I can't let her see . . ." The words trailed off, but he didn't need to finish. Rachel had glimpsed the suffering in the Scotswoman's vague and lovely eyes; those frail white hands clung to a slender thread of sanity. She couldn't help but wonder what horror lay in the dark abyss beyond the older woman's gaze.
Apparently satisfied that Rachel was no longer going to bolt for the door to summon help, the Glen Lyon levered himself up on his right elbow, and, with one booted foot, edged himself over until he could prop his shoulders against the wall beside the bed. Sweat beaded his ashen face, running in rivulets to dampen the waistband of his breeches.
"If you could hand me the bowl and the bandages, I can get started on this," he said, his gray eyes trailing down to the gash in his side. He grimaced. "Bloody nuisance."
Rachel fetched the bowl of water and the bandages, her hands trembling. Emotions warred inside her—anger and frustration, outrage and fear shifting to wariness, confusion. He had had her abducted, for heaven's sake. It wasn't as if he were some kind of knight errant. He was a rebel. A coward. A traitor. Why did she suddenly look into those gray eyes that were so wise, so warm despite their pain, and see only a man whom she had injured?
She attempted to steel herself against those eyes, that wry sense of humor. She might have been able to do so if he hadn't smiled at her with very real gratitude.
"Thank you," he said, accepting the supplies. "I'm afraid you are about to be treated to some . . . most inappropriate language, Mistress de Lacey." He took up a cloth, dipping it in water. "But I'll try to keep it in Latin. Those . . . brats of mine repeat the damnedest things."
Latin. When she'd first entered the cave, he'd been swearing in Latin. Something warm and wary squeezed at her heart.
A string of fierce, unintelligible words hissed between his teeth as he strained to reach the gash. He dabbed at the wound, his body twisted in a manner she knew must be excruciating.
The corded muscles stood out in his neck, his bared chest gleaming with sweat.
Rachel watched as long as she could, her fingers knotted in her skirts, her teeth clamped down on her lower lip to keep it from trembling. Then she couldn't endure it a moment more.
"Stop being a stubborn fool!" she said, her fingers clamping down on a wrist surprisingly supple and strong. "No wonder that Adam person wants to murder you if you're always this bullheaded. Let me do that."
The Glen Lyon looked up at her in surprise. "There's no need. It's hardly appropriate a lady to . . ."
"It was hardly appropriate for me to shoot you, either. Since we've already plunged past the bounds of propriety, I doubt tending a wound in your ch
est is going to send me into a fit of feminine apoplexies."
His lips twisted up in an ironic curve, and he leaned his head back against the stone wall. His eyelids drifted shut, thick, astonishingly dark lashes pillowed against high cheekbones. "I suppose if you're certain you won't faint. I'd be damned grateful for some help. This dastardly villain business can be . . .damned fatiguing."
She took the cloth from his limp fingers, and dipped it again into the bowl. For an instant, she wasn't certain she could follow through on her offer.
Her whole body recoiled with horror at what she'd done.
Never, in all the tales of war she'd heard, in all the fantasies she'd spun, had she ever comprehended the sickening sensation of a finger tightening about a trigger, a lead ball ripping through human flesh.
I didn't mean to do it.
The words echoed through her. But somehow, that couldn't erase the fact that she had.
The cloth dipped into the deepest part of the wound, and the Glen Lyon swore, arching his head back, his fists clenched. Yet, he didn't move so much as a whisper to evade the painful probing.
She glanced up, the aristocratic planes of the rebel's face taut with the effort to hold still.
"It needs to be stitched up," he said tightly. "There's a wooden box with a crest upon it in the trunk. I keep it stocked with supplies for . . . emergencies like this. A curved needle. Some oil and waxed thread and scissors. If you could find them and thread the infernal needle, I can sew this up."
"But you loathe mending." Rachel found herself attempting to make light of the grisly task that awaited her. "The least I can do is . . .” Pierce human flesh with a needle? Stitch up the edge of the wound? The very thought made her head swim.
She turned away, quickly rummaging through the trunk until she found the box he spoke of, After a moment, she threaded the strange, curved needle with waxed thread, then sucked in a breath to steady herself before she turned back to the Glen Lyon .
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