The Bodyguard

by Joan Johnston

  “Yes, Kitt, what is it?”

  “Lady Kath—” She bit her lip on the correction. If he lived, there would be time enough to correct him later. “I must stitch the wound on your leg. It will cause you pain.”

  “Do what you must.”

  He grasped the bedsheets tightly in both hands but didn’t move a hair as she cleansed the wound, making sure there was no cloth from his trousers left inside. She pushed the needle through his flesh as quickly as she could, closing the wound with small, neat stitches, so the remaining scar would not impair his ability to walk or to ride.

  Sweat dotted his forehead by the time she was done. Her father had lain still for her ministrations, but he had yelled like a child from the pain. Alex’s stoicism was disturbing, almost frightening, because she thought perhaps he was too weak to yell. “I must turn you over now, Alex.”

  She tried to do it by herself, but he was too heavy. Kitt realized she probably should not have sent Ian away. “Alex, I canna turn you by myself. You must help me.”

  “I shall try, Kitt. Be patient with me if I cannot do as you ask.”

  Kitt frowned. The sentence had sounded unlike something Alex would say, but she didn’t have time to think about it, because he was trying to turn himself over. He moaned through his teeth as she shoved at his shoulder until at last he was lying on his stomach.

  “Thank God that is done. I trust you will be careful when you cut out that ball. I think I shall sleep now, shall I?”

  Kitt stared at Alex in alarm. “What happened to your accent, Alex? Alex?”

  He had fainted.

  Kitt stared at the wounded man lying on her bed. He had spoken like an English nobleman, his voice crisp and condescending.

  Maybe I imagined it.

  But she had not. She knew she had not. Kitt said the words over in her head. They sounded just as foreign. Alex Wheaton—or whoever he was—was no simple sailor, she realized. Who was he? Why had he come here? And what did he want from her?

  Her pulse began to race. If he truly was an Englishman, why had he let them go through with the raid? Perhaps even now the soldiers were on their way to her cottage. Perhaps even now her clansmen were being arrested.

  Could Alex really be an Englishman, and thus her enemy? As much as she wanted to deny the possibility, she could not. The clues had all been there from the start, but she had ignored them: the lack of calluses on his hands, the ignorance of how to cut peat, the way he had mastered the unconquerable Thoroughbred stallion. The English arrogance and condescension had even been there when he greeted the Earl of Carlisle.

  She knew her father would not have hesitated in making the decision to let Alex die. It would be enough to leave the wound in his back untreated. He would slowly but surely bleed to death if she did nothing.

  But I am not my father. Or my father’s son. She was a woman. Who felt a great deal more than she should for an Englishman. Her enemy.

  The fact that she could not contemplate killing Alex did not mean she did not recognize the danger he presented to her clansmen. If only she knew whether Alex had told anyone where he was going or what they had intended to do tonight. Was Patrick Simpson even now being recaptured?

  Kitt brushed her fingertips across Alex’s broken nose. The marks on his face were real. Whoever he was, he had enemies of his own. Perhaps he was fleeing the law in England. Perhaps he was an outlaw. Kitt was torn, uncertain what to do next. He was far too dear to her to be the enemy.

  Save his life. Then you can worry about whether to choke the life out of him for keeping his true identity a secret.

  She used her knife to cut a slit down the back of her father’s shirt to expose a ragged wound that seeped blood. It would not take much to make the blood flow more freely, to make the end come more quickly. She was careful not to let that happen.

  Kitt’s stomach revolted at the thought of digging for the musket ball in Alex’s flesh, and she swallowed back the bile that had risen in her throat. She had no choice. He would die if she did not retrieve the metal ball from his body. She reminded herself that Alex had been wounded saving her life. That she might have been the one who needed surgery if it had not been for him.

  The task became easier once she got started. She removed his bloody trousers, then cut off the remnants of the shirt, glad there was no one present to see her hot flush as she remembered how powerful, how virile Alex had looked walking toward her at the loch. She kept her eyes averted now, but it was impossible not to see glimpses of his flesh. If only he had been a simple sailor. If only he wasn’t an Englishman!

  By the time Kitt finally dug the ball from Alex’s back, her shoulders ached from bending over him. He was conscious enough to feel pain, because he twisted away and moaned when she used a warm cloth to cleanse the wound.

  She once more brushed the blond hair from his forehead and said, “Be still. I willna hurt you.”

  Not yet.

  Once she had tended to Alex, Kitt settled herself on a pallet near the warmth of the hearth to wait for Moira’s return. But she drifted into sleep.

  Kitt was woken by muttering in the next room. To her surprise and alarm, the sky was already lightening with the beginning of day. How could she have fallen asleep! She rose and hurried into the bedroom to see how Alex had fared during the night.

  “Where is she?” Alex muttered. “Drunk as she is likely to be …”

  Kitt wondered who “she” was. She put a hand to his forehead. It was feverishly hot. She should have expected it. She should have stayed awake to watch over him.

  Kitt leaned close when Alex began to speak again and realized that she was hearing that same clipped, upper-class British voice he had used last night.

  “My brother … and my wife … together. Please, God, no! Not mine? The twins … not mine?”

  Kitt listened, fascinated and appalled.

  “Get out before I strangle you … Hate you … hate you both … for deceiving me …”

  Kitt could hardly believe what she was hearing. It was easy to piece together a whole from the fragments Alex had given her. It was nothing she would have imagined. Apparently Alex’s brother and Alex’s wife had lain together and Alex’s children—twins?—were not his, but his brother’s.

  How awful for him.

  There was more to the story that she did not wish to contemplate. He hated his wife and his brother. He had threatened to strangle someone. Had Alex murdered his wife or his brother or both? Was he a wanted man in England? Was that why he had come to Scotland and pretended to be someone he obviously was not?

  “Who are you?” Kitt looked into his gray eyes, which were open but appeared blank, unseeing.

  Alex moved restlessly, wincing and moaning with pain. He stared sightlessly at her.

  “Who are you?” she repeated. “Why did you come here?”

  “Blackthorne,” he whispered. “I am Blackthorne.”

  Kitt jerked away, stunned. “ ’Tis not possible. The duke is dead. Drowned in the …”

  Alex Wheaton had come from the sea. She had brushed the sand from his face, taken the seaweed from his hair.

  Alex Wheaton is the Duke of Blackthorne in disguise.

  Kitt shook her head in disbelief at such an incredible idea. Why would Blackthorne pretend to be someone else, especially such an insignificant someone else? Why not return to Blackthorne Hall instead of staying with her? Alex had slept on a bed of straw!

  The Alex she knew could not be the detestable duke. He had held Brynne so carefully in his arms. And swum naked in the loch. And downed a pint or two with Fletcher. And kissed her and touched her until she was half in love with him.

  Kitt felt like howling. It wasn’t possible!

  But what if it was true? What if Alex was the duke?

  She could not see him committing murder, not even for such a terrible offense as what his brother had done. He would be more likely to hide the truth than to admit he had been cuckolded. Perhaps Alex had run away for a while to lick h
is wounds and ended up here, acting out a charade for his amusement.

  How dare he! To make sport of her and her people, why, it was diabolical! Kitt stared at the man, aghast as she realized she had told him her father’s plan.

  I planned to seduce Blackthorne and get myself with child.

  Kitt groaned. No wonder Alex had been so furious at her plan to trick the duke. He was the very man she had planned to deceive. Kitt felt her chin quiver and bit down to hold back the tears of anger and frustration and defeat.

  Blackthorne knew everything. All was lost.

  Unless the Duke of Blackthorne remains dead.

  Kitt reached for the knife she had used to save the duke’s life, and raised her hand to plunge it into his back. There was no question of murder. The duke was already dead, drowned in the sea. He was her enemy. He and his father and his father’s father had stolen the lifeblood from her people and now threatened to starve them off land they had claimed for generations. Justice was on her side.

  She gripped the knife with both hands to still her trembling. She must do this. It would be better to end the duke’s life and to marry the earl instead.

  A picture flashed in her mind of Alex putting his body between her and the soldier’s musket, so he had been wounded and she had remained whole.

  Surely he deserved mercy for such a sacrifice.

  “What are ye doing?”

  Kitt started and looked up to find Moira standing in her bedroom doorway. She realized that she was still holding the knife and set it down. “He says he’s Blackthorne.”

  Moira nodded, as though she had thought as much all along.

  “You dinna seem surprised.”

  Moira shrugged. “I knew he was no ordinary man, though I didna suspect he was the duke. What is it ye plan to do now?”

  “I dinna know what to do,” Kitt said, letting out a gust of trapped air. “Perhaps he will die and save me the trouble of deciding.”

  Moira stepped closer to check Kitt’s work. “This was well done.”

  Kitt pursed her lips. “I should have let him bleed to death. He’s likely to have us all transported.”

  Moira shook her head. “Wait and see what the man has to say for himself on the morrow, my darling Kitty. If he is Blackthorne and he had wanted to stop the raid, he could have done so. He obviously intended for Patrick to be freed.”

  Kitt thought about that for a moment. “Maybe you’re right. He’s weak enough that I can just as easily kill him on the morrow.”

  “That’s looking at the bright side, lass,” Moira said with a cackle.

  “How is Fletcher?”

  “He’ll be well enough in a day or two, with a scar to brag about in the tavern.”

  Kitt closed her eyes and gripped her hands together as though in prayer. “Thank God.”

  “I’ll fix us some breakfast,” Moira said as she retreated, leaving Kitt alone with Alex.

  Kitt brought the rocker from the corner and put it beside the bed where she could watch her patient closely. As the morning sun hit her eyes from her bedroom window, she reached out her fingertips and laid them on his throat. His pulse was thready, barely there.

  “Someone’s coming,” Moira called from the other room.

  Kitt froze. Where could she run? There was no escape from the house except through the door, and no way to hide Alex’s presence.

  She was already out of the rocker by the time Moira said, “ ’Tis the boy. The one who works for Carlisle. Alex’s friend Laddie.”

  The boy had said he knew Alex, that they had grown up on neighboring farms. Was he in on the hoax? Did he know Alex was the duke? Kitt hurried to the door.

  “Milady,” the boy said, touching his forelock as he greeted her. “The earl has sent me with a note for you.”

  “Come inside,” Kitt said. She did not want the boy to leave before she had the answers she needed. He took only a couple of steps inside before she purposefully closed the door behind him.

  She took the note, broke the wax seal, and almost sighed aloud with relief when she read it.

  Lady Katherine,

  Urgent business calls me to London. I must regretfully break our riding engagement next week. I look forward already to the day I can see you again.

  Yours, etc.,

  Carlisle

  Kitt looked up at Moira and said, “Carlisle is going to London on business. He doesna expect to be back next week to ride with me.”

  “There’s a bit of luck,” Moira replied.

  The boy suddenly pointed and stuttered, “W-what’s happened to Alex?”

  Kitt looked where Laddie was pointing and saw the remnants of the shirt and trousers Alex had been wearing. She had left them on the floor beside the hearth because she had not yet decided whether they could be salvaged or whether she should simply burn them.

  “Was Alex hurt on the raid?” the boy asked.

  Kitt gasped in alarm. “How do you know about the raid?”

  “You canna keep such a thing secret, milady. Fletcher’s wife’s cousin works in the earl’s stable. He told me you planned to free Patrick Simpson from jail, and of course if you went, Alex must go too. Is he hurt badly? Can I see him?”

  “What is Alex Wheaton to you?” Kitt demanded. “And dinna lie again and tell me you grew up on neighboring farms.”

  The boy turned toward the door, but Moira was standing in front of it. He shifted from foot to foot until Kitt pinned him in place with her stare.

  “I met Alex by chance at the Ramshead Inn,” he blurted.

  “Why did you lie for him?”

  He shrugged. “He was a stranger who needed my help. I gave it to him.”

  “He’s English,” Kitt said flatly. What kind of Scotsman willingly aided the English in these terrible days? And trusted him not to betray them.

  The boy pursed his lips. “ ’Tis true he spoke with an English accent at first.”

  “Who is he?” Kitt asked. “What is he doing here?”

  “I dinna know,” the boy replied earnestly. “Truly. I’m not sure he knows himself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When Alex first came to the inn, he came as a beggar. He had no coin to buy food or drink. He promised to pay later, when he could, but when he was questioned, he said he didna know who he was, that he couldna remember.”

  Kitt looked to Moira. “Is such a thing possible?”

  “ ’Tis possible to lose one’s memory,” Moira said. “A blow to the head might cause it.”

  Kitt stared at Moira, remembering how Alex had looked the first time she’d seen him, recalling the cut on his temple and the lump on his forehead. “How long before his memory returns?”

  “It could return in a matter of days, or weeks, or mayhap not at all,” Moira said.

  “Can I see Alex?” the boy pleaded. “Is he all right?”

  “Why do you care?” Kitt asked, her eyes narrowing suspiciously. “If he’s a stranger to you?”

  “I feel responsible,” the boy said. “I was the one who suggested he pretend to be a Scotsman. And I left him on the road to fend for himself. Perhaps if I had taken him directly to Blackthorne Hall, as he asked—”

  “He was headed for Blackthorne Hall?” Kitt asked, aghast.

  “Because he hoped someone there—some Englishman—might know him,” the boy explained.

  And well they might have, Kitt thought, if he really was the duke.

  “Please, can I see him?” the boy repeated.

  “Of course,” Kitt agreed. “Come with me.”

  She led him into the bedroom. The sheets were twisted around Alex, revealing his injured back and leg, leaving him barely covered.

  Kitt was surprised at the sudden tears in the boy’s eyes. There must be more to his relationship with Alex than he’d admitted. “Tears for a stranger?” she questioned.

  He met her gaze and said, “I was only thinking how we can never know from one moment to the next what misadventure might turn our lives in
another direction. When I helped Alex, I was thinking of my own brothers and sisters. They might be needing a stranger’s help someday.”

  She watched him clench his teeth to keep from breaking down altogether. “Can you tell me anything more about Alex?”

  “He could remember having monogrammed handkerchiefs,” he said with a half smile. “And he offered me a job as his valet.”

  “Oh, my God,” Kitt whispered. He must be the duke.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” She dared not reveal what she knew to Laddie. He worked for the earl, and he was the duke’s friend.

  “Did you ever notice that Alex matches the description of the duke?” the boy mused.

  “He does?” she said, her heart caught in her throat.

  “The Runner described Blackthorne as a tall man with gray eyes, a fine, straight nose, and blond hair.”

  Kitt stared at Alex. “He fits the description, all right. Except for the nose.” It will never be straight again, she thought as she eased her finger along the new ridge where it had been broken.

  “But he canna be the duke,” the boy said, shaking his head.

  “Why not?” Kitt asked.

  “Who would dare give such a beating to a duke?” the boy wondered aloud. “Who would want him dead?”

  Kitt stood stunned for a moment. She had never thought of the duke’s situation in those terms. Perhaps he had taken an assumed identity because he was hiding from whoever had tried to kill him the first time. “Perhaps his brother wants him dead. Or his wife.”

  “The duke is a widower.”

  She felt a surge of relief. “How do you know?”

  “I had it from the underfootman who had it from Cook at Blackthorne Hall. The duchess was foxed and fell down the stairs at Blackthorne Abbey three years ago.”

  Or was pushed? Kitt thought with a shudder. She stared at the man lying in her bed. No, she would not believe it of him. But what should she do with him? Did she dare give him back into the hands of whoever might want him dead? She could not leave him so unprotected. But what if he lived, and he really was the duke? What revenge would he be likely to take against her, knowing she had intended to trick him into marriage?