The Wild One
Page 16
Chapter 7
Gareth awoke, briefly, sometime just before dawn. Faint light was just starting to creep through the parted drapes, and from somewhere outside the first blackbird was calling. He shivered, pulling the covers up over his shoulders. The room was cold and empty, the hearth a pile of dead ashes, his friends long gone. Lucien must have kicked them out sometime during the night, he thought, not sure whether to be grateful or annoyed. As he lay there wondering if it was worth moving to retrieve and use the chamber pot, the words of the doctor played through his head like a litany.
You were lucky, damned lucky, my lord ... another half-inch and you would've lost your rib; a little more than that your lung, and very likely your life.
It was a sobering thought.
They'd told him the ball had peeled a strip of flesh off a lower rib, plowing a furrow in the bone and leaving a loose flap of skin that had bled profusely. As wounds went, it was far less serious than it had initially looked. But plague take his rib, Gareth had thought then — and thought now as he groaned and finally reached for the chamber pot, it was his head — the entire left side of his face — that was killing him.
He'd do well to stay out of the nettles in the future.
And, he allowed ruefully, Irish whiskey.
Still, he knew that if he had the chance to live the robbery all over again, he wouldn't do a thing differently. Despite his hangover, his raw cheek, and the throbbing of his nicked rib, he felt quite good about himself just now. Quite good, indeed. He slid back beneath the covers, smiling like a fool. It was rather nice, being the hero of the hour ... and there were no words to describe how he'd felt when Miss Juliet Paige had come in to say good night to him and bent down to touch her cool, sweet lips to his brow. He sighed and lay back in bed with a happy grin. Such attentions made him feel quite special, indeed. And, appreciated.
He wasn't used to anyone appreciating him.
He closed his eyes. The blackbird was still singing, and as he began to drift away, he allowed himself to imagine that Juliet Paige was gazing reverently down at him, standing watch over him as though he were some mighty fallen warrior-hero and she, heaven's dearest angel.
When Lucien came quietly in to check on him an hour later, Gareth was fast asleep ... and still smiling.