‘I do not think she has suffered any broken bones, though until she is awake, it is difficult to know for sure. There are cuts and bruises all over her—see?’
Jack passed the pile of blankets towards his brother and glanced down at the poor girl’s visible bare arms and calves. His brother was not wrong. Filthy wounds and grazes marred the pale skin. ‘Look at the bruising here.’ Joe pointed to the left arm. ‘If I had to take a guess, I would say she had a bad fall from something and landed on her side. Judging from the size and colour of the bruise, it’s a miracle her arm or collarbone did not shatter from the impact. Some of these punctures are quite deep. The cut on her lip is nasty too. And her wrists have been rubbed raw by the cord around them—those wounds are angry and prone to become infected. She had to have been tied up for hours. I need to clean them all thoroughly.’
Relegated to the role of nursemaid, Jack busied himself by boiling kettle after kettle of water and traipsing the heavy buckets backwards and forward from the kitchen to the hall, leaving his brother to do what was necessary and feeling impotent in the process. As each layer of grime and embedded grit was removed, Joe commented on how miraculous it was that the woman was not more injured, yet she did not regain consciousness nor did she lose her deathly colour. Despite the now roaring fire in the enormous stone fireplace and the heap of blankets that swaddled her, her core temperature did not increase. Her swollen lips were blue tinged, her hands and feet like icicles.
‘She must have been out in the cold for hours, Jack. I am worried she actually has hypothermia. She’s barely breathing now and her pulse is definitely slowing.’
‘What can I do?’ Because there had to be something. The idea of her dying in their house tonight was horrifying. Not after he had done his best to save her, seen the stark terror in her eyes.
‘You gather her up, Jack—share your body heat with her while I finish with all of the other injuries.’
‘Share my body heat?’ It sounded far-fetched, but Joe had proved to be right before. ‘How exactly do I do that?’
‘Hold her in your lap like a child.’ Joe lifted her carefully at the base of the shoulders, exposing her bare back. They swaddled the blankets around her like a baby’s shawl and Jack sat so the pair of them could manoeuvre her into his lap.
It was all well and good Joe telling him to hold her like a child—but it was blatantly obvious she was no child. There was too much of her, so his brother tucked her legs up beneath the covers to warm her extremities, while Jack smoothed his palms briskly along the sides of her arms in an attempt to create some heat from the friction. Her back and bottom were so cold he could feel the chill through the layers of woollen blanket and his clothing, and if she had not been breathing he would have thought he was holding a long-dead corpse. He gathered her close protectively and wrapped his arms about her, hoping she would absorb whatever warmth she needed from his body, crooning to her as his brother towel-dried her sodden, matted long hair before wrapping a blanket around her head too.
‘If she was awake, I could make her drink something. Warm milk or tea might help to speed up the process.’ Joe ran his hands through his thick dark hair in agitation. ‘I suppose I could try and spoon some into her?’
All Jack could do was shrug. He had no clue as to what should be done and from his position beneath the girl, he was hardly in a state to assist his brother further. Being powerless was not something he excelled at. He hated feeling so useless when he was usually the one in control. All he could do was continue to hold her cradled in his arms, searching her wan face for signs of life. As he waited for Joe to return from the kitchen, his other two brothers returned. Both looked as if they had just walked through a hurricane.
‘Only an idiot would be out in that!’ said Jamie, shaking off the rain. ‘But the gates are bolted and we saw nothing in the lane. If somebody turns up, we’ll all deny any knowledge of your mystery damsel until we know what the hell this is all about. How is she?’ He limped painfully towards the sofa and stared down at the still bundle in Jack’s arms.
‘Joe’s patched her up as best as he can for the time being. Now we’re trying to get her warm.’
Jamie did not instil a great deal of confidence with his next words. ‘I’ve seen many a man killed from exposure to the elements. It’s when they stop shivering you have to really worry. Is she shivering?’
She was not. Jack did not want to think about what that meant. ‘She won’t die!’ Not if he had anything to do with it. ‘Joe is fetching some warm milk.’ As if milk was some magic medicine nobody had known about which would miraculously cure a poor girl who was almost frozen to death. Jack stared down at her. She was so still, and so frighteningly pale, she could almost have been carved out of alabaster. He remembered the fear he had seen in her wide eyes when she collided with him and hoped those awful few minutes would not be the last she was doomed to remember. ‘I don’t even know her name.’
Jacob, so far silent, went to the pile of wet clothes discarded on the floor and began to rifle through them.
‘She was not in the army, fool,’ Jamie said dismissively, ‘I doubt she will have her rank, surname and number written on her petticoats.’
‘You’d be amazed what ladies keep in their petticoats.’ Jacob did not look up from his task. ‘Although to know that, you would have to know how to charm the ladies, Jamie, which you don’t.’ He sat back on his heels and triumphantly waved a small square of intricately embroidered linen. ‘I, on the other hand, am very charming. Her name is Letty.’ He balled up the damp cloth and threw it at Jamie’s head. ‘It says so on her handkerchief.’
Jack stroked his index finger gently over her cheek and willed her to wake up. ‘Letty. Letty, sweetheart, can you hear me?’
* * *
Letty. Letty, sweetheart, can you hear me?
She did not recognise the voice, but it had a calming lilt to it even though it came from a strange man. It was not Bainbridge and it was not her uncle. That was all that mattered. Letty struggled to open her eyes, but they would not budge. She was so very tired. So tired she did not have the strength to be frightened. Something was pulling her upwards to a place she wanted to go, yet something, someone, held her firm, preventing her from floating away. She was cocooned rather than imprisoned. Safe.
She felt something warm trickle down her throat. She couldn’t taste it. Strong arms around her. More of the warm liquid. Letty. Try to swallow, sweetheart. Sweetheart? That was nice. Nobody had ever called her sweetheart before. We need to warm you up. Now that she considered it, she was cold. Every part of her ached. Not surprising considering what had happened to her. Bainbridge. The carriage. The woods.
Panic came afresh. What if they had found her? She forced her eyes open. Intense blue eyes met hers. You’re safe, Letty. They were beautiful eyes. Troubled eyes. Reassuring eyes. I am going to look after you, sweetheart. I promise. The deep lilting voice crooned against her ear. She sighed. It was all she had the strength to do and her eyes fluttered closed again. The painful gag was gone. And he was holding her.
There were worse ways to go.
Chapter Three
One month and one day remaining...
Letty experienced the sensation of falling and it woke her with a start. It took her a few moments to focus in the daylight, but when she did two pairs of identical blue eyes were staring down at her. Frightened, she had intended to scream; the strangled mewling noise she managed was really quite pathetic.
‘Shh...’ said one of the pairs of eyes kindly. ‘Everything is all right. You are safe here.’
She could make out the blurry edges of the speaker’s face. Dark hair. Smiling. Next to him stood another man who looked strikingly similar. They were definitely related. The same dark hair, the same deep blue eyes, but he was frowning. She knew those eyes.
‘My brother rescued you from t
he road,’ the smiling man said, stroking one of her hands, ‘You have had a bit of a fever and you are badly bruised, but miraculously you have made a very fast and splendid recovery. What you need to do now is rest. Give your body time to heal. In a few days, you will be as fit as a fiddle.’
Letty tried to speak, to ask where she was. However, her mouth felt so woolly, her tongue would not move. Her eyes flicked to the frowning man and he continued to frown, until the smiling man next to him gave him a sharp nudge in the ribs and he forced himself to smile. It did not touch his eyes. Letty could not quite make out whether the emotion swirling in those fathomless blue depths was concern or annoyance.
‘Why were you tied up and wandering in the woods?’ The smile slipped off his face as he stared down at her.
Again her stupid tongue would not move and she made some garbled sound.
‘Leave her be, Jack. You can interrogate the poor girl once she is better.’
Interrogate? Were these men her enemies, too? She did not recognise either of them as her uncle’s or the Earl of Bainbridge’s men—yet that didn’t mean they were not in their employ.
‘Here, Letty, take this medicine. It will help you to sleep.’
She was powerless to stop the spoon being pressed against her lips and recognised the bitter taste of the liquid. Laudanum. The exact same drug her uncle had forced down her throat before he had handed her over to Bainbridge. Letty struggled as best she could. To her surprise, it was the frowning man who came to her aid. The one with the familiar deep blue eyes.
‘Stop it, Joe. If she doesn’t want it, you shouldn’t force it on her,’ he commanded.
The young man instantly withdrew, concern etched on his handsome face. ‘I don’t want her to be in pain, Jack. She needs to sleep.’
Apparently, enough drops of the liquid had already entered her system because her eyes were suddenly very heavy. She felt another hand touch her face softly. She knew immediately whose hand it was and also knew she liked this man’s touch.
‘That’s a good girl. Close your eyes, sweetheart. Everything will be all right...’
* * *
It was still dark when she woke properly, but not so dark she could not see. Opening both eyelids, however, proved to be problematic. The left one would not open at all. The room was strange. The bed was warm and comfortable, and every bone in her body hurt like the devil.
The only illumination in the room came from a solitary candle on the nightstand and the moonlight streaming through the uncovered window panes. Letty tested her arms and found that she could, in fact, now move them. The tight cord her uncle had bound her with was gone then. Those bonds had left their mark on her wrists though; they were both sore and painful. She reached her other hand over to touch the opposite arm and felt her left wrist bound with bandages. More bandage bound her upper arm. She attempted to sit up, but gave up when her head began to spin and pound once again.
Bringing her hand to her face, Letty felt her swollen lip. It was sore still, although the cut caused by Bainbridge’s signet rig was healed over. She must have been here asleep for hours for that to happen. Or days? Further probing led to the discovery of a huge lump on her temple. It was hot and tender, the bruising spread over the front of her forehead and just above her left eye. The lid felt swollen and explained why it was so difficult to open. She probably looked a fright. Her hair felt gritty and matted with a substance she did not recognise, but suspected was mud. She was also beyond thirsty.
For a few minutes she simply lay there, wondering what to do and trying to take in the unfamiliar surroundings. The bedchamber was large and simply decorated. There was a plain, mahogany dressing table against one wall and a matching, and equally enormous, wardrobe on the opposite one. The small nightstand next to her and the bedstead were the only other pieces of furniture. The heavy curtains at the leaded windows hung open, giving her a good view of the night sky beyond. The steady patter of raindrops on the glass suggested that the dreadful weather had not improved at all. The window was closed, but not barred or locked. That was a good sign surely—unless she was so high up escaping from the window was an impossibility. There were lots of castles in Scotland, after all, and the walls and ceiling did have an air of the ancient about them, although the ceilings were too low to belong to a fortress.
Letty scanned the rest of the room for clues. There was one large rug on the wooden floor. It looked to be good quality despite its obviously advanced age. The lack of artwork on the walls or little knick-knacks strewn about gave the room a distinctly impersonal feel. She had no idea whether she was in an inn or a private house and, as she was completely alone in the room, there was nobody to ask. There was also nobody to help her. However, the bedchamber door was open, which made her feel better. If she was a prisoner, then her captors would hardly leave her unattended with the door open—not after what had happened in the carriage. Perhaps she was safe at last?
Slowly, Letty shuffled her body to a more upright position, pausing to let each new wave of dizziness pass. Her shoulder throbbed, the wrist on her left hand was still immensely painful and her left ankle was also a bit tender, but other than that she had escaped the carriage remarkably in one piece. Stretching out her good arm, she could just about touch the rim of the cup on the nightstand. She used the soles of her feet to push forward a little more until she could grab the top of the cup with her finger and thumb. Judging by its weight, she thought the vessel must be filled with liquid. However, the flimsy grip she had on it was not strong enough. The cup slid out of her fingers and crashed to the wooden floor below, taking the precious fluid with it.
The noise created a flurry of activity, accompanied by manly-sounding grunts, on the floor on the other side of the bed. A bewildered dark head appeared first, blinking eyes heavy with sleep, taking in the surroundings as he dragged one hand over his face and through his unruly hair. ‘You’re awake!’ he slurred, peering at her through semi-closed eyes.
‘Sorry,’ she croaked, ‘I dropped the water.’ Letty did not recognise him as one of her abductors, but there was something oddly familiar about him. Bizarrely, she had the distinct impression she could trust him and that she was safe with this complete stranger. Then she remembered him as the man who had prevented his accomplice from forcing more laudanum on her. If either of them had meant her harm, she was certain he would have held her down so the drug could be properly administered.
‘It’s all right.’ Stiffly, he raised himself to his feet and stretched his back and neck before shuffling around the bed to the nightstand. He was tall, and from what she could make out, broad to go with it. Older than her, but not by more than a few years. She felt a pang of guilt for inconveniencing him, whoever he was. It could not be very comfortable, or warm, sleeping on the floor. With his back to her he poured a fresh cup of water, then sat on the mattress next to her and guided it carefully into her good hand, wrapping his warm palm around her chilled fingers until he was sure that she could manage it alone. Letty greedily drank every drop so he refilled the cup without her having to ask. ‘It’s the laudanum,’ he explained gruffly. ‘My brother says it makes you thirsty.’
How his brother knew this, she had no idea, but he was right. Letty could not remember ever needing to drink quite as much as she did at this moment. She sipped the second cup more slowly, feeling self-conscious as he watched her. Even befuddled and crumpled from sleeping on the floor the man in front of her was very pleasant to look at. He was nothing like the men she had known in the ton. His hands were obviously used to hard work and had felt calloused when they’d rested briefly over hers.
‘My name is Jack Warriner, in case you were wondering.’
Jack Warriner was also a man who spent a great deal of his life outside. Even in the poor light of the bedchamber she could see evidence of a tan—tiny white crinkles fanned out from the corners of his eyes suggesting that he often s
quinted in the sun. Yet his accent was not coarse and his diction unmistakably pointed to that of a gentleman. The untucked, and undone, linen shirt he still wore emphasised his wide shoulders and strong arms. The thick column of his throat would look strangled in the high collars favoured by the men in society. And what gentleman of means would sleep on the floor next to an injured stranger? Such an onerous task would be delegated to a servant while the master slept. Unless he was her guard and was merely lulling her into a false sense of security? He was the sort of large, imposing man who would be suited to the job.
Letty watched him carefully as she finished the last drops of her water before passing the cup back to him.
‘More?’ he asked, lifting the stoneware jug for emphasis and she shook her head gingerly. ‘You gave us quite a scare, Letty, I don’t mind telling you.’ How did he know her name? ‘I found you in the road. You passed out, no doubt from all of the trauma and the cold, and you’ve been out like a light since. My brother Joe is training to be a physician. He patched you up, so you probably have him to thank for saving your life.’ His tone, his delivery was matter of fact. ‘Do you remember how you came to be bound and gagged and wandering alone in the forest?’
Before she answered his questions, she had a few of her own before she trusted him with the truth. Her uncle was no fool. He would offer an impressive reward to anyone who found her. His own future depended on her marrying the odious Bainbridge. And if the Earl was looking for her and retrieved her...well, she already knew how cruel he could be. She pretended to think and then shook her head. The motion caused a fresh wave of dizziness which he spotted.
‘Lie still. Try not to move your head too much.’
‘Thank you, sir. You are being very kind.’ Letty attempted a smile in the hope he would not realise she was already suspicious.
‘Call me Jack,’ he said with a wave of his hand, ‘everybody else does.’ The corners of his own lips curved upwards slightly, giving some respite from the perpetual frown he had worn since he had awoken, but it was still not a smile. He stared at her awkwardly for a few seconds before speaking again. ‘Would you like some more medicine?’
A Warriner to Protect Her Page 2