Briar Rose

by Kimberly Cates

  She retrieved a bundle of clothing, presenting it to him. "They were bloody from your wounds, you see."

  "I suppose I should thank you. I abhor disarray." He looked pointedly at Rhiannon Fitzgerald's decidedly mussed gown. Crumpled and faded, the blue gown looked worn as soft as satin molded to her generous curves.

  He took up his linen shirt, intending to put it on, then froze in astonishment. The garment hung in pristine ribbons, sleeve slit, front slashed. The uniform jacket was the same, and his breeches thus desecrated as well. He stared down at them, then raised his eyes to her face with an expression that had made battle-toughened sergeants' knees rattle together in dread. "Do you have such ill luck with all the clothing you wash, Miss Fitzgerald? Or were you attempting to wash your breakfast knives at the same time?"

  The woman actually smiled at him, heedless. "I didn't want to hurt you, wrestling you around to get you out of your clothes, so I cut them off."

  Redmayne let silence fall for a moment. "I don't suppose you have a spare captain's uniform stashed somewhere in this disarray?" He glanced around the cramped quarters, every inch crammed with God alone knew what.

  She flushed. "I'm afraid not. You could wrap yourself in one of my petticoats for the time being. It would hardly matter, since you need to stay in bed."

  Redmayne's eyes widened just a trifle. "I doubt the color would suit me. I'm afraid my own garments will have to do." He started to wrap the remnants of his shirt about him.

  "But there's no reason you have to dress. You'll hardly offend my modesty since I was the one who"— she had the grace to falter—"who undressed you."

  "Your modesty doesn't concern me in the least, madam. My duty does. I have to get back to the garrison immediately."

  "The garrison? But the nearest one is—"

  "Thirty miles away. I'm aware of that."

  "You couldn't possibly walk so far! You'd fall on your face before you got out of the glen!"

  "I don't intend to walk. You must have a horse to pull this thing—unless of course, the multitalented Milton is excellent between the traces."

  "No. Socrates pulls the cart."

  Redmayne grimaced. "No wonder the poor man drank hemlock. Coming down in the world from philosopher to such manual labor must have been most distressing."

  "Socrates is my horse," she confided with such insufferable earnestness Redmayne ground his teeth.

  "Yes. I'd managed to figure that out before now. I'm afraid I'll have to trespass on his good nature, ride him to the garrison. Once I reach it, I'll send a contingent of my men to bring him back to you, laden with a purse large enough to compensate for your trouble and his further humiliation."

  "I'm afraid that would be impossible even if you were strong enough to attempt it. Socrates won't allow anyone but Captain Blood ride him."

  "Captain Blood? You have a pirate stashed beneath the bed? Now I know what happened to my clothing— a round of cutlass practice."

  "Captain Blood is my cat." She gestured to a tabby who looked as if he'd ended up on the losing end of a fight. One ear had a decidedly chewed appearance, one eye was missing. "I'm surprised you didn't notice him. He seems to have taken a liking to sleeping on your chest, despite all the times I chased him off."

  Redmayne recalled the single amber eye staring down at him when he first stirred into consciousness. Not the devil but a cat. Most embarrassing. "If your cat can ride the horse, I can. I assure you, madam, the mount hasn't been born that I cannot control."

  "You've never met Socrates! But even if he were the most docile of beasts, you couldn't manage it You're injured. Your leg. You couldn't possibly!"

  He struggled into his shredded breeches. From the look of them, he supposed he should be grateful her scissors hadn't slipped and nipped off something irreplaceable in her zeal to cut the garment away.

  For the love of God, what kind of a woman was she? he wondered as he battled to get himself clothed. He'd bedded his first woman when he was barely fifteen, an apple-cheeked lightskirt presented to him with a sharp command to get the blasted loss of his virginity over with, so he could keep his mind on more important matters. Since then he'd neatly slotted females into certain boxes—dithering ninnies, elegant witches bought for the price of a diamond bracelet, seductresses as greedy for sensation as any man, and decent women, the most boring of all, forever murmuring their prayers and looking at him as if they feared he'd eat them.

  Only one woman had refused to be slotted into her proper category and dismissed. There had been just a moment when he almost thought she'd touched that cold, dead thing in his chest called a heart. But she'd married another man—a man of fire and passions seething close to the surface—with an open heart and the courage to lay it before her, no matter what the cost. A man worlds different from the ice-blooded English captain the whole west of Ireland feared. She'd left Redmayne bemused, if not lovelorn, aware that there was a chink someplace in his carefully constructed armor that it was possible for a woman to hammer her way through.

  Mary Fallon Delaney had been as different from Rhiannon Fitzgerald as possible, and yet, there was something about Rhiannon's eyes, an eagerness, a whimsy, as if she could see magic beyond the mist— fairy raiders and heroic tales, the same fey elixir in her blood he'd sensed in Fallon. The slightest link between the two females was enough to tighten the bands of unease about his chest. The sooner he got quit of this place and his untidy savior the better.

  He staggered upright, the tiny room swimming wildly before his eyes. "My boots, Miss Fitzgerald."

  She presented him with the whole boot first, then the second, a lump of mangled leather. Redmayne couldn't suppress a groan.

  "This really is a bad idea, Captain Redmayne," she said as he worked to bind the spoiled boot together with strips torn from his ruined shirt. "I wish you would reconsider."

  But he was already stumbling outside, bracing himself on the caravan. The most disreputable excuse he'd ever seen for a horse stood a little distant from the cart. The nag paused in cropping grass long enough to give him a sleepy look out of half-closed eyes.

  This was the demon horse no one could ride? Redmayne grimaced. The ridiculous beast was so fat he doubted it had ever gone faster than a trot in its whole benighted life.

  He worked the bridle into the horse's mouth, then turned to the woman. "I don't suppose the cat has a saddle I might borrow—with the understanding that I'll return it in excellent order, of course."

  "There's no point in having a saddle for a horse you cannot ride," Rhiannon insisted so reasonably he wanted to throttle her. "Surely you see this is impossible."

  "I'll merely ride bareback. Not the best of situations, but I could hardly look more ridiculous." Doubtless if his assailants saw him on the road, they wouldn't bother shooting again. Why waste lead when they could merely laugh him to death?

  He limped over to the horse's side, grasping a hank of mane the texture of broomstraw, then leaned with his left arm against the beast's withers. Redmayne paused, mustering all his strength to fling his leg over its back. But the instant he turned his back on the animal's front quarter, Socrates swung his great head around. To look at the new intruder, Redmayne assumed. A fatal error. Pain shot through Redmayne's hindquarters as those equine teeth sank roundly into his left buttock.

  An oath tore from Redmayne's lips. Damned if he'd let a dumb animal get the better of him! With a fierce yank on the bridle, he disengaged the horse's teeth.

  Then, sweat beading his brow, he swung up, clinging precariously as waves of agony jolted through his thigh and shoulder, black dots swimming madly before his eyes.

  But he'd triumphed. He'd won. He struggled to clear his head, clinging to the sense of satisfaction. Socrates gazed up at him for a moment through a veritable forest of forelock, then, with a gut-splitting sigh, let his knees buckle.

  "What the devil?" Redmayne muttered, kicking at the beast with his good heel, but Socrates was oblivious. Ever so slowly, the horse lowered his
massive bulk down to the ground with a thud.

  Redmayne barely yanked his good leg out from under the horse's belly before Socrates crushed it Redmayne glared at his nemesis ever so coldly, but the horse was patently unmoved.

  "Are you all right? I'm afraid he won't move until you get off." Miss Fitzgerald was wringing her hands apologetically.

  Waves of dizziness assailing him, Redmayne surrendered, climbing off of the horse. "Someone ought to shoot you," he muttered.

  Rhiannon Fitzgerald hastened over to help him get to his feet but an unforgivable dimple danced in one of her cheeks. "I suppose I should be grateful I lost your pistol."

  Redmayne turned a cold eye on her. "I have to get to the garrison," he said slowly, as if speaking to a particularly dull child. "Have you any idea how dangerous the men who attacked me are?"

  "I was the one who found you bleeding." She sobered, something soft and wounded in her eyes. "Perhaps some of the soldiers who came with you got away. They might be bringing help."

  "I very much doubt it," he observed wryly.

  That tendril-scraggled brow crinkled in disbelief. "But surely you must have brought someone to assist you! You were hunting for information about a traitor!"

  Redmayne's gaze sharpened, unease trailing like a blade down his spine. "A traitor? How did you know?" Unless she'd known his assailants...

  "I read the letter in your pocket—to find out your name," she confessed, as distressed as if she'd betrayed state secrets. No one this flustered over such a minor incident could survive being wrapped up in a conspiracy, Redmayne thought with a touch of grim amusement. Still, the notion of someone prying through his pockets while he was incapacitated was enough to make him most displeased.

  "I believe the custom is to write the name on the outside," he enunciated carefully.

  "I know. I just... I knew nothing about you, and you were so very ill. I hoped that there might be something in the letter that would help me to help you." She looked down at him, sorrow and sympathy haunting those incredibly soft green eyes. "It must have been dreadful, discovering that there was a traitor amid the men you served with for... how many years?"

  "Three."

  "Such a very long time! Perhaps there is someone new among your men, someone you don't know very well."

  Three years a long time? It was not even a single grain in the sands of time. She looked as if it were an eternity.

  "At least you weren't alone in seeking this villain," she continued, grappling, he could tell, for something brighter, more comforting. "There must have been men you could trust to ride with you."

  "No one."

  Rhiannon stared at him in surprise, dismayed, uncertain what disturbed her most—that there was no one this man could trust, or the way he revealed it, as if that fact didn't hurt at all.

  She'd always abhorred violence, and war was the ultimate obscenity. But she'd assumed that soldiers, embattled, with such a tenuous hold on life, drew closer. Men who trusted each other with their very lives from heartbeat to heartbeat must trust their fellow officers with things even more precious.

  "My affairs are none of your concern, Miss Fitzgerald," her patient said with icy calm. "Since your horse will not carry me, there is only one logical choice left to us. Leave me here."

  Her eyes widened in horror. "Are you mad? I couldn't possibly!"

  She couldn't possibly leave him and preserve her own accursed life like a sensible creature. No, far better to die like an idiot! God save him from the moral pap of do-gooders! "The people who attempted to kill me will very likely strike again. This is none of your affair. Why put yourself in danger? Hitch up your wagon and leave, Miss Fitzgerald. I'd do it if I were you."

  "Then it's a good thing you're not me. I'll take you to the garrison myself."

  "You're not responsible for me or my misfortune. This is no time to be impractical."

  "This is no time to be a heroic fool!" she shot back.

  "There's nothing heroic in my motives," he assured her.

  "As for my not being responsible, Captain Redmayne, you're wrong. I believe that everything happens for a reason, and that if something or someone in need falls into my path, I'm meant to care for it."

  "I'm not a head-kicked dog, Miss Fitzgerald."

  "No, you take up far too much room on my bed to be a dog, Captain Redmayne. Be that as it may, I found you. You're too weak to tend yourself, so for the time being you belong to me."

  "Belong to you?" There was another time those words had iced his blood with terror. This time he choked out a stunned chuckle. "It makes no logical sense to—"

  "Captain Redmayne, I have a horse I can't ride and a guard dog who can barely see three inches in front of his nose. Any logical person would have drowned them both. You must see how futile it is to try to persuade me to leave you behind. Now you can let me help you into the caravan and back into bed where you belong, or I can wait until you fall unconscious again, break open your wounds, and then I can drag you back into the caravan by your heels."

  He looked as if he wanted to argue, but then stark resignation flooded his eyes. "Miss Fitzgerald, permit me to tell you that you make absolutely no sense."

  "I take that as a compliment, Captain," she said, looping one arm about his waist. As they started up the steps to the caravan, Milton bolted past them, barking uproariously, as if he'd just noticed a new friend in their midst.

  The dog leaped in the air, attempting to lick the captain's face, when suddenly his canine head cracked into the dishpan hanging overhead.

  It tumbled down, clanging as it collided with Captain Redmayne's temple. The officer stifled a groan as it bounced off his injured shoulder.

  "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" Rhiannon apologized, dismayed. "It's just that—that Milton likes you!"

  White-faced, Redmayne sank back down onto her tiny bed, rubbing the bruise the pan had left. "Miss Fitzgerald," he murmured hazily, "no offense intended, but I might have been better off with the assassins."

  She almost thought his lips curled into a smile as he drifted back into unconsciousness.

  CHAPTER 3

  She was humming, blithely off key. Redmayne buried his face deeper in the pillow. Such an overabundance of cheerfulness this early in the morning should be made a capital offense. No. Hanging would be much too merciful a fate—but at least it would make things quiet.

  Surrendering, he shoved himself upright, uncertain exactly why he was wincing. The twinge in his shoulder? The slicing of cat claws as that infernal hell-born feline scrabbled off his chest, or the fact that Miss Fitzgerald had given up humming and actually broken into song!

  He blinked like bedamned in an effort to focus his eyes. The woman must have a nice sturdy rope someplace in this caravan. If he couldn't manage to hang her, he might be able to hang himself.

  "Good morning, lay-abed!"

  Redmayne stifled a groan as she careened into his line of vision like a drunken butterfly, her face wreathed in a blindingly radiant smile.

  If he ever did hunt down the traitor, he knew exactly what kind of torture he'd inflict to get the man to confess his crimes—lock him in a room with Mistress Sunshine. An hour in her company and he'd be confessing to crimes he hadn't even committed.

  "I'm so glad you're finally awake!" she said, energetically stirring something in a blue bowl. "It's so hard to be quiet on such a lovely morning, and entertaining company is so rare here, I hate to waste a moment of it. I've made you the loveliest breakfast. Exactly what you need to strengthen you up."

  Perhaps there were some benefits to having fallen under her care. He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten. "I'm most obliged, madam."

  She drew a stool near his bed, and before he could object, tucked a napkin under his chin as if he were five years old. For the first time in his life, Captain Lionel Redmayne couldn't think of a single thing to say. Then she plopped down on the stool, bowl cradled in her lap, and took up the spoon. The woman couldn't possibly intend to feed him
thus!

  "You'll find it quite delicious, I'm certain," she said, scooping up a spoonful of some gray-white speckled glop. Perhaps she was in league with the assassins after all and was attempting to poison him.

  "What is... this?"

  Guileless eyes met his. "Gruel."

  Redmayne raised one eyebrow, staring at her as if her hair were afire.

  "Miss... er, Fitzgerald, I've fallen beneath pistol fire eight times in battle, and no one has ever dared present me with such... slop."

  Her smile faltered. "I made it myself, stirred in some lovely herbs that will help you to heal. You do want to get strong again as fast as you can, don't you?"

  "Not if it entails eating that." Most women he knew would either be running for cover, wailing, or raging at him in high dudgeon. Rhiannon Fitzgerald merely sat there, gazing wistfully into the accursed blue bowl. He should have been relieved. He'd taken the bounce out of the woman—that was what he'd desired from the moment he heard her chirping away, wasn't it?

  "I didn't mean to offend you," she said. "I tasted it myself, and it was tolerable enough, I hoped."

  Redmayne felt a twinge of a most unfamiliar kind. It couldn't possibly be guilt. He didn't believe in it— a waste of time and energy. What was done was done. And yet, as he looked at those downcast eyes with their ridiculously long lashes, he recalled everything the woman had done for him since she'd discovered him bleeding. He stunned himself by growling, "Give it to me."

  "Wh-what?"

  "The bowl, Miss Fitzgerald."

  She grasped the crockery against her middle as if she expected him to snatch it out of her hands. "Don't feel obligated to—"

  Obligated? He was obligated to the woman for his very life. If it would please her to see him choke down the odious stuff, he'd humor her. Perhaps he could feed it to the cat when she left the cart. After the claw marks the beast had left, it deserved to be poisoned.

  "Miss Fitzgerald, I'll eat it—by my own hand, if you please."

  She handed the bowl over, looking so pleased it made the twinge he'd felt all the sharper. "Let me help you out of your shirt. I thought I would mend it."