'Of course not. What will you have me do?'
'Give me your word while you look me in the eyes.'
He took her elbow and said, 'I feel I have to remind you that Pascal will send the Rechazados after you. You are risking your life.'
Of course he felt that way. Everything above board. Hell, Llorente needed her just to make sure other vultures didn't get hold of him first. 'Then you'd better make the risk worth it.'
'Why are you doing this?'
Because Pascal had taught her cruelty and malice, never knowing she would turn those very traits back on him. And freeing Llorente was just the beginning. 'I have my motives. Besides, you need me as much as I can use you.'
He scowled at that, then caught her gaze. 'If you free me, I will wed you.'
She stared long after. She'd known he would agree, had planned for it, and yet she still felt relief. 'Then let's not waste another minute.' She turned for the door. 'I have two horses outside—one I have hereby appropriated from your sister.' She pointed at him over her shoulder. 'Make a note of that.'
'Do you know where they've taken Annalía?'
'The last Rechazados' report said they were riding north into France.'
As they started up the stairs, he said, 'And the guards?'
'Have been taken care of.'
He caught up with her and grabbed her hand to stop her. 'Did you kill them?'
With her other hand, she patted his face. 'No, I'm wearing my new riding habit and I'm ever the messy killer.' She exhaled. 'I drugged them. Listen to me, Llorente, I promise from now on I'll never kill or maim anyone.' She jerked free of him and walked on, but turned back to eye him. 'Unless they have it coming.'
Four o'clock in the morning and the doctor that they'd roused from bed didn't even have a shadow beard. Perhaps Court was just an ignorant Scot, but he preferred two things in his surgeons: that they be sober, and that they have lived long enough to have practiced on others before getting to him.
Court had ridden straight down the base of the Pyrenees into France with Anna in his arms—a crazed trip he had little memory of—and stopped at an ancient spa town. He had the vague notion that there'd be more physicians centered around medicinal waters than in any mountain foot village. He'd been right.
There were many doctors, who unfortunately catered to rich, bored ladies with imagined maladies. Annalía had a gunshot wound—a tisane of chamomile wasn't going to do the trick here.
He'd stopped at the first boardinghouse he found, but balked when he'd seen the boy the people in the house recommended. Yet Dr. Molyneux, for all his youth, had been thorough in his examination.
Court looked down at her arm. The bullet had passed over the side and had burned the wound's edges, but the bone was untouched. Lass was lucky that plug hadn't shattered it. A hair closer and Court still would've been arguing with the doctor, but not over something so minor as how to clean the wound.
While Molyneux directed the boardinghouse matron for clean linen to be cut into bandages, Court brushed her hair behind her ear and watched her eyes move behind her lids. He'd ridden as far as he'd dared, and only hoped his men could prevent the Rechazados from getting through that pass. Regardless, they needed to get on the road as soon as possible. 'When will she regain consciousness?'
'Right now she's just sleeping.'
He gave Molyneux an irritated look.
'I could wake her right now if I wanted to. But I don't want to.'
Court's brows drew together when Molyneux put some tincture on her arm and began to roll the bandage around. 'Do you no' need to suture it?'
'No, it looked deeper than it actually is because of all the blood.'
'You need to suture it. You should always sew these things.'
'Mr. MacCarrick, the wound simply wasn't that grievous. It bled profusely, and I'm sure it gave you quite a scare, but the actual damage to the skin wasn't enough to warrant stitches. I understand that you are worried about your…your Mrs. MacCarrick, but this is the best course.'
Court set Annalía aside, then stood. 'Gunshot wounds get sewn.'
The doctor craned his neck to look up at Court, steadfastly meeting him in the eyes, though he swallowed hard. 'Aside from this, your wife is the picture of health. It would be injudicious of me to put thread in her skin. Thread that can swell and break, and get dirty.'
'My wife,' he said without the slightest hesitation, 'may be the picture of health, but she's small and of a delicate constitution. I'll no' have her walking around with an open gash in her arm.'
'How long have you known her?'
'A while,' he answered evasively.
'I don't know how well you know her, but your wife is not of a delicate constitution, I assure you. I'll bet she's told you she rarely gets ill.'
'She might have mentioned it,' he answered, though they'd never had more than one civil conversation.
'We'll keep the wound together with linen bandages. I'll show you how to put this tincture on and how to wrap it. Just make sure she doesn't reinjure it. And of course,' he added with a disapproving look, 'that she isn't shot again.'
Court was shaking his head. 'She'll get fever.'
'Yes.'
'And then what should I do?'
'Let it burn.' That was his maddening answer. 'Just don't let it spike. You can run a cool cloth over her if it rises too high, which I doubt it will, and summon me again, but otherwise let her handle this. She's strong.' And then with a last fond look at Annalía that almost got young Molyneux killed, he left Court alone with her.
Chapter Fifteen
Apparently, Annalía finally believed her brother was dead. And blamed Court for it.
'How can you want to be near me knowing how much I despise you?' That had been her deadened response when he'd told her he was taking her on to Toulouse. After she'd called him a brute, a filthy barbarian, and a lowly Scot, and told him with a steady gaze that she hated him as she'd never known she was capable of hating anything.
She hadn't wanted to leave with him and would've told everyone that she was a prisoner had he not convinced her that if she stayed she'd be getting the people there killed as well as herself.
Now Court glanced back to see her lagging behind again, her expression lost. The horse he'd been able to find for her was not what she was used to, and though he'd dropped her saddlebags at the house matron's feet and said, 'Fix these dresses so she can ride more comfortably in them,' Annalía hadn't seemed to notice the changes. It seemed she noticed nothing.
The journey to Toulouse normally would have taken Court only a full day of fast riding. The land grew flatter as they followed the Ariège River away from the Pyrenees until it became a table plain dotted only with small hills. An easy jaunt, but he'd been keeping a much slower pace for her, and one day had turned into three.
For those last three days, she hadn't spoken, had hardly eaten, and had not uttered a word but for her only response to Court's every question, 'Fot el camp.' Go to hell.
She obviously couldn't wait to be rid of Court, and he would oblige her. When he met up with his crew, he'd ride and never look back, but until then he'd taken his responsibility seriously. Each night he had found them a place to stay, some room where he could rebandage her arm as Molyneux had shown him.
The first night when he'd removed her blouse—not her shift, just the blouse—she'd fought him as if he were stripping her, risking a reinjury. 'I can do you the way I threatened with the dress,' he'd told her. 'Or you can let me tend to your arm.' Though she was stiff and stared straight ahead, she cooperated. Each night it looked better.
Afterward, while she took the bed, he'd sink into a chair in the room, thinking about their situation,
