Taken by Storm (25 page)

Colin wasted no time. The unconscious woman in his arms, he slapped Shareb-er-rehh hard on the rump. The horse understood perfectly, and with a shrill whinny charged off down the road, his tail streaming behind him. He’d no sooner vanished around the bend when the dog burst into view, baying furiously, a trio of mounted horsemen in hot pursuit.

Colin leapt into the chaise, put Ariadne beneath a blanket on the floorboards, and leaning over her with his elbows on his knees, urged Thunder into a slow, plodding trot.

The hound streaked past, followed by two of the riders. The third paused, breathless, his jowly face dark and angry. “You see a horse go by with a rider on its back?”

Colin raised a brow and kept Thunder walking. He scratched his head. “Horse? What kind?”

“Bay one, a stallion, white blaze down its face!” the man shouted, fighting to keep his own winded mount under control.

“Oh, aye,” Colin said slowly. “Saw one go past about ten minutes ago, though I don’t think it was the one you’re looking for. Little white mare, she was. Definitely no stallion—”

“The hell with ye!” the man yelled, and drove his heels savagely into his frightened mount, sending the protesting animal charging off down the road to join his companions.

Colin waited for the pounding rumble of their hoofbeats to recede; then, with Bow huddling fearfully on his lap, Marc sitting on the seat beside him and Ariadne’s body pressed against his toes, he steered Thunder off the road and deep into the darkened pastures.

“Faster, boy,” he called, urging the old gelding on. The horse tucked his head and pulled a quick trot out of his long-forgotten repertoire of gaits, and the chaise creaked, bounced, and rolled over the dips and rises.

They followed the perimeter of a broken fence. Colin heard water rushing ahead, and saw a flat, bubbling brook cutting through the starlit field. At his feet lay Ariadne’s limp, warm body, and its very stillness caused his heart to pound and cold sweat to break out along the length of his spine. Urgently, he steered the gelding down the bank and into the water to cover their scent, then back up the other side and into a grove of trees. There, he pulled him to a stop, leapt from the chaise, and sliding his arms beneath the blanketed noblewoman, gingerly lifted her.

“Ariadne,” he whispered, cradling her to his chest. “Oh, sweetheart . . .”

He peeled back the blanket, and his heart breaking, pressed his lips to her brow. It was pale and cold in the darkness.

“Colin?” Her voice was the faintest of whispers; then, her head fell back against his arm, her hair tumbled over his wrist, and she was still and silent once more.

His face grim, his eyes bleak and worried, he carried her swiftly toward the grove of trees, little Bow whining worriedly at his heels, Thunder following along behind him with his nose at Colin’s arm.

Please, God, let her be all right
. He found a flat spot in the grass, set her and the blanket down, and knelt beside her.

The two dogs milled about, panting, as he laid his fingers against her cheek. Her face was white in the gloom, her lips parted, her little hand lying at her side with the palm turned upward. Colin swallowed hard. Then, he gently peeled the blanket back—and there, black and ugly in the moonlight, was a huge stain spreading over her left sleeve.

Wordlessly he got up, went to his sea chest, and got his surgical instruments and spectacles. With precise orderliness, he lit the lantern, and laid out forceps, tweezers, a scalpel, bandages, and a small bottle of rum.

He had never performed surgery on a human before, but he shoved aside his misgivings and concentrated on the task at hand. Lifting her tiny wrist, he pressed his index finger to her pulse and found it to be steady and strong. Then he pulled the lantern close, rolled her gently onto her side to expose the injured arm, and with two quick, steady slices, slit the sleeve from wrist to elbow, then elbow to shoulder.

His patient moaned and gave a little sob, and he gently laid his hand against her cheek, smoothing the fragile, dewy skin and feeling something thick and burning rising up in his chest.

Please God, help me to help her. . . .

He leaned down and tenderly kissed her damp, tangled hair.

“Colin,” she whispered, opening her eyes and looking dazedly up at him. “I’m so scared. . . .”

“You’re going to be all right,” he murmured, close to her ear. “Just lie still and think of happy things. Clouds floating over the sky. Birds singing on a sunny morning. Kittens, sleeping in the sunshine.”

He pulled back, peeled the wet, bloody fabric from her arm, and with gentle fingers, examined the injury.

Given his former profession, Colin had seen enough gunshot wounds in his life to recognize what he saw now, and hot rage pounded against his temples with such force that he had to sit back and press his fingertips against them to quell it. He shut his eyes, briefly, until his emotions were once again under control. Then, he peered down through his glasses, pulled Ariadne up and into his lap, and with businesslike efficiency, went to work.

The wound was an open, gaping hole, still trailing a bloody thread of crimson. He put his fingers against its perimeter and pushed, hard. Blood bubbled out and trickled down the white flesh of her arm, and the girl made a sobbing, wrenching noise deep in her throat.

Instantly, Bow was there, licking her face.

“Be brave, my little Ariadne,” he murmured, wishing desperately that he wouldn’t have to cause her further pain, wishing he could take it on himself and thus spare her the agony of what he had to do. “It’s going to hurt.”

“A lot?”

“Maybe, sweetheart. Just . . . hold onto me, alright?”

She whimpered, terrified and dazed, one hand reaching out to grasp a handful of his shirt like a child with a toy. “Am I going to die, Colin?”

His skilled fingers pushed against the wound, forcing more blood out of it to cleanse it, and dimly, it occurred to him that what he was doing was probably the closest he would ever come to phlebotomy. He moved his fingers a fraction of a inch, and sure enough, he felt it—something hard just beneath the skin and buried in the superficial fibers of her bicep.

“No, my love, you’re not going to die,” he said, trying to sound cheerful and chiding in the hope of calming her. “Besides, who would pay me the twelve thousand pounds if I were to lose you?”

“Oh, Colin—” Bravely, she tried to laugh, but the sound came out as a hitching sob of fear, and he enfolded her tiny hand within his own large one, his fingers gently stroking her forearm until she stopped trembling. Then he pressed her hand to his lips, not noticing the way her eyes fastened on his in wonder, trust, and . . . something else.

My love
, he had said. Maybe he had not been aware of his own words, but Ariadne was.

He rambled on about sunshine and kittens, detaching that part of his mind from the part belonging to the professional, competent surgeon she had first seen on his knees in the street. But Ariadne wasn’t thinking about kittens. She was looking at his face; the hair tumbling over his brow, the planes of his cheeks, the glint of moonlight off his spectacles, the intensity of his gaze. She thought that maybe if she concentrated on him, she wouldn’t feel the pain as much. But feel it she did, and when she cried out at the first touch of the scalpel, she saw the muscle twitch in his jaw, the flash of anguish in his beautiful eyes.

My love
, he had said.

She closed her eyes and drifted off, feeling herself floating . . . sinking down beneath dark, gentle blankets. . . .

“Colin?” she murmured.

His hand was warm and gentle against her cheek, smoothing the wet hair away and stroking her skin to soothe her. “It’s only a flesh wound, with the musket ball still caught inside. If you can just hold on for a few minutes longer, we’ll be all through.”

“Shareb-er-rehh—”

“Has led your pursuers a merry chase, and I have complete confidence in his ability to lose them. Now be still, love, and think of all the little foals he shall some day sire. . . .”

“Yes, little foals. . . .”

Colin reached for his tweezers and gently palpated the muscle, trying to pin down the exact location of the lead fragment. There. Right . . .
there
.

Balancing her in his lap, he pulled the lantern close to her arm, bent his head, and knitting his brow in intense concentration, put the tweezers against the wound.

The girl’s eyes flew open, her teeth catching her bottom lip hard enough to raise blood.

“Little foals,” he repeated softly, in a low, soothing tone. “Little foals, kicking up their heels and running alongside their mamas—” he touched the tweezers to the lead ball once more, trying to see what he was doing in the lantern’s meager light—“little foals, with little feet and little faces, little foals with fuzzy little whiskers and long, long, legs like their papa’s. . . .”

So intent was he on his work that he didn’t quite notice the moment she lost consciousness, and it was only the distant thunder of galloping hoofbeats that brought him back to awareness of the present.

His head jerked up in alarm, and he was seized by an impulse to sweep up the girl and make a run for it—but as the hoofbeats grew louder and louder, he realized it was no threat at all, but Shareb-er-rehh.

The stallion burst over the furthest rise and silhouetted against the moonlit sky, charged along the rim of the hill before plunging down it and toward them. He lurched to a stop, tossed his head, and prancing with triumphant fire, came forward, his nostrils flaring and the breath rushing through his lungs.

“Did you lose them, boy?”

Shareb tossed his head as though to respond, and stepping forward, lowered his nose to his mistress’ still body, his nostrils flaring at the pungent scent of blood.

“She’s going to be fine,” Colin said. Tweezers in hand, he raised his arm and pointed to a spot several feet away. “Now off with you, and let me work. Go chew on some grass or something.”

Shareb put his ears back and eyed him flatly.

“Go!” Colin said, waving his hand.

The stallion squealed, trotted a short distance away, and stood staring.

Once more, Colin bent his head, the hair falling over his brow. He pushed it back with his wrist and hurriedly found the place where the lead ball was. Behind him he heard slow, hesitant hoofbeats approaching. They came to a stop, and heavy, hot breathing blasted the back of his neck.

“Go away, Shareb.”

The breathing grew hotter.

“Go
away
, Shareb, I will not hurt her!”

But the stallion refused to move, and trying to ignore him, Colin slid the tweezers beneath the ragged edges of torn skin and skillfully retrieved the lead fragment.

The girl never stirred. Shareb’s head hung protectively over Colin’s shoulder, and twice, he had to elbow the stallion away so that he could work. He squeezed more blood from the wound, pinched and stitched the edges shut, and cleaned the blood away with a piece of linen soaked in rum. Then he wound a bandage around the arm, tied it in a snug knot, and began to get up. His feet and legs had fallen asleep, and he stumbled as he set Ariadne down on the blanket, stood up, and passed a weary hand over his brow. His body aching with fatigue, he moved a little distance away and there, stood leaning against a tree.

Thinking.

Moments later, when he returned to the little group, he saw the rum bottle lying empty on the grass, and Shareb eyeing him innocently.

Colin was too weary to scold him. He looked at Thunder, dozing with one hind leg cocked beneath him, and the two dogs, both curled up on the blanket with Bow nestled against Ariadne’s calves. Only Shareb-er-rehh was awake, the lantern light glowing in his dark eyes, and Colin wondered what was going through that canny, equine mind.

Mentally dismissing the horse, he sat down beside the girl, slid his arms beneath her, and wrapping her in the blanket against the cool night air, pulled her protectively up against his chest. Shareb eyed him for a long, decisive moment; then, he gave a great sigh, walked a few feet away, folded his long legs beneath him, and lay down. His tail flicked once, his sides heaved, and then he was asleep.

Around them, the night breathed, deep and silent at last. There were no hounds, no reward-hunters in hot pursuit, nothing but a clear sky, the distant hoot of an owl, and there, just above the treetops, a bat winging its way through the darkness.

His precious burden sheltered in his arms and held protectively close to his heart, Colin leaned back against the wheel of the chaise, and put his lips against her damp hair.

For a long, long, time he remained awake, staring bleakly into the night and aching for the woman he held so tenderly in his arms. Sometime between midnight and the wee hours, his head lolled against the wheel spokes, the spectacles slid from his nose, and the veterinarian joined his companions in exhausted slumber.

Ariadne became slowly aware of several things at once. A burning ache in her arm that throbbed in time with her pulse. Damp, itchy clothes that clung to her skin. The lingering scent of a spent wick, a soft linen shirt against her cheek, the sound of deep, rhythmic breathing and a heartbeat thudding beneath her ear.

And warmth. Hard, encompassing warmth, beneath her face and surrounding her back and shoulders.

Enclosing her.

Protecting her.

She opened her eyes, and there, so close she had to adjust her vision to focus on it, was the pale, moonlit wedge of the veterinarian’s chest.

Full awareness came quickly back to her, and bits and pieces of things she couldn’t fully remember. Those horrible men, she remembered
them
, and the gunshot that had cracked the night the same moment she’d been hit. Shareb-er-rehh, calling on his extraordinary speed to bring her to safety; how she’d remained aboard him she didn’t know, but she had a hazy memory of tumbling from his back and into the doctor’s arms, and then, later, his soothing voice and comforting touch as he’d made her arm hurt more and told her to be brave.

And yes, his eyes. . . . She remembered his eyes, those beautiful, gentle eyes, the intense concentration behind his spectacles as he’d stared down at her arm and dug at her flesh with the same fixed purpose he had demonstrated when he had saved that poor, dying dog from bloat.