Timeless Desire (27 page)

“What do you mean?” he asked, instantly alert.

She drove the knife into his flesh and he jerked.

“I mean, what did you learn?” She could feel the metal shot under the skin, like a little ball bearing.

“Twas not much help,” he said through gritted teeth. “The council is committed to going to war.”

“What reason did you give him for coming here?” There was no avoiding what came next: She popped the point of the blade upward, and the shot broke through the flesh. His shoulders relaxed.

“Hector MacIver is my grandfather, after all. I shouldn’t think I need more reason than that.

She’d left a hole about twice as big as the original. Blood dripped down his back and onto the sheets. She jumped off the bed and ran to the wardrobe, hoping to find something to absorb the blood. An old blanket lay at the bottom. She returned and tucked it under his back.

“This wasn’t exactly covered in my librarian training,” she said, half in apology.

“You are doing well. I take it you really are a library keeper?”

“Of course I am. I work at the Carnegie Library in Carnegie—part of Penn’s Woods.”

His back tensed. “Adderly introduced you as Mrs. Carnegie. You have a husband, then?”

“No, I do not. Andrew Carnegie was a wealthy industrialist—”

“Industrialist?”

“Man of industry. Like you. Only his industry was steel.” She aimed her blade at the second ball and pierced his skin. “He made a lot of money. More than almost any other man on earth at the time. And after he did, he decided to devote himself to making others’ lives better. He built more than two thousand libraries.” The second ball popped loose.

“Two
thousand
libraries?” Bridgewater’s voice was filled with shock.

“Some even nicer than yours, if you can imagine. He offered a library to any town willing to promise to maintain the institution into the future. The town I’m from was really once two towns, Mansfield and Chartiers. They wrote to Carnegie and said they would merge and call the new town ‘Carnegie,’ hoping he would be swayed to give them a library.”

“And was he?”

“Yes, he was.” She began on the third hole. “While there were a few free libraries before Andrew Carnegie and his efforts, he was the person responsible for making every person in my time feel he has a right to free access to books.” The third shot dropped onto the bed. She caught the edge of the blanket and wiped away the blood.

“A right to free access to books.” Bridgewater shook his head, amazed. “What an astonishing development—and a very generous gift.”

“Oh, I am not one to stand in awe of wealthy men.”

“I have noticed.”

She laughed. “But he did at least try to atone for his sins,” she said, starting on the fourth extraction. “He gave away almost all his money before he died. He said, ‘The man who dies rich dies disgraced.’”

Bridgewater turned so he could see her. “You speak of a time that sounds so different than mine—a time when rich men give away their money, and access to books is considered a right. Is it also a time of great peace?”

She shook her head with a sigh. “No. The same issues that provoke men now provoke them in the future. I’m afraid there will always be a need for men like you, Bridgewater.”

He turned back to his side. “I wonder . . .” he began, and stopped.

“You wonder what?”

“I wonder if you would call me ‘Jamie’? Other than Clare and Undine, a friend I should like you to meet someday, there is no one who does.”

She felt her eyes prickle. A man with so few to call him by his given name? “I’d be honored.”

He caught her hand and squeezed it. “Thank you, Panna.”

She squeezed back.

“C’mon now,” she said, slipping free and dabbing at her eyes. “Let me finish. Lord only knows when Mrs. Brownlow is going to wheel in here. I’ve read enough stories of Gretna Green to know . . . well, to know that’s probably not a good idea.”

“Stories of Gretna?” He looked at her again. “You know stories of Gretna? Tis only a few miles from here.”

“Well, yes. It’s quite a popular theme in novels,” she said, extracting the fourth shot. “In one of my favorites, the wayward younger sister of the heroine is lured into abandoning her virtue with the promise of a forthcoming elopement to Gretna.” Panna found her cheeks warming as she told him. The world was a different place here, after all. “That would have been bad enough. However, the promise was a false one.”

Bridgewater snorted. “They often are. I hope the blackguard got his due.”

She smiled. “The hero forces the man to marry the girl, thus saving the heroine and her family from shame. It’s very romantic.”

Jamie gazed at her, his green-gray eyes flashing. “It sounds as if some things about the world do
not
change: the pull of war, the pull of lust, and the pull of love . . .”

“You’re right.” She eased the blade into the last hole, and the fifth and last ball dropped into her hand. She poured whisky over the puckered and bleeding holes.

“Christ!”
he cried. “I can stand the blade, but getting disinfected is worse than getting shot.”

“Here.” She handed him the flask. “Drink up. We’re done.”

His face changed from an expression of complaint to the look of a three-year-old hiding the broken pieces of his mother’s favorite porcelain figurine behind his back.

“What?” she demanded. “We
are
done, aren’t we?” She looked again at his back, scanning the skin. Then she saw them. More tiny holes in his dark breeks. Ten or more.

He sat up, his face contorted in pain. “Those can wait until I return to Bowness.”

“Is your ass somehow less prone to infection than the rest of you? I mean, I think the quote is ‘War is hardest on those left behind, not those left
in
the behind.’”

“I am
not
going to take off my breeks before you.” He struck an upstanding pose—or at least as upstanding as he could, given that he was bare chested, bleeding profusely and sitting on a woman’s bed. “Twould not be gentlemanly.”

“Oh, is ‘gentlemanly’ our guiding principle here? Well, I am not completely dressed, as you pointed out in so gentlemanly a manner, so I see no problem in stripping you of your clothes as well.” He flushed—rightfully, she considered. “Off.”

He made a long, reluctant growl and stood up, his back to her. He lowered the fabric carefully to his knees, then lowered himself even more carefully onto the bed.

Her dream had not done him justice. His flesh was the color of apricots, his muscles sturdy, and the arrow-straight line of his spine bisected the shadowed dimples of the small of his back before disappearing into the shadowy place between perfect pale mounds of flesh. His buttocks were dusted with sparkling gold hairs that ran down his powerful thighs. Only the dark spots of the entry wounds marred the godlike perfection.

She let out a quiet breath.

“Is it bad?”

She shook her head firmly before realizing she was responding to a different question. “Not too bad. You’ll be fine.”

She would work from the shots highest on his buttocks to the ones more alarmingly placed.

“Hand me the whisky, if you would,” she said.

“No.”

“Infection.”

“I don’t care.”

“Surely, a big, grown-up soldier like you is not afraid of a little discomfort.” She snatched the bottle from his hand and dribbled more onto the knife, letting it run over his wounds.

“Bloody hell.”

She took another fortifying sip and then positioned the tip of the blade over the first hole. Her hands were shaking less, but she found it much harder to concentrate on extracting this group of balls. She laid her hand on his hip to steady her work surface. His skin was warm and alive in her grasp.

“How long are you going to prepare for the jab?” he said sharply. “I am not comfortable under this sort of gaze.”

“And yet, this can hardly the first time a woman’s eyes have been upon you.”

He made an imperious harrumph.

“I thought so.”

“Tis not a fair comparison.”

“Isn’t it? Trousers down, bottom warmed, all attention focused on the prick?”

She jabbed the knife in and flicked the first ball free in a single easy movement. Damn, she was getting good at this.

He lifted his shoulder. “You have a very lurid imagination.”

“Too many books. I knew a hunter once who told me— oh, I probably shouldn’t say it.”

“I’m afraid the bounds of propriety have been irretrievably broken at this point. There is no need to be reticent.”

“He told me firing his gun gave him an erection.”

Bridgewater let out a soft chuckle. “I believe I can do you one better. I knew a woman who kept a wooden paddle by her bed into which the outline of a bee had been cut. The strokes would leave a picturesque welt.”

Panna giggled. “On you?”

“Now, why would you assume I had anything to do with this?”

“Bees, huh?”

“She referred to it as the sting of love.”

The second and third balls were just as easy. Panna was starting to like the feel of the blade in her hand. She was also starting to like the feel of his ass. She made the move to cut the flesh on the fifth when something she saw out of the corner of her eye sent the blade tip skittering for several inches across his flesh.

“Ow!”
he cried.

“Sorry.”

She hadn’t entirely closed the wardrobe, and over the course of the last few minutes its mirror-covered door had slowly yawned open, putting a most remarkable reflection of Bridgewater directly in her line of sight.

She lowered her eyes to the bedcover instantly, but the damage, if one could call it that, had been done.

The view of his front had been even more engaging than the one of his back. Broad chest, carved belly, and a small mass of brown curls from which a sizable penis, as long as the knife in her hand, hung. Small explosive charges seemed to be going off all over her skin. She felt slightly drunk and very wicked.

“What is it?”

“Er, nothing.” She tried to wipe the image from her mind, but her mind seemed quite intent on holding on to it. He was uncircumcised, which didn’t surprise her, given the era, but Charlie and her other boyfriends had been circumcised, and the alternative seemed more alluring and more dangerous.

I won’t look again. Looking again would be wrong.

She inserted the tip of the blade into the fifth hole.

I’ll only look if the ball comes out smoothly.

The ball rolled down his buttock and into the fold of the towel. He didn’t even make a noise.

She stole a glance. Bridgewater looked like something one would see in a museum—a discus thrower, or the Colossus of Rhodes—only in the living flesh.

Well, I’ve certainly seen what I needed to see. Definitely won’t look again.

The sixth ball came out just as smoothly as the fifth.

She looked again. There was something utterly fascinating about that scant swaying weight. It was . . . well . . . hypnotic.

“Panna?”

She was so startled she nearly dropped the knife. She lowered her gaze instantly to the relative neutrality of his buttocks. “What?”

“Is something wrong? You haven’t moved in a full minute.”

“What? No.”

She vowed she’d do better, and she’d taken out four more balls of lead before she found her eyes drawn inexorably once more to the mirror.

“You know,” he said, turning, “if you wanted this to be fair, you would remove your shift.”

Oh, God, had she been found out? But the look on his face was playful, not accusatory.

“If
I
wanted this to be fair?” A flush so fiery filled her cheeks that she swore she saw waves of heat rising before her eyes.

“Aye.”

“Fortunately, that desire eludes me.” She positioned the blade to remove the next ball.

“Surely a big, grown-up library keeper like you is not afraid of a little discomfort.”

“Why don’t you just imagine I’ve removed my shift?”

“Too late for that.”

She poked him with her finger and he yelped. He was getting a little too cocky for a guy with buckshot in his ass and a penis the size of a baby eggplant on display.

“I have a thought,” he said.

“Oh, I’m certain of it.”

“How many pieces of shot remain?”

She counted. “Five.”

“I have been inspired by your story about Andrew Carnegie. I should like to build a free library for the people of Cumbria.”

“You
would
?”

“And I shall provide one hundred books for each piece of shot you remove in the absence of your shift.”

Her heart did a drumroll. When she felt she could control her voice again she said, “How about this instead? You shall provide one hundred books for each piece of shot that does not require extensive knife twisting to remove.”

“Oh.” His shoulders sagged. “Tis another option, I suppose.”

“Think of it as my way of saving you from dying disgraced.”

“You are kind to protect me.”

The last five pieces of lead came out without a hitch. She collected the tiny balls, then washed her hands and the knife with the whisky. Then she washed his back and buttocks one more time. The bleeding had stopped, but he was going to be exceedingly sore for a while. She turned while he redid his breeks and lay down again. The wool was dark, so the bloodstains didn’t show. With his jacket over it, the holes would be invisible as well.

She hid the bloody blanket and the lead shot behind the wardrobe. Her shift was a little bloody, as were the sheets, but that could easily be explained by her period.

By the time she’d finished, Jamie was breathing steadily and she knew he had fallen asleep. Little wonder. She gazed at the set of his mouth as he slept and the way his hand had curled into a ball under his chin. It was the same way Charlie had slept. Bridgewater looked so peaceful. She suspected it was the first time he’d slept since she’d arrived.

So far, Bridgewater’s arrival at Nunquam had inspired both joyous tears and a barrage of gunfire, and they hadn’t even met his grandfather yet. Not a propitious sign. Bridgewater had been blasted with birdshot, which meant the shooter likely hadn’t been one of the guards, whose guns would shoot a single, larger ball. Had it been someone out hunting who’d happened to stumble upon an intruder? Bridgewater said he hadn’t been spotted until he was on the ground, which probably meant the shooter didn’t realize the man he shot had already been
in
the clan chiefs’ wing rather than attempting to get into it. But the question that most concerned her was whether the shooter would be able to identify Bridgewater as the person he’d fired at.