Patrica Rice (13 page)

“Besides, she was already on the way out here when I found her. Should I have left her wandering about alone?”

“Damn it, yes!” Evan cursed as Daphne lifted the crude bandage. His gaze flickered over the pale oval of her face,
the flash of her lovely eyes hidden behind long lashes as she pried the blood-caked rag from his shoulder. She was undoubtedly furious with him, but he read no disgust in her expression. With a groan, he surrendered and gestured for Rhys to bring the water heating over the fire to help her loosen his crude bandage.

“Why?” Evan demanded through clenched teeth as she pried at the last piece of fabric, ripping it from the wound.

“So I could say I told you so,” Daphne replied serenely. “Now all I have to do to tell you from your brother is punch your shoulder. The one who flinches will be you.”

Rhys chuckled as he sifted through the basket of supplies. He held up one or two to the firelight and shook his head as he considered the odd assortment, wondering what they could do with sal volatile and rheumatics salve, but he held his tongue. The feverish light in Evan’s eyes had very little to do with a rise in temperature as yet. It did him good to recognize his own mortality for a while.

“I didn’t think you had much difficulty telling us apart in the first place,’’ Evan muttered thickly as Daphne sponged the wound. The pain in his shoulder was as nothing to the pain in the rest of his body as her breasts brushed against his arm and her delightful scent filled his senses. At any other time had she dared to come this close he would have pulled her onto his lap and covered her with kisses. That behavior didn’t seem particularly appropriate now.

“Everyone else has confused us for years. We’re experts at avoiding trouble because no one is ever willing to identify which of us was the culprit.”

“I’m certain all they had to do was name you. Undoubtedly your parents could have taken it from there.” Experienced at dealing with the injuries of her father’s tenants, Daphne knew enough to keep her patient talking to distract from the pain.

Evan winced as she probed the wound for damage, then grimaced at the knowing chuckle coming from the other side of the fire. “We’re better than that. Gordon always insisted that he was the guilty party, and I always insisted he was innocent, until they never knew whom to believe. Perhaps their convictions were not so firm as yours,” he added dryly.

“Perhaps they found it hard to believe that their sons would lie to them. I have no such misapprehension.” Daphne accepted the jar of salve that Rhys handed to her. The bullet had evidently gone right through without damaging any bone, but the amount of blood he was losing was frightening. She worked hastily to stanch the flow. “You’re both lying rogues and I shall wash my hands of you as soon as I figure out why you’re playing the parts of utter idiots.”

“Llewellyn, don’t you have guard duty or a mare in foal or something?” Evan threw his grinning friend a look of irritation.

“You planning on taking the lady home yourself?” he inquired innocently.

“Insubordinate muddlehead,” Evan muttered, throwing his head back against the wall and closing his eyes. Even not looking at her caused him pain. Her fingers were gentle against his skin, soothing wounds more raw than the one caused by a bullet. He clenched his teeth against the desire driving through him.

“Rhys, make certain I have missed nothing before I wrap the bandage.” Daphne spoke softly, thinking perhaps Evan had gone to sleep or slipped into unconsciousness.

 “It looks a fine job to me
,
lass. Let me hold the cloth while you wrap it.” He pressed hard where she indicated, and Evan jerked at the pain.

They finished the work in silence, Daphne occasionally giving a glance to Evan’s pale face. She could not read his expression, however, although this close, she could more clearly examine the angles and planes that had eluded her in the darkness. She ached to stroke the hollow of his cheek, but she kept her hands busy where they belonged.

When they were done, she glanced down at the torn and bloody shirt hanging from one elbow, concealing the masculine chest she so longed to lean upon. Her grimace caught Rhys’s eye, and he hastened to assure her.

“I’ll get him clean clothes in the morning. It’s time I got you back to the house.”

Evan finally stirred himself to mutter, “And don’t bring her back again. Daphne, get the hell back to London, now. And take Melanie with you.”

“When you see fit to explain why, I’ll consider it,” Daphne replied sweetly, rising from the blanket with the aid of Rhys’s callused hand.

Evan glared at her, but Daphne refused to see his fury. Muttering another curse, he closed his eyes and let the pain in his shoulder mix with the pain of her departure into one swirling black maelstrom of guilt.

Chapter Ten

“Where on earth are you going at this hour of the morning?” Agatha looked up from the breakfast table with incredulity as her niece came into the room wearing an old brown pelisse and a sadly unfashionable bonnet.

“It’s such a nice day, I thought I’d go for a bit of a walk.” Daphne picked up a roll from the sideboard and contemplated the array of steaming hot dishes.

Since the day was gray and drizzly Agatha gave her niece a speculative stare. “You’d best have boots on,” she admonished.

“Do you think Cook would mind terribly if I took some of these rolls and muffins? They smell frightfully delicious, but I’m not hungry just yet. They’ll taste good after I’ve walked a way.”

Definitely suspicious now, Agatha tried to follow the convoluted byways of Daphne’s mind. Undoubtedly there were poor families in the village who could use a good meal, but Daphne hadn’t ordered the pony cart, and she doubted if her niece intended to walk all the way to the village in this mist.

The possibility that she might actually eat all those things that were disappearing into the damask napkin was not even worth considering. Daphne ate little more than a bird at the best of times. This was most extraordinary behavior, but Agatha could not believe it was in any way dangerous.

She picked up her cup of tea and answered lightly, “Some of that fruit would be good for you, too. Why don’t you make a basket and have a picnic of it?”

Daphne threw her aunt a surprised and grateful look. Hurriedly, she did as told, gathering anything portable that she could find while keeping in mind that the servants would breakfast from this bounty, too. There looked to be plenty for all.

She wished she could bring something to guard against the damp, but there was little remedy for that. The house did not come provided with tents and oilcloths and any of the other things that men who live in the weather required. She ought to be angry with herself for bringing even the comfort of breakfast to men who chose to live by thievery. But she could not bring herself to acknowledge that Evan was actually a thief, and she was beginning to have her doubts about Mr. Llewellyn, too. Now that he was cleaned up and wearing proper clothes, he had almost an air of respectability to him.

She found a thin young man wrapped in rags waiting for her at the edge of the woods. He hungrily eyed the aromatic basket she carried but said not a word as he led her through the thicket of vines and rhododendrons to the concealment of the small cave on the riverbank. He disappeared into the forest when Rhys hurried forward to take the basket from her hand.

“We’ll eat like kings!” he announced happily as he examined the contents. “I haven’t been able to get word to Lord Griffin yet, but you needn’t risk doing this again. I don’t doubt that he’ll see Evan gets whatever he needs.”

That answered a few of the questions in her mind, but not enough. “And the other men, will he provide for them?” she demanded.

“Of course, as best as he is able without arousing suspicion,” Rhys soothed her.

As they approached the cave, Evan appeared to be asleep. His unshaven jaw was shadowed and pale in the gray light, and his golden brown hair fell in tousled clumps about his face, speaking of a restless night. He wore a clean shirt over the bulky bandage, and his frayed coat was thrown over his shoulders in protection against the mist. Daphne frowned at the battered coat, but remembering the rags the other men wore, she surmised the reason.

He opened his eyes when she sat on the blanket beside him, and for a brief moment, she felt the power of his gaze. Then he averted it to the wall above her head.

“There was no reason for you to come back. Rhys is well experienced in tending the injuries of war.”

“There is only one way you will be rid of me, you know,” she said conversationally as she peeled back his shirt to examine the bandage. “Have you eaten yet?”

“I’m not hungry.”

Rhys came forward with a pot from the fire. “I’ve been making some meat broth, but he refuses to eat. He’ll need it to get his strength back.”

“Honestly, you’re worse than a child.” Daphne took the napkin covering the basket and tucked it in at Evan’s neck. “If you don’t eat, I’ll take that basket of Cook’s best rolls back with me and your men will have none of them. Do you wish to be responsible for a riot?”

Evan’s glance returned to Daphne’s fair face. How anyone could look so helpless and sound so much like a drill sergeant, he could not quite fathom. At the image of all that feminine beauty ordering a battalion of men to step in line, he grinned.

“If I’m ever called to duty again, I’m taking you with me,” he murmured.

Daphne cast him a worried look and glanced up to Rhys. Was he fevered? She touched a cool hand to Evan’s brow and thought it might be a little warm, but not enough for hallucinations. Grinning now, Rhys shrugged and walked away with the basket, leaving Daphne to deal with their recalcitrant patient alone.

“I’ll not go,” she announced defensively, just in case he was speaking in riddles. “Now open up and have a bite of broth.”

“I can’t bite broth,” he replied irascibly. “Give me one of those rolls.”

“Rhys took them all away. You can’t have any until you eat your broth.”

Evan glared at her, then appropriated the pot and defiantly sipped from its brim. Unperturbed, Daphne sat back and waited patiently for his temper to cool.

Managing more than enough of the foul brew, Evan set the pot aside and contemplated the stubborn female who had about as much regard for propriety as he did. The folds of the old pelisse disguised the slim curves he had held in his arms just a few nights ago, but the memory of them was still strong. Besides, she could be as bony as a rail and she would still fascinate him.

He had never met a female who could be as blunt and direct as a man, one who didn’t have the vapors or giggle when he displayed his errant humors. Apparently he had been looking in the wrong places for his match. He should have taken to holding up coaches long ago.

Remembering the sight of her in his brother’s arms, Evan tried to shut out these thoughts. “I’m still alive, as you can see. There’s no need for you to linger in this damp any longer. Your old war wound won’t suffer it gladly,” he said sardonically.

He was very likely right, but Daphne wasn’t about to admit it. “And there’s some need for you to stay here courting pneumonia? Would Gordon keep you from going home?”

Evan looked pained and leaned his head back against the cave wall. Drawing one knee up, be rested his uninjured arm over it and tried to sort out how much he could and couldn’t reveal to this persistent female. Perhaps if he told her enough, she would go away and take Melanie with her.

“He’s in enough danger without adding my presence. Can’t you just take my word for it and leave before you are caught up in it too?”

“I don’t doubt that you’re in trouble up to your ears, but I cannot believe that courting pneumonia will solve it. I will need the whole story before I am convinced to leave you here.”

Daphne hid her shiver at her own temerity. The buckskin-clad knee just inches from her nose had much to do with that shiver. She had never been this close, this
intimate,
with any man. She could feel the warmth radiating from him, sensed the virile strength in the tension of that muscled leg, and wondered at her boldness in not removing herself at once.

Instead, she wished to clasp those brown fingers in her own and feel their heat and strength and texture against her palm. She was quite simply losing her mind. This time, the thought did not startle or alarm her.

As if hearing her wishes, Evan lifted his long fingers to wrap a straying curl of her hair around them. His rough knuckles brushed against the velvet smoothness of her cheek, and he stared at her fascinated. What would it be like to feel those moist, full lips against his own? His body lurched in response, and he hastily diverted his thoughts.

“There is naught to tell that makes any sense.’’ He stared at the wall but kept the silken strand of her hair wrapped in his hand. “My father was the heir to my grandfather’s earldom. He had little interest in his inheritance, so Gordon took over his responsibilities at an early age, and I went off to make a profession of war.

“Besides my father and Gordon and myself, there were numerous other uncles and cousins who might inherit should we three give up the ghost, so no one was overly concerned with my dangerous choice of professions.”

Daphne settled in more comfortably beside him, a frown marring her forehead as she recognized the direction of his story.

 “Among ourselves, it was more or less expected that Gordon would marry and provide the next heir since the others were a rackety lot without a responsible bone in their bodies. Besides, Gordon has always had a way with the ladies, and it was to be expected that he would be married with children well before my father and grandfather stuck their spoons in the wall.”

Evan tried to find the right words for the rest of his tale. Idly, he pushed back Daphne’s concealing bonnet. Dew sparkled on her dark lashes and rose-tinted cheeks, and he rubbed his knuckles thoughtfully against her cheek.

“My father died a year ago, when Wellington and Napoleon were decimating the Belgium countryside. I had no word of it until months later, when I lay seriously wounded in some desolate military hospital. I had responsibilities I couldn’t desert, and the letter was so old that I thought there was no need to hurry. Gordon and Grandfather would be well in control of the situation. When the next letter found me, I was recovering and well enough to travel. It took time to sell out and arrange for what few of my men remained and to make the journey in midwinter.”