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The Heiress Page 14
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Angry, he flung open the door, and to his horror and disbelief, he saw Axia undressing Tode!
His first impulse was to fling her across the room and possibly to use his sword on Tode. But then Axia turned a ravaged face toward him, a face not of a lover, but of one who is deeply afraid, afraid to the point of terror.
“Help me, help me,” she whispered, her voice trembling.
Instantly, all Jamie’s anger left him. Setting down his lantern, he stepped forward. “What can I do? I am yours.”
“His legs,” she managed to whisper as though the words were so disturbing she could not speak.
Lying on piles of straw and dirty horse blankets was Tode, his face turned to one side so that only his good side showed, and Jamie could see that he was pale to the point of death. “I will get someone to help so—”
“No!” Axia said as she grabbed his forearm with both of her hands. “Please,” she said, tears in her eyes. She was dripping wet, her dark hair plastered to her head, her dress sodden, and he knew she was cold, tired, and hungry, but she did not seem to be aware of it. “He is proud, and he does not like to be seen. Can you understand that?”
Jamie was sure that no one could understand pride better than he. “What do you want of me?”
Wasting no more time, Axia turned back to her friend. “He is in pain. Great pain. Help me get him warm and dry. Get his clothes off.”
“Yes,” Jamie said, then went to Tode and began to remove his trousers, but they were wet and stuck to his skin so he took his dagger and sliced them off, exposing Tode’s bare legs to the air and the light. Jamie had seen maimed men on the battlefield, and he thought he was hardened, but he had never seen anything like Tode’s legs. They were like raw flesh, scars big and small, great ridges in the skin. And under the skin the bones seemed to have been broken and set at odd angles. How did he manage to walk at all? And if he did walk, how did he bear the pain of every step?
When Jamie looked up at Axia, he saw that she was holding a bottle of some dark liquid.
“Put some of this on your hands and rub it on his legs. Quickly!”
Even as she poured it into his hands, Jamie could feel the warmth of the oil. When he touched Tode’s bare legs, they were as cold as death. Looking across at Axia, Jamie could see the terror on her face. “Give me that,” he commanded, taking the bottle from her. He knew a bit about being cold as he’d spent some time in the Highlands with his relatives there. A Scottish summer could be colder than an English winter.
His hands were larger and stronger than hers, and he used her warming liquid lavishly as he rubbed it into Tode’s cold skin. “Go into the stables, find my horse and look in the carrying cases on the saddle. There are clothes in there; they should be dry. Get them. Do not hesitate! If anyone sees you, tell them they are for me. And bring the flask in the pouch on the side.”
With scarcely a nod, she ran out of the little stone room and into the stables where she quickly found Jamie’s horse, his saddle thrown across a wooden trestle against the wall. It took her only minutes to get the clothes, good English wool, from the bag, then the silver flask. Holding them a bit away from her so they would not get wet from her dress, she started to run back to the tack room, but the words of a groom, hidden from her by a stall wall, stopped her.
“I hear she is the Maidenhall heiress,” a man said quietly. “It is to be a secret, but everyone knows.”
“I’d like to get my hands on that. Imagine all that gold! Anything you ever wanted for the asking.”
“Shall you propose marriage?”
“Ha! I shall throw her over my saddle and charge her father to get her back.”
At that, Axia kept running, her feet silent across the straw-strewn floor. In the tack room again, she saw that Jamie had Tode’s clothes off except for the linen loin cloth, and he was rubbing her liniment on his chest and arms.
“Did anyone see you?” he asked, and when she shook her head, he said, “Good. I do not want them being curious. We should have thought of this before.” He was thinking of the many times he’d tried to ride with Berengaria with him, but she always caused confusion, with children dancing about them and shouting, “Blind Girl! Blind Girl!” Jamie could not imagine what would happen if Tode walked down the middle of a village street.
“I am going to dress him,” Jamie said, “and I want you to get that into him.” He nodded toward the flask. “As much as he can hold.” When she looked in doubt at him, he said, “It’s good single malt Scotch. McTarvit. The best. Now do as I say!”
Axia gave the tiniest nod of obedience as she rolled up a horse blanket and put it under Tode’s head, then slowly started forcing the whiskey between his lips. She knew from experience that he was conscious, but the pain in his legs made him wish he were not.
It was more difficult than Jamie had thought it would be to dress Tode’s inert body. For all that his legs were frail, his upper body was that of a large and healthy young man, and he was heavy with muscle that he’d developed in compensation for his weak lower half. It seemed forever before Tode began to cough at the whiskey that Axia was judiciously forcing down him.
“No,” Tode managed to say, turning his head away. “Let me sleep.”
“Yes,” Axia said, sitting by his head, smoothing his hair back from his face. There seemed to be a tiny bit of color in his cheeks now. “Please sleep. I will be here with you. I will not leave you.” Reaching under the blanket that Jamie had spread over him, she took Tode’s big hand in hers and held it to her wet bosom.
She had no idea how long she sat there, but when Jamie started to pull her away, she fought him.
Clutching her chin in his hand, he turned her face to look at him. “I am heartily sick of being regarded as your enemy. You are wet and cold and—”
“I will not leave him,” she said fiercely, jerking away from him. “It is because of you that he is like this.”
For a moment Jamie stood back, running his hands over his eyes, and with every movement he made, half-dried mud flaked away. How well he had learned not to argue with her. He could force her into the house, into dry clothes, but he had no doubt that unless he tied her inside his friend’s house, she would find a way out.
Without saying a word, he removed a thick horse blanket from a hook on the wall, then wrapped it around her body. When she was encased, he picked her up, wrapping his arms tightly about her. “Quiet or you’ll wake him,” he said into her ear when she began to struggle.
“Unhand me,” she said, but Jamie held on.
Sitting on the straw-covered floor, leaning back against the cold stone wall, he pulled her onto his lap, her back against his front. When she continued struggling, he said low into her ear, “Please do not hurt me more. My body is a mass of bruises and cuts from my days with you. I begin to bleed at the sight of you.”
If he’d said anything else, she could have retained her anger, could have fought him, but humor took all the rage out of her. To her great embarrassment, she dropped her head against his strong body and began to cry.
Jamie cuddled her on his lap as though she were an infant, wrapped in the thick blanket, her head against his neck, and her tears further wetted him.
She did not cry for long. “I am sorry,” she whispered. “I never cry. No one can make me cry.”
“Except me. Yes, I always have that effect on women.”
“You are a liar,” she said, sniffing. “I doubt if you have ever made a woman cry.”
He had no intention of replying to that remark, but he was sure that he’d never enjoyed holding a woman as much as he was enjoying holding her, for all that she was a shapeless lump in a smelly blanket. “Tell me about Tode,” he said softly. “Why is he like this?”
Axia felt that she was warm for the first time in days as the rain had not stopped long enough for them to have a fire. Frances had begged to stop at an inn, but Jamie had said it was too “dangerous.” Since people did not know who they were, how was it dangerous?