No Other Love (15 page)

There was a distinct note of relief in the highwayman’s voice when at last he said, “There it is! We’re almost to it.”

Moments later the horse came to a halt, and Jack slid down from behind her. His hands went to her waist, pulling her down from the saddle. He set her down, and she stumbled, sightless. His arms went around her more tightly to steady her, and for a moment she was pressed against his body, his heart a steady pounding in her ear. Then his hands went to her shoulders and he turned her, guiding her around the horse and up two steps. There was the sound of a door opening, and his arm around her moved her inside. The door closed after them.

Nicola could see edges of light around her blindfold. He fumbled with the knot and pulled the cloth from her eyes. Nicola blinked in the sudden light, though it was only a single squat candle, guttering low. She saw that she was in a tiny foyer. Jack lifted a longer taper from a small table and lit it from the candle, then fitted it into a candleholder.

“Come with me.” He did not give her a chance to do anything but obey him, taking her by the arm with his free hand and leading her up the stairs.

It was even darker upstairs, the only illumination besides Jack’s candle being a sliver of light coming from beneath a door at the end of the hall. It was toward this door that they walked, Jack’s steps growing faster and faster until he reached it. He opened the door softly, though, none of his impatience showing, and entered, leading Nicola in after him.

The scene inside was dimly lit, but horrifying nonetheless. Heavy drapes covered the only window, and the air was close inside the room, thick with the scent of a poorly drawing fire, sweat, blood and whiskey. A man lay on the narrow bed, eyes closed in his unnaturally pale face, his chest laboring to breathe. The covers were pushed aside, and his dark shirt had been opened, revealing his bare chest. A bulky bandage lay over one side of his chest and shoulder, heavily stained with blood. His face was spotted with sweat, and his hair was dark with moisture. A man sat in a chair beside the bed, his elbows on his knees and his hands thrust through his hair, his face turned downward. A bottle of whiskey stood on the small square table between his chair and the bed, along with an oil lamp, which provided the feeble light in the room. On the other side of the bed stood a young woman, wringing her hands. Her eyes were wide with fear, and tears ran down her cheeks.

“Oh, dear, oh, dear,” she repeated over and over in a dreary monotone. She turned at the sound of Jack’s footsteps on the floor. “Jack! Thank God you’re here!”

The girl ran across the room to throw herself against Jack’s chest, sobbing. Nicola watched with distaste as Jack tried to untangle himself from the girl’s clinging arms. “How is he? Dirk?”

The other man raised his head. He looked haggard. “It ain’t good, Jack. He’s having trouble breathing.”

Nicola knew that this was not good news. If the ball had pierced his lung and it was filling up with blood, there would be little she could do to save him. However, when she saw Jack look to the bed, his body taut as a wire and an unmistakable flash of fear in his dark eyes, she said quickly, “It is no wonder that he would have trouble breathing, as close as the air is in this room. Open the door. Can we not crack the window? And I scarcely think we need a roaring fire right now, especially one that fills the room with smoke, as that one does.”

Jack relaxed, a smile coming to his lips as he turned toward her. “Never one to mince words, are you, my dear Miss Falcourt? Allow me to introduce Dirk. He has been watching over my friend while I went to fetch you. And this is Diane. She, uh, is with another of my men, and she takes care of the house.”

He had succeeded in detaching the girl from himself as he said this, but she continued to look at him in a way that made Nicola suspect Diane was far more interested in him than in any of his men—or his house. Whatever she was to Jack, she certainly was not of much use in a sickroom.

“This is Miss Falcourt,” Jack said, talking to the man and woman. “She is here to help Perry. You are to do what she asks.”

Dirk nodded, gazing at her with bleary interest, and the girl cast her a sullen look before nodding her understanding.

“So put out the fire, Dirk,” Jack said crisply. “Draw the drapes and open the window, Di.”

“But what about the light?” the girl asked, looking disgruntled. “Anyone could see it. ‘Sides, everyone knows the night air’s not good for a sick man.”

“He isn’t sick, he is injured,” Nicola told her. “There is a difference. You are adding to his troubles by making him sweat and breathe fetid air. We need to help him, not make it harder for him.”

“Do as I said, Diane,” Jack added in a voice that brooked no disobedience. “Leave the shutters closed and little light will get out, while some air gets in. The trees will hide it, too, and if it is discovered…” He shrugged. “I will not let Perry die so that we can remain undetected.”

He turned to Nicola. “What else should we do?”

“I have to clean the wound. I need the purest water you have. Granny Rose used distilled water, as she did for her decoctions and infusions, but we haven’t the equipment or time for that now. I have one bottle of distilled water—I will use that. But we need more. Boil some and let it cool. That will leave some of the impurities on the bottom of the pot. I’ll need more light. I can barely see the patient, let alone find a ball in his wound.”

Jack nodded and went to turn up the lamp. He added his candle to the table beside the lamp, then went in search of more lamps. Nicola walked over to the table and looked down at the man lying in the bed. Her eyes went first to his wound, covered by the lumpy, amateurish bandage. It was soaked with blood, but it was brownish and much of it dried, rather than fresh, which indicated that at least the bleeding had stopped. She feared that when she pulled off the bandage to look at it, the bleeding would start afresh, so she decided to wait until more light arrived.

Her eyes went to the man’s face. Like Dirk and the girl, he wore no mask, and Nicola could see that he was a rather good-looking man in his late thirties or early forties, with a Norman nose, long face and reddish-blond coloring. He opened his eyes as she stood there.

“Hullo.” His voice was thick and weak. “I would swear you were an angel, but I doubt that would be the place I’ve gone.”

Nicola smiled. “You are far too ready with your tongue to be approaching either heaven or hell right now, sir. My name is Nicola Falcourt, and I am here to help you, if I can.”

“Ah…Nicola Falcourt…” The man’s eyes wavered. His face was flushed, and an overpowering smell of whiskey hung over him.

Jack walked into the room, carrying an oil lamp in each hand, and Nicola turned to him accusingly. “Is this man drunk?” She cast a critical glance at Dirk. “This one certainly seems to be. Not exactly the one I would entrust a wounded man to. Did you all sit around drinking before you came to get me?”

“No,” Jack answered. “I gave Perry a shot or two of whiskey for the pain, and I will give him more before you begin to work on him. But most of the smell of alcohol comes from his wound. I poured whisky on it. I have seen it done before to cleanse a wound.”

“It sounds as if you have had more experience than I in that regard,” Nicola replied. “Perhaps you should be the one who digs the ball out.”

“I will if I have to,” he replied evenly.

Nicola nodded and turned back to her patient. “Perhaps you had better give him a drink, then, for I need to remove the bandage. I am afraid it will stick.”

Without a word, Jack took the bottle in one hand and cupped the other behind the wounded man’s head, lifting it. “Here you go, old boy. Take a drink. It will make it seem easier.”

“But I don’t want him drunk to the point of vomiting,” Nicola cautioned. “That will only make it harder on all of us, including him.”

The man in the bed took a slug of whiskey, then another, and Jack eased him back down onto the pillow. Nicola glanced at the girl, still standing beside the opened window, then at Jack. He nodded briefly in understanding.

“Go down to the kitchen and boil a pot of water for Miss Falcourt, Diane. Dirk, you go down, too, and send one of the other men up…one who hasn’t been nipping at the whiskey bottle the past hour or two.”

“Yes, sir.” The other man gave Jack a hangdog look. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to. Only—it was hard just sittin’ there watchin’ ‘im try to breathe.”

“I know. It’s all right. But I think we need someone with a steadier hand and eye right now. So send Saunders up, will you?”

The other man nodded and left the room, taking a reluctant Diane by the arm and hauling her out with him. Jack and Nicola turned back to the patient. He lay now with his eyes closed. His breathing was still heavy, but Nicola was relieved to hear none of the gurgling sounds that would indicate blood in his lungs.

Taking the bottle of distilled water out of her bag, she poured some of it on the bandage, dampening the crusted blood to soften it and cause less tearing when she took it off. Then she carefully peeled the bandage back. The patient drew in a sharp breath of pain as the bandage came off with a tug. Nicola sucked in her breath almost as sharply at the sight of the red, puckered wound. Fresh blood welled up out of it.

Nicola poured more of the water on one of the rags she had brought, then began to gently wash away the dried blood all around the wound. With the same care, she poured more of the water onto the man’s chest, letting it flow down across the wound. She knew that it was painful, but she also knew that it was imperative to leave nothing in the wound. Granny Rose had always stressed that. Any bit of foreign material left in the wound was an irritant to it, she had said, and would work against the healing, creating an angry, pus-filled wound.

The water washed out a tiny fragment of black cloth, probably his shirt, and a few grains of gunpowder. Nicola continued to clean the wound with cloth and water until the pink-stained water ran clear of any other matter.

“Hold a lamp as close to the wound as you can,” she told Jack, and when he did, she leaned down to examine the torn flesh. “I can’t see the ball. I will have to probe for it.”

She swallowed, her stomach roiling at the thought of what she was about to do, and looked at Jack. His face was a trifle pale, too, she thought, but he merely nodded. “Saunders will help hold him down.”

The man named Saunders knocked on the door and entered a moment later. Nicola took her tweezers from her bag, doing her best to ignore the jangling of her nerves and the icy fear in the pit of her stomach. She knew that this procedure would be incredibly painful for her patient, and the less skillful she was, the worse it would be. She could not let her hands shake, could not allow herself to feel or show doubt.

Saunders sat down on the patient’s legs and took the lamp from Jack, holding it as close as he could to the wound. Jack went around to the head of the bed and leaned over the wounded man, placing his hands firmly on the man’s arms. With the patient thus pinned, Nicola leaned over the bed and began to probe for the ball with her tweezers.

A bellow escaped the patient, and he began to twist and jerk, trying to get away. Jack and his helper clamped down even harder. As Nicola continued to feel for the metal ball, the man’s eyes rolled up in his head, and he passed out. After that, it was easier.

Nicola could feel the beads of sweat rolling down her face and neck. Blood was welling up out of the man’s wound now in a seeming flood. Her instrument clicked on metal. Biting her lip until it bled, Nicola manipulated the tweezers until she could clamp down on the bit of metal. Carefully, slowly, she lifted the tweezers, scared that she would make a false move and the ball would fly out of her grasp.

But now the tweezers were free of the wound, and clamped between them was a misshapen lump of metal. Nicola drew a shaky breath that sounded very much like a sob and dropped both tweezers and the mangled ball of lead onto the bed. She sat down on the side of the bed, for the room was suddenly spinning around her, and lowered her head to her hands.

“You did it.” Jack’s voice was low and close to her ear, and his arm went around her shoulders, pressing her close to him.

As if his very warmth had brought home to her how cold she was, Nicola began to shiver. Quickly he stripped off his jacket and wrapped it around her, holding her in his arms and rubbing his hands up and down her arms.

“It’s shock,” he told her. “The aftermath of danger.”

He nodded toward his man, who sprang up and poured a shot of whiskey into a glass, the bottle rattling against the rim. Jack took the glass from him and pressed it to Nicola’s lips. “Here, drink this. It’ll help you.”

“I can’t. There are still things I have to do.” She turned vaguely toward the patient.

“You’ll feel better if you take a drink of this.”

Obediently she took a sip of the amber liquid. It roared like fire through her mouth and down her throat, bursting in her stomach. Nicola gasped and shuddered.

“Are you insane?” she managed to squeak out.

He chuckled. “Perhaps. A little. Take another sip.”

It did not taste quite as bad this time, and Nicola realized after a moment that her trembling had ceased and she no longer felt as if she were freezing from the inside out. In that same instant she realized how close she was to Jack and how good and warm it felt to have his arm draped around her shoulders, protecting and soothing her.