Once a Rake (Drake's Rakes) (11 page)

“Well,” she said, reclaiming her bucket and taking over the milking stool. “If you keep trying to discommode me like that, I believe you’ll be able to call this a battlefield.”

It wasn’t what he wanted. It was, he knew, what was needed. So he grinned. Thankfully, her lips curved up in response.

“Coat off,” she said, briskly setting to it, “then shirt out and pulled up.”

He knew it only took moments to pull him out of his jacket. It felt like years, and left him even more shaken and sweaty.

“Now, the hard part.”

He braced himself. Lifting his shirt, she began to unwind the cravat he had used as a dressing. As she reached the last bit, the linen caught on dried blood. She was as careful as she could be, damping the linen as she peeled it away. He grunted with the flare of pain. Dropping the soiled linen, she bent to peer at his side.

“Oh, my,” she murmured, laying soft fingers against his skin. “You weren’t exaggerating about your wound. It looks terrible.”

He looked down and was distracted by her frown. He wanted to lick that frown. “Not so bad,” he disagreed, seeing the same angry, weeping gash she did. The only thing to be glad of was that the ball had gone straight through his side, and that he wasn’t pissing blood. The poxy thing hurt like the devil. Penance for his sins, he thought wryly. “If you can just…oh, clean it up and get me on my way, I’d be grateful.”

She shook her head. “I am not so certain it will be that simple. You really should have had this looked at quite a while ago.” She pressed against the skin above the wound. Ian grunted again. She looked up. “That was what I was afraid of. This is badly infected. What have you been rolling in, Willoughby’s pen?”

He shrugged. “A marsh or two. Several barns. A chicken coop.”

It was her turn to grunt. “Well,” she said, straightening. “I am very good at treating fever in a pig. I am not so certain about oversized soldiers.”

He couldn’t help grinning. “What would you do for the pig?”

“A good cleaning. Garlic poultice and feverfew. I don’t think that will be enough here.” Clucking softly to herself like a mother chastising a child for falling out of a tree and scraping his knee, she turned to her bucket and rifled through her contents.

“We will use the garlic,” she told him. “I have rarely seen it fail. And for the fever . . .” Pulling out cloths and soap, she set them aside. “Some fever is good. It kills the poison. But I think you have overdone yours. I have some willow bark tea.”

Jumping up, she carried the pail out of the barn. She returned with water, grabbing a crate on the way in so she could lay out what looked like instruments of torture. Ian watched in appalled silence.

“You’ve done this to Willoughby?” he asked, casting a wary eye.

She smiled to herself. “Oh, yes. Large Blacks are notorious for tripping over their own hooves and cutting something. And though they are exceptionally clean animals, they do live in barnyards and roll in the mud to cool themselves.”

She bent to wash the wound. Ian grimaced. “No wonder he keeps running away.”

She didn’t look up, but he could see a smile. “They also don’t talk back when one is doing them a favor.”

“That’s only because they don’t know the words.”

She chuckled. “Clunch. Now, please pull up your shirt so I can work.”

Still a bit off-balance, Ian immediately complied. “Sarah . . .”

She immediately stiffened. “I did not give you leave to use my name.”

Lord, she made him want to smile. “You don’t think formal manners are a bit pointless right now?”

She glared at him. “I think it would behoove us both to keep our relationship as formal as possible. Familiarity lowers barriers, and I truly don’t wish to go to all this trouble only to have to brain you with a shovel. We must concentrate on getting you safely away before the soldiers find you.”

Ian opened his mouth to gently chastise her, but just as quickly realized she was perfectly right. He had crossed the line.

“Soldiers?” he asked, knowing he wouldn’t like the answer.

She nodded. “It seems that not everyone believes the reports of your death.”

“But the soldiers were already by.”

“Not hired ex-soldiers. It seems a troop of regulars is scouring the hills for you. If it is all the same to you, I would prefer they not find you here.”

He found himself looking toward the door, as if he could see a troop clattering up the drive. He couldn’t possibly stay here any longer. Every minute he stayed put Sarah Clarke in worse danger. “You need to get me to London.”

She looked at him with implacable eyes. “I need to get you off my land. If I have to put you in a dinghy out to sea, I will do it.”

Ian had never really thought about what he
wanted
in a wife. He only knew what he needed in a marchioness, and he’d found it. But at that moment, seeing Sarah Clarke’s soft hazel eyes glinting and her posture iron rigid in defense of her little home, remembering the fire in her kiss, Ian wished he’d had the choice.

Maybe it was better she was already married.

“Are you sure your husband’s coming home?” he asked anyway.

She looked only a bit more stunned by the question than he felt. He almost stumbled into an apology, until he saw the fleeting panic, the grief and anger skim those earth-soft eyes before she turned deliberately back to her work.

“Yes,” she said, and he didn’t believe her. “He’s coming.”

He was about to question her when she picked up his jacket from where he had laid it on his lap. “We need to move this.”

She was standing up to hang the jacket from a nail when Ian caught the sound of a thud. Sarah must have heard it too. She bent over to retrieve something from the floor.

“What is this?”

Ian looked up to see silver glint in her palm. “Ah,” he answered, hand out to accept it. “This is what both landed me in this mess and saved me from it. Behold the evidence that providence blesses me.”

“A pocket flask?”

“With a rather large dent in it.” He handed it to her. “This was the shot that should have cut my stick for me. Instead it left me with a bit of dented silver and an achy rib.”

For a moment she did no more than run her finger over the uneven dimple. “I don’t often consider drink to be a good habit,” she finally said. “In this instance, I may have to make an exception.”

“Oh, I dinna drink,” he said. “At least not from this flask. This flask I lifted from the poncy little Sassenach who did try to shoot Wellington. It seems to be a signal of some kind. What kind I’m not sure. But behold.”

With a flick of his thumb, he snapped open one side to reveal a hidden panel of ivory bearing the beautifully painted miniature of a smiling blond woman in indecently transparent attire.

“Oh,” she said, finger running over the coyly smiling face. “She is lovely.”

“Very. I don’t think you’d like her, though.”

“Why?”

“This, my lass, is Madame Minette Ferrar. She was an agent for the French during the war, and one of the most ruthless assassins in Europe.”

Sarah Clarke stared at the smiling picture. “My. Is she the one who shot at Wellington?”

He smiled. “No. A chinless weasel named Stricker did that. Compared to our Madame Ferrar, a rank amateur. Madame Ferrar is a virtuoso of her craft.”

With knives. Obscenely. But Sarah Clarke didn’t need to know that.

Suddenly he realized that she was staring at him. “What?”

“Stricker?” she asked. “But that is the man who is leading the soldiers. He and my husband’s cousin.”

For a moment, all Ian could do was stare at her. “Wheesht,” he finally said with a sore laugh. “It seems he is nae the idiot I took him for.”

If nothing else, Stricker could make sure Ian was shot before telling his side of the story. There was absolutely no question now. Ian had to leave.

Lurching like a drunk sailor, he tried to gain his feet.

“Stop that!” Sarah snapped, giving him a shove. “What do you think you’re doing?”

It was far too easy for her to get the upper hand. Ian landed back on the ground, his side again on fire, his head spinning. “
Mac an donais,
” he grated, shutting his eyes.

“I’m going,” he said. “Before Stricker can find me here and bring you up on charges.”

“Well, you’ll go nowhere like this,” she retorted, pressing something against his side and setting loose a fresh shower of pain.

“You don’t understand . . .”

“Oh, but I do. You need to leave. I don’t dispute that.” Pulling something else from her bucket, she wiped at his side with, he thought, a pad of sandpaper. “What I do dispute,” she said, sounding exactly as his mother once had when he’d misbehaved, “is that you will be able to leave with this fever. So you might as well let me finish.”

He could smell her hair again, a fresh, flowery scent that battled with the coppery tang of blood and sweat.

“Fortunately,” she continued, “you were obliging enough to soak this for a time in salt water. That might help get you through the next two days.”

Alerted by the sharp tone of her voice, he looked up. “Why the next two days?”

She sat back on her stool and tossed the bloody rag into her pail. “Because I believe you are about to be very ill. I suspect the only reason you have yet to succumb is because you doused the wound with lashings of salt water. You might have been free and clear, except you then insisted on wallowing with farm animals.”

“You make it sound as if I was bored and looking for a diversion.”

He got a huff for his troubles. “Don’t be absurd. You were doing what all men do. Acting before you thought.” She didn’t look away from the slash on his side. “I imagine the salt water hurt.”

“Stung like a horse whip.”

“Rather like pouring brandy on it, do you think?”

“Very much.”

“Well then, this shouldn’t hurt much worse.”

And without warning, she took the flask, unscrewed it, and upended what must have been a pint of pure alcohol along the gash, sending Ian straight to his feet.

“Christ, woman! What are you trying to do, torture me?”

“Yes,” she said, on her feet as well, the flask in one hand and his arm in the other. “Isn’t it obvious? I get so little entertainment here. Now sit down.”

He did just that. She followed, setting the flask in his lap. And then, as if she couldn’t help herself, she touched him again. Laid her palm against his skin just above the wound, as if bestowing a blessing. Her attention was on her actions, so he knew she didn’t see his face. He was glad.

He was beset by the most unaccountable sense of yearning. Loss. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had laid such a gentle hand on him. Buffets and cuffings and bracing handshakes he knew. The strong, callused clasp of a fellow soldier or the precise acknowledgment of his grandfather. Quick sisterly hugs, the purposeful strokings from bed partners, and the perfunctory raising of a cheek for a kiss by his fiancée. But none that offered comfort. None that bestowed grace like the callused palm of this farm woman.

He was being unforgivably maudlin, he thought, briefly closing his eyes. He needed to get away from this place before he succumbed to more than a fever.

He was so distracted by the thought that he almost missed the creaking of the door. Sunlight splashed his closed lids. He was halfway off the stool before he got his eyes open to find a large shadow in the doorway.

“I wouldn’t move if I were you,” a cold voice warned. “I have a gun on you. And at this range, I can’t miss.”

Chapter 6

Sarah almost welcomed the intrusion. Anything to break the tension that had been building. Dear God, she had only touched him, and her arm tingled as if she’d caught hold of Dr. Mesmer’s galvanizing machine. Her entire body seemed energized and enervated at the same time.

And that kiss . . .

“George.” She stood and faced the intruder, hands on hips. “Put that thing away.”

The great lummox ignored her, walking right up to Ian and pointing the big coaching pistol at his head. “I will not,” he scowled. “’E’s the one they be huntin’ for.”

“Yes . . .”

Before she could get another word out, the point became moot. If she hadn’t seen it herself, she would never have believed it. Ian, who could barely get his knees to hold him up, suddenly exploded into action, knocking the gun away and flipping George right over his head. With a crash that made the ground shake, George landed flat on his back and was rolled into a headlock by an ashen, sweat-sheened Ian, who again knocked over the bucket. Sarah saw the water slosh over the dirt floor and knew she should rescue the gun in its path.

“Ye never pull a gun on a lady,” Ian snarled in George’s ear. “Didn’t y’r ma nae teach you aught?”

Sarah gaped at them. For the last five years, George had earned extra money for his family by bare-knuckle boxing at county fairs. To her knowledge, he had never been bested. And yet Ian held him facedown, as helpless as a day-old calf.

“Get the gun, m’lady!” George rasped in spite of Ian’s arm held tightly around his throat. “Stop him.”

Ian looked up. “Milady?”

Sarah couldn’t manage a response. She saw, for the first time, the threat in Ian Ferguson. The power. He was paler than death, the sweat sliding down his temples, and yet he held George absolutely motionless.