The Prisoner (4 page)

“She doesn't mind,” Jack lied. He wrapped a thin arm around Haydon, supporting him. “She wants you to come in.”

Haydon looked over at Genevieve. She was clad only in a creamy nightrail, her tall, slender figure rising above the excited, waving children clustered around her. His vision was too clouded to make out her expression.

In that moment she was as close to an angel as anything he had ever hoped to see.

“Just for tonight,” he mumbled. “No longer.”

Leaning heavily against Jack, he began to stagger back toward the house. Jack helped him through the door and into the hallway, where Haydon stared vacantly at the fascinated audience surrounding him.

And then crashed in a heap upon the floor.

“What's happened to yer friend, laddie?” Oliver frowned at Haydon over the blade of his ax. “He dinna look so good.”

“He was beaten while trying to help me,” Jack explained. “And he's sick.”

“Sick, ye say?” scoffed Doreen. “He looks nigh fit to be buried.”

Jamie looked up at Genevieve, his eyes wide with concern. “Is he going to die?”

“Of course not,” she replied, affecting far more assurance than she felt. Even if she managed to nurse him back to health, the man lying on the floor of her hallway was a convicted murderer. If he was captured, as he most certainly would be, he would be hanged.

She pushed the thought from her mind. All that mattered in that moment was that he was badly injured and needed their help.

“Oliver, please help Jack take his friend up to my room and put him on the bed,” she instructed briskly. “Eunice, kindly warm some of that broth you made earlier, and bring it up with a pot of strong tea. Doreen, please fetch a jug of hot water, a jug of cold water, some soap, and a pot of ointment. Simon and Jamie, bring some wood up to my room and add it to the fire. Annabelle, Grace, and Charlotte, see if you can find an old, clean sheet, and tear it into narrow strips for binding.”

Everyone immediately rushed in all directions to do her bidding.

Genevieve inhaled a slow, steadying breath before hurrying up the stairs to her bedroom.

“We'd best get him out o' these clothes,” remarked Oliver after he had eased Haydon onto the bed. “Were ye wantin' me to burn them?” He regarded Genevieve meaningfully.

She nodded. Oliver was well acquainted with the ill-fitting moleskin jacket, trousers, cotton shirt, and braces that comprised local prison uniforms. Clearly he didn't want anyone beyond their household to recognize it as such—not even if it was tossed in the garbage.

“Here, lad, help me to sit him up so we can get these things off,” Oliver said to Jack.

Their patient was an unusually large man, and it took the three of them to lift and turn him as they peeled away the filthy layers of his prison uniform. Finally he was stripped to the waist.

“Dear Lord.” Genevieve stared in horror at the ugly purple and black bruises streaking his muscular torso. “Did that awful warder do all this?”

Jack shook his head. “He was hurt when he came to the prison. Said somethin' about being attacked. That's why Sims hit him in the rib cage.” His voice was filled with loathing as he finished, “He knew it would make it worse.”

“They're a nasty lot, prison warders.” Oliver's expression was grim. “I've known my share, and they're all the same. Here now, lass, ye'd best look away while Jack and I pull off his trousers.”

“I'll see what's keeping Doreen,” said Genevieve, suddenly embarrassed.

She returned a few minutes later carrying a pile of thin towels, to find her bedroom in complete turmoil.

“Ye canna stack logs on a fire like bricks,” Oliver was saying to Simon and Jamie as he poked violently at the hearth, which was merrily spewing thick gray smoke into the room. “Ye've got to give 'em room to breathe, or else they'll make ye sorry for it.”

“Girls, can ye not find elsewhere to do that?” clucked Eunice, nearly tripping over Annabelle, Grace, and Charlotte, who were seated upon an enormous sheet as if they were having a picnic.

“I think we have to get off it if we're going to tear it up,” reflected Charlotte.

“Nonsense,” Grace said, struggling to start a rip in one corner. “It will be much better if we all sit on it to keep it steady.”

“Look at me—I'm an Arabian princess!” Annabelle stood and draped a length of the threadbare sheet in front of her face. “Where, oh where is my handsome desert sheik?”

“'Tis a shame we can't just toss him in a bath,” remarked Doreen, staring at Haydon with her work-reddened hands fisted on her hips. “'Tis the best way to get a man really clean.”

“Or to drown him,” quipped Oliver. He gave the fire one final thrust, then handed the poker to Simon, who immediately began to flail it around as if it were a sword. “Especially in his condition.”

“I'll help to wash him,” offered Jamie, pulling a sopping wet cloth out of the wash bowl and letting it drip water all over the bed. “I know how.”

“That won't be necessary.” Genevieve set down the towels and scooped up the dripping cloth from Jamie. “Oliver, Doreen, and I will take care of Jack's friend. The rest of you may go to bed.”

Simon stopped his swordplay to regard her with a crestfallen look. “But we want to help.”

“We won't make any noise,” Grace assured her.

“And we won't get in your way,” added Charlotte.

“Please,” chimed Annabelle from behind her makeshift veil.

Genevieve sighed. “I appreciate your desire to help. But there are too many people in this room, and the best way you could help is by going to bed and getting a good night's sleep. There will be lots of other things for you to do tomorrow.”

“Like what?” asked Jamie eagerly.

“I'll tell you tomorrow. Eunice, please take the children back to their rooms and make sure they are nicely tucked in.”

“Come on, then, duckies.” Eunice opened her slack, plump arms and gathered the children together like a flock of little birds. “If ye move smartly, ye each may have a special sweetie at yer plate in the morning.”

Excited by that wonderful possibility, the children instantly abandoned their pursuits and raced from the room.

“Jack, you may also go to bed,” Genevieve said, dipping her cloth in warm water. “We can manage.”

“Are you going to report him to the police?” His voice was low and hard.

Doreen's aged eyes rounded in shock as she studied the man sprawled on the bed. “Sweet Saints,” she gasped. “He's the one I went to see, isn't he? The murderer who escaped from the jail this evening?”

Genevieve wrung out her cloth and calmly began to wash Haydon's face. “If not for him, Jack would have been brutally beaten today,” she stated quietly. “Isn't that right, Jack?”

“He had no reason to help me.” His voice was low and fierce, as if he thought she might debate the matter. “But he did. Sick and hurt as he was, he pulled that bastard warder off me. Told him he would kill him if he touched me again. And then he got pounded for it.”

Genevieve eased her cloth down the chiseled contour of Haydon's cheek. His face had the black growth of a week or more, and there were dark circles bruising the skin beneath his eyes. Even so, he was an uncommonly handsome man. A man convicted of murder, she reminded herself uneasily.

Who would rise to the defense of a helpless boy, when he himself could barely stand.

“Do ye ken who he is, laddie?” asked Oliver, his white brows knit with concern. “Or who he murdered?”

Jack shook his head. “I only shared a cell with him for a few days. He never talked much. But he's from money, judgin' by his speech. The warder used to call him ‘his lordship.'”

“That doesn't mean anything,” Doreen scoffed, grabbing a cloth so she could help Genevieve wash Haydon. “Warders are always makin' sport of their prisoners. It's part of how they have their fun.”

Jack regarded her curiously. “How do you know that?”

“Because I've been in prison,” she replied matter-of-factly.

“We all have, lad,” added Oliver, sensing the boy's surprise. “Except for Miss Genevieve, of course.” He chuckled.

“But Miss Genevieve knows the black ways of prison, make no mistake.” Doreen cast Genevieve an adoring smile, then resumed her earnest scrubbing of Haydon's hand.

“The authorities are searching for him now,” Genevieve mused, skimming her cloth with gentle care across the hot, bruised flesh of Haydon's chest. “And as Jack and I were the last ones to see him in his cell, they will undoubtedly want to question us when they fail to find him tonight.”

“I won't talk to them,” Jack spat fiercely.

“I'm afraid you will have to, Jack. We both will.” She hesitated, studying Haydon's face.

I am no murderer,
he had told her, his gaze boring into her with painful intensity. And in that moment, as he held her within his desperate grip, she had almost believed him. She knew nothing of the facts of the case—knew nothing about him whatsoever. Except that in his last hours upon this earth, he had been more concerned about the fate of a sullen, thieving boy than himself.

And when that lad was about to be savagely beaten he had intervened, and offered himself instead.

“What we tell the authorities, however,” she finished in a soft, determined voice, “is another matter entirely.”

H
AYDON FELT AS IF HE WERE ON FIRE.

He flung himself from side to side, desperately trying to douse the flames, or perhaps just find a shred of cool air to ease the terrible burning. And yet he was shivering, his teeth clattering together like loose pebbles, his jaw clenching so hard he thought the bones would snap. There was pain, too, lashing against him each time he shifted, a deep, racking torment that surged through every inch of his body. He could neither move nor lie still, for both were excruciating, and the frustration of it made him feel as if he were going mad. He tried to cry out, a hoarse, desperate plea, wanting it to end, even if that meant death. Surely even the cruelest God could not expect him to endure such agony.

And then it occurred to him that perhaps he was dead, and this was the abominable hell to which he had been sentenced.

His cry died in his throat.

“Hush,” soothed a voice, soft and achingly feminine. “It's all right, now.”

A cold, wet cloth slid gently over his face, dousing the flames in its path. It lifted away from his skin for a moment and then returned, slipping across his searing flesh, cooling the terrible, melting heat. The liquid chill dribbled in silvery rivulets down the sides of his face, into his hair, through his papery lips, into the dry parchment of his mouth. A splashing of water in a basin and the cloth was back, making slow, sure movements across the battlefield of his broken body, swirling and caressing, like gentle waves lapping over him. Slowly, the fire blazing through him began to wane. Finally he sank deep into the softness upon which he lay, his breath shallow but steady, his chills all but vanquished.

Perhaps he was not dead after all.

He dozed a while, vaguely aware of the sweet graze of the cool cloth across his burning skin. Along his chest and down his stomach it moved, then gingerly up the sides of his waist and ribs. Its touch was sure yet strangely tender, as if it sensed the injuries hidden beneath, and knew just how much pressure he could withstand. Again and again it traversed him, lulling him with its rhythmic caress, making him feel cool and clean and cherished, although he could not imagine who might think him worthy of such regard. A whisper of music filled the air, fragile and hushed, as if it was not meant for him to hear. He forced himself to lie utterly still, tried to even quiet the weak sigh of his breath so he could hear the lovely singing drifting like a feather on the air around him. It filled him with pleasure, wrapping around him in an ethereal embrace; tender, absolute, forgiving.

His sleep deepened.

Time seeped by. When he awoke it was by slow degrees, a languid peeling away of the hazy layers of confusion and weariness. Fresh, cool air filled his nostrils, tinged with the smoky, sweet scent of firewood burning. The mattress beneath him was soft, the sheets covering him, clean. The faint ticking of a clock lulled him, its quiet, perpetual song tapping lightly at his senses, speaking of reason, order, and logic. He sighed, taking immense comfort in the distilled quiet around him. He could not remember where he was or how he had come to be here, but one thing was utterly clear.

He was no longer rotting in a foul cell with death looming over him.

With enormous effort, he opened his eyes.

Dark shadows veiled the room, indicating it was still night. A low fire cast ripples of apricot light into the darkness, spilling across the carpeted floor, flickering over the rumpled plaid blanket covering his bed. He followed the shifting ribbons to the chair beside him, where they danced up a white nightgown, then dappled the creamy pale skin of the soundly sleeping Miss MacPhail.

She had curled herself into the padded constraints of the chair as best she could, tucking her legs up beneath herself and leaning over so she could use her slender arm as a pillow. Her coral and gold hair spilled lavishly over the snowy linen of her nightgown, setting it afire with strands of silken color. Her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows and her gown was copiously water-stained and wrinkled. It was she who had tended him through the night, Haydon realized, glancing at the porcelain water basin and abandoned cloths resting on the table beside her. The lines of her brow were deeply etched, and wine-colored shadows stained the delicate skin below the fringe of her lashes. Exhaustion had dragged her into a heavy sleep, too absolute to permit her to be roused by the cool breeze gusting through the window, or the discomfort of her position, or the fact that her patient had awakened. He studied her with reverent fascination, watching the slow rise and fall of her sweetly rounded breasts, the slight shifting of her slender body, the nearly imperceptible deepening of the lines between her brows as she buried her cheek deeper into her arm.