Timeless Desire (26 page)

“Ooh. Wench.”

She grinned. “Undo your knee buttons.”

She could have done them herself but wanted to see the outline of his hips as he bent. The flexing divot of muscle sent a shiver through her.

“Shall I take off my boots?” he asked.

“Absolutely not.”

She undid the third button, taking care to tease the flesh as she did it. The top of the breeks were sagging now, held in place only by a feat of marvelous physical engineering. She tugged the last buttonhole over the brass. The breeks fell to the floor.

Unlike his brother, whose plumage would have underwhelmed a sparrow, Bridgewater’s peacockery riveted her attention and stoked her desire.

“Don’t move,” she said.

“There are certain parts over which I am not sovereign at this moment.”

She laughed a low, throaty laugh that reached all the way to her belly. She was like a pot of simmering water, and her fingers stirred the roiling liquid higher and higher. He watched her eyes, and she could see her desire reflected in his own.

He was right about the sovereignty, and she rolled the inebriating image of his twitching flesh in her mind like a piece of candy on her tongue, riding the waves higher and higher.

He sank onto the bed. She wanted desperately to grasp that warm steel and taste the salty proof of his desire. He pressed her back against the pillows, running a finger over her lips. She parted them automatically and he smiled. But instead of bringing that part of him to her mouth, he lay alongside her and turned her toward him. Pressed between them, her hand worked its sweet rhythm, and he kissed her, a long, slow, searching kiss that she returned with equal hunger. He laid a hand on her cheek, and she pressed hers over it.

“Panna.”

She didn’t want to let go.

“Panna,” he said louder, and she jerked to alertness.

She was not in her bed at home. She was still in the little room at Nunquam, and Bridgewater was stooped over her bed, completely clothed. The first gray light of dawn was spilling over the bed.

She jerked her hand from the covers. “What is it?”

“I’ve been shot.”

Undine’s Cottage, off the Road to Drumburgh

The pain in Undine’s body was inescapable, like a prison made of flesh and bone. And behind her closed eyes, more danger floated menacingly at the edges of her hazy consciousness.

“I thought I might find you here,” she heard a man say.

Of course he would find her there, she thought. It was her home, was it not? But the man was not speaking to her, for another voice answered—a voice that unleashed a cold fear in her.

“Bloody witch. Tried to stab me while my back was turned, no doubt to steal my purse.”

She recognized the voice as Adderly’s.

“Greed is a nasty thing, my lord. Is she dead?”

“Aye. Leave her.”

Was she dead? There was pain—sharp, suffocating pain that felt like a flame held to every limb. And she knew she must not move. But it did not feel like death.

“Where is the knife?” the other man asked. “I do not see it. Perhaps we should—”

“I said leave her, Gentry.”

“As you wish.”

Gentry. She knew him. A greedy, mean-spirited man. She heard the splashing of water at the table. His lordship was washing her blood from his hands with the water meant for her coffee.

“Why are you here?” Adderly snapped. “I thought you were going to find Bridgewater. Or did he elude you as well?”

“Elude
me
, your lordship? Hardly. I have eyes over three counties. As I suspected, he boarded the Solway ferry some few hours ago.”

“
Scotland
? He went to
Scotland
with the borderlands on the brink of war?”

“Perhaps he does not see the situation as you do,” Gentry said.

She heard a muffled rubbing near the door. Adderly must be drying his hands on her coat. Through the fiery pain, she felt the tingle of anger.

“What the bloody hell does that mean?” Adderly said.

“We are all aware of his ties to Hector MacIver.”

“To whom he hasn’t spoken in his entire life.”

“Until today,” Gentry said.

“What?”

“He was tracked almost to the entry of Nunquam Castle. My men couldn’t tell if he was visiting or spying. They rather hope spying, I think, for they would earn a handsome reward for shooting him and dropping him at MacIver’s feet. However, neither he nor the blonde he was with seemed particularly concerned with concealing their presence.”

The woman. That’s why Jamie Bridgewater came here. Oh, gods of heaven and earth, what have I told Adderly that I shouldn’t have?

“A woman?”

Adderly said this with such forced indifference, even Gentry could not fail to miss the significance.

“Aye. Blonde. Full lips. High bosom. Sharing Bridgewater’s saddle with him. She was, shall we say, showing no signs of being ill at ease in his arms. Do you know her?”

“No.”

In fact, Undine
had
told Adderly. She had told him that Jamie had asked about the woman and seemed to know or have guessed that she had come from the future. Undine shuddered as she recalled Adderly savagely beating her, and the information he had squeezed out of her with his viselike hands. She had to find Jamie and warn him, though how she would overcome these walls of pain, she did not know. Jamie was in danger and so was the woman. He had to be alerted to what his brother had discovered.

“What do you want my men to do with him?” Gentry asked. “Kill him?”

“No. Do not kill him. Bridgewater must be brought back to MacIver Castle. My father must see the man for the traitor he is.”

“And the blonde?”

“Her?” Adderly said with forced casualness. “Er, why don’t you bring her to me? There are things I should like ask her.”

“As you wish, my lord. And for my troubles?”

“Damn you and your troubles. You may take whatever you find here. The witch keeps her money in a box under her bed, I think. But be quick about it. I need to put out a warrant for Jamie Bridgewater’s arrest.”

Nunquam Castle

“How in God’s name . . .” Even though Bridgewater was upright and talking, Panna’s heart was going a mile a minute. He’d been
shot
? What sort of place was this? She looked at the pattern of holes up one side of the back of his shirt. Perhaps half a dozen. She touched one of the spots near his ribs, and he hissed from the pain.

“I was visiting one of the clan chiefs. The chief of Clan Kerr is an acquaintance.”

“The guards let you in there?”

“No. I scaled the vines outside. Went in an upper window. I wanted to present my case. Find out what was being planned if I could.”

“And he shot you?”

Bridgewater hesitated. “No. That part was uneventful. But when I was going back down the vines, I heard footsteps in the courtyard. I dropped to the ground and started to run. The person yelled ‘Stop!’ and then a gun went off.”

“Did the person who shot you see you? Does he know that the person he shot is you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. It was dark. I could barely see my hands in front of my face. I ran down the hillside and hid in the underbrush. I heard whoever it was looking for me. They didn’t find me.”

“Take off your shirt. Are you bleeding?”

He stripped it off. Five shots had penetrated the skin of his back, but there was almost no blood.

“How did you get back into the castle?” she asked.

He gave her a small lopsided grin. “Brewer’s wagon. I saw it coming up the hill and managed to throw myself into the back, though it damn near killed me.”

“Elegant. And how did you get in here? I thought the passageway to the women’s area was locked.”

“That was trickier. I’m afraid I had to boot the door in.”

“Rather less elegant. What are we going to do?” She had once driven a neighbor who’d fallen down the stairs of his back deck to the hospital, but that was about the extent of her experience with emergency medical assistance. Charlie’s decline had been an endless progression of IVs, shunts and radiation, but no emergencies.

Bridgewater pulled a knife out of a sheath in his boot and put it in her hand.

“What do you want me to do with this?” she said.

“Cut them out.”

Her vision started to swim. “Are you
serious
?”

“They have to come out. If they don’t, the wounds will become infected. Don’t worry. I’ve suffered worse.”

The blade was four inches of burnished steel. The hilt felt slippery in her clammy hand. “I don’t think I can.”

“No one can until they try.”

“I’ll hurt you!” she cried.

“I told you I’ll abide. Just take the knife, make a quick cut, then flip it out with the point.” He took the blade from her hand and found a ball in his side with a finger. Then he jabbed the point of the blade into the space just underneath.

Panna felt her stomach rise as the rivulet of blood ran down his skin and stained his breeks. Face contorted in pain, Bridgewater wriggled the blade point back and forth for an instant, then made a flicking motion. She heard metallic sounds as the ball bounced off the rug and rolled to the floor.

Bridgewater’s shoulders relaxed, though she could see the sweat on his brow.

“There,” he said, handing her the knife again. “Do you want me to lie on the bed or stand here by the window?”

She thought of her dream and flushed. How much more time was she going to lose to erotic fantasies with Bridgewater? Fortunately, the real Bridgewater, with his black eye, treason, and buckshot, was doing his roguish best to keep her grounded in the reality of the moment. “Er, the bed will be fine.”

Yet again she was wearing nothing but her linen shift. Bridgewater seemed to have a sixth sense about finding her in an unclothed state. Her gown was still on the floor where she’d undressed. Bridgewater stepped around it and laid himself carefully on the mattress, settling on his good side with his back toward the lightening sky.

She went to the desk by the windows to look for something she could use for a rag but found nothing. “I wish the light here were stronger.”

He turned to look and the corners of his mouth rose slightly. “It seems more than adequate.”

She looked down and saw dawn’s glow had made her shift translucent, showing every curve clearly. She crossed her arms, and he lowered his head again.

“I’m sorry this is what it took to get me into your bed,” he said.

With his back to her, she couldn’t tell whether he was joking.

“Hmm,” she said noncommittally, but her heart did a flip.

Bridgewater’s back was warm but hard as iron under her touch. The dark puckered holes in his smooth skin looked like some horrifying constellation. She looked at the bloody blade and wished they had access to some modern medical care. “I wish I at least had some alcohol.”

He chuckled. “Come, now. I’m the one who must endure the pain.”

“Not for courage. For disinfecting.”

“Disinfecting?”

“Killing the—” She realized he wouldn’t know what germs were. “Killing the stuff that makes infections. We kind of cracked that nut a hundred or so years ago.”

His eyes widened. “No infections?”

“Well, not
no
infections, but certainly fewer.”

He reached into his boot and withdrew a metal flask.

“Good Lord, what else do you have in there?”

“It’s quite convenient when one is riding.”

She pulled the cork and dribbled the liquid over the blade. “Is this from the vineyards of Don Alfonso y Torres as well?”

“No. Just good Lowland whisky, straight from the barrel.”

She tipped the flask to her lips and took a long, surreptitious draught. Then she poured the whisky over his back. He gasped, clenching the sheet in his fists until the sting wore off.

“Disinfection sucks,” he said.

She laughed. “Yes, it does.” Thinking distraction was the about the only form of anesthesia she could offer, she scanned the wounds to choose her first hole and said, “So, what happened between you and the clan chief?”