Page 11 of The Rebellious Countess
“It sounds as if you find it valuable.”
“Valuable in a sense that the person who gave it to you should pay with their life.”
It was the slow blink of her left eye as her vision clouded and she no longer saw him standing in front of her, that nearly undid him. He wanted to wrap her in his arms and whisk her away from this awful time and place he’d created. An act of mercy hecouldn’t perform for many reasons. So, he did what he did best and maneuvered her forward with cold hard words.
“Is he dead?”
She lifted her gaze, and it flashed to Hag before it landed on him. “Yes.”
“Good.”
She slowly nodded in agreement, not quite certain she believed him.
“If he weren’t already dead, I would kill him with my bare hands. It would not be the quick and painless death, as I suspect he received.”
Her lips quivered and once more it took every ounce of willpower he possessed not to capture her in his arms and make her forget.
“What happened to your shoulder?”
Hag interrupted before Máira could answer. “While you were playing around in horseshite with Jack, she was fighting yourfriendfor her very life—in here.”
“It happened here?” His gaze swung from Máira to Hag then back to Máira.
“A man grabbed me during a fight in here yesterday. Hag killed him.”
His eyes shot to the barkeep, even though the movement made it feel as if the bullet was traveling through his bruised brain. “You killed him? My friend I was going to meet?”
“I did,” Hag said. “He won’t be meeting you anytime soon. Not unless you visit him in the unmarked grave in the cemetery. He had nefarious intentions and he was knocking her head against the floor as if he was pounding down the gates of hell to drop her inside. I threw my knife and then finished him off by shooting him.”
“The gun was a bit overzealous,” Máira added.
Hag shrugged. “I had to be certain.”
His contact had attacked his wife, then Hag had killed him and disposed of him.
“Thank you, but why didn’t you keep her here?” he asked, because he was incredibly grateful she had stopped hisfriendfrom hurting his wife further.
“She took off as if those gates had opened up and the hounds of hell were chasing her.”
And now his mission was in jeopardy. A month ago, he would have been furious. At the moment, he found himself relieved Máira was safe. She was safe, yet still in more danger than he’d ever realized.
Directing his attention to Hag he asked, “Do you have a razor? I want to shave my head.”
“What?” Máira gasped. “You can’t shave off your hair.”
“Whyever not?”
“Because I lov—” She stopped as if she couldn’t bear to finish. Shelovedhis hair. She’d confessed that fact on multiple occasions, and he had to admit, the one time he’d released it from its queue for her to run her fingers through had made him as hard as the Rock of Gibraltar.
“If you try to shave it while it’s…” Her nose wrinkled as she carefully chose her next word. “Dirty, every cut, nick or scratch will cause a fever.”
“What are you talking about, Wife?”
Máira scowled at his use of the word ‘wife.’ “I don’t know what it means, but I have found dirt in a lesion on a cow can become red and enflamed. Sometimes the cow even gets a fever and dies.”
“You work with cows?” Maybe he didn’t know his wife as well as he thought he had.
“I did, back on our nursemaid’s farm.”
