Page 72 of All I Want for Christmas… Is You
“Of course, if you were inclined to bind up my ribs, yourself ... ’twould make things a whole lot easier on me, it would, when I set off in the morning.”
“Bind your ribs?”
“Aye, why not?”
“I don’t know how to bind someone’s ribs!”
“’Tisn’t that hard.”
She raked two lily-white hands down her flawless face. “Oh, I wish I’d not opened that door to you, I wish I’d gone to get my brother, I wish you’d gone to someone else’s ‘light in the darkness,’ this is getting more and more difficult by the moment! What am I to do?”
“Well, you could go find something to brace up my ribs, to start with.” Noel pulled off his boots. He placed them side-by-side next to the hearth and draped his wet, muddy coat over them so that it could dry by the dying fire before he set out at first light. “The sooner you do so, Lady Katharine, the sooner I can be on my way.”
Provided I can find my horse....
A storm of emotions clouded her face. Then she nodded sharply, turned on her heel, and slipped back out through the door as silently as a cat on the hunt, leaving him all alone, just the candle burning in the darkness and the sleet and snow hissing against the windows that held out the night outside.
CHAPTER4
Noel took advantage of her absence to get undressed. He took off his belt and pistols and put them beneath the bed. Off came the muddy breeches, the wet stockings, the embroidered wool waistcoat, until he was finally down to nothing but his shirt. Once, not so long ago, it had been clean and fine, a jaunty splash of white beneath waistcoats of elegant damask, rich silk or fine Irish wool. But when he’d fled Dunmore House with nothing but the clothes on his back, this had been the shirt he’d been wearing and now it was torn and stained and looking about as bad as he himself currently felt.
Oh, how far he had fallen.
He moved his hands over his torso, feeling each rib. Broken or bruised he could not tell, but he had a sizeable gash just above his kidneys where he must have hit and cut himself on a rock when the horse went over.
Everything hurt. And everything would probably hurt far more in the morning. But at least he was alive, which was more than he would have been if Lady Katharine hadn’t gone back and opened that door to him.
Lady Katharine....
He realized he should have kept the breeches on, at least until she returned with something to bind him up. He couldn’t appear before her dressed in just the shirt, and he certainly didn’t want to pull the breeches back on and then get into her clean, pretty bed.
But oh, that bed ... it called to him. He wanted nothing more than to crawl beneath those soft blankets and silken sheets, to shut his eyes and let sleep claim him. She could bind him up in the morning. All of the problems he faced right now, at this moment ... they weren’t going anywhere. They’d be there at daybreak, faithful and true, and at least with a few hours of sleep behind him he’d be better able to think them through.
He cast an unhappy eye toward his wet clothes drying near the fire and shuddered at the idea of pulling the breeches back on.
He looked again at the bed, neatly turned down and waiting.
It wasn’t a hard decision. Noel padded to the bed, lifted the heavy coverlet and blankets, and slid between the sheets.
For a moment he lay staring up at the bed hangings above.
But only for a moment.
In the next, exhaustion had claimed him.
* * *
Katharine,growing more and more panicky and desperate, had pulled on a pair of boots and a cloak and hurried out to the stable.
Horses. They had plenty of them and the grooms often bandaged their fine legs against travel, against injury, against splints, heat, and swelling. What was strong enough to bandage a horse’s leg would surely be strong enough to bind a man’s ribs.
Maybe I should just wake Perry. Let him deal with this.
But in the next thought:If I tell Perry, he’ll throw the man out. He’s injured, and he’ll die out there in the cold, snowy darkness. I won’t give that victory to Lucien de Montforte. Besides, it’s Christmas, and something about this man ... something about his eyes, something about his manner, something about his very soul ... he sees right through me, not with scorn, not with judgment, but with acceptance and understanding. How can he understand me? He doesn’t even know me. He thought me kind. Oh, if only he knew. In any case, I’m the one who opened that door. He’s my responsibility, even if he is an ... oh, Lord, a highwayman. My responsibility. I can do this.
Horses moved in their stalls around her. She smelled their warm hides, their manure, heard them rustling about in the straw in which they were bedded. In the darkness, she found the tack room and the heavy wooden chest that contained the head groom’s supply of brushes, liniments, salves and yes, bandages. Thick cotton strips, sturdy and strong. She grabbed a handful of them and hurried back out into the storm.
The weather had worsened. Wind blew cold and hard out of the west, dashing snow against her cheeks, making her nose and eyes run and freezing the tears in her eyelashes. Her teeth chattered with cold and she hugged her arms to herself, shivering. Her boots left tracks in the accumulating snow, and the tracks followed her back up the stairs and into the house.
