Page 28 of Feathers in the Wind
Her hand slipped from his knee and she took a step back. ‘Adam.’
Joan’s voice again, strident with fury. ‘Adam? Your prisoner is Adam? And what pray do you intend to do with him?’
‘He’s going to Oxford to be tried as the traitor that he is,’ Denzil boomed back at his aunt.
‘If he lives,’ Perdita said.
‘Oh, I’m not going to die just yet,’ Adam tried to say but he didn’t think anyone heard him.
‘Enough talk. We have to get him inside.’ Robin touched his arm. ‘Adam? This is going to hurt but there’s no easy way to get you off this horse. Ludovic, help me here.’
Robin tugged at his belt and Adam slid sideways off the horse in a blinding dissonance of pain.
His brother’s arm around his waist stopped him sliding to the ground.
‘I can stand,’ he muttered.
‘Fine. Stand then.
Robin let go of him and as Adam’s knees buckled, hauled him up again.
‘I have him, sir.’
Before Adam could argue Ludovic had picked him up like a child and carried him across the forecourt and into the house.
* * *
Perdita trailedLudovic into the house, ignoring the Marchant brothers. She had no time for the niceties of hospitality. Joan or Bess could take care of that.
Ludovic deposited Adam in a corner of the heavy oak settle in the Great Hall. Adam leaned his head back against the oak and closed his eyes as Perdita fumbled with the sodden cords of his cloak. His face felt like ice to her touch and she took his hands in hers, chafing them in a futile attempt to instil some warmth back into him.
His eyes flickered open and he raised his hand to touch her hair, which hung in damp cat’s tails around her face.
‘Perdita, you’re soaked.’
She managed a tight smile. ‘I’ll dry but we need to get you out of these sodden clothes before you take lung fever. What was your brother thinking dragging a wounded man across the country in this weather?’
‘I think he is trying to kill me,’ Adam said and his eyes closed.
‘How is he?’ Joan hovered over her.
Perdita did not need to ask where Adam had been hurt. An orange sash, now died a watery red from blood, had been roughly tied around his left thigh. She looked up at Robin.
‘Ball or sword?’
Robin flicked back his rain darkened hair and frowned. ‘Pistol ball. I think it’s still in there,’ Robin replied.
Denzil’s shadow loomed behind her and he boomed in her ear, ‘Well, Mistress Gray? How long will it take to patch him up so he’s fit to ride?’
She rose to her feet and faced Denzil, the rage only just below the surface. ‘What were you thinking forcing a man with a leg wound to ride any distance in this rain? You will be lucky if the wound doesn’t kill him, then lung fever will. I need to get him to a bed and tend the wound properly.’
Denzil shrugged. ‘Do what you must. We’ll be gone in the morning and you need trouble yourself no more.’
‘If your brother lives the night.’ Perdita responded.
She turned to the sea of concerned faces surrounding her, seeking out the one she needed.
‘Ludovic, can you get Captain Coulter to the guest chamber?’
