Page 29 of Feathers in the Wind
As Ludovic saw to Adam, Perdita went in search of the things she needed and by the time she joined Ludovic in the guest chamber, he had stripped Adam of his soaking clothes and boots, which lay in a sodden heap on the floor.
Perdita laid the basket of bandages and remedies she had gleaned from the stillroom on the table and crossed to the still figure on the bed. Ludovic had pulled a blanket over the naked man and turned to the fire, stoking it high and setting a pot to boil his instruments.
Perdita sat on the edge of the bed and surveyed her patient. Adam's eyes were closed, his breathing shallow and ragged.
She turned the blanket aside to look at the wound. She had never really seen a man naked before. Samuel had always come to her bed in a nightgown, just raising it sufficiently to do what he had to do, his corpulent body hot and heavy on hers. Perdita shuddered at the memory of the nightly assault she had endured until a child had been conceived, and when she had lost the child she carried, a result of a ‘chastisement’ as Samuel had called it, he had returned, desperate for a son. Even now the bile rose in her throat.
By contrast the body beneath her hands was lean and well-muscled. The brown of his face ended abruptly at his collar line, forming a contrast to the lighter skin of his body. A smattering of dark hair curled on his chest and crept down his taut flat stomach toward his groin. Perdita took a breath, wondering for a moment what it would be like to be held against this hard, strong body. A vague memory of the ride back from Stratford crept unbidden into her memory—a scent of man and horse and a broad chest on which to lay her head…
She picked up his hand and turned it over, noting the scars and callouses that spoke of a hard life. Even by the light of the candles, visible beneath the tan of his wrist were other scars, lighter marks in the weather darkened skin.
She looked up to find Ludovic watching her.
‘Manacles,’ he said, pushing back his own cuff to show her similar scars. ‘He’s been a captive somewhere in his past. To work, Mistress Gray.’
Perdita gently eased the rough pad away from the wound and flinched as it started to bleed again.
Ludovic wiped the blood away and peered closer at the small neat hole which marked the pistol ball’s entrance. ‘I've seen worse, but there is no exit would so we must get the ball out, if it is not too deep.’
Perdita swallowed. She had also seen worse but it was easier to be dispassionate about a stranger, not a man she considered a friend. A friend? She pushed that uncertainty to the back of her mind as Adam moved beneath her hands and groaned.
‘Sorry to be such a confounded nuisance,’ he murmured.
‘How did this happen?’ she asked, more to distract him than out of curiosity.
‘Denzil ambushed my convoy.’
He grimaced as Ludovic began to clean around the wound, his hand seeking Perdita’s. The bones of her hand crunched as he grasped it tightly, hissing between his teeth.
‘Curse Denzil.’
‘Denzil?’
‘It’s his pistol ball,’ Adam grunted.
Perdita stared at him. ‘Your own brother shot you? Did he know it was you?’
Adam swallowed. ‘I prefer to give him the benefit of the doubt. Are you done yet, Ludovic? It feels like you’re taking my leg off.’
‘I haven’t even started yet,’ Ludovic replied. He glanced up at Perdita. ‘We need help, Mistress Gray. If he’s conscious, he will need to be held down. Perhaps Master Robin?’
‘Rob’s done enough for one day. Just do what you must do, Ludovic,’ Adam muttered, ‘I’ll behave.’
Ludovic put a hand on his shoulder. ‘It will hurt.’
‘It hurts now. Just be quick about it.’
Ludovic took a roll of leather from his bag and pushed it between Adam’s teeth. ‘Now keep still,’ he ordered and began his work with brisk efficiency, producing the flattened lead projectile with a bloody flourish as Adam fell back on the bolsters in a faint.
As Ludovic tied the last of the bandages, he glanced across at Perdita who flexed her fingers with a grimace. ‘Is your hand all right, mistress?’ Ludovic asked.
‘It will be. What about Adam, will he be all right?’ Perdita asked.
Ludovic glanced at his patient and shrugged. ‘The wound itself is not so bad and he is strong enough to fight it. There is a strong risk of lung fever after that ride in the rain and if Lord Marchant is to insist on moving him tomorrow.’ He glanced toward the door at the sound of raised voices coming closer.
The door flung open and Denzil stood glaring at them. Behind him Perdita could make out the pale and determined face of his aunt.
‘Are you done, Mistress Gray?’ Denzil roared, addressing Perdita who quailed as he turned the full force of his rage on her. ‘If so I will take my prisoner and leave you. Robin? Where are you, dammit?’
