Page 21 of The Autumn Wife
Theo frowned. “I’ll switch in a minute.”
“I’m holding you to that.”
Jules held up the full bucket, grinning, Theo grabbed it and aimed the water over the peak again.He supposed this was as close as Jules would ever come to apologizing for what an ass he’d been. But Theo wasn’t in the mood to share a tankard of ale with him yet.
After he’d thrown a half-dozen more buckets, he glanced Cecile’s way and found her standing with her hands on her hips, shouting something to the crowd. The burnt, injured woman was shaking on the ground behind her.
“Take over.” He thrust an empty bucket at Jules and kicked off the ladder, landing hard on the flats of his feet. Three strides shortened the space between him and a distressed Cecile. “What do you need?”
“A blanket.” Black spots marred her light gray skirts where sparks had burned the fabric. “The woman has burns and is soaked and cold.”
Cold, while an inferno blasted? That didn’t bode well for her recovery, nor did the angry red blisters visible under the burned holes of her still-smoking stockings.
Frowning, he seized the collar of his shirt, measured the value of his pride, and then yanked the hem free from the waistband of his sagging breeches. Hauling the shirt over his head, he thrust it at Cecile, who’d gone still.
“This will have to do,” he said, “until you can fetch a blanket from the convent.”
She dragged the cloth from his hands. For pride’s sake, he waited until she was shifting her attention back to the woman before he turned toward thebucket line, exposing to her—and all of Montreal—the shame of his naked back.
Despite the roar of the flames, the rattle of buckets, the collapse of beams, and pounding feet, he heard Cecile’s gasp.
CHAPTER TEN
Back on the convent grounds, in the dim quiet of night, Cecile yanked the cork from a wine bottle, tossed it on the riverbank, and took a long, deep pull. The sweet red wine slipped down her throat like cool satin. She sighed at the warmth spreading through her and sank back on the brace of one hand to lift her gaze to the heavens.
A smoky haze from the inferno still hung between land and sky, dimming the view of the stars and filling the air with the stink of ash. But the red glow in the west had disappeared now that the fire was quenched. Toward the east came a faint lightening, the first hint of dawn. The Saint Lawrence River lapped against the shore beyond her feet, a siren’s call to strip down and wash the grit from her hair and skin.
But right now, the wine was doing valiant work calming her after the trauma of the inferno…and the searing memory of a bare-chested Theo, battling the flames like some warrior in a hero’s tale.
She took another long draw of wine.
“Can’t sleep?”
She didn’t flinch. She hadn’t heard Theo’s approach but, if she were honest, she’d admit—at least to herself—that she’dchosento come to this quiet, secluded riverbank in the hope that he would eventually follow.
She’d seen the scars on his back.
She had so many questions.
“Here.” Head averted, she thrust the bottle at him, wondering if he was still bare-chested, taking a moment to gather her wits in case he was. “This might help with sleep, if you’re struggling too.”
He folded his stone-muscled body to the ground beside her before taking the bottle from her hand. So careful, he was, to not touch her fingers. How did he know that he unsettled her? His simple presence—even now—stole her breath, set her heart pounding, and made her stomach knot with uncomfortable feelings she couldn’t name.
No. I mustn’t be a coward.She braced herself, swiveling her head to face him—only to discover Theo had cleaned up, his hair damp and showing the tracks of a comb, his chest covered by a clean linen shirt. Another uncomfortable feeling spiraled through her, but it wasn’t relief.
Take hold of yourself, Cecile.
“Those burns.” She shifted her gaze to the blisters rising on his knuckles. “I have an unguent back at the—”
“No need.” He took a swig of wine and wiped his lips with his sleeve. “My hands are hardened from mortar—I don’t feel the sting. Save the ointment for others who need it.”
Ofcoursehe’d say that. She turned away from the sight of his long, strong throat as he swallowed. She fixed her gaze on the far shore, where the forest stretched as black as ink, as impenetrable as the nature of this convict who’d saved her son’s life and kept a baby porcupine as a pet. A man whose whip-disfigured back reminded her that he’d committed a terrible crime and bore the scars of the consequences.
Never, ever would she be able to put together the pieces of this man in a way that made sense.
Why did she keep trying?
“Such a destructive fire.” An inane thing for her to say, but she needed a safe topic of conversation. “I counted at least a dozen homes destroyed.”
