Page 4 of Dangerous Exile

She stared back with her one open eye. In the middle of her unfocused look, her amber iris challenged him.

She blinked and her head shook slightly before her unfocused right eye veered off to the side, then snapped toward the ceiling searching again for him. “You are Blackstone?”

Talen stilled. She wasn’t following the conversation. That wasn’t good. “I am.”

“Juliet.” She gasped a breath. “Hide me. Selkie South Brothel. Hide me, please.”

The door opened behind him and he looked over his shoulder. Declan had popped his head into the room. “She’s here.”

Talen nodded to him and returned his attention to the woman. “You are safe here. The bonesetter is ready. We have to reset your arm properly.”

“I know.” A whisper, so thin he almost didn’t hear it.

“It will be painful.”

“I know.”

At least she knew what was coming. Better that than the shock of what was about to happen to her.

Talen reached into an inner pocket and pulled free a small vial, tugging the stopper from it. He set it to her bottom lip, but she didn’t open her mouth, sudden fear in her one good eye.

“It’s laudanum. I don’t know that your heart would survive this without it.”

Staring up at him, it took silent seconds before her lips slightly parted. He tilted the vial, the liquid dropping into her mouth.

“What’s your name?”

Her mouth closed and her throat visibly flexed and constricted as she swallowed. Even that looked to hurt. “Ness.”

He nodded to her as Declan came into the room with the bone setter, Mrs. Jenkins, in tow. A thick woman, her sturdy hands of steel had the strength of ten men for the limbs he’d seen her twist and set. There was none better in the area, in the whole of London, for that matter.

Mrs. Jenkins went directly to the side of the bed, wedging herself between Talen and the woman and she bent, her fingers skimming over Ness’s arm. Ness didn’t flinch away from Mrs. Jenkins’s touch.

Mrs. Jenkins grunted as she bent further over, looking from all angles at Ness’s wrecked arm. “Ye did this to her?” She didn’t look back to Talen.

“No.”

“Did you give her anything?”

“Laudanum.”

She grunted again, then stood straight, her focus on Ness’s face. “The laudanum will help, child, but the best we can hope for is that ye pass into darkness for a spell during the worst of it.”

Ness’s good eye closed and she gave a slight nod.

Mrs. Jenkins spun and pointed at Declan. “Ye hold her legs.” She looked to Talen. “Ye get in the bed with her and hold her body back, Mr. Blackstone.”

His eyebrows lifted. “You want me in bed with her?”

“I want her upright and a force holding her back against me pulling. This break isn’t kind how it’s started to fuse back together. It should have been reset days ago.” She shook her head, obvious disgust on her face at his lack of calling for a bone setter sooner. “Either that laudanum was too much or she’s in a fever. The child can’t even hold her eyes open.”

Talen didn’t bother to correct Mrs. Jenkins on any of the assumptions she’d made. The woman would think what she did—she’d never be any different.

He moved to the opposite side of the bed to approach Ness from her right side and crawled onto the mattress. He lifted Ness’s torso up as he slid into place behind her, positioning her between his legs. He wrapped one arm around her waist and the other across her upper chest, attempting to make sure the coverlet didn’t shift too low for modesty’s sake. He’d already seen Ness’s entire body, but he didn’t need Mrs. Jenkins thinking any worse of him, or she’d never come back to the Alabaster to set another bone.

Ness was slight, as though she’d been slim before this had happened to her, and then she hadn’t eaten for days. Even more gaunt than he had noted when he had checked her body for injuries earlier.

And hot. Her skin boiling under his touch. He hadn’t realized fever had taken her over.

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