“Seems like the whole order! They’re everywhere.”
“Bypass the lodge. We’ll meet up at the posting house.”
“Aye.”
“Can you cover me?”
“Aye, be careful with yourself and the girl.”
He rode back under the shield of Niall’s covering shots. When he slid down from the horse to bend down beside her, he found her leaning against the rock, sitting very still, eyes closed, cradling her arm. Closer, he could see blood streaming in a line down her bent elbow, pooling into the dust. Her other hand was limp, palm up, and his makeshift tourniquet lay on it. Panic made his vision swim. He took it and retied it, knowing she’d only intended to look at the wound, to check how badly she’d been hurt.
“Anna!” He lifted her up. “Annalía…” She cracked open her eyes. “Ye need tae hold on tae my neck with yer good arm.” His brogue was so thick, he wondered if she could even understand him. “I’m goin’ tae get ye and me on a horse.”
He had turned and was surveying the horse, figuring out how best to mount up, when he heard her say in a frail voice, “You need rescuing as much as I do.”
He turned back, brows drawn. “What?”
She struggled against him, weak as a kitten. “I’m better off on my own.”
Though he sensed she was gravely sincere, and more than a bit in shock, he clucked her under the chin. “Yer hurtin’ my male pride, and will be payin’ for that one.”
His light response worked. She exhaled and looped her thin arm around his neck. She weighed no more than a feather as he lifted her, but he teased her, saying, “You weigh more than you look.”
“You are weaker than you look,” she immediately whispered.
He stared down at her in his arms and gathered her even closer. She met his gaze, looking very brave, but he could feel the tension leaving her body as she drifted into unconsciousness. Her eyes slowly closed, and her lips parted.
That’s when reason left him.
Fourteen
Y ou’re rich, I’ve heard.”
“Did your father tell you that?” Aleix asked. Though it went against everything he was, he sat in his prison, on the wrong end of a gun, conversing with Olivia Pascal. Why would he speak with the woman who’d advocated a more advantageous and strategic timing of his execution?
In the beginning he’d hoped she would give him information about Annalía, but he’d soon realized she was too intelligent to let anything slip. So why did he continue tarrying with her? Because he was about to die? Because he wanted to talk to someone? Anyone?
And he’d done this for two nights. This room was obviously making him crazed.
“No, not Pascal. Your sister described your home. Even here it must cost something to own a mountain with herds of horses covering it.”
“My family has been fortunate in that regard.”
She tapped her finger against her chin. “I want to be fortunate as well.”
He frowned. “Your father has as much money as I do.”
“But I don’t.” Collecting her pistol, she rose to her knees. “You have something I want, and I have something you desperately, desperately need.”
He grew still. “You’re talking about freeing me?”
“I’m talking about striking a deal, which would necessitate my freeing you.”
He was so staggered he lapsed into politeness with her. “Pardon?”
“Since your freedom has such an extraordinary value, then the price must be dear as well.”
Trying not to show her how anxious he was to escape—he thought she would see that as weakness—he said slowly, “Whatever it is, I can pay it.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, her gaze steady. “It will be very, very steep.”
“Steeper than giving up my life?”
She glanced down and traced a finger over the carvings in the wooden handle of her pistol. “Depends on how you look at it….”
“I’ll no’ leave.”
MacCarrick was speaking to someone, but who? Why did their voices sound as if they’d been bathed in syrup? She wanted to open her eyes, but they felt impossibly heavy. Best just to lie here. Yes. Rest and listen.
“But, sir, I will have to examine her,” a man said. His voice sounded young. “In my practice…with a lady like this…uh, husbands do not usually remain with their wives.”
“This one does.”
The gall. Had he no shame? Annalía tried to protest, tried to cry out that he wasn’t her husband, but at that same moment MacCarrick had started to unlace her dress, and it sounded like a moan.