Chapter 3
A heavy fist assaulted Caroline’s office door at nine-thirty in the morning. ‘Christine! I have a job for you!’
The day had not subsequently improved.
‘I need you to fix this!’ George barked, waving his very expensive laptop in Caroline’s face and knocking over her desk lamp.
‘That’s your personal computer, sir,’ said Caroline, but George slapped it down on her desk, right on top of her keyboard. Caroline had once spent an entire afternoon fixing a problem caused by him dropping a sheaf of files onto her keyboard. Nowadays, she reflexively locked the screen when anyone opened the office door, but that didn’t make it less nerve-wracking.
‘Chop chop, Christine! I need it fixed by this afternoon!’
‘I don’t even know what’s wrong with it! And it’s Caroline — ’
But he had gone.
Caroline cleared a space for the CFO’s ostentatious personal device (complete with four-colour backlit keyboard, unnecessarily shiny case, and — were those go-faster stripes on the sides? Probably, knowing George) and rued the day she had first come to his attention. It was over a year ago that she had been on her way to yet another pointless employee development seminar when George had burst out of the main conference room with —
‘Come on then, IT girl, we haven’t got all day!’
— and dragged her by the arm into his presentation of accounts to the board.
Or rather, the complete lack of presentation. Caroline fixed the problem in five minutes, but George had insisted that she stay for the whole hour to deal with any other technical issues that might arise. Eunice Wood, the CEO, had smiled and thanked her.
George Radley had decided that from that day forward, Caroline was his go-to tech support. It was maddening. Not only was he a condescending bully, but since he was head of her department, no one was prepared to risk his wrath by telling him they needed Caroline to do her actual job. The last person to argue with the CFO about anything had been summarily dismissed.
Caroline still missed Nick. He had been fun.
And while she had previously enjoyed her work very much, the constant walking on eggshells and task interruption that indulging George entailed had put an end to that.
Caroline made a mental note to check if her CV was current before tapping in George’s password (which he hadn’t told her, but he used the same one for everything) and trying to work out what he’d done to his machine.
George’s security settings, such as they weren’t, nearly gave her a heart attack. Caroline had to wonder how he had attained the lofty heights of executive status when he clicked on every random link in his email inbox. Since it would take at least twenty minutes before the scans finished running and she was able to tell exactly how much malware he’d managed to install on his personal laptop (upon which, she soon discovered, he was doing company work), she pulled out her notebook to write Rosamund’s next scene. She was, technically, still complying with the needs of her superiors. But she could multitask.
Now, where would they have stopped for the night?
Rosamund and Captain Collins travelled for hours without finding anywhere safe to rest, but eventually salvation appeared on the horizon. The serious expression on the face of the dark-haired woman who opened the farmhouse door turned to horror when they told her about the bandit attack, and she immediately offered them the hospitality of her hearth.
The household, which included the woman, her two daughters, and a young son, cleared the main room for their guests with almost unseemly haste. Rosamund found herself alone with a grey-faced Captain Collins, a pot of stew, and a few basic medical supplies. The farmhouse itself was of solid construction and neatly kept, with carefully whitewashed walls and thick rugs on the floor; this helped reassure her that their hosts were unlikely to be in straits desperate enough to induce pickpocketing, despite their proximity to the front. It was also an unlikely spot to find an envoy of the queen. They should be safe for now.
Rosamund had asked for —
Caroline pushed George’s computer to the back of her desk before pulling up her messages to Henry, ignoring for the moment the text from her mother about her cousin’s wedding plans.
CarolineWhat sort of antiseptic would be available in a Renaissance-ish setting? Preferably one that stings?
HenryVinegar, or maybe salt and hot water?
CarolineTa!
CarolineUnrelated reminder: never click on links from people you don’t know. Or from people you haven’t seen in a while. Or from people purporting to know about Hot Ladies Waiting For Your Call.
HenryNoted?
— vinegar, and now she poured it into one of the rough blue bowls on the table that the farmer had filled with boiling water.
The steam wavered in front of Rosamund’s eyes. She blinked away the tang of the fumes, the rough white walls and carefully but inexpertly carved wooden furniture drifting out of focus as the full implications of the fight sank in.
They’d been attacked.
They could have died.
Her children might have been orphaned.
But Leo Collins had saved her life.
Although, she told herself firmly, that was just as well for the both of them. Otherwise, how would she have saved his?
Caroline grinned knowingly. ‘Are you ready to patch up and ogle your Hot, Shirtless Enemy? Perhaps while experiencing rising feelings of admiration for his manly pain tolerance? And maybe a desire to ease his discomfort?’
Rosamund stared at her, mouth hanging open. ‘First, his leg is injured, there is no need for him to remove his shirt. Second, he’s not my enemy.’ She frowned. ‘Or probably not, anyway, given that he just saved my life. Third, if he can’t ride tomorrow, we are sitting ducks. He needs medical care, and our hosts, while generous in their hospitality, obviously do not wish to entangle themselves in the political intrigue implied by a noblewoman and guard travelling alone through border territory. Frankly, I don’t blame them, I wouldn’t want to get involved either.’ She turned away.
Caroline raised an eyebrow. ‘Noted.’
Leo had propped his injured leg onto a stool. Rosamund winced in spite of herself as he gingerly pried off his boot. Even if the thick leather had taken the brunt of the dagger blow, she wasn’t sure how the captain had stayed upright, let alone ridden for the entire afternoon. His trouser leg was soaked in blood, and she now noticed blood from quite a few cuts seeping into his torn shirt as well. Rosamund recalled the thorn bushes by the side of the road and wondered if they were the cause.
Captain Collins dipped a rag into the bowl she brought him and wrung out the steaming cloth, but then stopped. At first, she wondered if he was waiting for the water to cool, but the utter exhaustion on his face tugged at her heart. ‘Would you like some help, Captain?’
Leo looked up, eyes unfocused. After a moment, he nodded. ‘Thank you, Your Ladyship.’
Rosamund knelt on the floor and took stock. ‘We need to roll up that trouser leg, Captain Collins.’
It took some time. The sturdy blue fabric was saturated with blood and clung tenaciously to his leg. Rosamund peeled it away as gently as she could, using her own scissors to snip at the ragged sections.
She looked up at the captain every time her ministrations pulled at his torn skin, but he bore his obvious discomfort in silence — of course, she thought, allowing herself a small, wry smile — and stayed perfectly still.
But even as Rosamund worked, she worried. She couldn’t shake the feeling that their encounter had been more than a random wayside robbery. Had they been followed from Lord Stanley’s estates? If so, had their host known about it? Her thoughts spun in her head, but she tried to push them aside. One problem at a time.
‘Shouldn’t you be making conversation that borders on flirtatious, which is only stopped by a well-timed application of something that’s going to sting?’ said Caroline.
Rosamund pursed her lips, annoyed by the interruption and Caroline’s inability to understand any of her characters. Leo —
Captain Collins — was injured, exhausted, and tense. Even if he had been flirtatious by nature (which he obviously wasn’t), these were hardly ideal circumstances for a lighthearted chat.
On the other hand, Rosamund had a feeling that this was a point on which Caroline would be particularly stubborn. If she couldn’t be persuaded to keep quiet and let her characters concentrate, Rosamund was concerned that there would be blood.
She sighed. ‘Will you stop — ’ She cleared her still-aching throat. ‘Will you stop bothering me if I do?’
‘Would conversation ease the passage of time, Captain Collins?’ Rosamund said, setting a large cloth and an empty grey bowl beneath his leg.
He was silent for a long moment. She had just decided that he didn’t want to talk, and that she didn’t have the heart to press him, when he said, ‘You seem very calm.’
His words were quiet. Casual, almost. Yet Rosamund had the unnerving impression that she was walking on pond ice and listening for a cracking sound under her feet. Her hands started to shake as she stood up and crossed the room to retrieve a jar from her saddlebag. ‘I assumed that hysterics would be unhelpful,’ she said, her voice steadier than she felt. She returned to his side, set down the jar, and tested the temperature of the solution in the blue bowl. Probably cool enough to rinse the wound.
‘Was this your first . . . armed conflict, Your Ladyship?’
Is this the first time you’ve killed someone?
Rosamund shook her head, the motion stiff. ‘No. But it’s been a long time.’
A pause. And then — almost gently — ‘What happened?’
She swallowed, touching a hand to her neck as if the bruises had caused the sudden tightness in her throat. ‘Hugo and I went to Abrenia to visit my parents when Edmund was a baby.’ She looked down. ‘We were attacked. Three of them distracted the guards; a fourth broke the carriage door open. He tried to grab Edmund, presumably to take him for ransom.’
Rosamund fell silent as the scene came back to her: the shouts of the men outside, Hugo among them; the sound of the door breaking; the smell of the grim-faced man, his eyes adjusting to the interior, his gloved hand reaching out . . .
‘What did you do?’
Rosamund jolted back to the present. Leo was looking at her with an expression she couldn’t quite categorise. ‘He was threatening my son. I had a knife.’ She paused. ‘I did what I had to do.’
And she poured half of the still-hot liquid over his leg. He yelped in pain and nearly fell off the seat.
‘Sorry. But we don’t want that wound to fester, do we?’
Leo scowled; whether from pain or anger, Rosamund couldn’t tell. Probably both. She decided to ignore him, patting the uninjured portion of his leg dry with a clean cloth. ‘At least I can glue the edges together for you. And if I put bandages on top, it should hold for riding.’
Leo looked startled. ‘Glue?’
Rosamund waved at the jar on the table, relieved to change the subject. ‘Caladrius glue. We keep the birds on the Hawkhurst estate.’ She reached for it and noted that the contents had started to separate: white at the bottom, pearly and translucent at the top. ‘They’re dreadfully moody and astonishingly picky about their living quarters, but they’re also invaluable, especially in wartime. You’re familiar with caladrius salve, I assume?’
‘Yes, Your Ladyship. Shimmery white stuff. Good for wounds. You make it from the bird’s tears, I believe?’
She nodded, pleased, and held up the jar to examine the contents more closely. ‘We’ve been experimenting with mixing it with glue to seal the skin while preventing infection. We’re hoping that it keeps better, too. Transporting the salve to the front lines has always been a risky business.’
Rosamund dabbed at the wound with a cloth, and Leo flinched again. He settled himself, slightly shamefaced, when it became clear that she was going to be gentle. She gave the jar a shake before peering at it again. ‘But if you’d prefer stitches . . . ?’ She let the question hang in the air.
‘No, thank you.’
Rosamund got to work. ‘You’ll need to wait for it to dry, but we can deal with your other injuries while it does, so long as you don’t move around too much.’ She considered his leg again and dabbed on a little more glue, determined to seal the wound completely. ‘You were lucky.’
‘I’m aware, ma’am.’
While the glue dried, Rosamund made quick work of cleaning the ground-in mud and dirt out of the scrapes on the captain’s neck and hands before asking, ‘Would you mind removing your shirt, please? There are some cuts on your back that I don’t think you can reach.’
He complied wordlessly, and Rosamund was disinclined to break the silence while she cleaned the cuts on his back. She didn’t want any more questions about how many men she’d killed. The last thing she needed was for the captain to consider her a threat. If he had heard the rumours at court about her — if Eudosia really did suspect Rosamund of being complicit in Hugo’s death . . . no, she wouldn’t think about it. One crisis at a time.
Caroline threw up her hands in despair. They’d just undergone a life-threatening experience, but were they willing to let their guards down? Of course not.
Where was the chemistry? The banter? The flirtation and the heat generated by forced proximity? Neither of them had noticed each other’s bodies, and there had been no bitten lips and barely any heavy breathing.
Useless, the pair of them.
Once Rosamund finished dressing the captain’s leg, she retreated to a chair by the fire to see to her own cuts and scrapes. She had been unreasonably fortunate: her only real injury was to her neck. She touched it gingerly with her fingers once again, wincing. There would be some very pretty bruises by the morning.
‘Let me see.’ Captain Collins sat down heavily in the chair beside hers, and she gave him a look of polite enquiry. ‘Your neck, Your Ladyship.’ He made a sideways gesture with his hand. Rosamund raised her eyebrows but turned her head in the direction indicated.
The world froze as Caroline appeared behind Leo to scowl at Rosamund. ‘No! You were supposed to object! And then after a brief, heated exchange, he could take your chin in his hand and turn your head! In a surprisingly gentle fashion!’
Rosamund rolled her eyes.
‘How’s your breathing, Your Ladyship?’ Leo narrowed his eyes, concerned. She’d been clearing her throat every couple of minutes.
‘It’s — ’ Lady Hawkhurst broke off to cough, then smiled wryly. ‘Breathing isn’t a problem,’ she croaked. ‘But I may have been overly optimistic regarding speech. I’m fine.’
Well, a quiet meal wouldn’t bother him. After they ate — though he cringed a little at how slow and painful the process was for her — she addressed him again. ‘Given our recent encounter, I think we should keep a watch tonight. Just to be sure we weren’t followed.’
‘Agreed, Your Ladyship.’
‘I’m happy to take the first watch. I . . .’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t think I could sleep just now anyway.’ She looked down at the floor.
Leo wondered if he should say something . . . comforting? They’d both had an interesting day, but the kind of interesting that he had more experience dealing with than she did.
He put the kettle on.
Henry noticed a comment on the word kettle.
CSLindley: I’ll have you know that the earliest example of a kettle is from 3000 BC!
He couldn’t help but smile.
Leo set the unchipped mug of thornapple tea in front of Lady Rosamund and suppressed a frown. He shouldn’t have asked her if she’d ever killed anyone before, however obliquely he’d tried to word it. Now she was going to be suspicious of him, which wouldn’t do at all, given the circumstances. She’d patched him up, after all, and used caladrius glue to do it. The difficulties attendant on caring for the pearlescent birds and harvesting their healing tears were nearly as well-known as the caladrius themselves, and the Hawkhurst estate was one of precious few places in Bevoria that managed to keep a breeding flock. Leo could only imagine how much even the small amount of glue applied to his leg would fetch at market — or how profitable its invention might have made the war for Hawkhurst. That alone might be reason enough to suspect foul play, but he couldn’t let the lady know that. A peace offering seemed to be in order, but what?
Her knife. He’d been so distracted by his injuries (though the thornapple tea was taking the edge off) that he’d forgotten to return it.
It took some time for him to complete his usual chores, but once everything was in order he retrieved the knife from his saddlebag. He had wiped it in haste after the bandit attack, but now he took the time to thoroughly clean the blade and the deep green handle before offering it back to her.
Lady Rosamund took it with a small smile. ‘Thank you.’
He shrugged and lay down on his bedroll, not meeting her eyes. ‘You might need it. Goodnight.’
‘I still can’t believe you gave her that knife back,’ Caroline huffed. ‘I had a whole scene planned where you would catch her trying to sneak it out of your bag when you were asleep! You were going to pin her to the wall in a threatening manner and everything! But what do you do?’ She threw her hands up in disgust. ‘You just hand the thing over with nary a qualm!’
Leo, who had, in fact, harboured several qualms on the subject, said nothing.
As exhausted as he was, it took him some time to fall asleep. The farmhouse floor didn’t bother him; he’d stayed in many a worse place. The tiny, leaky barn he’d once sought shelter in during a thunderstorm hadn’t been pleasant, but his least favourite was when he’d had to cram himself and an accomplice into a narrow hidey-hole for nearly a full day. His ally had dropped off to sleep and started snoring, and Leo had strongly considered smothering him. Somehow they’d remained undiscovered without needing to resort to murder.
Which brought him back to the recent attempt upon his life — and Lady Hawkhurst’s. While they were probably safe for the moment, he couldn’t help but ruminate on who they could have been and where they could have come from. He and Lady Rosamund had left the Stanley estates mere hours before the ambush, and he’d had an uneasy feeling the whole morning. Had they been followed?
Leo had read the reports of increasing bandit attacks in border country, which was hardly surprising, and he’d been anticipating trouble within the next few days. But not so soon, not when they were still so far from their destination. He felt less confident than ever about Her Majesty’s decision to send him alone with Lady Hawkhurst. If it weren’t for that cursed fever, he could have assembled a proper vanguard, mitigated at least some of the risk. But no one else could be spared, and they could not delay.
Lady Hawkhurst herself, however, had surprised him. That she had her own sword was not unusual for a noblewoman, and he had assumed that if she had bothered to pack one, it meant she had been trained in its use. Still, he knew from experience that technical skill didn’t always translate into practical butchery. But she hadn’t hesitated.
He could well believe it wasn’t the first time she’d been in a fight for her life.
And where had that knife come from? It was weighted for throwing, quite different from the one she kept on her belt to eat with. She clearly knew how to use it. And while hiding weapons on one’s person was an entirely sensible thing to do in a hostile environment, he was a little uneasy about how else she might choose to employ them.
But she’d saved his life.
He was probably safe.
When Captain Collins had finally dropped off to sleep, Caroline returned to Rosamund. ‘So he didn’t lecture you after all, hmm?’
Rosamund scowled. ‘No, he didn’t. Are you happy?’
‘Honestly, I’m as surprised as you are. Maybe he has other things on his mind?’
‘Like the men who tried to kill us?’ Rosamund muttered. ‘They worry me too, but I don’t know what to do about it.’
‘You could talk to him?’ Caroline suggested.
Rosamund shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Really? He saved your life! You still don’t trust him?’
Rosamund shrugged, watching the fire. ‘I think that might be unwise.’
‘Not even a feeling-him-out-for-information chat where you both misinterpret what the other is saying and then get into a heated argument?’ Caroline said hopefully.
Rosamund didn’t bother to answer.
Caroline pursed her lips. Well, if the pair of them weren’t going to engage in a fight by their own choice, she’d have to get creative.