He took a step toward her. She turned from him, returning her focus to the boy. “I suppose I did.”
“But you don’t even know us.”
“You didn’t know me, and you tried to save me, did you not?” Sophie looked at him for a long while. “We don’t need to know a person to know how to do right by them.”
That seemed to make sense to the boy, and after a pause, he nodded and rose, going to help the young woman who appeared to have received a terrible blow to the head.
King could no longer hold himself back. He stepped forward and said the first thing that came to mind, words fueled by panic and fury. “That was an incredibly stupid thing to do.”
Sophie pushed herself to her feet slowly. “I was feeling nostalgic for your insults.” He ignored the guilt that came unbidden at the words. After a long moment, she sighed. “I suppose you came for your money.”
I came to save you, you madwoman, he suddenly, irrationally wanted to say. I came to keep you safe.
But it wasn’t true. He’d come to get his money back. To exact his revenge for her childish behavior the night before.
He’d come thinking that she was not his problem.
And, thankfully, she was unharmed and remained not his problem. “Among other things.”
She shook her head. “I can’t give it all to you. I need some of it. To get me north. To keep me until my father can send more.” She paused. “I shall pay you back. With interest.”
He crossed his arms. “You shall pay me back right now. And I will pay your passage back to London. Today. No mail coaches. I want you safe in a carriage and I don’t want you setting foot on terra firma until you reach the city limits. Far from me.”
She lifted her chin. “No.”
He shook his head. “You don’t have a choice. You stole from me. We’re going to have to call the magistrate for these idiots,” he said, indicating the men tied up at his feet. “We’ll kill three birds with a single stone, if we need to.” He leaned forward and whispered, “I wonder what they do to thieves out here in the middle of nowhere?”
She stiffened. “You wouldn’t.”
He narrowed his gaze. “Try me.”
“You’re ruining my plans.”
He spread his arms wide, enjoying the way she paled at his threat. “It’s what I do, darling.”
She stumbled then, and he noticed that she was not simply pale. She was white. Dread pooled as he stepped forward to catch her as her gaze lost focus for a long moment, then returned to him. “Sophie?”
She shook her head. “I haven’t given you . . . permission . . . to be so familiar.”
“You’re definitely not going to like what comes next, then,” He held her in one arm and opened the buttons on her liveried coat.
She batted his hands away. “Are you mad?”
He ignored her, pushing the fabric aside. “Shit.”
“And now you are cursing in front of me.” She closed her eyes again. “I don’t feel well.”
“I imagine you don’t, as you’ve been shot.”
“What? No I haven’t.” She struggled as he guided her to the ground and worked her coat off. She clasped his hand firmly, forcing him to meet her insistent gaze. “I haven’t been shot.”
“All right,” he said, returning his attention to his work. “You haven’t been shot.”
“I would know if I’d been shot.”
“I’m sure you would.” He clasped both edges of the linen shirt beneath, rending the fabric in two to get to the wound.
“Stop!” she shrieked, her hands coming to cover her bare skin. “Scoundrel! You cannot simply access women’s bosoms whenever you please!”
He would have laughed at the words if he hadn’t been so worried. “I assure you that I rarely have to resort to tearing clothing in order to access women’s bosoms.”
She looked down. Paused. “I’m bleeding.”
“That’s because you’ve been shot,” he said, extracting a clean handkerchief from his pocket and pressing it firmly to the wound in her shoulder. He pulled her forward to look at the back of her. “The bullet is still inside. We have to get you to a surgeon.”
She didn’t reply, and he looked up to find her unconscious. “Shit,” he said again. “Goddammit. Sophie.” He tapped her good cheek with his hand. “Sophie. Wake up.”
She opened her eyes for a moment, then let them fall closed.
Goddammit.
“No!” cried the other woman. “She can’t be hurt! She was fine! She was talking!”
There was a great deal of blood for someone who was fine.
Christ.
This was his problem.
She was his problem.
“She can’t die!” the girl cried.
She would not die.
“She’s not dying,” King said, pulling her into his arms, gathering her to him, marching her back to his coach, calculating the distance to the nearest town. The nearest surgeon.
“Oi!” the young woman called after him. He did not look back. She followed, her footsteps audible on the packed dirt road. “Where are you taking her?”
“She needs a doctor.”
“She’s our friend. We’ll take her.”
He turned to look at the girl, who had caught up with him at this point. “You don’t know this woman.”
“I know her well enough to know that she saved John’s life. Mine, too.”
“Don’t worry, I’m going to keep her safe.”
“How do we know she’s safe with you?”
There was no time to be offended by the suggestion that he was a criminal. That he was not to be trusted. Sophie required medical attention. “She’s safe with me.”
“Yes. But how do we know?”
He looked down at the unconscious woman in his arms, who had been trouble since the moment he’d met her, and said the only thing he knew would end the conversation. The only thing that would pacify them. It didn’t matter that it was a lie, or that it would come back to destroy them both.
“Because she’s my wife.”
Chapter 6
SOPHIE SHOT.
SEARCH FOR SURGEON STARTS
She woke half naked in a carriage careening hell-for-leather down what had to have been the worst road in Christendom.
The coach hit a particularly unpleasant patch in the road, and the whole thing bounced, sending a wicked pain through her shoulder. She opened her eyes, a squeak of discomfort turning quickly into one of shock.
She was in the Marquess of Eversley’s arms. In his lap. In a dark carriage.
She scrambled to sit up.
He held her with arms of steel. “Don’t move.”
She tried to move again. “This isn’t exactly . . .” Another pain hit, and she gasped the rest of the sentence. “. . . proper.”
He cursed in the dim light. “I told you not to move.” He pressed a bottle to her lips. “Drink.”
She drank the water without hesitation, until she realized it wasn’t water. She spat out the liquid that threatened to set her throat aflame. “It’s spirits.”
“It’s the finest scotch in Britain,” he said. “Stop wasting it.”