Behind the Courtesan(12)
As he cut the rope stretching over her massive girth, he looped his fingers in the bit to keep her head still, but Misty wouldn’t have it. She rose up in the air, blocking out the sky and everything else as she loomed over his head.
But even as Blake covered his head, he felt the edge of her razor-sharp shoe skate over his shoulder, the pain immediate and searing, ripping through his shirt to graze down to his elbow. When she landed back on solid earth, he didn’t hesitate. Sawing the knife against the leather took only seconds, but it felt like hours, the motions seemingly slowed to a point where he didn’t think he even moved. Misty kept trying to thrash her head from side to side to dislodge the hand at her jaw. She was beyond help as she tried to bite, tried to dislodge the bit between her teeth so he would have no control.
And then he let her go, jumping back, landing heavily once again, Misty’s beating hooves sounding for only two heartbeats before she was gone from sight.
Blake said a little prayer for her that she didn’t find a hole in the deteriorated road or stumble in her haste.
Misty must have kicked Monster, either that or the big horse finally noticed he was dying, his screams of pain starting up again. Blake rolled to his feet, every inch of the pain inflicted on him by his own animals ached and throbbed at the same time.
There was nothing he could do for the other horse. He wasn’t going to dodge yet more deadly hooves just to see if given the chance the horse would right himself. Reaching for his pistol, he found only the fabric of his dirty trousers. When he glanced back to see where he’d dropped it, Sophie was there, blood dripping down her cheek from her head. Her once beautiful gown was covered in mud and God knew what else. In her outstretched palm was the pistol he needed to silence the big black beauty.
“You might want to turn away,” he warned as he took the gun from her shaking hand.
She nodded and turned her body, chin slumping to her chest.
“I’m sorry, boy,” he whispered as he kneeled on the horse’s neck. Monster renewed his struggle to stand as Blake’s weight bore down. Placing the muzzle against Monster’s head, Blake closed his eyes and pulled the trigger.
Chapter Seven
When Sophia saw Blake fall on his back, relief that he was alive warred with the panic that she didn’t know what was happening. As she neared, one of the big horses ran off down the road sending divots of rock and mud flying in its wake. Before she could reach Blake’s side, he was on his feet, resigned determination in the grim set of his lips.
Now one horse was dead, killed by Blake and his pistol, the other gone, terrified and panicked enough to never come back. Sophia felt...numb.
Should she mourn the dead animal? Thank God she was alive? Alone on the road, night encroaching, the scent of blood thick enough to attract nocturnal scavengers—should she worry?
And then Blake was at her back, his warmth a welcome reprieve to the cold nothingness descending. Strong arms encircled her, hugged her, held her. The reassuring weight of Blake’s chin resting on her shoulder made her forget she didn’t like to be touched. A childhood of memories stirred, lifted, swirled around in her mind until she turned in the shelter of his strength and cried against his chest.
“It’s all right,” he murmured, holding her tight.
His warm lips brushed against her forehead, her cheeks, her eyelids, first one and then the other, but it felt wrong. It had to be her decision, her instigating the contact, her in control. Sophia pushed against his chest, backed up until they no longer touched, but then gasped when she saw the amount of blood on his ripped clothes.
“It’s not as bad as it looks.” He shrugged, a not-quite-contained hiss of pain giving his lie away.
Sophia arched a brow but didn’t dignify his words with more. She stomped back to the carriage to see what they had in the way of bandages. There must be something she could use to clean the blood and dirt and then bind his wounds. Anything to take her mind off his kisses and the heat infusing her cheeks.
There was nothing suitable at all, only filthy old blankets to cushion supplies. Pretty soon, the top skirt of her ensemble—the one she hadn’t wanted to sacrifice in the name of stubborn stupidity—was hiked up and out of the way as she ripped at petticoats until she had a handful of adequate strips to first clean and then bind.
“I’m all right, really, Sophie, don’t fuss.”
“Sit down,” she demanded. For once he did as she asked and sat before he was pushed. The damage was extensive, but didn’t seem life threatening. Down his left arm, an angry red graze already purpled as blood pooled beneath the skin. More blood trickled down his forearm to drip from his elbow. She started there, but was soon hampered by the torn linen of his shirt.
“Take your shirt off.” She kneeled next to him in the dirt, waited for him to comply.
Blake shook his head and attempted to stand. Sophia wouldn’t have it. Under the ferocity of her glare, hands on her hips, fire in her eyes, he finally pulled the shirt over his head and twisted his hands around it, dropping the bundle into his lap.
Her gaze followed the movement as she desperately endeavored to ignore rippling muscle now only covered by a sprinkling of dark hair. Her childhood friend had more muscle than all of the men at a London ball combined. Never had she seen such finely sculpted, individually corded, sinewy tone on another human being. On animals, yes. Men, no.
The thought of the dead horse, his screams permanently silenced, brought her back to the task at hand. When she looked up to gauge Blake’s level of awareness, wondering if the shock had set in, he wore a smug grin of triumph.
“I was merely looking for more wounds,” she squeaked, before any query was even voiced. It made her guilt all the more evident.
“You missed the one here,” he said with a chuckle, pointing to his side where yet more blood dripped.
“You are in a bad way,” she told him. She couldn’t clean the wounds without water and binding open lacerations could invite infection, especially since her petticoats were hardly sanitary.
She wound a makeshift bandage around his shoulder and upper arm to the elbow and prayed for a miracle, that the flow of blood had largely removed any debris that may have lodged inside. Sophia placed the back of his hand against her shoulder so he wouldn’t have to lift his arm. If his muscles were tensed while she wrapped the linen, it would become loose when he relaxed.
“Where did you learn to do this?” Blake asked.
Sophia wasn’t sure if he sought to make conversation or if he really wanted to know the extent of her skills. A lump formed in her throat at the thought of sharing more of her life with him, but she gave him some of the truth. He could do with it what he wanted. “I have had some nursing experience in an infirmary of sorts.” Her hands moved over the wound stretching over three of his ribs. As she gingerly probed the area, Blake hissed and flinched from her touch.
“You’ve broken a rib or two.”
“I have not,” he scoffed as if he were a child, but his tone lacked any real conviction.
She gave him another of her best glares.
“Very well, I may have bruised the bone, but I don’t think anything’s broken.”
Silence fell as she did her best to pad the area. “Had we needle and thread, I would stitch this.” Another length of linen came away from her petticoat to make a piece long enough to wrap around his torso more than once.
“Why do they let you tend this clinic of sorts?”
Sophia’s hands stilled, her breath slowed, her eyelids fell. “Not all people think me lower than the dirt that mars their hems. And some don’t have the luxury of being nursed by a real physician.”
Warm fingers closed over her cold skin and squeezed just so. “I didn’t mean to insult you. I merely want to know the kind of life you lead. The real life. Not the one you talk up to defend your actions. I want to know who Sophia Martin is, who Little Sophie has become.”
A single tear escaped, rolled down her cheek to land on the mess that used to be her gown. When she met his frank gaze, she had to admit to a moment of terror even more frightening than being thrown from a moving carriage. It gave her a vision of the one person in the world who could know who she was. Who she wanted to be. Her deepest desires and darkest fears.
But he wasn’t the one—this man who insulted, berated and belittled. He couldn’t be the one to share her secrets with. She couldn’t trust him. She couldn’t trust anyone.
“You don’t know what you’re asking,” she eventually replied, tying the bandage off just below his armpit, checking with a slight tug of pressure that the knot would hold.
“And you don’t know who you are anymore.” Lifting the shirt he held in his hands and holding it to the gash on the side of her head, Blake’s voice held years of pain, emotion so familiar to her that she leaned away from his comfort and stood.
“Perhaps I don’t want to know.”