Page 71 of Lord Ashley's Beautiful Alibi
“But he…?” Kane found crumpled Carrot Nose on the ground, groaning, clutching his groin—from which a thin silver knife protruded and his blood ran dark and thick into the fertile earth of France.
Chapter Eighteen
“Aflesh wound.Drink more whisky. You will live.” Gus finished her ministrations of pouring half the damn bottle of spirits over his wound and winding clean cotton she had ripped from her chemise around his upper arm.
He could feel the floating effects of the whisky more than the sting of Carrot Nose’s pistol. “You are very good with that knife.” His words came out garbled from the whisky.
She grinned, pleased with herself. “I am.”
“How did you learn that?”
“Aunt Cecily employed a master gardener at her home in Compiègne who had a talent with knives. He taught Amber and me how to use them.”
“And where.”
She looked into his eyes with only a small bit of remorse. “And when best to fell a man.”
“He may die.”
She busied herself with capping the bottle of whisky and rolling up the remains of her strip of chemise. “He will bleed to death, unless, of course, he can crawl to someone in the town who knows how to stanch a slice to an artery.”
“You knew how to get him to hold you so that you could aim precisely,” Kane said with not a little awe.
“Yes, he made the mistake of being too agreeable.” She gave a smile that was more grimace.
“Your gardener taught you that?”
“He did.”
“Your Aunt Cecily employs intriguing servants.”
“She does.” She came back to sit opposite him and take his hands. “I will go down and return with bread and whatever the fare is for supper.” She rose.
But, catching her fingers, he coaxed her back to the bed beside him. “I can wait for that.”
“I wish you wouldn’t. You need food and rest. You have lost two thimblefuls of blood, but being shot is a shock, and I want you to live, Kane.”
“Back there…” He cupped her cheek. “You called me your love.”
“See? Not so wounded after all.”
“Gus, sweetheart,” he beseeched her. “Please, I will eat and sleep after you tell me what I need to know about your activities. I promise.”
She placed her gaze on his. “I am a person who conveys information about arms, troops, rifles, other agents, anything at all—and sometimes silly bits that never amount to anything. I know the person beneath me whom I meet in the street of St. Denis near a bathhouse. I report to the person above me, who sends it on to her superior or sends important information down. That person above me is Amber.”
He waited for the next revelation.
She gazed at the ceiling, then writhed a bit. Tormented, she clutched his hand and peered at him. “Listen to me. You need not know who that person below me is. Frankly, the less you know, the better for you. For me. For us all.”
“And those who are ‘all’?”
She set her teeth. “I do not know them. But they are diligent, efficient.” Her mellow green gaze fell over him, and all at once,tears sprang to her eyes. “You need not know them. And you could have died today.”
He pulled her close beside him on the bed. “So could you, my darling.” He kissed her cheeks, her eyes, her nose, and fell back to the bed, taking her with him and blessing her lips with all the tenderness in his heart. “I died myself watching him catch you. I wanted to do more and yet stood there with my knees locked. You did him in, Augushtine Bolton.”
She giggled.
“I shaid your name wrong, didn’t I?”
