Page 53 of The Devil in Oxford
I shook my head, staring at my own bloodied hands. “Leona… Leona is missing.”
Ruan touched my shoulder gently. “We have to go. We cannot be found here. Not like this. She needs to be in a hospital.”
I opened my mouth then snapped it back shut, the words taking on some strange, unspeakable shape on my tongue. The almost-murder weapon was still in my hand. I turned the ivory-handled blade over in the light. It was a fine piece, but had no maker’s mark. A well-crafted, expensive weapon. Not the sort of thing your typical burglar would have.
But who—who had done this thing? The hall clock chimed the half hour. It was nearly eight in the morning. At last, the sounds tumbled out. “Leona. They’ve taken Leona.”
“We’ll find her, I promise, but it will be after we take Annabelle to the hospital, and can be sure she survives this.”
I wrapped the knife in my bloody scarf and shook my head hard. She couldnotgo to the hospital. Julius Harker dead. Mr. Mueller murdered in his jail cell. Leona missing. “She has to stay with us.”
He worried his lower lip. “Ruby, I might be able to do rudimentary battlefield procedures, but I am not able to—”
“There was nothing rudimentary about what you did.” I rocked back onto my heels, wiping the sweat from my brow with my sleeve. “You can take care of her as well as anyone.”
Ruan let out a startled sound. “In case you forget, I am only apellar.”
“The pellar who saved her life.”
“She’s not saved yet. She needs professional care, someone who can be certain she won’t get infection.”
How could he not see that infection was the least of all risks in this matter? There was no one in this whole city who could protect her as we could. “And allow whoever put that knife in her to finish the job? She comes home withus, Ruan Kivell. Someone killed Mr. Mueller under the very nose of the police—likely the policethemselves, considering how strangely they’ve all been acting. Do you truly think that she’ll be safe anywhere else? We can trust no one.”
He hesitated, warring with his own sense of justice before he finally acquiesced.
“I’ll go fetch my car.” I glanced at the dried blood on my hands and hastily tucked the knife away into my large coat pocket. Leaning down, I tipped his chin up with the crook of my forefinger. Ruan gave me the strangest small smile and I was lost. Utterly lost. Seeing him on the floor before me, bloody and exhausted, glowing with the quiet self-satisfaction of a job well done sealed my fate. “Thank you…” I whispered, before brushing a brief, gentle kiss to his lips. This time, in the broad light of day, he did not pull away from my touch.
I straightened, and without a word ran out the door and home for my car to fetch Annabelle home.
CHAPTERTWENTY-FOURNow What…?
RUANand I carefully transported Annabelle back to the townhome and immediately began settling her into his room across the hall from my own. It had been a dicey couple of miles thanks to the cobbled streets between there and here, but we managed all the same.
“She’s fine, Ruby,” Ruan murmured from across the room where he knelt at the bedside quietly assessing the girl. Mrs. Penrose and I had removed her blood-stained clothes and cleaned her up as best we could before dressing her in one of my spare clean, white nightgowns.
She’s safe here. Safer than anywhere in Oxford.It was a pure and simple fact. Yet I worried it had been a mistake. Oh, Ruan would tend to her better than any physician. There was no question about her medical care. But what if in protecting her, I had led the killer to our very door?
I brushed the thought away and immediately set myself to being useful. I began to unpack the bag of Annabelle’s things I’d hastily gathered and set them into the drawers of the dresser. Her satchel, which I’d taken as we left, was now carelessly lying upon a chair where I’d dropped it. I rifled through it. Mostly books andher notes from the University… and then I spied something else lying loose in the bottom of the bag.
Her reading card for the Bodleian.
My skin pricked as my conscience warred with practicality. For a half second I almost disregarded it, leaving the card undisturbed. But as usual, practicality won out. I tucked it into my pocket before continuing to place her other belongings in the cedar-lined drawers. Ruan might be a good man, but I was a pragmatist. Annabelle’s reading card would do her no favors in her current condition, and if it helped me find who did this to her and who had taken Leona, then it was worth overcoming any minor moral quibbles.
Ruan’s expression grew grim. “I am still concerned she needs a real physician. Is there anyone you can send for who can keep their mouth shut?”
I wet my lips, shaking my head. “I could call for Dr. Heinrich in Exeter, but it’d take him well over a day to get here. But she can’t wait that long, can she?”
Ruan frowned, shaking his head. “We’d need him sooner than that. If she makes it to morning, I wager she’ll pull through this.”
My stomach knotted. I was gambling with a girl’s life no matter what I did. If we took her to the hospital, there was no guarantee we could protect her there. “No, I’ve seen what you can do. You’ve saved my life more times than I can count. Surely you can tend a girl after a scratch.”
“A four-inch blade is a bit more than a scratch,” Ruan corrected with a wry quirk of his lips. “But I take your point.”
“If there is anyone in this world who can keep her alive, it’s you.”
He flushed slightly pink all the way to his ears. Ruan’s fingers rested lightly on Annabelle’s wrist, counting her pulse.
“Go have a bath. I’ll watch her until you’re done,” I said absently.
