Page 3 of When a Duke Loves a Woman
Anotherhlost, but she didn’t have time to correct him again. “Later. Fetch Dr. Graves. Be quick about it.”
The lad shoved his feet into his shoes and took off at a gallop. Hurrying back to her lodgings, she was discouraged to find the man hadn’t moved a muscle during the time she was gone. Placing her fingers above his upper lip, she felt his faint breath whisper over her skin. Relief washed through her. Leaning near his ear, she commanded, “Don’t you dare die on me.”
Her voice came to him through the fog, soft but slightly raspy, urging him on, keeping him tethered to this world when his aching body and wounded soul wanted to sink into a vast oblivion where peace hovered. She draped a thick woolen blanket over him, but his shivering continued unheeded, his clenched teeth doing little to prevent their clattering. She pressed a hand to the worst of the gashes. Hurt like the very devil, but a distant part of him that could still process thought understood she needed to stanch the flow of blood if he were to have any hope at all of surviving.
“Stay with me now,” she urged. “Dr. Graves will be here soon.”
Graves? One of the physicians to the queen? How did she, living in the squalor of Whitechapel, know such an illustrious man?
“What’s your name?” she asked.
The other thoughts flittered away as he worked to concentrate on responding to such a simple question. “Thorne.”
“I’m Gillie.”
Was she the Gil the ruffians had run from? He’d thought it short for Gilbert. Squinting, he fought to bring the hovering person into sharper focus, but his vision had never been particularly clear when it came to viewing things that were near. He made a reach for his spectacles housed in his jacket pocket before remembering the ruffians had taken it. So he concentrated on what he could determine about the individual who’d come to his aid.
Short hair, cropped just below the ears. A dark shade. He couldn’t discern specifics in the dim lighting. Blouse... not a blouse. Shirt. Similar to his. A kilt? No, no tartan. It was plain. A skirt? It made no sense. Why would the ruffians run from a woman?
“I own the tavern downstairs.”
A man obviously, a man with the voice of an angel. He didn’t care. Bloke was keeping him from leaving this realm behind. That was all that mattered.
Then the angel began reciting the process for brewing beer. Definitely a man. A woman would have described the various stitches in a sampler. His mind was a muddled mess. Of course it was a man. A woman’s presence wouldn’t have chased off four ruffians, hauled him upstairs, entertained him with an accounting of the differences between various liquors.
He didn’t know why he was disappointed with the truth. He knew only that the fingers combing softly through his hair were the gentlest he’d ever known.
Chapter 2
She lost him. Somewhere during her explanation regarding the difference between brandy and cognac, he’d drifted away. Realizing it had been a punch to her gut. She didn’t want to lose him, had wrapped a strip of cloth tightly around his thigh, stuffed linen into the other wounds—in spite of his crying out—and pressed her hand against the worst, the one at his shoulder, which seemed to be the deepest gash. Beneath her fingers, the stream of blood had slowed to a trickle, seemed to have stopped in other spots if the lack of liquid creeping up to turn white linen crimson was any indication, but he was so deuced pale as though very little life-affirming fluid remained to give him color.
The pounding of rushing footsteps hitting wooden planks echoed up the stairs, vibrating off her door. Thank God! The resounding knock was brisk.
“Hurry,” she yelled, hating the few seconds of delay, wishing she hadn’t closed the door but she’d wanted to trap as much warmth as she could inside in hopes of keeping the stranger from shivering to death.
William Graves was through the portal and kneeling beside her before she could take much notice of his disheveled appearance. She supposed Robin had woken him, and he’d been quick to dress, probably using only his fingers to tame his riot of pale curls. Stubble marked his jaw.
“Caw! Blimey! ’E’s a bloody mess!” Robin declared as he followed the physician in and, with big round eyes, stared at the man lying prone on the floor. “I ain’t swearin’, Gillie. I promise. I’m talkin’ about all the blood.”
“I know, Robin. You did a good job. Off to bed with you now. You don’t need to be seeing this.”
“But—”
She gave him a glare that had him backing up two steps. “To bed. And don’t tell anyone else about him.”
“Why?”
“Because I said.”
He treated her to a disgruntled look, obviously not satisfied with her reasoning, before turning on his heel and shuffling his feet as he went out the door. Honestly, the male of the species sulked more than any female she’d ever met. Life was full of disappointments. Best to learn from them before tossing them aside like so much rubbish and moving on.
“What happened?” Graves asked, bringing her attention back to him. He’d moved aside the blood-tinged blanket.
She wondered how his voice could sound so calm. “He was set upon by thieves in the alleyway. He goes by Thorne. First or last, I don’t know.”
“Could be his title.”
“What would a lord be doing in this decrepit part of Whitechapel?”
