Staying still, of course, was not a choice at all.
Breathing in deeply, Senga moved forward. She was about halfway down the hallway, still with no idea of where it actually led, when she heard the noise for the first time.
It was a sharp, ragged gasp of pain, half-smothered. Senga had worked in the infirmary for long enough to recognize this particular exclamation as somebody trying and failing to take care of their own wound. Biting back a sigh, she hurried forward, peering in every doorway that she passed by, searching for the source.
The rooms were servants’ quarters, she realized at once, small and serviceable, boasting only a narrow mattress set in an iron cot, a washbasin, and a trunk for clothes. That was all. The rooms each had a tiny barred window set high in the wall, which didn’t let in much light.
She found the source in the seventh room.
A man sat on his bed, his back to the door. Barechested, he was trying to wind a bandage around his torso.
Senga couldn’t have said how she knew it washim. After all, his back was turned.
But itwashim.
For an instant, she considered slipping away as noiselessly as she could manage.
But a healer would never back away from somebody in distress,she thought moodily, facing the undeniable truth head-on. Instead of slipping away, she spoke.
“Ye are doing that wrong.”
The man on the bed flinched so hard the bedframe shook and rattled. He leaped to his feet, spinning around.
Yes, it was Noah. Of course it was.
His hair was tangled and disheveled, in need of a good brush, and there were dark, purplish semicircles of exhaustion carved out under his eyes. He had always had pale skin, and now it seemed almost translucent, made whiter by the darkness of his hair and eyes.
His shoulders seemed broader than Senga recalled, and he certainly had not had those powerful chest muscles and thick arms when they parted all those years ago.
He swallowed thickly, throat shifting, and met her eye.
“I dinnae need yer help,” he said flatly. “Are ye spying on me?”
Senga folded her arms tightly. “Don’t flatter yerself. Ye made it clear ye want nothing to do with me, and I’m not in the habit of forcing myself in where I’m not wanted. Ye might have heard that I’ve been asked to remain and manage the infirmary, for now at least.Thisfalls within my remit.”
She gestured vaguely at his torso. The gash she’d noticed on his arm last night had not been seen to, she could see that at once. Blood still leaked out, streaking down the curve of his bicep and collecting in the hollow of his elbow.
“That’ll grow infected if ye don’t care for it,” Senga added pointedly. “Ye don’t have to let me see to it, but somebody should.”
Noah’s jaw tightened, a muscle jumping in his cheek. Had that muscle been there before? Senga wasn’t sure. Perhaps she’d forgotten, or perhaps this was a new expression, something that was simply part of the new Noah, a man she didn’t quite recognize.
Perhaps I never knew him as well as I thought. No, that’s not true. I knew him. Iknewhim. I just don’t know if I know himanymore.
“Ye were right about the cracked ribs,” Noah said at last, his voice a gravelly growl in the silence. “I only wanted them bandaged up for support.”
“Ye need rest to heal them.”
“I know how to heal cracked ribs,” he shot back sharply. “I’ve no leisure for rest. Ye have yer duties, and I have mine.”
Senga briefly toyed with the idea of turning on her heel and telling him to manage his own wounds. If she ran, she might still be able to climb on the last convent-bound cart. She could leavehimand all of this behind—just like he had.
She didn’t need answers. Not now. Not when it was so painfully apparent that he’d chosen to leaveherbehind.
Instead, Senga took a careful step forward over the threshold of the room.
“I’ll bind yer ribs,” she heard herself say. “Ye have bandages, aye?”
“Aye.”
