He stared at me as if hoping I’d change my mind. When I didn’t, he sighed, released his cloak from around his shoulders, reached for the hem of his jerkin, and pulled it over his head with a wince.
“I don’t know what it’ll look like today?—”
I gasped.
A few bruisesdidn’t even come close to describing what I saw. Black and purple bruises covered his entire torso and back like some grotesque tapestry. Angry welts rose in swollen ridges.Some cuts were fresh enough that dried blood still flaked along the edges. Long red lash marks carved merciless paths across his skin, intersecting old scars: white, ghostly reminders of wounds long since healed.
It hit me all at once, hot and nauseating.Thiswas the price he had paid for me.
My hand flew to my mouth. “Baron…”
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” he said.
I reached out before I’d even decided to. My fingers brushed one of the scars, barely touching him, and still he flinched. Not dramatically, not enough to draw visual attention…but enough for me to feel it. I felt it enough for me to imagine how hard the sheriff must have struck him. I could just picture Baron standing there, bearing the brutal treatment in silence.
A sick, protective fury roared to life inside me.
I rummaged desperately through the packs until I found a small medical kit. I had him sit down and, kneeling behind him, I dabbed ointment along the fresh cuts, swiping away flecks of dried blood with trembling fingers. The feel of his skin beneath my touch sent a painful twist through my chest.
I worked as gently as he had when tending the wound on my neck. He didn’t make a sound, though every slow breath he drew told me he was fighting the urge to tense. I wrapped the fresh bandages around his torso as carefully as I could.
“Well,” Baron joked weakly when I finished, “if I knew this was the treatment I’d get, I would’ve told you sooner. I don’t mind being fussed over by a beautiful maiden.”
“Shut up about the beautiful maiden nonsense,” I snapped, but the sharpness in my voice came from worry, not anger. “We’re going to an apothecary at the next town. This needs proper tending.”
“It’ll heal in a few days, Laurel. I’m used?—”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” I warned before saying fiercely, “No one should treat you like this.” My voice threatened to crack. “Ever.”
He pulled his shirt back on, hiding the evidence of the brutality as though it were nothing more than a scratch. I stared. I never would have known.
Baron seemed to read my mind. “The sheriff knows exactly how much force to use,” he said with a humorless laugh. “Too much, and he’d lose a capable man for weeks. Too visible, and people would talk. But this?” He tapped his ribs lightly. “He excels at keeping people quiet and afraid.”
A bitter smile tugged at his mouth. “Honestly, having you around made him back off. I think you scared him.” He gave a low laugh. “You were unpredictable. He didn’t know how to control you.”
My stomach churned. The image of the sheriff lifting that whip—again, and again, and again—rose in my mind like smoke. My fists curled at my sides. If I hadn’t been so intent on rescuing Father, Iwouldhave ridden straight back to camp and lashed the sheriff myself, consequences be cursed.
No wonder Baron had brushed off Dorian’s punishment as nothing unusual. He had endured far worse for years. And for what? Some trivial disobediences? Imagined slights?
Forme.
I swallowed down the burning ache in my throat.
He had carried that pain without complaint, and he’d carried it alone.
Suddenly my longing for him surged up, sharp and impossible to ignore, tempered only by the vow I’d made to keep my distance. I couldn’t give in, not while everything between us was still so tangled and confusing.
But oh, how I wanted to close the distance and promise he’d never hurt like this again. I wanted to be there for him and prove to him that there were still good people in the world.
Instead, I steadied my voice and said, “Let’s pack up. We need to make good time.”
But as we saddled the horses and set off into the predawn gloom, I couldn’t stop glancing at him as if I could see the marks hidden beneath his shirt.
As we traveled that day,we discussed plans for infiltrating the castle and potential plans for rescuing Father and his men. I shouldn’t have been surprised at Baron’s extensive knowledge about the garrison stationed there, but I was. Baron was able to describe in lengthy detail the ways in which castle guards rotated shifts, what they watched for, ways their defenses could be exploited, everything. His knowledge was invaluable as it would have taken weeks to learn all of this on my own, and those were weeks I didn’t have if I was going to rescue my father and his men.
When I asked where he learned all this, he shrugged in his casual, Baron-like way and said that he’d taken a brief assignment at King Richard’s castle, and that Prince John’s castle guard would operate in the same manner.
“But I thought you and the sheriff supported Prince John’s claim to the throne,” I told him, thoroughly confused by why he would have been working for the king. “You wanted to protect King Richard?”
