“Oh dear, really?” she whispered. “Letty loves it.”
Patrick pulled the knife out of his boot. He then slit her cuff. “She will understand. I will try not to hurt you, Sophie.”
“I know,” she said between her clenched teeth. “Not your fault.”
“What?”
“This is not your fault.”
“Why did you say that?” Patrick asked.
“I know you are honorable,” she said and then hissed with pain as he moved her arm. “I know you n-never want those in your care hurt.”
“You can’t know that about me,” he said, but her words were the truth. “I should not have let you out of my sight.”
“You told me not to,” she whispered. “But I heard a woman calling my name and went to see who it was.”
“Jack Spode,” Patrick hissed. “It had to be him who shot you or had someone shoot you. I’m killing him.”
“I might do it first.”
“Then we will do it together,” Patrick lied, because she would never get near that man again.
He exposed the wound. It was still bleeding. Lifting the arm, he looked beneath and saw the bullet appeared to have gone through the fleshy part.
She could have been killed. Deep, searing rage surged through him at the sight of that jagged hole.
“Patrick!”
“Stephen!” he roared as his friend ran into the room with his housekeeper on his heels. “They shot Sophie.”
“Patrick, I feel odd.”
He went cold as Sophie’s eyes rolled back in her head.
“’Tis best that she has slipped into a faint, my lord. It will make the stitching and binding easier,” Mrs. Lilly said.
Faint!The word seemed to vibrate off the walls inside Patrick’s head. Of course she was right. Sophie had fainted, he realized, fighting to refill his lungs with air. He could still see the gentle rise and fall of her chest; she was alive and breathing.Get a grip, man. Sophie needs you,he counseled himself,as you need her.
CHAPTER 32
“Ihave sent word for the doctor, Lord Coulter,” Fletcher said from the doorway. “What else do you need from me?”
“Worry,” Patrick snarled.
“I will see to it at once,” his butler said solemnly.
“We must clean it, Colt. Remember what happened to Sergeant Potter’s hand?” Stephen said, moving closer to inspect the bullet hole in Sophie’s arm. “We cannot wait for the doctor in case he is not found tonight.”
Patrick shuddered at the memory of the man’s swollen flesh when infection had taken hold. He would not allow that to happen to Sophie’s arm.
“That French doctor swore if it had been cleaned instantly, he would have survived,” Stephen said grimly. “We have to clean this now and thoroughly,” he added, shuddering.
“She will not die,” Patrick gritted out through clenched teeth.
“No, she will not die, my friend, but we must now be her doctors until a real one arrives.”
“Mrs. Lilly, bring the whisky from my study,” Patrick ordered.
