Between her and the boy, they got Jamie inside. He slumped against the seat, breath ragged, face bruised, blood trickling from a cut above his eye. Alice climbed in beside him.
“You too, Bobby.”
“I’ll make me own way.”
“No, you won’t. Get in this carriage at once.”
The boy looked from her to Jamie. “I’ll sit with him.” He pointed upward, which Jamie thought meant the driver.
“Give the driver my address,” Alice said.
The hackney lurched forward seconds later, and they were rolling away from Well Yard.
Inside, silence stretched, broken only by Jamie’s uneven breathing. Finally, he turned his head, swollen lip quirking in a faint smile. “Alice Smythe, my savior. You’ll never let me live this down, will you?”
She glared at him, though her eyes shone suspiciously. “Not in a thousand years.”
“Good.” He let his eyes close, exhaustion dragging him under. “Then perhaps you’ll finally stop ignoring my notes. But just so you know, I will be yelling at you for the reckless risk you took tonight when I can…yell, that is.” Jamie hurt everywhere.
“I believe I have told you already, you have no say in what I do, Lord Stafford.” She took a handkerchief out of her pocket and pressed it to his lip.
“If I apologize again for my high-handed behavior, will you this time forgive me?” Jamie’s words were muffled by the cotton.
“We shall see,” was all she said, and for now it was enough. Jamie sat back and closed his eyes and tried not to think about the fact Jackson had escaped him, but he wasn’t as angry as he should be, because Alice was here with him.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The first thingAlice noticed was the blood.
It dripped from the gash on his cheek and trickled onto his split lip. The handkerchief she pressed to it was soon stained. Her hand shook so badly she nearly dropped the linen. Alice felt her stomach twist with ice-cold fear.
Dear God, he looked terrible. What if there was something more sinister than what she could see going on inside him? Something that would snuff out the life of this man.
No, don’t think like that. He would be all right—he had to be.
Bruises already mottled his face, and one eye was swollen. He had to have damaged ribs, because those men had battered them with their fists. Alice had seen it all from the shadows, where she and Bobby were hidden.
“Wh-where are you hurt, my lord?”
His eyes remained closed, lashes dark against his pale skin.
“Jamie,” he breathed. “My name is Jamie. And you are Alice. I think after what we’ve shared, we are beyond titles.”
Alice’s heart clenched. He was speaking. He was alive. That had to be good—didn’t it?
She moved the handkerchief higher, pressing it firmly against his cheek. His jaw tightened, but he didn’t flinch.
“And I hurt everywhere. But I have felt this way before, so this too shall pass.”
She wanted to shake him. Foolish man. He was bleeding, broken, yet still determined to sound as though this werenothing more than a trifling inconvenience.Is this how the beast that was Kenneth Jackson in Blackwood Hall had left him feeling?
Alice could not think of that now, because that would mean she would think of Charles and his suffering.
“Where did you find Bobby?” he rasped.
“’Tis a long story.”
“As you see, I am not going anywhere until we stop.” His lips twitched faintly.
