“Nothing.” He pulled the horse to a cleared area and secured it so that it could graze.
Nora frowned at his actions and when she looked down to see that the side and back of her own dress was also coated in red, her heart pounded even more.
“You’re hurt?” She rushed to him.
He wiped the sweat from his face with his arm and shook his head as if to clear it. “Graham stabbed me while we were fighting. The blade glanced off my rib.”
She blinked in disbelief of his blase tone. How could he be so nonchalant about a stab wound?
“Ewan MacAllister, sit!”
He arched a brow at her as if he couldn’t believe her commanding tone.
“I can’t believe you,” she muttered. “You play helpless when you have a minor fall out of a tree, but let you have a serious wound and you get all noble on me. ‘Oh, it doesn’t hurt. I’ll be all right.’ How dare you! Now you sit down and let me take a look at you.”
He growled at her, then did as she said. “I’m not an infant, Nora, and I’ve no need to be coddled like one. I’ve suffered much worse wounds than this and I’m still here.”
She didn’t even deign to respond to that, because if she did, his ears would be ringing with her insults until the world ended.
Nora took a deep breath and fought the urge to loose her tongue on him.
How could he do this?
The wound had to be excruciating.
She forced him to lie down so that she could lift his shirt up to see the injury. She felt the color drain from her cheeks as she saw it.
Graham had laid open a long gash. The evil-looking wound was still oozing blood.
“Oh Ewan,” she breathed. “I can’t believe you didn’t bleed to death. Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt?”
He reached up with his bound hands to touch her cheek with his fingers. The intensity of his crystal blue gaze made her hot and shivery all at once.
“We couldn’t stop, Nora. Had I told you I was wounded, you would have made me stop so that you could tend it, and I didn’t want to see you retaken.”
Her love for him tripled with those words. For her, he had suffered this for untold leagues.
She took his hands into hers and kissed her fingers. “Thank you. Now lie still and let me see to you.”
He nodded and pulled his hands away.
Ewan steadied his breathing as he lay there, staring at the woman who had come to mean so much to him.
For her, he would walk through the very fires of hell.
She lay her hand against his cheek and chastised him with her worried gaze. “You’ve a fever started.”
“I know.” He could feel it. He was already shivery, but then he was often shivery whenever Nora touched him.
She tore her chemise and used it to make a tourniquet. “Hold this while I fetch some water.”
He did as she bade him.
She rushed over to the stream near the horse and after a few minutes, returned with another part of her chemise that she had torn off.
She pressed the cool fabric to his wound.
Ewan breathed deeply as the cold water stung and the material scraped against the ragged edges of his injury. Aye, but it hurt. He wanted nothing more than to curl up and sleep for a bit, but he didn’t dare.
