Page 15

“Oh, master,” Wharton stammered, his voice quivering through tears. “Oh, master.”

“You dolt.” Already Hugh’s voice sounded fainter. “I’m going to beat you into dough.”

Wharton crept backward, groveling like a worm in the face of his master’s displeasure, and Edlyn felt the sharp prick of annoyance. Wharton had proved his devotion to Hugh over the last dreadful days, and now Hugh’s first words were nothing but bombastic threats. “Don’t worry, Wharton,” she said. “He can’t beat you into dough. He can’t even lift his arms.” She walked forward and stood over Hugh. “Can you?”

Those hazel eyes looked up at her without a sign of recognition, and she almost laughed aloud with relief. He didn’t remember last night. He didn’t remember those mortifying confessions she’d made while under the influence of that fairy juice.

Not that she wasn’t grateful to the fairies for their remedy. Last night, she’d almost fainted with a combination of joy and dismay when he’d looked up at her, and when she realized his fever had broken, she’d cried as pitifully as Wharton did right now. But why didn’t that silly rhyme tell of the effect of dragon’s blood on the unwary nurse?

She hadn’t thought of her fascinated scrutiny of Hugh in the throes of passion for years. Seeing him like that had embarrassed her then. The pretending she’d done afterward embarrassed her now, and she found herself saying in an overbearing tone, “We’re awake and cranky, no doubt, but I wager we feel better, don’t we?”

“You ripped out my guts.”

He sounded hoarse, and reluctantly she knelt and lifted his head onto her knee. She didn’t like being so close. The weight of his head, his heat, the silk of his hair reminded her too much of last night. Pretending normality, she placed a cup to his lips. “I didn’t rip out your guts. I sewed them back in.”

He drank greedily and gasped when he finished. “I’m hungry. Why have you been starving me?” he asked.

Remembering all the times she and Wharton had coaxed broth into his mouth and down his throat, she wanted to hit him. He acted like a typical man who’d been ill. Angry at those who’d saved him, impatient with his own weakness, aware only of himself.

Yet he wasn’t typical at all. His gaze lingered on her breasts as if he recalled touching her, then his eyes lifted to her face. He observed her—an uncomfortable feeling when one has bared one’s miserable soul. Placing him back on the rag pillow as rapidly as she could, Edlyn said, “You were wounded. We thought you would die.”

For the first time since he’d recovered consciousness, he seemed aware of his injury. His hands curled, his fingers searched, and he touched the edges of the mat as if that would help develop substantial recollections. “Wharton brought me to an abbey.” His gaze swept the room. “I’ve been hidden in the dispensary.”

“That’s right,” she said, trying to encourage him.

Again he looked at her. “You’re the healer.” His forehead crinkled as he groped among his fevered memories. Then it smoothed, and with a great effort he stretched out his fingers and touched her skirt. “You’re…Edlyn.”

Holy Mother, he remembered! But did he remember from that first day when Wharton had brought him in? Or did he remember from last night? Her mind buzzed and fretted, and she made a production of examining the bandage over his wound.

“You’re Edlyn from George’s Cross,” he insisted.

It would hurt him when she removed the bandage, she thought. Regardless of her care, it would hurt.

Then she felt a small tug on her skirt and looked up to see him still watching her.

“At George’s Cross,” he repeated, “you were the daughter of a baron.”

He wanted an answer, and she nodded reluctantly. “And you were the son of a baron.”

“You learned a lady’s duties under the instruction of Lady Alisoun.”

Her mouth quirked. He seemed lost in harmless old reminiscences. “You learned a knight’s duties under Sir David.”

“You were a proper girl, gentle and kind, as befitting a ward of Lady Alisoun’s.”

He didn’t recall her confession of the night before, or he wouldn’t have said that. She hurried to speak and cover her relief. “You were the best warrior in all of George’s Cross, as befitting a student of Sir David’s.”

He closed his eyes as if the effort of reminiscing had tired him. “We were children together.”

Children together? Is that all he remembered? Curiously, that angered her, and she shot him a glance of such scorn it should have cauterized his wound. But actually, it helped to be so angry, for someone had to peel that bandage off his wound and Wharton had proved unable to deliberately hurt his master, even for his master’s own good. “Prepare yourself,” she said.

He opened his eyes again and realized what would happen, then nodded weakly.

She eased the clinging linen off the forming scab.

He arched his back as if she’d burned him. Wharton handed her the jar of ointment she’d used every day to combat the infection, and she hurried to spread it with her fingers. Deep sighs of relief shuddered through him, and she was glad. Glad he’d returned to consciousness. Glad she had the skill to relieve the pain of recovery.

When she had bandaged him, he looked at her deeply, and she bore the examination proudly. She wanted him to realize the girl she had been had grown up, gained skills, and saved his life. He opened his mouth to speak, and she straightened her spine.