He let out a banshee’s shriek, the signal, and slipped off the crate. Within seconds the Crooked House was pandemonium. He himself threw himself against the side door, felt the wood give instantly at his surge of power. From the corner of his eye he saw all the Sydney Ducks pour into the room, yelling obscenities and brandishing pistols and knives. He’d given orders that no one was to be killed. He didn’t care about bashed heads or robbery.
He rushed toward the stage. The man who was guarding Juliana was flailing at two Sydney Ducks. Then Saint saw another man, an older man, and he knew it was Jameson Wilkes. He was striding toward Juliana, his face set and grim.
Saint smiled. He reached Wilkes just as he grabbed for Juliana. He looked him straight in the eye, saw his surprise, and sent his fist into Wilkes’s jaw. He watched with intense satisfaction as the man crumpled to the floor.
“Juliana,” he said, lightly touching her arm.
She looked at him with no recognition at all. He grabbed her hand, and suddenly she began to struggle. He cursed softly to himself, aware that he had to get her out of here quickly. “Forgive me, Jules,” he whispered, and sent his fist into her jaw. He caught her against him and quickly lifted her into his arms. Just as he slipped out of the smashed side door, he let out three sharp hoots. Within moments the raiders had fled from the Crooked House, leaving its members staring at each other, some of them bleeding and robbed, their voices bewildered and enraged.
Saint pulled off his cloak and wrapped it around Jules. She felt so slight in his arms, he thought inconsequential
ly as he ran from the alleyway. He increased his pace, realizing that some heads had been knocked together. With his luck, he would soon have some patients to attend to. He had to hurry.
He made it to his house in just over ten minutes. He nearly laughed aloud with relief as he slammed the front door closed behind him. Moments later, he was carefully lowering Jules to his bed. Quickly he ran his fingers over her jaw. She would have a bruise, but that was all. She was still unconscious, but he imagined it was the drug—opium, likely—that was keeping her under. He had just covered her with blankets when he heard a knock on the door downstairs.
He closed his bedroom door, praying that she wouldn’t waken from her drugged sleep. He ripped off his ridiculous disguise and loped down the stairs.
He treated three gentlemen. When they left the reason for their cut lips, bruised jaws, and cracked ribs delightfully vague, Saint had a difficult time not laughing in their faces. His last patient was Bunker Stevenson, an upright, very wealthy citizen. “Damned misunderstanding over cards, Saint,” Bunker said, and Saint forced himself to remain silent and make clucking sympathetic noises. He listened to Bunker go on and on about the poker game, and wondered finally if he weren’t, perhaps, telling the truth.
The other two men weren’t from San Francisco. Saint wasn’t at all gentle in his treatment, and smiled when one of them yelled when he tightly bound his cracked ribs.
It was nearly an hour before Saint returned to his bedroom. He lit a lamp and stood over the bed a moment, staring down at Juliana DuPres. Her hair was in glorious disarray around her head. “You’ve changed, little one,” he said softly, sitting beside her. Very gently he pulled off the blankets. He knew he had to make certain she was all right, and wanted to do it before she awakened. She’d be embarrassed enough as it was.
He drew a deep breath, and for one of the few times in his professional career was very aware that his patient was a woman. Stop it, Saint! You’re a bloody doctor, not a rutting bastard!
He stripped off the gown, not surprised that she was naked beneath it. The thought of what would have happened to her made him grit his teeth. I will not look at her, he thought. He gave her a cursory examination, felt his hands trembling, cursed himself soundly, and put her in one of his nightshirts—a nightshirt Jane had made for him that he’d never worn. It was like a huge white tent on her slender body. After he’d covered her again, he gently slapped her cheeks. “It’s time to wake up now, Jules. Come on, wake up, don’t scare me.”
Jules heard a voice, a man’s voice, speaking sharply to her, but she didn’t want to leave the blessed security of sleep. The voice continued and she felt light slaps on her face.
“No,” she muttered, trying to pull away.
“Wake up, Jules!”
Slowly she opened her eyes. She saw a man leaning over her, heard him call her name. He’d called her Jules. That was odd. Jameson Wilkes didn’t know her nickname.
She blinked, trying to bring the man’s face into focus.
But she felt so leaden, so disconnected. He bought me, she thought suddenly, he’s the man who paid for me! She reared up, wildly striking out at him.
Saint closed his hands around her shoulders and pressed her back down. “Don’t be afraid, Jules. It’s me—Michael. You’re safe now. You’re with me.” She didn’t respond for a moment, and he continued softly, “Do you understand, Jules? You’re all right now, I promise you.”
“Michael?” she whispered, trying to focus her mind on his words.
Michael, he thought. Only Jules had called him Michael, and not Saint, and he’d remembered. “Yes, it’s Michael. You’ve been drugged, little one, but it will pass soon now.”
“Michael,” she said again. Suddenly she knew who he was, and she felt a bolt of incredible, unexpected happiness surge through her. She nearly gasped aloud with pleasure and relief. “Oh God, it must have been a dream, a nightmare. All of it . . . it was nothing. You’re with me again. You’ve come back to me.”
Saint blinked, but had no chance to respond. Jules threw her arms about his chest, burying her face against his shoulder. She said over and over, “You’ve come back to me. I always prayed you would. You don’t know . . . so long since you left me, so long.”
“No, no,” he said gently, lightly touching his fingertips to her lips. “We’re not on Maui, Jules. We’re in San Francisco.”
But she was clutching at him, whispering, “I always loved you, always. You came back to me.”
He grasped her arms and gently drew her away. He looked into her face and told himself that she didn’t realize what she was saying. “Listen to me, Jules. We’re in San Francisco. I . . . well, I got you away from Jameson Wilkes and that godawful auction. You’re safe with me now, in my house.”
“You saved me, Michael?” She reached for him again, and he eased her against him, gently rocking her. He pressed his cheek against her wildly curling hair. “You really saved me?”
“Yes, and you’re safe now.”