Heartless (The House of Rohan 5)

“Bring her in here, Brandon,” Melisande said, pushing open a door, and he headed into Melisande’s salon. He still didn’t want to release Emma, which was patently absurd, so he set her down on the chaise, reluctantly giving way as Melisande moved ahead of him, but he drew the line at the tall woman who pushed past him as well. “Who are you?” he demanded rudely, prepared to stand his ground.

“Miss Bonham’s companion.” Her voice was acerbic, her eyes sharp behind her glasses. “I have experience in treating injuries.”

“So have I,” he said tightly.

The woman looked at him, and her withering expression might have daunted another man. Not even a hoard of furious Afghanis would make him blink.

“You’re a man,” the woman said, as if that explained everything.

“And. . .?”

The woman just rolled her eyes, and he remembered that she was part and parcel of his marriage deal. He’d told Charles “yes.” God, what had he done?

“You’re bleeding,” Melisande said in a practical voice. “Someone needs to look to you as well.”

“I’m fine. It’s a scratch, nothing more,” he said, still on the edge of fury and a panic that was completely foreign to him. Never in his life had he been afraid, but he was now.

“Sit,” Melisande snapped, fully as bossy as the tall woman whose name he couldn’t remember. He sat, reluctantly, unable to tear his eyes away from Emma’s pale, blood-streaked face when he realized there was someone else in the room. Oh, Christ, it was his so-called fiancée, looking everywhere but at him.

“You look awful, Emma,” Melisande said briskly.

“I expect she looks worse than she feels,” Brandon offered, hoping to goad Emma into a reaction.

Sure enough, it worked. “Nice of you to speak for me,” she said weakly. “How do you know how much I’m hurting?”

“You told me.” He turned his gaze to his sister-in-law, wanting to reassure her, wanting to reassure himself. “Head wounds always look terrible—they bleed like. . . bleed like the very devil,” he amended his speech for his fiancée’s delicate ears. “Once we clean her up she’ll look a lot better.”

Melisande fixed him with a fierce stare, not unlike some of the ones his mother had offered him in his adventurous youth. “There’s no ‘we’ in all this. Leave the room and Randolph will see to you.”

“I’m not leaving her until I’m certain she hasn’t been seriously injured.”

“I thought you said she wasn’t!” Melisande snapped.

“I’m not a doctor.” He rose from the chair, moving to Emma’s side. She did look like hell. Picking up her filthy hand in his, he searched for her pulse. It was a little fast, but steady. Knowing battlefield medicine was necessary for any soldier who wanted to survive, and Brandon had never wanted to die. Not until he returned to England.

“I need to wash her, put her in something clean and comfortable, and you can’t be here,” Melisande said stubbornly. “Besides, you need your own wound looked at.”

“My damned wound can wait—it’s a scratch. I won’t leave.” He could be stubborn too. If he hadn’t decided to go after Emma, if the disapproving cook hadn’t told him which way, she might not have been found. The logical assumption would have been that she found a way to get back to the city, and no one might have found her body for weeks.

“I’ll have Benedick remove you,” Melisande threatened, her eyes narrowing.

“Benedick is ten years older than me and he’s never been a soldier. I doubt that he and Charles together could make me leave if I’m determined to stay. And I am, you know. Very determined.”

There was a long, pregnant silence between them, broken only by the soft crackle of the fire. Melisande was someone who didn’t like to admit defeat, he thought, and if it had been up to him he would have avoided such a confrontation. Emma’s attempted murder changed everything.

He could practically see the possibilities flitting through Melisande’s face. After a moment she nodded briskly. “All right,” she said. “But you are to go to the corner and keep your back turned while we change her clothes.”

He glanced at the two other women, expecting severe disapproval, but they ignored him. It didn’t matter, as long as he got his way. “As you wish,” he said curtly. He was still holding Emma’s wrist and hadn’t even realized it, and he started to release her and step back when her hand turned and caught his, holding on to him like a lifeline.

“Don’t go,” she whispered. Her eyes, usually sharp and hostile, were frightened. She’d be kicking herself later when she remembered she’d held on to him, and that was incentive enough.

“I won’t,” he said in a low voice, looking down at her. A mistake, he realized too late. For the first time she looked as vulnerable as he had suspected she was beneath her spiky exterior, and he wanted . . . God, he wanted all sorts of things he could never have.

Pulling his eyes away from hers was almost painful, but the moment he did hers closed again. He looked at his sister-in-law. “I’m staying,” he said again, his hand clasping Emma’s. She had strong, capable hands, but they still disappeared in his rough, scarred one.

Melisande let out a long-suffering sigh. “You will avert your gaze,” she said crossly. “And don’t try to tell me she has nothing you haven’t seen before—that’s neither here nor there. If she realizes you’ve seen her in dishabille, she’ll be horrified and embarrassed once she’s feeling better.”

“You may blindfold me,” he said flatly, sliding one foot under a nearby chair and dragging it closer, all without letting go of Emma’s hand. He sat, glaring at everyone and not exactly sure why, as the nameless companion decided to get down to business, washing the blood and dust off Emma’s face while Melisande was beginning to undo her severe jacket.