“Do they sit, stay and fetch with such alacrity?” Robert asked quietly. He sounded amused rather than upset, which was good. Stupid, simple Simon didn’t want to upset him because he was an idiot who was obviously infatuated again with the wrong person. When would he learn? The answer was clearly never.
“I never learned,” he replied lightly. “That’s why I don’t work for him.”
“I hate to be the one to remind you that you’re working for him now,” Robert pointed out gently. “And showing a remarkable resemblance to him, I might add. In this case I believe familiarity has bred similarity.”
“Ouch,” Simon said, wincing. “I probably deserved that. But never fear, you shall keep me humble.”
“I’ll do my best.” Robert squeezed his shoulder as he walked past, headed for the ladder out of the hold. Simon ignored the frisson of awareness that skittered across his back at the touch. Not here, not now, not ever. Again.
When they emerged on deck, it was just in time to see a man go over the side. “Man overboard!” one of the agents yelled.
In the ensuing chaos, several agents began to struggle with various crewmembers who rushed them in a coordinated attack. Robert pulled his pistol out from under his jacket, attempting to shove Simon behind him with his other hand.
“For God’s sake,” Simon shouted at him. “Let me go! I’m highly trained in this sort of combat, and can probably kill faster with my bare hands than you can with that gun. Now stop being so ridiculous.” He shoved Robert out of the way and pulled a stiletto out of a sheath in his boot. “You go that way,” he yelled, pointing left. “Bludgeon, don’t shoot. We need answers, not dead men.”
“I’m not Hastings,” Robert said, affronted. He took off running, and Simon saw him bash a sailor on the back of the head with the butt of his pistol. It stunned him long enough for the agent he’d been struggling with to subdue him, and Robert moved on.
Simon ran toward the rail where he’d seen the sailor jump over. Another sailor tried to grab him and he slashed at his hand, cutting him. The sailor fell away with a cry, holding his hand, and Simon ran on as another agent jumped at the sailor.
Simon could see that men on other ships anchored nearby had also seen the man go overboard. At least two small dinghies were rowing toward him where he was treading in the water. He had one leg up on the rail before he took even a moment to think about what he was doing. He shoved his knife back in his boot and grabbed a rope to pull himself up onto the rail.
“Simon, no!” he heard Robert shout, but he ignored him and jumped.
He thought he was prepared for the water, but he wasn’t. It was much farther to fall than he’d estimated, and when he hit the water it wasn’t feet first, but at an angle, and his back bore some of the brunt of the impact. The searing pain momentarily stunned him and he sank in the cold, dank, stinking water of the harbor. He gasped and took in a mouthful of that awful stew, and immediately spewed it out and kicked for the surface, his shock dissipating, but the pain remained.
Simon was handicapped by his tight jacket and what he now remembered to be a serious lack of swimming experience. The Turkish sailor, on the other hand, looked to be half fish. The odds were distinctly against Simon, but he set off after the sailor.
He had a bit of luck when the sailor suddenly turned around and began to swim back his way. The dinghy had gotten too close to him and nearly caught him. They had him surrounded, and he’d clearly decided Simon was the lesser threat. Simon chased him down, grabbing his pant leg and hauling him back. The sailor proved as adept at grappling in the water as he was at swimming in it, and Simon was losing the struggle. Suddenly the sailor shoved Simon’s head under the water, holding him down, and Simon knew he meant to drown him.
He heard the dull echo of a shot ring out. The pressure eased and he was able to jerk his head free and rise to the surface where he gasped and coughed, not caring if he ingested the disgusting water around him. He couldn’t think about that when he was so relieved just to have air.
When he regained his senses, he saw Robert standing at the rail above him, his pistol still pointing at the water. When he looked to his left, the sailor was floating on the water, and he reached out, grabbed the sailor’s shirt and began to drag him toward the nearest dinghy. Once there, he let the boat’s occupants take charge and gladly accepted a ride from the second dinghy back to the dock, where he met Robert and Hastings.
Robert had somehow procured a blanket for him. He waved it away. “It’s so damn hot I don’t need it. I stink more than anything. Did you kill him?”
“No,” Robert said calmly. “I shot him in the shoulder. He’ll most likely never use that arm again, and frankly with a wound like that in this water it will probably fester and he’ll die anyway, but at least he’ll be able to answer some questions first.”
Simon turned to stare at Robert with wide eyes. “I had no idea you could be so ruthless.”
“You, sir, do not know anything about me.” Robert’s gaze was cold and enigmatic, and Simon felt a disturbing sort of confusion, as if someone had told him he didn’t know his own name.
“I am beginning to think I don’t know very much of anything at all,” he said honestly.
“It’s a start,” Robert told him. “A good start, I should think. Now, what in the hell did you think you were doing jumping into the water like that? We’ll be lucky if you don’t start to fester as well.”
Chapter 15
“Good heavens, Simon!” Christy exclaimed as he came through the door. He was limping, looking like a drowned cat, filthy and wet and stinking. “What on earth happened?”
Robert was beside him, and she could tell he wanted to help Simon but was resisting the urge. No doubt Simon was being stubborn about his injuries.
“He jumped in the harbor and had a fight with a Turkish sailor,” Robert told her. “Believe it or not, he won.”
“I don’t believe it,” Christy said, her hands on her hips as she looked him over from head to toe.
“You should see the other fellow,” Simon said. She could hear the pain in his voice.
“You need a hot bath,” she declared. “Nell,” she called. The young maid appeared almost instantly, giving Christy the impression she’d been eavesdropping just out of sight. “Fill the tub in the bathing chamber. Hot water, if you please. And as soon as Mr. Gantry gets out of these clothes, they are to be washed. Immediately. I know it isn’t wash day, but if we leave them, they’ll be ruined. Go on, now.”
She ignored her misgivings and reached out for Simon’s arm. “Come on,” she said without an ounce of pity. “Let’s get you upstairs. Robert, help me get him out of these wet things.”
“What?” Simon asked, looking appalled. “I can undress myself.”
“You don’t look like it.” Christy looked over her shoulder at the agents who were guarding the front door. They were peering through the door watching them with interest. “Shut the door and mind your business,” she told them briskly. One of them immediately pulled the door shut.
“You are a martinet,” Simon complained as he leaned on her support and let her lead him upstairs.
“You may call me whatever you like,” she said. “But this is my house and I make the rules.” She realized what she’d said and cleared her throat as she looked at Robert. “That is, we—I mean, Robert and I—make the rules. With his permission, of course.”
“Too late,” Robert said, sounding amused and not a bit put out. “You can’t put any of the blame on me. This is your doing, not mine.”
They reached Simon’s bedchamber and Christy ushered him inside. “Robert, close the door behind you.” She let go of Simon, who started to sit down on the bed. “No,” she nearly yelled at him, and he froze halfway. “Not in those clothes. Not on my linens. Robert, help me.”
“Shouldn’t we be doing this in the bathing chamber?” Robert asked. He stepped in front of Simon and began to unbutton his jacket.
Simon slapped his han
ds away. “I can unbutton my own jacket,” he insisted. “I’m not an invalid.”
“Of course not,” Christy said. “But it’s as obvious as the nose on my face that you’ve hurt your back. Oh, Simon, what were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that a man who clearly knew something about our investigation was getting away and if I didn’t go after him he’d be gone,” Simon snapped. “And I should be at headquarters questioning him and not here being coddled like a child.”
He tried to jerk the jacket off over his shoulders and gasped and nearly fell over. Robert had to catch him with an arm around his waist. He pulled Simon up and caught him against his chest, and Simon just hung there for a moment breathing heavily. Christy wanted to cry for him.
“Are you all right?” Robert asked, concern etched on his face. Christy adored him at that moment.
Simon nodded, the motion jerky. “Fine,” he said, the word short and sharp. Robert slowly let go.
Christy moved behind Simon. “Let me,” she said quietly. “You just stand there.” She pulled the jacket down his arms and off as gently as she could, but its sodden condition made it more difficult than it should have been, and she knew it was hurting him. Robert stood there in front of him with his hands on Simon’s upper arms, helping him to stand while she did it.
“I feel like an imbecile,” Simon muttered.
“You are an imbecile,” Robert told him.
“Your sympathy is duly noted,” Simon replied politely.
“Robert,” Christy chastised. She dropped Simon’s stinking jacket to the floor and wrinkled her nose in disgust.
“Don’t bother to launder it,” Simon told. “It’s ruined. We might be able to save everything else, but the jacket is beyond redemption.”
“You should have thought of that before you jumped.” She pushed it farther away with the toe of her shoe. “Hold on,” she said, realizing the dilemma they now faced. “I’ll be right back.”
She ran down the hall and grabbed an old linen sheet from the washroom for Simon to sit on so they could remove his boots and trousers. When she got back to the room she found that Robert had already dispensed with Simon’s boots somehow, and as she came through the door he was pulling Simon’s shirt off. Christy’s hand involuntarily flew to cover her mouth and stifle her exclamation of horror as Simon’s back was revealed to her for the first time.
It looked horrendously painful. A dark read angry slash of puckered skin from his right shoulder blade to his left side, just above the waist of his trousers. There were other scars there, too. They looked like whipping scars.
“Oh, Simon,” she whispered.
He froze in place, his arms still locked in the sleeves of his shirt, bound in front of him, his back exposed, his weaknesses exposed. She wanted to fall to her knees and wrap her arms around him and press her cheek to his scarred back and will her own strength into him.
Robert had been standing in front of Simon, but at Christy’s pained whisper he walked slowly around to look at his back. He didn’t say a word. He simply reached over and took the linen from Christy, opening it up and holding it high. “Here, hold it like this.”
She did as she was told, blocking Simon from her view. Robert walked back around in front of Simon, and she heard him say, “Let me help you get these off, too.” The rustle of clothing told her he was helping Simon get his trousers off.
“This is embarrassing and awkward and feel free to add any adjectives you care to contribute,” Simon said.
“I believe awkward doesn’t do the situation justice,” Robert agreed in a strained voice. “There.” He immediately came around the makeshift curtain and dropped the rest of Simon’s stained, smelly clothes on the floor.
“Close your eyes,” he told Christy. She did so, and then he took the sheet. “All right,” he said, and when she opened them, Simon was wrapped in the linen, only his bare shoulders visible.
“Now I must head back to the Home Office,” Robert said. He and Simon were avoiding looking at each other, and it was all Christy could do not to roll her eyes. Men were so odd about their privacy and nudity. “Simon, once you are cleaned up, rest, and I will fill you in at supper.”
“Now you really are making me feel like an invalid,” Simon complained.
“I do not mean to,” Robert said, frustration in his voice. “The fact is I am trying to avoid just that. You have been home for less than a week. You are not completely healed from your ordeal. If you continue to push yourself this way, you may very well end up an invalid, and no one wants that. So we must use common sense. I am trying to do what is right, and what logic dictates must be done. Surely you can see that.”
“Tomorrow will be a week,” Simon said. He readjusted the linen. Christy stood there, her arms wrapped around her middle, letting Robert handle the situation. He seemed better able to handle Simon in this mood. She just wanted to either yell at him or smother him with hugs and kisses, neither of which was appropriate or helpful.
“Fine,” Simon finally agreed. “I will rest. And I concede that you are right. I am trying too hard to deny that anything is wrong and pretending that nothing happened to me. There? Are you happy? So I shall be a good boy and take a hot bath and go to bed.”
“Yes, I’m happy,” Robert said. He sighed and started to leave but then, almost as an afterthought, remembered Christy and came to kiss her cheek goodbye. “I shall be home for supper,” he told her.
“That’s fine,” she said, the awkwardness they’d spoken of suddenly finding its way to her. “But we need to talk about something that happened today while I was out shopping.”
“Yes, all right,” Robert said, clearly distracted. “When I get home.”
The irony that Robert was leaving her alone with a naked Simon expecting her to bathe and take care of him was not lost on her. He either had a great deal of trust in her or he was the world’s greatest fool.
Chapter 16
“What happened while you were shopping?” Simon asked as he stood next to the steaming tub of water. A cold bath would have been better. Standing naked in a room with Robert and Christy had pushed his endurance to its limits. It was probably a good thing his back was screaming or he’d surely be wearing a tent for trousers.
“Nothing really,” Christy said dismissively. “I was approached by a strange man, a couple of strange men actually, and a blonde woman. It was all very odd. The agent seemed quite agitated about the whole thing.” She shrugged. “But nothing happened. The woman was yelling at me to run, the little man lunged at me, and the other man, the tall one, dragged him away. Then they all disappeared. It couldn’t have lasted more than a minute or two. I was frightened at the time, but now I think it was all a tempest in a teapot.”
Simon’s blood ran cold at her tale. “Christy you must promise me not to go out again unless it’s absolutely necessary, and then only with more than one agent. Promise me.”
“What a lot of fuss,” she said, with a little huff of annoyance. “But if it will get you in the tub, then I promise.”
“I can wash myself.” He looked again at that steaming tub of water and wondered how the hell he was going to climb into the damn thing and wash without howling.
“We made it too hot,” Christy said, her voice wavering. “I didn’t think. I mean, I didn’t realize—”
“I’ll just let it cool off.” Simon eased down to sit on the chair beside the tub. “It will be fine.”
“Let me wash your back while you sit there,” Christy said. Her voice was getting stronger, like it had been downstairs. She was different than she’d been last year. More sure of herself. But then, this was her house, as she’d said. She had a place at last, as Robert’s wife.
She could have been yours, that harsh little voice in his head whispered. This could be your house. When that voice had belittled his cowardice in rejecting Christy, when it had taunted him with what might have been as he’d lain in that stinking cell in Africa, rotting on the floor, he’d slap
ped his own face to shut it up. He couldn’t do that now. He also knew he couldn’t wash his own back, damn it.
“Please,” he said with a sigh, turning slightly.
He listened to her dip her cloth into the tub water and ring it out. Every nerve in his back that wasn’t screaming in pain was standing at attention anticipating her touch.
“You’ll have to lower your cover,” she told quietly. “I want to clean this wound thoroughly. I know it’s healed, but we should still keep it as clean as possible so as not to invite a relapse.”
Simon knew she was right, but he also knew the whole situation was wrong. What they were all inviting here was trouble. What was Robert thinking, leaving Simon and Christy alone together like this? And what was Simon thinking letting him? He wasn’t thinking, that was what. He was feeling, and what he was feeling were things he definitely oughtn’t to be feeling about Christy or Robert or anyone else in this house.
His thoughts were crashing around in his head, careening off one another as his shoulders grew tense waiting for Christy’s first touch. When it came, it broke him. Not with pleasure, but with pain. He cried out and shied away from her hand.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, sounding near tears. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Is it the cloth? Shall I just use my hands?”
Simon wanted to cry, not at the pain, but at the injustice of it all. “Yes,” he said, his voice strangled with bitterness and longing and a whole stew of emotions he’d rather not name or feel. “The cloth is too rough right now.”
When her hands, slick with lather, gently touched his back, he did cry. Silently so as not to alarm her. He cried because it still hurt and he didn’t care.
Christy ran her hands up and down his back, gently cleansing it and massaging it, and it felt divine, as if the hand of a goddess had reached down and anointed his ravaged back with some secret elixir. She scooped up water from the tub and rinsed his back, and then she lathered it again. This time she washed his arms as well, and he sat there docile as the child he’d proclaimed himself not to be and let her. When she was done, she moved around in front of him, and only then did he realize he’d closed his eyes. He opened them and looked up at her.
Mission to Love (Brothers in Arms Book 14) Page 11
