stairs, ensuring her safety, and ran for the room.
What if he didn’t succeed? Bar the door. That was the reason for the command, wasn’t it? Beatrice didn’t allow for the thought until her back was pressed up against the door of their chamber, the heavy oak shutting out the sounds downstairs, the heavy bolt hopefully prepared to shut out intruders if need be. What if the man’s knife got the better of Preston? What of other knives? What of other men who’d want to try him? He couldn’t fight for ever.
Beatrice set the baby on the bed and glanced around the room for a makeshift weapon. A candlestick. No. It was heavy, but it would require her getting far closer to an attacker than she wanted in order to be effective. She wanted something longer. Her eyes lit on the fireplace. A poker. Perfect. Beatrice crossed the room and wrapped her hand firmly around the handle, testing the weight. It would even be better if it were hot. Bea put it in the fire, feeling inspired. Any unwanted soul coming through that door would regret it.
The only soul she was interested in seeing at the door was Preston. At first, she started at any little sound. Fifteen agonising minutes went by and then thirty. Still, no one came. The poker glowed hot at the hearth. On the bed, Matthew had fallen asleep, exhausted by the excitement and the long day.
Beatrice paced. Surely they weren’t all still fighting? But it was almost worse to think of what it meant if the fighting was over. How would she explain to the Worths if something happened to him? She ran through a few experimental lines in her head.
I’m sorry, Preston was wounded in a tavern brawl. It was my fault because I wanted the bread pudding.
It sounded just as bad as she thought it would. It was all her fault, just as it was her fault he’d had to come to Scotland, had to be on the road for his birthday. Now, it was her fault he was embroiled in fisticuffs or worse.
There was a pounding on the door, at last. Beatrice snapped into action, snatching up the poker from the hearth. She took up her position beside the door as another pound came, this time followed with a voice. ‘Bea, open up, it’s me.’ Relief made her clumsy. She dropped the poker, fumbled with the bar, dropping it, too, in her haste and excitement.
At first, relief at seeing him safe overwhelmed the details. Then, she saw them: the sleeve of his shirt ripped shoulder to wrist, the bruise along his jaw, the cuts on his cheek. ‘You’re hurt!’ The words were entirely inadequate. Of course he was hurt. He’d just fought how many men on her behalf? She tugged him inside and struggled with the bar, lifting it into place. There was suddenly so much to do.
‘Come, sit down. I’ll heat some of the washing water.’ She would have paid dearly for a kettle just now, to be back in her little cottage kitchen where she’d have all she needed to hand. She settled for wedging the ewer among the coals and the towels he’d used to dry off with earlier.
‘Are you hurt anywhere else?’ She worked his shirt off, desperate to see the damage beneath the slashed sleeve, hoping there was none. ‘Are you cut?’ She examined the arm, looking for signs of injury, but finding none.
‘No, I was too fast for him.’ Preston grinned and she could hear the cocky pride in his voice.
‘Don’t tell me you were downstairs enjoying all this while I was up here worried sick,’ Bea scolded. ‘I was imagining all sorts of horrid things befalling you.’
Preston chuckled, wincing from the effort. ‘Oh, ouch!’
Bea gave him a stern look. ‘Ribs?’ She hoped not. That could be serious. She’d far rather treat a knife scratch. She ran her hands down his torso, feeling for any sign of a cracked or broken rib. The men down there had been big enough to deliver damage. He flinched where she pressed. ‘I think they’re just bruised. I can wrap them for you.’ She was already running through possible makeshift bandages. She had a petticoat in her luggage she could sacrifice.
Preston shook his head. ‘I’ll be fine. I won’t have you ripping up clothes on my account.’
‘It’s the least I can do.’ Beatrice wrapped a towel about her hand and reached for the warmed ewer. She poured water into the basin and soaked a cloth. ‘I saved some of the cold water for your face. That bruise will hurt, it needs cold, but your ribs will appreciate the heat.’ She knelt and pressed the folded cloth to his ribs, realising too late what work and concern had obscured. She had stripped Preston Worth to the skin, had put her hands all over him and was now kneeling before him in what could be taken as a rather intimate position under other circumstances. Her body didn’t seem to know the difference, although it should have.
It wasn’t the first time she’d seen his bare chest. She’d seen him shirtless countless times before, during the long summers of their youth. But this chest was nothing like the chest he’d sported as a slender adolescent. This was the chest of a man blooded in battle. Her finger traced the scar left by the wound this autumn. ‘Roan?’ She shuddered at the thought of how close the blade had come to doing permanent damage.
‘Yes, but the stitches are all Liam’s.’ Preston laughed.
Bea grimaced, not sharing the humour. She ran her hands down his torso, feeling for further injury, the smooth expanse of muscle beneath her fingers as it tapered into narrowing planes and a lean waist—a waist she happened to be eye level with. She made the mistake of rocking back on her heels, which forced her to sit a little lower, putting her eye level with something far more intimate than his waistline; a man becoming aroused. Beatrice cleared her throat. ‘Here, hold the compress in place.’ She rose, suddenly needing to keep busy. She should not be staring at Preston’s crotch. Preston shifted carefully in the chair, he, too, feeling the embarrassment of an awkward moment.
Bea rummaged through her luggage, talking too fast. ‘I have some herbs that can help with swelling.’
Preston cocked a curious eyebrow. ‘Do you, now?’
She flushed uncontrollably. Swelling was an unfortunate choice of words just now. ‘Swelling, as in bruising,’ Beatrice clarified, finding the packet she wanted.
‘Of course.’ Preston’s response was far too benign to actually be harmless. ‘What other kind of swelling could you have possibly meant?’
Beatrice chose to ignore the comment. ‘This is calamine and elm powder.’ She dumped a bit of the dried herbs into some warm water and stirred until it was pasty. ‘I’m making you a poultice. I think we’ll wrap your ribs after all. You’ll be more comfortable.’
She wouldn’t be, though. Getting the poultice on him would require close contact while she tied strips of cloth. She probably should have thought that one through a little better. Preston sniffed the air as she wound the strips about him. ‘Calamine smells like mint,’ she said before he could ask.
He lifted an arm to help her with the binding. ‘And the lavender?’ He breathed in again. ‘I think that must be you. Lavender smells...peaceful.’
‘Not like me at all, then.’ Beatrice laughed. Peaceful wasn’t a word she’d use to describe herself. She was outspoken, restless, sometimes spontaneous, and as a result sometimes quick to impatience.
‘You are more peaceful now than I remember you, though,’ Preston said as she tied off the last of the strips and stepped back to check her handiwork. ‘I think
