the ground floor.
Letty watched helplessly as the two Scotsmen laid Adam on his stomach and had a servant bring hot water and clean clothes. If only she could take away his pain, make him hearty and whole again.
“Please, let me do something,” she begged Tyburn. She sat on the bed as a footman set the clothes and water on a nearby table.
“Aye, lass, if ye can stomach it, we need to clean the wounds so the doctor may see what must be done.” Tyburn’s voice was soft, a little hoarse, and his gaze was a blend of stoicism and pity—whether the latter was for her or for Adam she wasn’t certain.
“I can handle it.” Letty bit her lip and dipped a cloth into the water, then began to dab at the drying blood on Adam’s back. She’d never seen wounds like these before. The way he’d been hurt . . . cut open . . .
“What did they do to him?” she asked.
“I canna say for sure, but these look like lashes from a whip.” He pointed toward the lighter wounds. “And this . . . a knife, maybe?” A dark cloud of rage filled his face as he looked to Letty. “I would kill those men again if I could.”
Letty gazed at Adam’s face, pale and worn-looking. Thankfully, he remained unconscious through what she was doing. “I’m glad they’re dead. God forgive me, but I’m glad.” She continued to clean Adam’s back. She worked in silence for a long moment, feeling the weight of the older Scotsman’s gaze upon her as she worked. But she couldn’t stop her actions. If she did, she might break apart.
“Milady, I think it’s time you told me everything,” Tyburn said.
Letty stared at her husband a long moment before she let out a sigh. She told Adam’s uncle as much as she could, but she didn’t share the extent of Adam’s activities, only that he worked for the government in secret. Even so, she felt she was being too free with her husband’s secret life; she wanted now more than ever to protect him, though it seemed it may be too late.
“I ken his secrets, lass. Ye doona have to worry about me, Angus, and Baird.”
“This is all my fault, my lord.”
Tyburn put a hand over hers, squeezing it gently. “It isn’t. And ye are family, lass. Call me Uncle or Tyburn.”
Letty sniffed. It had been a long time since she had felt safe, at least since her life had been turned upside down. Even with Adam injured, she believed that Tyburn could protect them both from anything.
The doctor soon arrived, and Letty waited, heart in her throat, as the old man muttered a number of choice curses while examining his patient.
“The wounds arna deep. If he can survive the next week without his body becoming inflamed, ye mayna lose him.”
Letty crumpled into the chair beside Adam’s bed, the fire gone out of her. Tyburn quietly escorted the doctor out to give her some time alone.
She stroked Adam’s dark hair back from his face, her hand shaking. Whispering soft, silly things to him, she prayed he could hear her, that her words would reach him wherever he was. It stunned her that this dark, brooding stranger had become her world in such a short period of time. There was no denying it—she’d fallen in love with this man who spoke poetry late at night and carried deep secrets and heartache, yet made love to her with full, wild abandon and held her afterward as though she were the most precious thing he’d ever possessed. She couldn’t lose him now. She couldn’t.
“Adam, remember your vow,” she whispered over and over until she lost her voice and succumbed to exhaustion.
Adam dwelled in a twilight world that seemed half fantastical and half memory. He chased the phantoms of his younger self and Caroline through the years of their childhood up until the time that he’d attended university. The world around him flowed like fresh watercolors as he saw himself joining the Wicked Earls’ Club after his father had passed. He relived nights spent at gaming tables, laughing with friends and taking women to bed . . . and meeting John Wilhelm.
John entered Adam’s dream world, his body almost glowing as he played his part in the charade surrounding him. Only now, Adam saw John in a way he never had before. John’s once bright eyes had become weary, and Adam now clearly saw the sorrow in him