Bride of the Tower by Sharon Schulze Read Free Book Online Page B

being seen—could escape the keep with no one the wiser till they wondered where she was and came looking for her!
    What a fool she had been!
    She ripped the leather message pouch from her shoulder and tossed it across the chamber, noting when she did so that her palms felt wet. The sharp smell of blood reached her even as she raised her hands and saw the crimson streaks covering her fingers.
    He couldn’t feign that!
    He hadn’t so much as moaned when she’d poked him and let him collapse to the floor, either.
    Remorse filled her, lending haste to her movements. She returned to his side and checked his bandages. Blood seeped from both the one on his neck and his arm, and must have been doing so for some time. When she slid her hand under himto shift him from the floor to the pallet, she could tell the back of his shirt was soaked with it as well.
    She situated him on the low bed and eased the garment over his head. It looked as bad as it had felt—soggy with the blood that now besmirched them both. There was so much of it; how could he not have noticed? ’Twas no wonder he’d collapsed—she was surprised it hadn’t happened sooner. She turned him onto his side; a rivulet of red trailed down his back, and a smaller one trickled down his front, pooling in the thick mass of dark blond curls covering his chest and stomach.
    So much blood…but bright and newly spilled, from the look of it.
    Perhaps when he’d fallen earlier the wounds had opened. And when she’d lain beneath him, he’d propped himself up on his arms, she recalled—that might have added to the problem.
    It might explain why he hadn’t been aware of it then , if he’d been as distracted as she had been, but afterward….
    Afterward they’d argued.
    Julianna unwound the linen strip from around Will’s arm and frowned at the ugly sight. ’Twas swollen and red, oozing blood and worse. Shehadn’t stitched the cut, hoping it would mend fine on its own—and if he’d put no pressure on it, mayhap it would have.
    Or perhaps not. In truth, she hated to sew, especially if she was sticking her needle into someone’s skin. She did a bad enough job when using a piece of cloth, but to mangle a man’s flesh in that manner was far worse.
    If only Mary hadn’t been so far gone in drink that she couldn’t help.
    If only she hadn’t been such a coward.
    Sighing, she gently pressed the cloth over the arm wound and peeked under the edge of the bandage about his neck. From the look of it, stitches would improve that situation as well.
    Now Will would pay the price of her cowardice, for the cuts appeared puffy and felt hot to the touch—’twould be far more painful for him than if she’d done the deed the night before.
    She wiped the blood from her fingers and laid one hand on his chest above his heart. Heat radiated from him, though his heart pulsed steady and strong beneath her touch. A fever, too—not unusual in these circumstances, but one more problem to deal with before she could pronounce him healed and decided what to do with him.
    Keep him captive?
    Send him on his way?
    If she could.
    ’ Twould be foolish to try to make sense of what that means, Julianna! she cautioned herself. Shaking her head as though ’twould clear her mind, she returned her attention to Will.
    Julianna gave but brief thought to calling for Mary’s help; no doubt the woman still lay on the floor of the barracks. ’Twould not be the first time she’d been useless for several days after going on a drunken binge, nor was it like to be the last.
    Lowering her head, she sought for patience out of the frustration that rose within her at the thought. She would have sent Mary on her way long since, if only she hadn’t sworn to her parents that she’d care for everyone who dwelled within her domain.
    Perhaps things would be different—of a certainty, her life would be—if she’d been in truth the noble lady those outside Tuck’s Tower believed her to be—
    The Bride of the