The Duke Is Mine - Eloisa James [111]
His eyes moved to Olivia. “Knew you’d come.”
The words were slurred. Olivia saw with a lurch of her stomach a trickle of dried blood leading from his ear.
She felt a sob rising in her throat. He didn’t . . . he didn’t look as if he had long to live.
Quin’s hand came on her shoulder and squeezed. He squatted down beside the pallet. “Lord Monts—”
She shook her head.
Quin started over, his voice calm and deep. “Rupert, we’ve come to take you home.”
Rupert’s eyes wandered from Lucy. “Who?”
“My name is Quin.”
“Ah.” His eyes were closing. “Miles to go.”
“Yes,” Quin agreed.
He saw the truth of it in Rupert’s face, before the man even spoke. “Too many miles . . .”
Olivia’s hand closed around Quin’s wrist. “We must take him now to the boat. Now. Otherwise . . . he will die here, in this hovel.”
Rupert didn’t look like someone with the indomitable will that had driven a company of one hundred men over the walls of a fortress. There was a kind of acceptance about his face that spoke for itself. Quin thought he would almost certainly die very soon.
“We cannot remain here for more than a few hours at the most,” he said.
“The Frenchies almost caught us this morning,” Togs put in. “We heard them coming . . . they was set to enter the hut, but one of the dogs startled a duck and they went after their supper instead. We didn’t have a boat because we sent Grooper over in it.”
Quin frowned, looking at the silent Paisley.
“He don’t speak,” Togs said. “Not even a word. He’s the best sailor of us. He got the boat all the way here, but he couldn’t come across to fetch you because he don’t speak. The major said as how it didn’t matter to him as long as Paisley could hold a gun the right way up.”
The silent man nodded.
“You both stayed with him,” Olivia said, her smile, warm despite her fear, lingering on each of their exhausted faces.
“He’s our commander,” Togs said. And Paisley nodded tersely.
They were good men. Quin had to get them out as well, before the French stumbled by the hut again in the morning and decided to explore.
Tension mounted in Quin’s chest. Rupert was near death, and the two soldiers were exhausted to the point of collapse. He would bet that they’d had little—if anything—to eat in the last few days.
He crouched down, close enough to catch the warm, flowery scent that was Olivia, and said quietly, “I must leave you here for a short time, dear heart.”
She turned her face and her lips brushed his, sweet and heady. “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
“I’ll be back for you. An hour at the most.”
Quin realized that Rupert’s eyes had drifted open again, and that he was watching them.
“Happy . . . you.” The words floated on the air.
Quin had to clear his throat. “I’m going to carry you to the boat.” He slipped one hand under Rupert’s torso and discovered that he weighed almost nothing.
“Take Lucy,” he whispered to Olivia.
Olivia retrieved the little dog from Rupert’s chest, but stopped Quin before he could pick up the injured man. Rupert looked very ill and impossibly young. He didn’t seem sixteen, let alone eighteen.
“You did it, Rupert,” Olivia whispered, leaning close. “Your father is so happy, and so proud of you. You have crowned the Canterwick name with glory.”
Even in the low light, she could see a faint smile in his eyes, a tired smile.
“And you’re also a wonderful poet,” she said, cupping his cheek with her hand. “You must heal, so that you can write more poetry.”
He shook his head, just slightly.
The truth of it was in his face. Olivia’s eyes filled with tears. “Then fly, Rupert. Be free. Leave all this darkness to us.”
The smile was there again. He turned his head, just slightly, lips against her hand, and closed his eyes.
Olivia stayed still for a moment, a tear splashing onto the rough blanket. Then Quin ran a hand over her hair, and she rose.
She waited until Quin was standing with Rupert in his arms. “If he fails,” she told him, “you cannot leave him. He must not die on that boat with no one but Grooper by his bed. Do you hear me?”
Her voice