The Duke Is Mine - Eloisa James [112]
“The French patrol in the morning,” she said. “Not until morning.” Her eyes moved back to Rupert’s face.
She was right. Rupert probably didn’t have until the morning, but if they waited in the hut . . . men had taken more than the few hours that remained until dawn to die. And if that were the case, they would all be caught.
Olivia handed Quin Lucy’s cord, and he wound it around his wrist. Outside the night air still hung heavy with no hint of dawn. He had time to row down the little inlet, out to the Day Dream, time to make Rupert comfortable. . . . He had time.
When they were settled in the rowboat, an operation that required considerable finesse, given the boat’s diminutive proportions, Rupert stopped breathing.
Lucy gave a little whimper and licked his cheek; Rupert’s chest moved again.
Quin bent to the oars, but he had to be silent, silent . . . He couldn’t row too vigorously or the oars would catch the water and splash.
When at last he reached the Day Dream, Grooper was waiting at the gunwale. With the soldier hauling from above, getting Rupert on board was quick work, but at the sight of his beloved major unconscious, Grooper’s eyes grew large. He was a man of action, the one who had crossed the Channel to alert Rupert’s family, but he was not a man who could stand to see a man suffering.
They managed to get Rupert into the bed, and Quin drew the blanket to Rupert’s chin and placed Lucy at his side. The journey from the hut, although short as the crow flies, had been punishingly arduous, and he could see that for Rupert it had been excruciating. His face was even more drawn, and his breathing, the shallow respiration of a man at the limit of his tolerance. His thin fingers clenched Lucy’s fur.
“Brandy,” Quin barked over his shoulder, only to realize that Grooper, his capabilities exhausted, had fled to the deck. He wrenched open a cabinet and snatched a bottle, which turned out to be the finest French cognac, the kind even dukes drank only sparingly. Oh, for the life of a smuggler.
Turning back, he dribbled a little brandy into Rupert’s mouth. The marquess gasped; his eyes flickered open.
A familiar feeling of helplessness clutched Quin’s heart. He knew he should say something, but he had no idea what. It was rather as if he were facing Evangeline again, when she would accuse him of being no more emotional than a piece of wood, and he hadn’t the faintest idea what she wanted from him.
Probably Rupert would like to hear poetry—but Quin didn’t know any poetry. His tutors had never bothered with that sort of thing. His mind spun with furious frustration. If only Rupert wanted information about wave patterns . . .
“Who?” Rupert’s eyes searched his face, confused.
“I’m Olivia’s friend,” Quin reminded him. “We brought Lucy to see you, and we’ve come to take you home to your father, to England.”
Rupert’s fingers curled around Lucy’s ear and he gave it a little tug. Lucy nudged his hand.
“Too many miles,” he said.
Quin silently agreed with Rupert. What was one supposed to say to a dying person? A psalm, he thought, except he couldn’t remember any.
“Sleep,” Rupert said, his eyes drifting shut again.
Suddenly, somehow, Rupert’s poem came back to Quin, as clearly as if Olivia had recited it to him a moment ago. Before it could vanish, he said it aloud: “Quick, bright, the bird falls down to us, darkness piles up in the trees.” It made no sense in this context, but he said it again, more slowly.
Rupert’s face brightened and he said something, so quietly Quin almost didn’t catch it. “And they fly . . .” A long silence. His breath stopped, started again.
Quin looked desperately at the porthole. There was no sign of dawn yet. He knew what Olivia would say. He knew what she wanted. He knew . . .
Rupert’s chest stopped moving again. Then he took another breath, like a little gasp.
So Quin sat, holding tight to the hand of the man who was giving him Olivia, who had written a poem that