Her Defiant Heart (6 page)

"No," he said consideringly. "Probably not."

"Open that decanter again and I'm leaving," Scott said as Christian's fingers fiddled with the stopper. "You can drink yourself to death, but not in front of me." He held out his hand and waited for Christian to give over the tumbler and decanter. When he had them, he set them on the floor by his chair. "And anyway, this was never all about you. It's about Jane Doe as well. What are we going to do about her?"

"We?" Christian blinked, shaking his head to clear it. "And what do you mean
do
about her? You're as mad as she is."

Scott leaned forward in his chair to press his point. "Listen to me, Christian. The hospital has every available person looking for her. Interesting, don't you think, given the fact that Jane's supposed to be a nobody? I can tell you, they've had other patients leave without permission, and they don't trouble themselves like this. Equally as interesting from my perspective, the police haven't been notified."

Christian's fogged brain began to clear a bit. "How do you know there's a search?"

"Susan sent word here that the hospital's been trying to reach me. They want me involved because I know what she looks like."

"What are you going to do?"

"I
am
involved.
We're
involved. Did you make any sketches of her?"

"Several. They're in my jacket. Jane has that, remember?"

"Can you make more? One would serve. Something for the morning edition of
the
Chronicle?"

"Don't you think we're too late?"

"For the presses or for Jane?"

Christian glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. "Probably both."

"Stop throwing up blocks."

His hesitation was palpable. "All right," he said finally. "My sketchpad is on my desk." Christian pointed to the oak roll-top by the study's bowed window. "There are pens in the top right-hand drawer."

Scott was not offended by Christian's assumption that he would get the things, but he was wary. "That's flagrant manipulation. You get them. I'll guard the whiskey."

"Damn you, Scott," Christian said matter-of-factly. "I do wonder why I don't lay you out."

"I've wondered the same thing." He realized how that could be misinterpreted and rushed to explain. "Why I don't lay
you
low, I mean."

"As if you could."

"I could."

Mrs. Brandywine chose that moment to enter the study. She'd had a hint of the conversation as she approached, and it did not ease the deep frown lines between her brows. Christian had created enough confusion and concern these past few hours to last a lifetime. And now Dr. Turner was egging him on. Neither one of them had the least sense. She took a deep, steadying breath. "Pardon me, Mr. Marshall," she said, smoothing her starched apron over her generously rounded hips. "Joe Means just came to the back door. He says he needs you in the sta—"

"It will have to wait," Christian said, pushing himself to his feet. The effects of his drinking, rather than his limp, accounted for Christian's uneven walk to the desk. "I'm busy now."

"He said it was urgent," she pressed. "It's—"

"Maybe it's Liberty," Scott pointed out. "Joe would want you to know she's back."

Mrs. Brandywine rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Of course it's Liberty. Joe said she's just returned and—"

Christian wobbled a bit as he spun away from the desk. "Was there a rider, Mrs. B.? Did Joe mention anything about a rider?"

"If someone would just let me finish." Her dimpled chin jutted forward militantly. "Yes, there's a rider. Joe's got him—"

In spite of the drink he had consumed, in spite of his limp, Christian sprinted out of the study ahead of Scott. Mrs. Brandywine threw up her hands in despair of ever learning what was going on.

Neither man gave a thought to a coat as they ran out into the cold. Scott passed his friend on the stony path to the stable. Christian gritted his teeth and managed a loping stride that served to get him to the stable within a few seconds of Scott. Joe Means, Christian's trainer and stable master, met them at the entrance. Joe was a small man whose diminutive stature belied a seasoned wiry strength. He sported a stiff, outrageously large handlebar mustache that Christian swore could balance two of Harry Hill's dance house showgirls.

"Where is she?" Scott demanded.

Joe's thick brows creased to form a single line above his nearly colorless eyes. He hadn't thought the doctor's first concern would be for the mare. "Liberty's being taken care of in her stall but—"

"Not the horse, Joe," Christian said, catching his breath. "The girl. Mrs. Brandywine said there was a rider."

Confused, Joe dug his hands into his pockets. "This way. There was a rider, all right. A young man as near as I can tell." Joe took them to the tack room where he and one of the grooms had carried Liberty's rider. He threw open the door. Sleeping or unconscious, Liberty's rider was curled in a fetal position in one corner of the room. "In here."

Christian never doubted the young man was Jane Doe. His first glimpse of her explained why Joe had made the mistake. To combat the cold she had used his shirt as a turban. It completely covered her dark hair and one of the sleeves fell over the lower part of her face like a muffler. She couldn't begin to fill out the clothes she had stolen. The shoulder seams of his woolen jacket hung halfway to her elbows. The reddened tips of her fingers were all that were visible at the cuffs. His trousers were rolled twice at the ankles. She still wore his socks but not his shoes. He wondered how long ago she had lost them.

Scott dropped to his knees beside her. He raised her pale eyelids in turn and checked her fingers. His pronouncement was grim. "Frostbite. Joe, send one of the grooms to Mrs. Brandywine. Have him tell her to draw a warm bath. Not hot, just warm. Then come back here with some blankets. We've got to get her up to the house."

"Shouldn't we rub snow on her hands?" Joe asked.

"Do what Dr. Turner wants, Joe," Christian said, brooking no argument. After Joe was gone, Christian joined Scott on the tack room floor. "What can I do?"

"You can build a litter."

"I'll carry her," he said.

"Joe Means has to do what I say, but you don't?"

"Yes," he said. "I need to do this." His voice softened as his fingertips touched the arch of Jane's exposed cheek. "I owe her."

Chapter 2

Christian paced the hallway outside the guest room where Jane Doe had been taken. After following Scott's instructions and depositing Jane in the warm bath drawn by Mrs. Brandywine, Christian had been summarily dismissed. His protests had fallen on deaf ears. Now he was nursing whiskey from a silver flask he usually kept in his bedside table while Scott nursed their patient.

Mrs. Brandywine stepped out of the room and clicked her tongue in disapproval when she saw Christian touching the flask to his lips. She knew the futility of actually saying anything so she didn't. Her clicking tongue was eloquent in its own right.

With an air of defiance more suited to a ten-year-old than someone three times that age, Christian tipped back the flask and swallowed deeply. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His cool blue-green eyes, as clear and pointed as shards of crystal when he wasn't drinking, were clouded and slightly unfocused. He pocketed the flask and laid a hand on Mrs. Brandywine's shoulder as she attempted to brush past him. "Where are you going?"

"Towels," she said tersely.

"Does Scott need any help?"

"He needs fresh, clean towels and nightclothes for your guest." She managed to control a disparaging sniff. "May I go, sir?"

"Sir?"
Both of Christian's eyebrows rose toward his hairline. "You must be
extremely
put out with me."

"How clever you are," she said. "Perhaps too clever for your own good."

"A lecture, Mrs. B.? And I thought you had given up on me." He tried to coax a smile from her with his own boyish grin.

Mrs. Brandywine's expression remained dour. The lines at the outer corner of her eyes deepened as she stared up at Christian. The earnest, slanted smile was reminiscent of the boy she had helped raise, but the eyes belonged to a man she did not know. "I light a candle for you every day," she said softly.

Christian's smile vanished. He felt her words as a blow. "I don't need your prayers."

"May I go, Mr. Marshall? Dr. Turner will be wondering what's become of me."

Christian released her. "Go. Go on. Get out of here." Even in his fogged state of consciousness he saw Mrs. Brandywine's blink of hurt surprise. "Jesus, Mrs. B., I'm sorry. I didn't mean..." He stopped because she was walking away. Christian leaned against the wall and shut his eyes briefly, rubbing them tiredly with his thumb and forefinger. Dear God, he thought, when was the last time he had done something right?

Some minutes later Scott's call for help from the guest room roused Christian from his self-pitying trance. He crossed the hallway in two uneven strides and twisted the door handle. "What's wrong? Has something happened to Jane?"

Scott did not glance in Christian's direction. He was kneeling over the tub, one arm braced around his patient's shoulders to keep her upright. "Nothing's happened to her. I was calling for Mrs. Brandywine. Where are those towels?"

"She's getting them." He shifted his weight uneasily, not certain if he should stay or go. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Come over here and hold her up. She slips under when I let her go, and I need to examine her feet again."

Christian exchanged places with Scott, sliding his arm around Jane's naked shoulders. Her head rested heavily in the crook of his elbow. Her closed lids were pale, nearly translucent, making the silky fringe of her lashes seem jet black in comparison. His eyes shifted uncomfortably as he tried to avoid looking past Jane's shoulders. The water did not quite reach the level of her breasts, and it did nothing to hide the length of legs or the slim curves of her waist and hips. The mere fact that he had to control an urge to look at her more closely made Christian feel uneasy if not precisely perverted.

Scott lifted Jane's left foot out of the water and examined her toes. He depressed the tip of her toes gently and firmly, then the sole of her foot and the heel. "It embarrasses you, doesn't it?" he asked, glancing at his friend.

Christian could have pretended he didn't know what Scott was talking about. He didn't bother. "A little. I'm not sure I even understand it. It's not as if I've never seen a naked woman before."

"Now there's an understatement." Scott chuckled. "This house used to see more naked women than Madame Restell's."

"They were models. And they were nude, not naked."

"There's a difference?" Scott asked.

"Most times," Christian said. "They also did not parade in and out of here unclothed, and my mother was a frequent visitor to my studio. Neither she nor my father would appreciate you comparing this house to that abortionist's bordello."

"Would you want to paint her?"

"Who? Madame Restell?"

Scott rolled his eyes. "No. I mean Jane."

Christian did not take the bait. "I don't paint anymore."

"You sketched her. You told me you did, and you were willing to make another—from memory, I might add."

"That was different."

"Oh?"

"Leave it, Scott. Why are we even having this conversation? Shouldn't you be concentrating on your patient?"

Scott's eyes met Christian's for a long moment. "I have two patients," he said quietly. His eyes dropped away, and he gently lowered Jane's foot into the water. "She has second-degree frostbite on her fingers and toes." He lifted her right foot and touched each of her toes in turn. "As near as I can tell the deep tissues aren't damaged," he explained. "See? The surface of her skin is still hard but the underlying tissue is soft. I can depress it. If this were deep, unthawed frostbite, then her flesh would feel solid, and I wouldn't be able to depress it."

"But her skin is so red."

"That's due in part to the rewarming." He pointed to the small blisters on the tips of Jane's toes. "These might be a good sign. If the frostbite were worse, it's likely she wouldn't have any blisters, or at least not this early. We'll know more in twelve or so hours. If more appear, then it means her tissues are more badly damaged than I think they are now. There will be additional swelling and some burning and tingling as the surface area thaws."