Mary's Christmas Knight Read Online Free Page B

in need?”
    Mary gathered the surgical tools and rolled them in the canvas. “When you find your soul, be sure to notify yourself. Not that you noticed it missing.”
    He turned on the bed and gingerly pulled away the cut flap of fabric still hanging from his collar, revealing a gash l aterally bisecting his deltoid. He twisted to look at it, and the cut oozed yet more blood. Mary closed her eyes, blew out a breath, and when she looked again, Sir Wesley was still there, bleeding on the bed. “Very well. But for the welfare of my soul, not yours, though I may forfeit the credit to my sainthood.”
    “Forfeit? Why?”
    She sat beside him and set to cleaning the wound with antiseptic, not being terribly gentle. “‘God loves a cheerful giver,’ and all. I’ve failed — on Christmas day, to boot — and the blame is all yours. Now sit still.”
    He surprised her with a slow, beatific smile as he leaned back, tucking his other arm behind his head again. He must be most secure when projecting a lounging demeanor.
    Leaning close and nudging his torso to angle toward the lamplight, first she cleaned the needle in the flame then began to suture, ignoring his flinching. The cut ran deep; she would’ve guessed a swordfight if she didn’t know better. “How did this happen to your arm?”
    He sucked in a breath then tensed while she looped the thread to knot the stitch. “We were all too busy crashing head over ears. I have no idea. Because the coach overturned, you know.”
    Ignoring his sarcasm, she said, “I had been watching cabs slide around the corners, driving too fast all night. It’s a wonder yours was the only casualty.” Too late she heard herself sounding crass. A man had lost his life, which made her platitude all the more insufferable. She blamed it on Sir Wesley, who plainly inspired insufferability in her. “Was that man a close friend of yours?”
    “Not at all. He was in the middle of a holdup when the coach overturned.”
    “ Hold — what?”
    “Waylaying stagecoaches and robbing the passengers is what highwaymen do, madam.”
    “A highwayman? Not here in Cockington?”
    “He asked to share the cab from the Torquay station, and I was being neighborly. You could blame it on the riff-raff who loiter at train stations.”
    “Or perhaps it is you who attracts their sort. I would’ve thought you a better judge of character.”
    “And so sweetly did you sing his soul into purgatory.”
    “I’m a nurse, not a judge. Or else you would still be bleeding.”
    He let her sew a few minutes in silence, then, “T ell me, madam, why does a lady such as yourself spend her Christmas Eve in a hospital? Doesn’t she have parties to attend?”
    Ten sutures knotted, six or so more to go. “By the dozen. I already attended the country bazaar, visited the vicar and his wife, went out decorating with the Cockington Beautification Society, and I meant to attend midnight mass but was foiled.”
    “I heard no mention of a husband.”
    “Likely because I am Miss Cavendish, which denotes the lack thereof.”
    “Nor did you mention a beau.”
    The dramatic shapes of his biceps cast shadows she’d been trying to work around with limited success. She nudged his arm so he would raise it, illuminating her thread. “No, I didn’t.”
    He cleared his throat, and she rather wished he’d keep still. “Never say you’re sweet on the good doctor?”
    Mary kept her eyes on her work and hummed in disinterest. “Mister Warren? He’s quite religiously incompatible. And a bit dull for my tastes.”
    “I must agree on that point. A bland character is unpardonable. I, for comparison, am certainly not dull.”
    “You, Sir Wesley, are Beelzebub in comparison.” She clipped the knot atop the last suture, set down the tools, then opened a jar of salve. Swabbing it over the wound made him cough and gag.
    “What’s in that? It smells like a sewer.”
    “ Tea tree oil, lavender, and lemon for antiseptic. Some beeswax,