Chapter Ninety
Candice couldn’t eat. She was too sick. It was finally, blessedly, dusk.
Jack was still staked out, passed out. His calves, genitals, and hips were an angry red, his thighs a lesser shade of red, even his torso and arms and face, normally dark from the sun, were burned, but less badly.
She had tried to get past the guard at her door with water in midafternoon.
She had fought and screamed and cursed, kicking wildly, and it had taken another soldier to help restrain her, and then she had been locked in her quarters.
She picked up her plate and threw it at the wall. It gave her no satisfaction.
She heard footsteps outside. She froze, having no idea what to expect.
The door was unlocked, and she saw Major Bradley first, then Jack.
Slumped, being dragged by two men, barely conscious.
She couldn’t believe it. They helped him into her room and dropped him across the bed. With a strangled cry she flew to him.
“Oh, Jack.” She sobbed, touching his hair, clutching strands of it, wrapping them around her fingers.
His one eye opened, vague, unfocused. Then he saw her, and confusion mounted. But he recognized her. “Candice.” A ragged whisper.
She needed salve, grease, anything. She grabbed the pitcher of water and ripped her petticoat. Then she realized Bradley was standing there, watching with great interest. “Please,” she said, “get me some grease. Please.”
She turned to Jack, but was very much aware that Bradley had not moved.
Why had he brought Jack there? She helped him to drink.
She knew that throughout the day the soldiers had given him small sips of water, under orders, enough so he wouldn’t die.
He knew better than to drink too quickly. He was so stoic.
She wet the cloth and carefully, very carefully, began to clean his face. She wiped off the blood and was relieved to see that he didn’t need stitches. She was as gentle as she could be. He watched her, without expression. But not warily.
His nose was crooked. Candice set aside the rag, giving him a falsely assuring smile. Then, in one motion, she snapped it back into place. He grunted, but when he looked at her she thought there was a faint glint of humor in his gaze. It was hard to tell.
“Don’t worry,” she whispered, stroking his thick, dust-coated hair.
She wanted to know why they had been given this respite and had the awful, instinctive feeling that Bradley was about to close the steel jaws of another trap.
She wondered if this was all for nothing, to keep him well enough to be able to talk, so that he could be hanged properly later. The feeling of sick fear increased.
“I will try not to hurt you,” she said, moving aside the edge of the bandage and wishing she had lard to soothe his burned body.
He said nothing.
So far there was no sign of infection, the one blessed part of this whole ordeal. Jack was looking at her, and she realized finally that she saw trust and relief in his eyes. It overwhelmed her with the desire to weep.
He knew. He knew she would never betray him.
She touched his hair. She wanted to tell him she loved him, that she always had and always would, but Bradley was behind her, so interested in everything she was doing.
“Come here, Candice,” he said. “I didn’t bring him here for your ministrations.”
She started, standing slowly. She looked into his eyes for a clue. Coldly gleaming. She looked at Jack, lying prostrate, but attentive on the bed. “What now? Can’t you please bring me some lard?”
Bradley gave her a small smile, went to Jack, and in the blink of an eye cuffed one red wrist to the bedpost. He straightened. “Never underestimate your enemy,” he said conversationally. “Take off your clothes, Candice.”
“What?”
“Perhaps your husband enjoys voyeurism? Perhaps not. We shall see. In any case, undress.”
She stared, unsure. Jack was rigid, expressionless, unmoving, “If I sleep with you, will you release Jack?”
“Your charms are not that great. I expect him to speak up before I actually have to rape you. Of course, we can avoid much unpleasantness if he speaks up now. Where is the stronghold?”
Jack stared impassively.
“Undress,” the major said, removing his own jacket casually. “And after I’m through I’ll let my soldiers at you—every woman-starved one.”
Candice sucked in her breath. “Jack will never tell you what you want. Even if you do rape me.”
“I think you’re wrong,” the major said. “I think even a man reared by the Apaches would eventually break down. Especially as my men will more likely than not tear you apart—literally.”
Candice looked at Jack. “It’s all right,” she told him, unbuttoning her blouse.
“It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t matter.
Don’t say anything.” Their gazes met. She saw that his mouth was clamped hard together.
She tried to reassure him silently. She pulled off her shirt, letting it drop to the floor.
She let her skirt drop to her ankles. Her petticoat followed.
She was wearing nothing underneath—she had no pantalets. She shrugged out of her chemise.
“Incredibly beautiful,” Bradley said, a touch of huskiness creeping into his tone. He smiled, stepped closer, and reached out to cup her breasts. “Incredibly beautiful.”
Candice looked briefly at Jack, and saw that he was trying to control his breathing and his anger. She tried to ignore the major’s caressing hand. “I won’t give you the satisfaction of raping me. I won’t fight you.”
“Has he tasted your mother’s milk?” Bradley murmured, and he bent his head, taking her nipple in his mouth.
Jack lunged upward against the cuff. If he hadn’t been so weak and hurt, he would have gotten to his feet and dragged the bed with him.
Candice looked wildly around the room for a weapon.
Her eyes lit on Bradley’s gun, but it was in a buttoned-down holster.
He doesn’t really know me, she thought with sudden hope. She was his enemy too.
She looked frantically at Jack. He was gesturing at the tray where her dinner plate had been, on the table by the bed. What did he think? There was no knife there, they hadn’t given her one. Then she saw the lead paperweight, in the shape of a bear.
“Good God.” Bradley gasped, coming up for air. “Your milk is so sweet.” He was shaking.
Candice pulled him a step toward the bed, sinking onto the floor, the table with the paperweight not far from her head. She smiled, lips parted, as if she were highly aroused, and beckoned for him, legs and arms spread.
He came, unbuttoning his pants and freeing his member.
He knelt, moving on top of her. Candice felt a stab, both of fear and a tentative thrust that could not penetrate past her dry skin.
Jack! Could he reach the damn paperweight?
Normally that would be easy. But he was so weak.
And Bradley was battering her, trying to enter, with all the clumsiness of a schoolboy.
And then she saw Jack’s hand, heard his grunt of pain, and she averted her own head as the paperweight came crashing onto Bradley’s skull, not a perfect shot by any means, skimming the side and his temple.
He stared wildly at her for an instant, his movements stopping, stunned and not comprehending.
Like a snake, Candice had her hand on his holster, was unsnapping it and releasing the gun. She sent it crashing against the same temple, and he slumped on top of her with a breath of exhaled air.
She lay very still, her heart pounding. Then she shoved him up and rose, to collapse on the bed at Jack’s side. He was panting, eyes closed. “We have to get you out of here,” she said.
He opened his eye. “Get the key,” he said hoarsely.
She scrambled to obey. She found it in one of Bradley’s pockets, then unlocked the handcuffs. Jack sat, staring at her. On the floor, the major stirred.
Jack stood, picking up the gun, moving to the window. There were two soldiers at the front door. He went to the other window. It was just around the corner from the major’s quarters, but it was the only way out. He paused, then, to regard her steadily. Grimly.
“You’re leaving me!” She gasped. “You’re leaving me and Christina?”
“You’ll be all right,” he said. “I hit the major, not you.” It was a warning.
“Jack! But—” She stopped, unable to believe it as he cuffed her wrist to the bedpost. Then he climbed through the window, naked, gun in hand, and dropped silently and stiffly to the other side. She clapped her free hand over her mouth. He was leaving without her. The major groaned.
Jack paused for the barest of seconds, and his gaze locked with hers. His was filled with resolution. Candice watched helplessly, feeling as if her heart were breaking, again. “Please don’t.” She gasped.
And then he was gone. She sat shaking, naked, her right wrist handcuffed to the bedpost. He was free, but she felt only an agonizing pain in her heart.
He had left without her.