Thirty-two
Jonathan stopped resisting and followed Evangeline and Kiya to a nearby tent. A middle-aged woman turned away from a rough wooden table laden with clay jars and mortars and pestles. Dried herbs were strung up with rope above the table—lavender, thyme, sage. He didn’t recognize the others.
The healer spoke to Kiya.
“She wants you to remove shirt,” Kiya said.
When he hesitated, Evangeline crossed her arms and frowned. “Do as she says.”
“Erm…”
He discarded the notion of asking her to turn her back. They were pretending to be married, after all. Snatching the hem of his shirt, he lifted his arms, wincing.
“Let me help.” Evangeline gently pulled the shirt over his head and stepped back to examine his wound. Her eyes widened. “Oh!”
The healer returned to the table, rattling jars as she grabbed the ones she wanted.
Kiya came closer to peer at the cut. “Only a scratch. I wait outside.”
“Thank you,” Evangeline muttered, her gaze locked on Jonathan. Unabashedly, she studied him as if he was an artifact in a museum.
His body heated as her gaze slid over his chest and abdomen, dropping even lower where a bulge was beginning to show.
“A-hem.”
A pink blush spread across her cheeks, but she still didn’t look away. Her curiosity made him smile.
“Do you want to paint my portrait, love?”
“You’re already a work of art.”
He swallowed a groan and forced himself to go sit on a stool farther away.
The healer returned with a light yellow salve and showed her how to spread it thinly over his wound. Evangeline sniffed the jar.
“It’s a little like dried hay.”
“Calendula,” he said. The orange flowers grew in the medicinal garden at Dom’s villa.
The healer covered the cut with a clean cloth and secured it with a long strip of linen wrapped around his torso. After she tied it off, she called for Kiya and handed the jar of salve to Evangeline, along with a few rolls of linen and a pouch of herbs. Kiya translated her instructions.
“Change every day. The herbs are for fever or pain.”
Jonathan pulled his shirt over his head, and Kiya led them to Nekara’s tent where she’d first received them.
Charles Wedmore was seated at her table with a platter of dried figs, olives, nuts, and what appeared to be venison set in front of him.
“Eat,” Nekara said when he tried to stand.
The muscles in his jaw bulged, but he sank back onto the cushion. Nekara rose to greet them.
“He needs his strength to walk.”
“Are you releasing him?” Evangeline asked.
“Dakan is satisfied.” Her dark eyes narrowed on Jonathan. “You fought well for a musician.”
“I learned from my wife’s uncle.”
It was only a half-lie.
She nodded, but her expression remained guarded. “Menar will escort you to the mountain pass. It is best you return home. I will not be as merciful if you are captured again.”
Jonathan bowed. “Yes, First Matron.”
He and Evangeline helped Wedmore stand and held on as he took a few wobbly steps. Kiya, Menar, and a small band of warriors were waiting outside with the donkey.
“Salve is here,” Kiya said and patted the pack on Timothy’s side. “And a clean shirt. Menar does not need.”
Menar protested, and the couple bickered in their language. Eventually, they chuckled, and Menar kissed her cheek.
Wedmore shook off Evangeline and Jonathan when they tried to support his weight. “I can do it.”
“Take,” Menar said, passing him a walking stick.
As the party began the arduous trek back to the main path through the mountains, Wedmore fell behind, but Jonathan didn’t offer assistance again.
The man had his pride. Instead, he watched over Evangeline, catching her when she stumbled over a tree root.
When they reached a boulder, he held her hand, tugging as she climbed over it.
The midday sun beat down on them as they reached the mountain pass. Menar pulled Jonathan aside and gave him three bladders filled with water.
“Take family from Athens. Soon it is dangerous.”
Freedom or death. The young men had been chanting this in the market place before the riot. Jonathan had heard rumblings about an uprising against the empire, and Menar’s warning confirmed it for him.
“I will.”
They couldn’t return to England—not as long as Wedmore had a bounty on him—but Jonathan would find somewhere safe for them until he could prove Evangeline’s uncle wasn’t the traitor. If the Semkari were involved with the unrest, Dom should leave, too.
“Do you need a rest?” Jonathan asked Evangeline and her uncle.
Wedmore shook his head. “Not here.”
Jonathan turned to thank Menar, but he and his men were already gone. Wedmore took the donkey’s rope and led the way.
An hour later, they began the descent down the mountain.
Jonathan kept Evangeline close. The pale dirt shifted beneath their boots without warning, but he was there to catch her each time.
Their progress was slower than when it was only the two of them, but Wedmore’s fortitude was impressive.
Jonathan saw where Evangeline had gotten her drive.
They reached the base of the mountain just before dusk.
“We’ll camp here,” Wedmore said and led them off the trail and into a clearing with massive rock ledges jutting from the mountain. They wouldn’t need to set up the tent tonight.
Wedmore pointed. “There’s a stream not far that way.”
Evangeline took Timothy’s lead. “Help me remove his packs, and I’ll water him. I want to wash away the dust.”
Jonathan was hesitant to let her go alone, but he could hear the burble of water over rocks. Close enough for him to reach her if there was any danger.
When she was gone, Wedmore nearly collapsed on the ground.
He sat with his knees drawn up and drank from the bladder.
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he gulped the water.
It dripped down his chin, wetting his shirt.
Once he had drunk his fill, he swiped a sleeve across his mouth. His amber gaze was hard.
“You’re a Regent’s man.”
Jonathan took a deep breath. “I am.”
“And you married my niece.”
Heat licked his face. “No, sir. It was a cover to explain why we were in the mountains.”
If he thought Wedmore’s gaze was cold before, it was glacier now. “You used her to find me.”
“No—” How could he deny it? He was guilty of the charge, but something had changed soon after she came to the villa. He had changed—or he became the man he was before his recruitment into the Regent’s Consul. “She…Your niece is my everything. I love her.”
“If that’s true, you need to tell her.” Wedmore leaned toward him. “Tell her that you’re here to do Farrin’s dirty work.”
A gasp filled the silence. Jonathan whipped his head around to find Evangeline pale-faced and frozen.