Harriet stretched her hand out to wipe more blood trickling from the gash on Nick’s brow. Her wrists had abrasions from the rope and a couple bright pink scratches, instead of the lacerations she’d expected. He hadn’t cut her, hadn’t spilled a drop of her blood. “What did you use to loosen the knot?”
Nick barely moved his lips, and still didn’t open his eyes. “Good luck charm.”
He didn’t resist when she uncurled his fingers, revealing the tool he’d used that she had removed from his pocket. She held it up to examine it. It looked like a large bolt of some kind that had sheared off, tapering to a narrow, sharp point.
Zach peered over her shoulder. “Your good luck charm is a broken carriage pin, lad?”
With a groan, Nick pushed himself up so he was sitting, pressing the heels of his hands to his temples, his eyes narrow slits against the pain. “It’s why the gun fell off the carriage when it went overboard.”
Harriet gasped, her hand covering her heart. She owed her life in large part to this broken piece of metal. Had the cannon stayed on its carriage, it would have dragged her straight to the bottom of the Channel with no chance of rescue. And Nick considered it his good luck charm?
Her throat grew tight. Blinking back a sudden tear, she carefully tucked the precious pin back into his waistcoat pocket. Blood continued to ooze from the gash on his forehead, so she folded the kerchief into a long strip and tied it around his head.
“Seems more like it should be Harry’s good luck charm,” Zach said. He stood and scanned the area. He gave a whistle, and there was an answering neigh and the sound of horse hoofs moving toward them.
Harriet cleared her throat, forcing herself to think of practical matters. “We need to catch up to—what did you call him?” she asked Zach.
“Marlow,” Hornsby growled. “He was a footman at the club where we were playing when Langston offered the map. Fetched our drinks and food and stayed in the room to make sure everyone abided by the rules. Must have heard you blathering on about the treasure your brother and friend hid.”
Harriet stood, holding one of Nick’s large hands in both of hers. “Up you go.” She heaved, he groaned, and he slowly climbed to his feet. He rested his hands on her shoulders until he stopped swaying.
“He was sitting by the fire in the inn’s dining room last night,” Zach said. “Didn’t recognize him until I heard him speak.”
More footsteps behind her indicated Ruford and Hornsby had collected their horses that had been grazing beneath the cork oaks. She couldn’t tear her gaze from Nick.
“I didn’t see him, but then I dined in my room and retired early,” Hornsby said.
“We need to go,” Ruford said, shaking the dust from his plumed tricorne hat and jamming it back on his head. “Be damned if that … that footman is going to cheat me out of my treasure.”
“Your share of my treasure, you mean,” Hornsby said.
At last Nick opened his eyes. “I’d have left them tied up,” he said to Zach, jerking his thumb to indicate Ruford and Hornsby.
Zach lifted one shoulder. “A moment of weakness. Uncomfortable, sitting with tree roots up your ar— … uh, backside.”
Nick raked Harriet with his gaze, taking in the dirt and mud on her clothes from rolling around on the ground. “Are you all right?”
She must look a fright, but she wasn’t injured. She nodded because her throat was suddenly too choked up to get words out. She clenched her hands into fists to conceal their shaking.
“You acquitted yourself well,” he said quietly, his deep voice a caress.
Tears welled up and she was mightily annoyed that she had been fine—angry, but fine—when a stranger pointed a pistol at Nick’s motionless body and tied them all up, and now that the threat was gone and they were safe, she was in serious danger of turning into a watering pot.
“Come here.” He tugged on her shoulders and she went, straight into his arms. She burrowed under his coat to wrap her arms around his waist and press her cheek to his chest, listening to the reassuring beat of his heart.
He ran a soothing hand up and down her back. “Mi pequeño wren marrón,” he murmured, so quietly she felt the rumble in his chest as much as heard the words.
She relaxed against him, feeling safe and secure in his embrace. As at peace as when she’d awoken in bed with him this morning, until she’d realized it wasn’t a dream and she had indeed boldly snuggled up against his big, muscular body. She didn’t know the meaning of the words he’d just spoken so tenderly but recognized the first word as being possessive. His … something.
She tried on the idea of being his … something … and found she didn’t mind. Rather liked it. Probably. She’d need to know the meaning to be sure.
He was unharmed, relatively. She didn’t want to examine why she’d panicked when she thought he’d been killed. A flash of desolation had slammed into her like a rogue wave. Even now, knowing he was safe, she still felt the aftereffect as though she’d been pummeled on a rocky shore before the surge rushed back out to sea.
They needed to get going. Marlow was getting away, farther ahead of them with every second that passed. But the drive to pursue the treasure was, at least for the moment, subsumed by Harriet’s even more urgent need to hold Nick. She’d almost lost him, and she was beginning to suspect he might be more important to her than any treasure.
Her trembling eased. His scent—leather, horse, sandalwood soap, and essential Nick—washed over her. She wanted to stay here forever. Keep holding him.
Holding Nick. She wasn’t sure when she’d stopped thinking of him as Sheffield or the Captain, but this was the first time she’d spoken it aloud. After the intimacy of sharing a bed, using his given name hardly seemed the breach of etiquette it would have in a London ballroom. Besides, she’d left “proper” behind long before she abandoned gowns in favor of sailor’s garb.
