A Breath of Scandal Read Free Page A

your father finds a mate worthy of you.”
    “Maybe I’ll never marry, Grandfather,” Lara ventured. “I will not marry without love.”
    “I feel confident you will find a man to love, little one.”
    Lara glanced toward the wagon. “What do you suppose is taking so long?”
    “If anyone can heal the wounded
gadjo
, ’tis your grandmother. You must have patience.”
    Patience, Lara thought, was something she’d never had in abundance. Then suddenly the door opened and Rondo staggered out. He was white as a sheet and looked ready to lose the contents of his stomach.
    “Rondo! What is it?”
    “Ramona is digging out the bullet in his back now, and the one she removed from his shoulder is festering. ’Tisn’t a pretty sight.”
    “Bullets? More than one?” Lara said.
    “Two. He was shot once in the shoulder and again in the back. The infection is serious and still might kill him despite Ramona’s healing skills.”
    “I’m going in,” Lara said, striding resolutely toward the wagon.
    “Lara, the man’s naked,” Rondo said, grabbing her arm.
    Lara shrugged away. “Someone needs to help Ramona. Obviously you’ve no stomach for it.”
    Rondo made another grab at her but Pietro stopped him. “Let her go,” the older man said. “No one can stop Lara when her mind is made up. Haven’t you learned that yet?”
    Lara opened the door and stepped inside the wagon. Her gaze darted to the bed, where Ramona was bent over the inert body of the man she’d found on the beach.
    “Hand me that bottle of disinfectant,” Ramona said crisply. “If you’ve come to help, make yourself useful.”
    Lara found the disinfectant on the nightstand and handed it to Ramona. “How is he?”
    “Still alive.”
    Lara’s gaze was drawn to the bed, to the man lying atop the covers. He was naked but for a cloth covering his loins. Lara couldn’t look away. This man was no peasant, nor was he a common sailor. He wasn’t Scottish, either. He hadn’t the Gaelic look about him. Beneath his beard his handsome face was patrician, and his long, lean body was too elegant to come from peasant stock. He appeared to be a man who kept his body in top shape.
    His chest was broad, his biceps prominently defined. Lara had no idea what lay beneath the cloth covering his loins, but it had to be as impressive as the rest of him. Yet it was his face to which her gaze kept returning. His lips intrigued her. They were full and sensual, inviting all kinds of wicked thoughts. His lashes were indecently long for a man; his eyebrows were as dark as his hair and elegantly curved. His square chin was entirely masculine. Lara tried to envision the color of his eyes but soon gave up.
    “What are you doing?” Lara asked, returning her gaze to Ramona.
    “I’m squeezing out the infection. There’s little more I can do. The bullet in his back was difficult, and dangerously close to his lungs. Hand me the needle and thread. I’m going to sew him up. Then we wait, and rely on a higher influence to make the decision of life or death.”
    “I’ll sit with him, Grandmother,” Lara said, pulling a chair close to the bed.
    Ramona finished stitching the wounded man and settled a blanket over him. She searched Lara’s face, then nodded acquiescence. “I will return soon.”
    “Grandmother,” Lara implored, “tell Grandfather that we mustn’t leave for the fair at Lockerbie until your patient can travel. The roads are rough. Jostling him about in the wagon could kill him.”
    “I will discuss it with Pietro,” Ramona said as she let herself out the door.
    Lara sat beside the wounded
gadjo
, waiting for him to open his eyes. Questions about him burned her tongue. There was so much she wanted to know. His name. Where he came from. Who wanted him dead. A small voice within her whispered that there was more to this man than met the eye. She knew Ramona sensed it too, for she seemed to know things no one else knew. Ramona could read a person’s palm and