The Highwayman Read Free

made the gentleman as comfortable as possible, miss. However, I am afraid the wound has begun bleeding again.”
    Jackson asked, “Was you wishin’ me to ride to Leeds for the doctor, miss?”
    “No,” said Jane distractedly, “there is not time. The bullet is still in the man’s, ah, wound and must be removed without delay. I shall need both of you to help me, of course.”
    Melrose was seldom thrown off stride, but now a look of shock crossed his face. “Miss Jane,” he exclaimed, “you cannot be thinking of doing this yourself!”
    “Certainly I am,” she replied. “There is no one better suited for it than I.”
    “Now there you are wrong, miss,” he contradicted her with all the assurance of an old family retainer. “It will be much more suitable for Jackson to do the job.”
    Jackson’s eyes fairly started from his head, and he backed up a step as he said, “Oh, no! I couldn’t!”
    “Do not be such a clodpoll,” recommended the butler. “You have treated all manner of ailments in horses. There is no reason why you cannot do this.”
    Appealing to his mistress, Jackson said, “Beggin’ your pardon, miss, but a man ain’t no horse. Besides, I ain’t never dug no bullet outen a horse, never mind no man.”
    Melrose opened his mouth to argue further, but an exasperated Jane forestalled him by raising a hand and saying, “Enough! We are wasting time.”
    “But, miss—”
    “If you continue to argue, the man will most certainly die, from loss of blood if not from infection. Do you wish to have his death on your conscience?”
    Both men looked sheepish but offered no further objections, and Jane said, “Very good. Now, Melrose, please find Miss Wedmore and bring her here immediately. Jackson, you come with me. I very much fear that it may take both of you to restrain our guest if he should regain his senses.”
    With that, she turned and stepped through the doorway, only to stop abruptly just over the threshold.
    Nothing in all her eight and twenty years had ever prepared Miss Jane Lockwood for the sight which now met her eyes. On the bed sprawled the stranger, his head and torso elevated on one elbow and turned towards the door. The sheet had slipped down and now covered only the lower portion of his body, with one hairy limb—the wounded one—exposed. She noted that the other hand gripped the appendage just above the wound before her stunned gaze moved upwards past an equally hairy and quite muscular chest to the face.
    Despite the shock of finding herself staring at a nearly naked male, it was the face which came close to undoing Jane. She had never seen anything so threatening in her life. His teeth were bared in a ferocious grimace, his brows lowered in a fierce scowl, and glittering black eyes glared at her menacingly.
    Jane’s first thought, quickly suppressed, was Goodness, what a magnificent-looking specimen! Her second was that she could well believe that this dangerous-looking man might, indeed, be a highwayman. Her third was. Good heavens, how have I, of all people, ever managed to get myself into such an alarming and indecorous situation?
    No matter what the man’s station in life, however, she felt somewhat responsible for his present condition, since it was her coachman—her inebriated coachman—who had caused it. And even a highwayman did not deserve to be left to the inevitable fate which awaited him if his injury remained untreated. Therefore, gathering her courage and assuming a calmness she did not feel, she forced herself to move toward her patient. A patient who looked to be extremely angry and who, she feared, was in no mood to be cooperative.
     

CHAPTER TWO
     
    Gripping his thigh in a vain attempt to control the excruciating pain there, the wounded man thought, Lord! It hurts like the very devil! Perspiration popped out on his brow and he fought against the waves of faintness which threatened to overcome him. To make matters worse, his head hurt almost as much,