Free Captive of Sin by Anna Campbell Page B

breathing threatened to split his chest in two.
    Efficient hands removed the disgusting bowl. The same hands, soft and gentle, pressed a damp cloth to his burning forehead. He closed his eyes and groaned at the bliss of that coolness on his burning skin.
    His belly was still rebellious. He concentrated on breathing. In. Out. In. Out.
    “Akash?” he rasped across a raw throat. Although he knew the hands didn’t belong to his friend.
    “He’s back in Portsmouth.”
    The girl. Miss Watson. Sarah.
    With difficulty, Gideon cracked his eyes open. His blinding headache built with every second. Soon, he wouldn’t be able to sit upright.
    His clothes were rank and dripping with sweat. Acrid shame for his animal filth assailed him. “I told Tulliver to take you outside.”
    Her smile was dry as the deserts of Rajasthan. She knelt on the bench at his side. Her surprisingly competent hands supported his head. He was so sick and weak, her touch didn’t make his skin crawl with familiar revulsion. He had a vague thought that helping him couldn’t be easy with her sprained wrist, but the notion drifted off like a will-o’-the-wisp.
    “Tulliver had his hands full.” Her voice softened into compassion. “Are you feeling better?”
    “He’ll have the devil’s own headache. He always does after one of his takings,” Tulliver said calmly.
    Gideon hadn’t seen anything beyond the girl. Now he looked past her to where Tulliver waited, holding the bowl.
    “He has these attacks often?” The girl’s clear gaze rested on him with curiosity and concern.
    Even in this state, his pride revolted at her pity. “I’m not an ailing puppy, Miss Watson. I can speak for myself.”
    Her lips turned down at his childish response. Which heregretted as soon as it emerged. Helping him couldn’t have been pleasant. She deserved gratitude, not pique.
    The pounding in his head made rational, connected thought increasingly difficult. He closed his eyes and stifled renewed nausea.
    “I’ll get the laudanum, lad.” Tulliver’s voice came from a long way off, masked by the painful throb of Gideon’s blood.
    “The sickness has passed,” he forced out.
    “The laudanum makes you sleep. You know sleep is all that brings you through. Do you want to stop at an inn? A bed might be better than rattling around in this rig.”
    A bed. Cool sheets. Quiet. A cessation of movement. All beckoned like the promise of heaven.
    He hesitated. He had to reach Penrhyn. Something urgent.
    He opened his eyes and saw the girl’s worried face above him in the gloomy carriage interior. Of course. If they stopped, she might run.
    They had to keep going. He’d have to accept the despised laudanum. And endure the harrowing visions.
    “No…inn.” He shook his head. Even so much movement made his stomach revolt. “Get the laudanum, Tulliver.”
    “Aye, guvnor.”
     
    As the coach rattled on through the day and into the night, Sir Gideon slept like the dead.
    At first his unconsciousness perturbed Charis. His illness had been so violent, she’d feared for his life.
    He stretched awkwardly over a bench that was too short for his height. She studied his face, pale, drawn, handsome still. The muscles around his eyes were tight, and his mouth was white with strain. The certainty built that while he might lie motionless as a stone effigy, his dreams brought no peace.
    She turned away and stared unseeingly out into the darkness. Who were these men she’d cast her lot with? Tulliver, who faced trouble with such stoic competence. Akash, clever, enigmatic like a strange foreign idol.
    Sir Gideon…
    She commanded her wayward heart not to flutter at the thought of her rescuer. It was like telling the sun not to rise. Every moment she spent with him only drew the net of fascination tighter.
    He was famous, a celebrity. The crowd in Portsmouth had pressed about him, bristling with excitement. They’d hailed him as the Hero of somewhere called Rangapindhi. Was he home after