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She nodded, not seeming surprised by his answer. Her hands never paused in their work on his restraints.

“Then you need to rest,” she said, her tone practical but gentle. “But not for too long. They will figure out that they left the blade eventually and will come looking for it. Or worse, the Cardinal will arrive, and then we’ll never get out of here.”

“How do we leave?” he asked, then flinched as a particularly sharp stab of pain shot through his ribs.

“I have a plan,” she reassured him. The shackles gave way, releasing his wrists from their iron prison.

He flexed his fingers and rotated his bloody wrists, relishing the freedom.

“Does that plan involve me getting up?” he asked weakly, trying to add a humorous lilt to his words. “Because if so, it might just fail.”

It must have worked because she chuckled softly at his words.

“Rest first,” she said, and then he felt something cool and damp pressed gently against his face. The sensation was so unexpectedly soothing that he couldn’t suppress a small sigh of relief.

“What is that?” he asked, leaning instinctively into her touch.

“Just a wet cloth,” she answered. “My way of preserving water.”

In his battered mind, he didn’t quite understand what she meant. But the cloth was blessedly cool against his fevered skin, and her touch was infinitely gentle, and that’s all that mattered.

She shifted closer to him, and he found himself leaning against her slight form, drawing strength from her warmth and presence. Her free hand came up to cradle the back of his head, her fingers threading gently through his matted hair.

“Rest,” she whispered, and the word carried with it all the permission he needed to let his guard down, to stop fighting the exhaustion that threatened to claim him.

“Yes,” he answered, his voice barely audible even to himself. “But not for too long.”

Chapter 18

Leila lifted the wooden cup to Gideon’s lips, tilting it slowly so he could drink without choking. The water was stale and lukewarm, but she watched his throat work as he swallowed, noting the relief that flickered across his battered features.

“Slowly,” she murmured when he tried to drink too quickly. “Just small sips.”

After he had taken what he could manage, she set the cup aside and turned her attention to cleaning his injuries. The sight of blood on his face, the swelling around his eye, the split in his lip—it all twisted painfully in her chest.

This was her fault. He had been hurt protecting her.

She reached for the hem of her already tattered shirt and, without hesitation, tore off another strip of fabric. The piece she managed to tear away wasn’t large, and it wasn’t exactly clean either, but it would have to suffice.

Dipping the improvised cloth into her precious water supply, she wrung it out carefully—wasting even a drop felt like a sin in this place. Then she began to clean the blood from his face.

He winced when she touched the area around his nose, and she immediately lightened her pressure, barely grazing his skin as she worked.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered each time he flinched, though she wasn’t sure if she was apologizing for the pain she caused now or for being the reason he was hurt in the first place.

When she had done what she could with his wounds, she reached for the stale bread from her own meager ration and broke it into small pieces, offering them to him one at a time. He ate slowly, but she could see some color returning to his face as the food settled in his empty stomach.

“Your hands are cold,” he observed quietly, his voice still rough but stronger than it had been.

Leila glanced down at her fingers, noticing for the first time that they trembled slightly—whether from cold or the aftermath of fear, she wasn’t certain.

“Yes, well,” she said, attempting a light tone, “England is not exactly a sunny paradise. I’ve grown accustomed to constantly being cold here.”

A ghost of his old teasing smile played at the corners of his mouth. “Are you certain it’s constantly? Because I remember you being very warm… hot even, at one point during our acquaintance.”

Her cheeks flushed as the memory of their passion flashed before her eyes, making her heat despite their current circumstances. She found herself pursing her lips in mock disapproval.

“You’re not allowed to use that as a jest when you’ve shamed me for it,” she said, though there was no real anger in her voice.