THE PERFECT TEN (Boxed Set)

aside."
    He grinned without humor, displaying square, even teeth beneath a red mustache. Just as Angus again shook his head, a gut-wrenching moan—-sufficient to raise the hairs on Beth’s arms —emanated through the thick door at his back.
    Without giving it a second thought, Beth slammed her knee into the towering Scot’s groin.
    “ Merde! ” Rachael squealed as Angus, ashen faced, dropped to his knees, his hands cradling his testicles.
    As he rolled onto his side groaning, Beth hiked her skirts and stepped over him. “Sorry, Angus, but you gave me no choice.” She reached for the door latch. “Rachael, be a dear, and take care of Angus, si vous plait .” As the door swung open, Beth exhausted her limited high school French by adding, “ Merci .”
    Beth found Duncan, ghost white, on a small cot, his left arm dangling over the edge. The old man at Duncan’s side scowled at her then turned his attention back to Duncan’s forearm where blood poured from a four-inch gash.
    She raced to Duncan’s side and asked, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
    The old man ignored her as he scrambled to collect Duncan’s blood in a wooden bowl.
    Beth knocked the bowl from the man’s dirty hands and pushed him aside. She pressed on the wound to stem the flow and felt heat radiating off Duncan’s body. “My God, he’s burning up.”
    “ Nay , my lady!” The doctor tried to push her away. “Ye must let the foul humors drain. ‘Tis the only way.”
    “Take your filthy hands off him!” She slammed an elbow into the old man’s ribs. The man’s body odor alone nearly took her breath away.
    She applied firm pressure to her husband’s wound and bellowed, “RACHAEL!”
    When the Frenchwoman poked her head through the doorway, Beth said, “Get this idiot out of here and find something to bind Duncan’s wound.”
    “Pardon, madame ?”
    Beth took a deep breath, and tried again, this time at a much slower pace. “Please take the doctor away and find a dressing for this.” She moved her hand so Rachael could see the wound the fool had inflicted.
    “Oh! Oui, madame .” Rachael waved toward the door. “Doctor’, si vous plait. ”
    “Rampe woman!” the doctor growled as he collected his questionable medical kit.
    Beth returned his glare. “What did you just say?”
    Rachael bit her lower lip. “He thinks ye rude, madame .”
    “I don’t care what he thinks so long as he gets the hell out of here.” Beth placed her free hand on Duncan’s forehead. Her husband’s fever had to be one hundred and four degrees, at the very least. Did they have aspirin in the fifteenth century? And what on earth could cause such a fever?
    She bent over him. “Duncan? Can you hear me?” He hadn’t so much as blinked during her altercation with the doctor. “Can you open your eyes?” He didn’t respond and her worry escalated.
    She needed to undress him and needed two hands to do it. She looked about the monastic room for something to bind his wound. Finding nothing, she pulled at the left sleeve of her gown. It was fairly clean, unlike her skirt, which had been dragging over dusty stairwells and filthy rushes. Wrenching the sleeve free, she wrapped it around Duncan’s heavily muscled forearm. Having successfully stemmed the bleeding, she turned her attention to the difficulty of undressing her unconscious husband.
    Beth had managed to free one of Duncan’s arms from his jacket when Angus lunged through the doorway. He face was a mask of rage as he held himself upright on the door.
    “My lady,” he growled, “ye’d best—-“
    “Stop threatening, Angus, and get over here.” She pushed hair off her face with a shaking hand. Her throat burned, felt raw. She started wrestling Duncan’s left arm out of his shirt. “He’s burning up—fevered. Help me get him undressed.”
    Angus staggered toward the bed. “Move.” He pushed her aside. Not trusting him, Beth scooted to the opposite side of the bed.
    “Oh my God!” Her hand flew to her mouth as Angus rolled her husband and she could see the jagged wound stretching across Duncan’s left shoulder. Eight inches in length, it was a nauseating mass of mustard yellow, purple, and scarlet. Inflammation in the surrounding tissue looked like rays radiating off a setting sun. The few stitches that held it all together strained over the wound’s bulging, purulent core.
    Angus looked over his liege lord’s shoulder to see what she gaped over and moaned.