Her pack.
Patrick spun around in the chair and picked up the worn leather bag. He tried to hand it to her, to place it beside her on the cot. She was too weak to speak. Too weak to tell him what she wanted. But it was clear she wanted something, and that something was inside her pack.
He unlatched the flaps and looked inside. He saw nothing out of the ordinary—socks, underclothes, traveling papers, sanitary towels. He dug through the rest of the bag, finding nothing interesting at all. What could she possibly want? He looked down at the stack of traveling papers in his hand. Patrick pulled them out, asking if they were what she needed.
But Linley’s eyes were closed. She’d slipped back into her own little world.
For curiosity’s sake, Patrick untied the twine holding her traveling papers together. He leafed through them, one by one, until something caught his eye. It was a photograph clipped from a magazine. And it was of him.
How on earth did she get it? Patrick remembered sitting for the photograph a year or so before. It must have come out in one of the papers—Country Life, or The Bystander, or another one of those society magazines. He hardly ever read them, but Georgiana told him he was mentioned often.
He held it between his thumb and index finger, noting there was not a crease, not a wrinkle, not even a torn edge of the flimsy paper image. Linley obviously took great care with it. Treasured it, even. She had carried him with her halfway around the world. Always within reach. He might as well have been tucked in her skirt pocket.
Patrick knew women kept photographs of men they fancied—exactly the same way men kept photographs of beautiful ladies. Back at Kyre, he had a few Winifred Barnes postcards hidden in the drawers of his night table. But, never in his life had he imagined someone kept photographs of him.
What did it mean?
The photograph was exactly what Linley wanted him to see. No question about that. Perhaps she wanted him to know how she felt—after all, she did believe she was on her deathbed. People usually confessed that sort of thing, Patrick guessed. He slipped the image of himself back the between the sheets of her traveling documents and retied the twine. Closing the latches on her leather pack, he sat it in the corner just the way he found it.
But then he stopped.
How could he sit there and accept Linley’s death? Watch her die without so much as lifting a finger to help her? She deserved a chance to live, and with everything they’d been through, Patrick knew he owed her that much.
He picked her pack back up and slung it over his shoulder. He’d lost his mother, his brother, and his father. He had not been able to save them. And he might not be able to save Linley, either. But, by God, he was certainly going to try.
Patrick shoved as many of Linley’s things into the leather bag as quickly as he could. She would need her boots, her clean clothes, and her rain slicker. He would not have time to gather his belongings if they expected to make it out of the monastery without being noticed. They couldn’t afford to draw attention to themselves. It would be hard enough dragging her outside without anyone seeing them.
He reached down and scooped Linley’s limp body into his arms. She weighed next to nothing. Patrick doubted either of them would survive the journey—one inept, and the other incapacitated. He had no idea how to survive in the wilderness, even if he set out adequately prepared. They were leaving with little more than the clothes they wore. The cards were stacked against them, Patrick knew, but for once in his life, he was not going to sit back and accept his fate. If he died out there, he would go down kicking.
“Going somewhere?”
At the sound of the voice, Patrick jumped. He spun around to see Schoville blocking the door.
The man took three slow steps into the room, his eyes never leaving Patrick’s. “I had a feeling you would pull something like this.”
Clutching Linley against his chest, Patrick squared his shoulders.
“Only, I had no idea you’d be this reckless,” Schoville continued. “Do you really expect to just pick her up and walk out of here? Trot out into the forest without so much as a tent or a canteen?”
“She deserves a chance to live.”
“Walking out of here would be suicide for you both.”
Patrick ground his heels into the floor, refusing to budge not one inch. “I don’t care. I’m taking her.”
“Good,” Schoville said. “Because if you weren’t, I was.”
“What?”
“I don’t agree with Bedford any more than you do,” the man explained. “Which is why I am going to help you. God knows you’ll need it, from the looks of you.”
“You…you’re going to help?”
“That’s right. But understand that I’m not doing this because I like you. I am not on your side. I’m on Linley’s.”