Enticing Temptation

Chapter 14

            “I’ve done all I can for her,” Doc said several hours later as he finished bandaging Cat’s wounds, “it’s up to her and the Good Lord. Once we move her I could use a strong cup of coffee.”

            “What are her chances?” Myles asked as they both carefully moved Cat to one of the berths in sickbay.

            “Captain, all I can tell you right now is that I’m surprised she made it through the surgery. She was very lucky that that one bullet didn’t hit her spinal column or either bullet strike anything vital.  As I said before it’s up to her now and the Good Lord. We will know a lot more when or if she wakes up. Just remember you married a tough young woman, Captain. While you tell her uncle everything he wants to know, I’ll get us some coffee and let the others know she made it through the surgery.”

            “Don’t tell them anymore than she was shot twice and you removed two bullets. I don’t want them to even know she was shot in the back just yet,” Myles cautioned him.

            “As you wish,” Doc replied. “Do either of you need anything besides coffee?”

            “I’d take some brandy with a little coffee in it,” Myles replied and Doc chuckled.

            “Same here,” Trey told him. Doc nodded then closed the door behind him and Trey once more looked to Myles. “Now I want to know everything.”

            “I need to know first if you found out who the traitor is,” Myles asked him as he moved a chair near Cat’s berth and took her hand in his. His fingers felt for and found a weak pulse. Somehow just touching her made his anxious feelings about her ease somewhat, maybe Cat would know he was at her side through this, he could only hope.

            “No, I thought I was close to finding the person the information was passed to, then one night, when I was returning to my hotel, I was hit over the head and woke up where you found me. They soon realized after several rounds of torture I knew very little. I thought Zheng Ping would ransom me to my father after he learned I was now next in line to the dukedom, since my brother’s death. How he learned that I don’t know either.” Probably Farthington, Myles thought. “Qiao told me, no one sent a ransom demand to anyone that she knew of. I have no idea why they were still holding me.”

            Myles noticed for the first time, since his arrival in sickbay, how bruised and battered Trey Landsdowne’s body was from his stay with Zheng Ping. His friend had also lost considerable weight while in the man’s hands. “Cat informed me before she lost consciousness that she killed Zheng Ping and a man by the name of Andrew Farthington so they wouldn’t try to stop us or follow us.”

            “She killed them?” Trey’s surprise written all over his face.

            Myles nodded. “Cat’s part in your rescue was to scale a tall tree near the front of the compound with a rifle, a rifle with a telescopic sight on it. A rifle given to her by someone in the Foreign Office. She then shot two kegs of gunpowder stored at the compound in a building near the front. That explosion camouflaged the sound of our dynamite blasting a hole in the back wall in order for us to enter to get you and Lin Mee out. Cat is a very good shot, in case you didn’t already know that.”

            “Bloody hell,” Trey replied. “What has she been doing for the Foreign Office?”

            “She cannot even tell me all,” Myles answered. “I only know what she’s done since we’ve married and I wouldn’t know that much if the Viceroy of India hadn’t persuaded her to inform me. Bruce Bishop knows only about her first time working for them. She overheard something at one of the balls she attended her first season that pertained, from my understanding of it, to some form of deadly threat to the Queen or some other high ranking person in our government. Cat went to Bruce, who took her to his uncle.”