She moaned a few mumbled words.

“ ’Twill be all right, lass,” he answered as he carefully tucked the towel around her hips. Did the sound of her voice affect the other men like it did him? Perhaps not, since Laszlo possessed the same politely helpful expression he usually had.

“Did she just say, ‘Don’t touch me’?” Laszlo asked.

“Aye. She said that when I first found her. She may be afraid her nudity will incite men to abuse her.” Connor noticed that her hair had fallen over her face when he’d shoved her onto her stomach. He brushed her hair back to make sure she could breathe. “Doona fash, lass, we willna harm you.”

“Don’t . . .” Her eyelids flickered, then closed.

“Och, she’s out again.” Connor straightened and discovered Roman regarding him again with a curious look. His cheeks grew warm. So he was displaying some normal human kindness. Was that so strange? He lifted his chin. “So do ye plan on helping this woman or letting her bleed to death?”

Roman’s eyes glinted with amusement. “Let’s get her cleaned up, Laszlo.”

The short chemist passed Roman a bottle of antiseptic cleanser and some gauze pads. When Roman doused her burns with antiseptic, the woman moaned.

“Ye’re hurting her,” Connor protested.

“We have to protect her from infection.” Laszlo smoothed some ointment over the burns. “This will help with the pain and promote healing.”

“She may end up with some scars,” Roman commented as he began to clean the wounds across her shoulder blades.

She flinched, then moaned again.

Connor grimaced as he saw the two cuts now clearly defined on her back. Each one looked about six inches long. Fortunately, they had stopped bleeding.

Roman finished cleaning her wounds, then tossed the bloody strips of gauze into a metal pan. His eyes narrowed as he examined the cuts. “This is . . . odd. At first, I assumed the slashes were caused by a sharp instrument like a knife or sword, but if you look closer, you’ll see the skin is burned.”