by Kelly Bowen
“So you keep saying. But I can’t, for the life of me, figure out what that is supposed to mean. You’re not who? The man who had a different woman in his bed every week? The man adored by society for his charm and dashing good looks?”
“The man who didn’t do the right thing when he had the chance.”
His answer caught her off guard. She’d expected him to argue. To protest. To try to paint himself in a better light. Yet he had done none of those things.
Rose rested her forehead in her palms, at a loss for a response. She knew she should say something reassuring. Something gracious. It would be the proper, charitable thing to do, especially given that her instincts were telling her that Dawes truly hadn’t been aware of the cruel hatefulness Anthony had left in his wake.
Except she still wasn’t feeling charitable.
Mostly she was feeling confused. Because there was a stranger standing by the window of her studio.
“I’ll go.” Dawes walked past her, heading for the door.
Rose offered no argument, nor did she try to stop him.
Dawes paused, his hand on the doorknob. He didn’t turn back to look at her. “For what it’s worth, I apologize for those drawings. Whether you believe me or not, I regret whatever pain they inflicted.”
He opened the door and vanished.
Chapter 6
Eli leaned against the low stone fence at the base of Avondale’s lawns and gardens. On the other side, grasslands filled with wild flowers rolled away before they were brought up short by the jagged edge of the cliffs. Mercifully, there wasn’t another soul in sight, his only company the seabirds that soared overhead. Eli shaded his eyes with his hand and wondered if this was how he would live out the rest of his days. Trying to regain a sense of duty and conscience while avoiding everyone and everything that served to remind him just how little honor had marked his past life.
He stared out beyond the edge of the cliff at the sea, the line between cloudless sky and water difficult to distinguish in the brilliant light. The sun glittered off the surface, and where the surf met land, a spray of a thousand diamonds sparkled in the air with each muffled crash. To his right the distant outline of Dover Castle was just visible over the rise of the land, and beyond that Eli knew that the town itself would be awash in sunlight where it sat cradled in its valley beside the sea. There was a beauty to this place that Eli had never appreciated before. An empty wildness that seemed to suit him now.
Because empty was exactly how he was feeling.
Until Rose presented him with those drawings, Eli had forgotten that they ever existed. He had put them out of his mind after Anthony had shared them with him, in the back of their club amid too much brandy and too much smoke. His recollections of those nights were a little hazy, but Eli remembered quite clearly that even then, he hadn’t found the drawings funny.
But he had said nothing to Anthony to convey that. He had done nothing, not comprehending how disgraceful that was. Not even considering the possibility that the pictures would ever be exploited at the expense of their targets. Not for one second considering that he should rebuke Anthony for his careless cruelty or simply toss them into the nearest hearth. His lack of consideration made him complicit and made Rose’s assumptions about him not baseless, but deserved.
And he had no idea how to set that to rights.
He might have stood there for minutes or hours, left alone with only the gulls for company. But even they seemed to have ceased their never-ending laments as though they were waiting to see what he would do. Above him the sun beat down steadily, making him feel hot and restless and agitated. It had been a mistake to come back here. Or perhaps the bigger mistake had been to believe that he could come back and seamlessly claim an unfamiliar future without having to be accountable for the past. That he could claim a life he wasn’t even sure he really wanted.
A shout carried on the breeze made him twist and look back toward Avondale. Someone was riding a horse up the drive, leaning low over the animal’s back, gray coat flapping in the wind, dust churning under the pounding hooves. From this distance he couldn’t see who it was, but the urgency was obvious as the horse rounded the back of the manor and vanished from sight. A distance behind the rider, at the top of the drive, an empty farm wagon of some sort was also turning into the drive, skidding slightly. It too barreled toward the house.
Eli pushed himself away from the fence, ignoring the small voice inside his head beseeching him to stay where he was. To avoid whatever and whoever was descending on Avondale now. But the other part of him, the part that was already irritated that his sanctuary had been invaded by a finishing school for a dozen temperamental debutantes, refused to let him turn back. The last thing he needed or wanted was more uninvited commotion. Whatever the hell was going on here at his house would be dealt with and terminated immediately.
Eli reached the lawns in front of Avondale just as a blond man drew the wagon to a sloppy stop, gravel spraying from beneath the horse’s sliding hooves. He jumped from the bench and bolted around to the back of the wagon, disappearing from sight. Eli was loping across the expanse now, displeasure propelling him up the drive, past the blowing horse and around to the back of the wagon. Where he came to an abrupt halt and stared.
The empty farm wagon was not empty at all but built to conceal a compartment underneath the bed big enough to hide a man. Like the one the blond driver was now helping to his feet from the back, swaying and staggering, the front of his shirt soaked through with blood. Behind him, in the hidden space, were two wooden crates and what looked like three long leather tubes, the sort that architects used to store blueprints.
“What the hell is going on here?” Eli wasn’t sure what part of the scene before him he should address first.
Both men looked up in alarm and took a hasty step back. Their reaction was expected. What Eli hadn’t expected was to discover that the slight man being propped up by the driver wasn’t a man at all but a boy, no more than twelve or thirteen. The youth was ashen, his face a mask of pain.
The blond driver wedged an arm under the boy. The driver had the lean edges of one who lived hard. A former soldier, perhaps. A man fallen on difficult times. Or maybe both. “The boy’s been shot. He needs a doctor.”
“Shot?” Good God.
“Dr. Hayward was just ahead of us. Told us he’d meet us at the front.”
Eli straightened. Dr. Hayward. Otherwise known as Harland Hayward, Baron Strathmore. Rose’s brother.
“I have to get…I have to take…” The youth was mumbling, his words slurred.
“Charlie, lad, I’ll see everything gets where it needs to be,” the driver soothed him. “I’ll take care of it. And Dr. Hayward is going to take care of you, I promise. You’ll be all right.”
The boy opened his mouth to say something else, but his eyes rolled up in the back of his head and he crumpled, pitching forward.
The driver swore as Eli sprang forward and caught the boy. Without considering what he was doing, he lifted him into his arms. The boy didn’t weigh nearly enough.
“He needs to get inside. Please.” The driver had a smear of blood across the yellow detailing on the front of his faded blue jacket.
Eli frowned. “Artillery?”
The driver blinked. “What?”
“You have an artillery jacket.” Worn and patched and faded, but recognizable even still.
“Third British Infantry, foot battery,” the driver muttered. “But that was a long time ago—”
The front door crashed open, and a tall man with sharp features, dark mahogany hair, and a dusty gray coat stepped out. He stopped abruptly as he caught sight of Eli holding the insensible, bleeding youth. “Rivers.” He didn’t look pleased.
Nor did he bother to hide his clinical appraisal of Eli’s face. Eli supposed he should have expected nothing else, given that the man had been a physician long before he had been a baron.
“Strathmore.” He hadn’t seen Harland Hayward i
n a lot of years. Not since before the war.
The baron turned to the blond driver. “Go, Mr. Wright. Before you are found here by people with questions I imagine you don’t wish to answer. Let Mrs. Soames know what has happened and that Charlie is in my care.”
Mr. Wright hesitated. “She’s going to want to come here. To see her son.”
“I know. But I also know that she and the girls can’t afford to miss a day’s worth of work. Please tell her that Charlie will be fine and that I will return him to her just as soon as he’s well enough. She has my word that he’ll be safe here.”
“Aye. I’ll tell her. Thank you, Dr. Hayward.” Mr. Wright backed away from Eli and bent to close the wagon’s hidden compartment. He glanced back only once before climbing up into the front of the wagon and urging the horse into a smart pace down the drive.
“Bring him in, Rivers,” Strathmore said in a curt voice. He turned on his heel and strode back into the house.
Eli followed, trying not to jar the youth too much. Blood was dripping over Eli’s arm to spatter on the pristine white marble of Avondale’s hall floor.
“Welcome home and all that,” Strathmore tossed over his shoulder. “Sorry about your floors. I’ll make sure to have them cleaned.”
“I don’t care about the damn floors. What I’d like to know is why I am carrying a bleeding boy who’s been shot into my home.”
“The boy needs a doctor. Avondale was convenient. Ah, thank you, Rose.”
Eli looked up to find Rose hurrying down the wide staircase with a bulky black bag clutched in her arms.
His heart thumped painfully. Was this going to happen every time he saw her?
Rose faltered as she caught sight of Eli before recovering and handing the bag to her brother. “Of course.”
“I need you to fetch Rachel for me,” the baron told her, barely breaking stride. “I think Clara has the students in the gardens. Use some discretion.”
Rose nodded. She glanced at Eli without a word before disappearing toward the back of the house.
“If you have no objections, Rivers, take my patient to the kitchens.” Strathmore was speaking in precise, clipped syllables. “Put him up on the table.”
“The kitchens? Surely there is somewhere more comfortable—”
“There is an abundance of light, clean surfaces, and boiling water,” Strathmore said coolly. “Your staff is familiar with the routine. This isn’t the first patient I’ve treated here. If you wish to discuss alternative options later, I’m all ears, but I’d prefer not to tarry now, given the circumstances.”
Eli felt his jaw clench, but he obeyed. Gingerly he made his way down the narrow servants’ hallway to the kitchens. The massive wooden table in the center of the room that his aunts had used for casting with their students earlier had been cleared, and Eli set the limp youth down with as much care as he could.
“Thank you for your assistance, Rivers. I’ll take it from here. This no longer concerns you.”
“I’ll stay.” Like hell was he just going to be dismissed like a scullery maid by a doctor turned baron, in his own house no less. As much as Eli mourned the loss of his solitude, Strathmore was wrong. What happened in Avondale concerned him very much.
The baron gave him a long look but didn’t argue. He merely turned and began unpacking the contents of his black bag on the long counter behind him.
“Dr. Hayward.” The dark-haired Haverhall student who had stared at Eli so openly this morning hurried into the room, wiping her hands on a towel she carried, and Eli instinctively turned away. But this time she barely glanced at him and went directly to the side of the boy lying motionless.
“Good afternoon, Rachel,” the baron replied.
“Single shot?” she asked, setting the towel aside and inexplicably peeling back the edge of the boy’s bloody shirt with quick efficiency.
“That’s what I was told,” Strathmore confirmed, not looking up.
“You don’t have to be here, Dawes.” Eli had been staring at the boy on the table and hadn’t heard Rose approach. “We don’t need you here.”
I don’t want you here. That was what he knew she meant. He turned sideways, hating the way his chest tightened. Maybe he would crawl back to Belgium. Because having Rose this close, seeing her this often and knowing she was lost to him forever, was nothing short of torture. And he had only himself to blame.
“I already told your brother I’m staying.”
“Suit yourself.” Rose moved to collect a bucket from near the hearth and poured steaming water into a bowl.
The dark-haired student called Rachel had picked up a small knife and was deftly cutting the tattered remains of the boy’s shirt from his body. Against the pallor of the boy’s skin, the hole above his right clavicle that was still oozing blood was easily visible. She bent over the patient, her fingers prodding the entrance of the wound. The boy moaned faintly but didn’t stir.
“What are you doing?” Eli snapped, unable to help himself. He wasn’t sure what the hell was going on in here or what he had walked into, but he was sure that, in his absence, propriety hadn’t slipped so far as this. If the young lady was indeed a student of Haverhall, she would be the daughter of a distinguished peer or someone else wealthy enough to afford the obscene tuition that Haverhall demanded. She should be in a music room practicing the pianoforte or maybe the gardens practicing her watercolors. Not poking arbitrarily at a bullet wound in a half-naked boy in his kitchens.
“Ah.” Strathmore brought a roll of instruments bound in leather over to the young woman and set them on the table beside the boy’s head. “Miss Swift, may I present Eli Dawes, aspiring earl. Rivers, Miss Rachel Swift, aspiring surgeon.”
Perhaps Rose had been right. Perhaps whatever had damaged his face had damaged his wits, because nothing in that caustic introduction had made sense. Worse, he couldn’t seem to recall any nobility with the surname of Swift, and he had once taken great pride in knowing all the right people.
Strathmore straightened. “The Earl of Rivers asks an excellent question, Miss Swift. Please do tell his Lordship—and me, of course—what exactly it is that you are doing.”
Rachel selected an instrument from the roll and considered the still form in front of her. “The bullet and all cloth fragments need to be removed from the wound. The bleeding, while initially profuse judging from his clothing, seems to have slowed, suggesting that no major vessels have been irrevocably damaged. His breathing appears even and steady, indicating that his lungs have not been compromised. I recommend widening the wound as preventative debridement, removing all foreign matter, irrigating profusely with an antiseptic. Suture in a fashion to allow drainage as it heals. Fly larvae can be introduced later if there is a need.”
Strathmore looked pleased. “Very good. I concur. Please proceed.”
Eli felt his jaw slacken, and it required an effort to close his mouth. “But…”
“You disagree, Rivers?”
Eli wondered if Strathmore might be mocking him. “I…no.”
“Good. ’Tis a wonder all surgeons are not women,” the baron mused as he moved to grasp the patient’s arms. “Her sutures put mine to shame. Since you insist on staying, hold the boy’s feet if you will. If we’re lucky, he stays unconscious. If we’re not, I have no desire to add a scalp laceration to his list of woes when he topples off the table. He’s stronger than he looks.”
Eli glanced at Rose, but she was busy rolling what looked like bandages. And seemed not at all surprised or taken aback that one of her debutantes sounded like a damn field surgeon.
“How was this boy shot?” Eli asked loudly, because of all the questions that were banging away at the inside of his mind, this was the one that seemed as if it might get a real answer.
The baron frowned faintly. “Someone aimed a pistol at him and pulled the trigger.”
“Who?”
“Garrison soldiers.”
“Why?”
“I am told they belie
ved him to be a smuggler.”
“Is he?”
“Of course not. His name is Charlie Soames. I’ve treated his siblings for croup.” Strathmore peered at the wound more closely. “Cut a little more on the upper edge, Rachel.”
“Then why was he shot?”
“He and a colleague were moving a barrel of salted herring they had acquired in an attempt to keep their families from starving.”
“Acquired?”
“I didn’t ask for details.”
“And his colleague was the man who brought him here? Who just left him?”
“Matthew Wright is a good man. He left because I told him to.”
“A good man who had wares concealed in a wagon?”
“As I said, Rivers, I didn’t ask for details.”
“And I’m supposed to believe that he’s not a smuggler wearing the uniform of his country—”
“What would you have him do, Rivers?” Strathmore asked evenly. “When he can’t get work on the oyster boats or the fishing boats or the docks? Starve? Let his ailing father starve? Join the thousands of veterans in London who are begging on every street corner for work or a handout? You haven’t been back long enough to understand that the men, the common men who fought alongside you, have returned to a country where work is scarce and the taxes levied on the average folk to pay for too many years of war have taken their toll.”
Eli’s hands curled into fists at the reminder of his prolonged absence. It felt like an accusation. “The soldiers who shot this boy—where are they now?”
“Who knows? But they’ll show up eventually. Because people with holes in them tend to show up on my doorstep.”
“My doorstep,” Eli corrected him. “And will you surrender this boy to them?”
“We are not in the habit of handing over to the authorities boys whose only crime is to protect and provide for their families. Young Mr. Soames here has a mother and two younger sisters who depend on him.” Strathmore was still watching Rachel’s ministrations critically. “Watch the angle of your forceps, Miss Swift.”
