A Wicked Pursuit

by Isabella Bradford

  Nothing much had changed since she’d left earlier. The room remained full of shadows, with the exception of a single candlestick being held close to the bed by his lordship’s servant Tewkes. The earl continued to be still and pale in the bed, with her father standing solemnly to one side, his hands clasped behind his waist.

  At the foot of the bed, putting his instruments back into a leather case, was a tall, angular gentleman in an impressive wig and a costly black suit, his sleeves rolled up to the elbow, whom she guessed must be the surgeon from London. Beside him Mrs. Patton held a basin with the soiled dressings that the surgeon had evidently just changed. He turned as Gus entered, and quickly Papa stepped forward to introduce her.

  “My dear, this is Sir Randolph Peterson, here from London to look after Lord Hargreave, as the earl requested,” he said, unable to keep back his excitement even in a low voice. “Sir Randolph, my daughter, Miss Augusta.”

  “Good day, Sir Randolph, and welcome to Wetherby,” Gus said, automatically falling into her customary role as hostess. “Though I wish the circumstances were not so grievous.”

  Sir Randolph rolled down his sleeves and bowed. “I am honored, Miss Wetherby,” he said, his voice low and serious. “His Grace has often spoken of how pleased he is by his son’s admiration for you.”

  “No, no, Sir Randolph, not Augusta,” Papa said. “It’s my older daughter, Julia, who caught Lord Hargreave’s eye.”

  Sir Randolph bowed again. “Forgive me my error, Miss Augusta,” he said, clearly chagrined. “I was so eager to praise Lord Wetherby’s daughter for the thoughtful care and solicitude she has shown his lordship that it seems I confused ladies.”

  “It is not often we are confused, Sir Randolph,” Gus began, but again Papa jumped in.

  “You can still praise Gus, Sir Randolph,” he said proudly. “She’s the one who had his lordship brought back here, and looked after him until Dr. Leslie came. No one’s as capable as my Gus.”

  Sir Randolph’s smile faded, clearly more perplexed, not less. “Yet he was riding with Miss Wetherby when the accident occurred, wasn’t he?”

  “My sister sought my help,” Gus said quickly. It was one thing for her to know how Julia had shamefully abandoned Lord Hargreave in his distress, but she’d no wish for her sister’s weakness to be repeated outside the family. “But tell me, please, Sir Randolph: How does his lordship fare? What is his condition?”

  He sighed, the way doctors often did when delivering unwelcome news. “He remains in a very grave state, Miss Augusta. There are not only breaks to both tibia and fibula, but possible damage to the ligaments, muscles, and tissues surrounding them. I can make no predictions yet as to the extent or length of his recovery.”

  “But he will recover,” Gus said, a statement and not a question. “He will not perish.”

  There was that forbidding physician’s sigh again.

  “I am sorry, miss, but it is too early in the process to tell for sure,” he said. “Cases such as this one can turn so quickly if there is any onset of putrefaction to the wound, or a fever brought on from lying upon the chill ground. I have purged and bled him to relieve the foul humors, and also applied leeches to the source of the inflammation. I have examined him as closely as I can for the presence of any smaller, dangerous fragments of shattered bone, and though it is nearly impossible to know for certain, I do not believe there are any. All that can be done now is to keep his lordship as easy as we can to help promote an agreeable healing. That, and to wait.”

  Until that moment, Gus hadn’t realized how much she’d been counting on Sir Randolph, the great learned physician from London, to bring an instant cure, a miraculous turnaround. Instead he’d offered no more efficient remedy than Dr. Leslie from Norwich, and no more hope, either. To hear him speak so frankly both worried and shocked her. She glanced back at the earl’s pale, expressionless face, thinking of how abruptly his privileged life as a peer had come to this.

  “It will be best to continue the laudanum for another day or two, as Dr. Leslie prescribed,” Sir Randolph continued. “By then we should know what course to take next. We must be vigilant for any signs of a mortification or a gangrene, in which case amputation will, I fear, be inevitable to preserve his lordship’s life.”

  “Amputation!” repeated Papa. “The poor devil. I thought we were past that possibility.”

  “Not yet, Lord Wetherby,” Sir Randolph cautioned. “I have dressed the splinted limb liberally with an application of oxycrate—that is, vinegar, water, and spirits of wine—as a preventive, but from this point onward he is more in God’s hands than mine. Nurse, you may take that away.”

  Mrs. Patton curtseyed and left with the basin in her arms. Sir Randolph gathered up his leather satchel, also preparing to leave.

  “You’ll stay as our guest, won’t you, Sir Randolph?” Papa asked. “I won’t hear a refusal.”

  Sir Randolph nodded. “You are generous, my lord. I have sent word to His Grace that I will remain with his son until the danger has passed.”

  “I’m glad of it,” Papa said. “Between you and Leslie, you’ll have Hargreave patched back together in no time. Now come, pray, join me in drinking to his lordship’s recovery.”

  Sir Randolph placed his hand over his heart and bowed. “I should be honored, my lord. I’d like nothing better.”

  “To my library, Sir Randolph, my little retreat from the world’s troubles,” Father said, leading the other man from the room. “Gus, you’ll make arrangements for Sir Randolph’s rooms?”

  “Yes, Papa, of course,” she said. She must speak to the housekeeper about opening another guest room, lighting the fire and freshening the linens, and she’d also need to review the dinner menu with their cook, Mrs. Buchanan, to make the meal a bit grander in honor of their guest. “I’ll come in a moment.”

  She waited until the two men had left before she turned to Tewkes, still standing patiently beside her at his master’s bedside. He was a slight man with deep-set brown eyes and an air of quiet calm that likely made him an excellent servant, and she wondered if he’d been with the earl as long as Mary had been with her.

  She took the ring box from her pocket and held it out to him. “This fell from his lordship’s coat while he was being carried. I’m sure he’d want it back.”

  “Miss Augusta, I thank you.” Tewkes set the candlestick on a nearby table and took the box, cupping his other hand over it as if fearing it would somehow fall again. “This ring belonged to his lordship’s mother, the late duchess, and he’d be most distraught if it were lost.”

  Gus smiled wistfully, remembering the ring’s rare beauty. Of course it had been his mother’s, intended to be passed from one duchess to the next.

  “I’m certain you’ll put it someplace safe, Tewkes,” she said softly. “But before you go, I’ve a small favor.”

  “Anything, Miss Augusta,” Tewkes said, the ring still clutched between his hands for safekeeping.

  “I wish to know your opinion, Tewkes,” she said. Doctors—especially the more important ones—tended to ignore the opinions of servants, while in her experience they were often of great help. “You know your master and his habits far better than we do. Is there any change to him, however small, that the doctors might have missed?”

  “No, miss,” Tewkes said, unable to keep the sadness from his voice. Though he stood straight while he addressed her as a good servant should, his gaze kept drifting back to the earl. “All he has done is sleep. They have given his lordship so much physic that I wonder if he’ll ever wake again.”

  “It’s to keep the pain away,” Gus said. “I don’t wish to imagine how he would suffer without it.”

  “I can’t imagine any of this, miss,” Tewkes said with genuine anguish. “I hear the surgeons speak of ‘taking’ his leg, as if it were some useless rubbish to be hauled away. If his lordship was to wake and discover he was no longer a whole man, that he was a cripple—why, Miss Augusta, it would break his heart, and his
spirit, too, and I wouldn’t—”

  “Gus?” Julia hovered in the room’s doorway, uncertainly pushing the door farther open. “Gus, are you still here?”

  “One moment,” Gus said. “Thank you, Tewkes. You are a credit to your master.”

  The servant bowed, and she hurried across the room to join her sister. “Julia, I’m so glad you’ve come at last to visit his lordship.”

  “Papa told me I must,” Julia said, hanging back in the hallway. She was already dressed for dinner in a gown of pale blue changeable silk that shimmered beneath the candlelight. “How is he?”

  Gus took her hand to lead her into the room. “Come, you can see for yourself.”

  But Julia pulled back. “I don’t do well with sick people, Gus,” she said. “You know that. I’m not like you. It’s difficult for me.”

  “He’s not sick, Julia, he’s injured,” Gus said, “and it happened while you were with him. You were ready to accept his offer of marriage, and to be his wife. Doesn’t that mean you love him?”

  Julia twisted her fingers around a lock of her hair. “What would you understand about love?”

  Gus flushed. It was not so much that Julia was right about her having no experience of her own, but that her sister was being so careless about the love that the earl bore for her.

  “What I understand, Julia,” she said, “is that if you love his lordship sufficiently to wed him, then the least you can do is see him now.”

  Julia shook her head, her pearl earrings swinging against her cheeks. “I don’t believe I wish to, Gus.”

  “It’s not a matter of what you wish,” Gus said firmly, and not for the first time she felt like the older—much older—sister, not the younger. “It’s what you must do. Julia, I have no notion of what occurred between you and his lordship while you were riding in the woods.”

  “Nor shall you,” Julia said quickly, “because it’s none of your affair.”

  That was all that Gus needed to be certain that, in some way, Julia had caused the earl’s accident—not that she could ever say so to Julia. The more guilty Julia felt, the more she’d deny that she’d done anything wrong, and deny it so vehemently that no one could ever doubt her. It was always that way with her.

  “What I do know,” Gus said instead, “is that when I found his lordship, the first words he spoke were to ask for you.”

  Julia ducked her chin. “Has he asked for me again since the doctors have come?”

  “No,” Gus said, wondering again exactly what had happened in the woods. “But only because he can’t, since they’ve given him drafts against the pain, which make him sleep.”

  “Then why must I see him?” Julia asked, clearly seizing on this as a logical reason for her to escape. “If he’s sleeping, then he won’t know if I have come or not.”

  “Because in some fashion, he will know, Julia,” Gus said. “Now, you will come to his bedside, if only for a minute. It’s your duty, not only to his lordship but to our family.”

  She tugged hard on Julia’s hand, giving her no choice but to follow Gus into the bedchamber. Side by side, they stood at the earl’s bed.

  “He—he looks quite dreadful, Gus,” Julia whispered, shocked. “I do not believe I would recognize him. Oh, Gus, this is exactly why I didn’t want to see him like this!”

  “Hush,” Gus said firmly. “I’ll go back by the door, so you may say something sweet and encouraging to him.”

  But now it was Julia who grabbed Gus’s arm. “Don’t leave me, Gus, please,” she pleaded, her voice squeaking upward. “I—I don’t want to be alone with him. What should I say? What should I do?”

  Gus sighed. “You must do what feels appropriate, Julia. I can’t tell you more than that.”

  Julia clutched tightly to Gus’s arm, her eyes wide with dread. “I heard what that servant was telling you, about how Sir Randolph and Dr. Leslie want to cut off his leg. Is that true, Gus? Will they do that to him?”

  “Only if they must, to save his life,” Gus said gently, gazing down at the man before them. The flickering light of the single candlestick cast dancing shadows over his face, suggesting an animation to his handsome features that wasn’t there.

  “Oh, Gus, this is so, so unfair!” Julia cried softly. “I was so close to having everything I’d wished, everything I dreamed!”

  Gus put her arm around her sister’s shoulder. “His lordship is a young man, Julia, and in good health, too. All is being done for him that can be.”

  “But what if he survives with only one leg?” Julia said, tears beginning to trickle down her cheeks. “I’m not strong like you, Gus. I fear I wouldn’t be a good wife to a—a crippled gentleman.”

  “He’s not crippled yet,” Gus said, defensive on his behalf. “Mama said that love, true love, would always find a way past all adversities. If you and his lordship love each other, then—”

  “I cannot speak of this any longer,” Julia said, a catch in her voice. “It is too—too tragic.”

  Gus shook her head. “It’s not as tragic for you as it is for him,” she said firmly. “Unless you accidentally did something foolish to make him fall from the horse. Is that the truth, Julia? Is it guilt that makes you shy from him now?”

  Julia gasped. “How dare you speak such a thing to me, Gus? How can you be so—so cruel to me?”

  Abruptly she pulled free of Gus’s arm and bolted for the door, her skirts flying.

  “Wait, Julia, please,” Gus called after her in as loud a whisper as she dared. “Don’t leave now, I beg you!”

  “Don’t leave,” Hargreave said, his voice a rusty croak from disuse.

  Stunned, Gus looked at him. His eyes were heavy-lidded with the drug-induced sleep, but he was awake, and he was watching her.

  How had she forgotten the startling blue of his eyes?

  “My lord,” she said, more flustered than she’d any right to be. Clearly Julia’s voice had roused him, and it must be her that he wanted to stay. Gus only hoped he hadn’t understood all that they’d said. “Pray excuse me, and I’ll go after—”

  “Don’t,” he said. “You’re here now. Don’t leave.”

  Gus hesitated, unsure of why he’d wish for her, not Julia.

  “Don’t leave,” he repeated. “Stay. Sit.”

  “I’m not your dog, my lord,” she said, pulling the chair beside the bed. “I don’t need orders. I won’t leave you.”

  “Good.” His eyes fluttered closed again, as if the effort to speak even that small amount had taxed him. “Thank you.”

  She grinned foolishly, from surprise and relief, and was thankful that he hadn’t seen it. “Is there anything you require, my lord?”

  “Your hand,” he said. “You gave it to me once. I trust you will share it again.”

  At once she slipped her fingers into his as his hand lay on the counterpane, pressing against his gold ring with the onyx intaglio. She squeezed gently, so he’d know she’d done what he asked.

  He did. He smiled wearily, and she smiled, too.

  “What’s been done to me, eh?” His voice was thick with the effects of the draft, but he was still coherent. “Can you tell me that, sweetheart?”

  She blushed at the casual endearment, reminding herself that he’d still no notion of who she was. “You fell from your horse—”

  “I was thrown,” he corrected, “thrown by a four-legged devil straight from the jaws of Hell.”

  “You were thrown, then,” she said. “When you landed, you struck your head, and you broke your lower leg in two places.”

  “Ahh,” he said, and fell silent, perhaps connecting what she’d told him with how he felt.

  “Do you remember being thrown?” she asked cautiously, not wanting to pressure him, but fearing that a loss of memory could signal a more grievous wound to the head.

  “I remember that, yes,” he said. “And the devil-horse. But how or why he threw me—no. No.”

  She didn’t press, not wanting to tax him further. “Would
you like me to send for the surgeon to explain your injuries more completely? As you requested, your physician, Sir Randolph Peterson, has come up from London to assume your case, and he will be a guest of this house until he deems you out of danger.”

  “Oh, old Peterson,” he said, smiling faintly once again. “A gaming acquaintance of my father’s, and much esteemed because he tends the scrapes and bruises of the royal princesses.”

  “You have apparently proved more of a challenge,” she replied. She carefully said nothing of having also sent for his father, the Duke of Breconridge; to Gus’s surprise, there had been not a word from His Grace regarding his eldest son’s condition. It shocked her that no one in his lordship’s own family had come to him when he was in such peril, and she feared that by now he must have noticed their absence as well.

  “Do you wish to speak with Sir Randolph now?” she asked. “He will talk to you of your injuries, and his treatment.”

  “All I wish is to have you here with me, sweetheart,” he said. He shifted restlessly and grimaced, squeezing her hand hard as he did.

  “You’re in pain,” she said softly. “Are you certain you don’t want me to fetch Sir Randolph?”

  “No.” With a clearly conscious effort he opened his eyes and tried to smile. “Just . . . stay.”

  “I will, my lord.” She should excuse herself to make arrangements for dinner and Sir Randolph’s rooms, but all of that could wait a little longer. The earl needed her more.

  “Silk,” he said suddenly, surprising her again. “Your skirts.”

  She nodded, wondering at the significance.

  “I noticed,” he said, almost proudly. “Wetherby must pay his serving maids well.”

  “His serving maids?” she repeated. It was, she realized, an obvious mistake to make. From habit she dressed for comfort and practicality, not for style, and she’d none of Julia’s inborn elegance to betray her rank. “Oh, my lord, I’m not a serving maid.”

  “The viscount’s housekeeper, then,” he said. “You’re young for the role, but I’ve no doubt you’re very accomplished at it. I’ve seen what you’ve done for me. You’re a prize.”