Every eye settled on the superiorly smiling face of Baron Royce. He turned once to look at the woman struggling in Langston’s arms. His small eyes followed the trim lines of her body as she tried to escape from her captor.
“Please, Baron, this has gone on long enough. Stop!” she begged.
He simply laughed as he stared again at Wythe, who was waiting silently within the deadly range of his long-barrelled pistol. Although he knew most men at this juncture would fire in the air, appeasing honor, Royce sighted his weapon on the center of Nicholas’s chest. “Say farewell to your husband, my lady.” His finger contracted on the trigger.
The sound of the shot was loud in the morning quiet, but was muted by Rebecca’s scream as she saw her husband fall to the ground. In her hysterical fear, she found the strength to break out of Curtis’s grip. She sprinted across the grass to where Nicholas lay motionless. Her fingers shook as she placed them against the life pulse in his throat. It still beat strongly, but erratically. She pushed aside his arm which was draped across his chest. A soft intake of breath filled the clearing as she saw the bullet hole in his shoulder, just below his collarbone.
Disregarding the men gathered by the baron, she stood up, raised her black serge skirt, and ripped a long piece of material from her muslin petticoat. Gently, she wrapped it around his shoulder. Because of the blood flowing onto the ground beneath him, she knew the bullet had gone clear through his body.
When the doctor came over to examine her work, she picked up the pistol which had been lying on the ground next to his outstretched fingers. She quickly checked the trigger mechanism. Although it was clearly jammed, she did not know enough about this kind of gun to know if it had been tampered with. Her eyes were filled with blue sparks of rage as she turned to face Baron Royce.
Slowly, she stepped toward him with the gun raised in his direction. Hearing the shouts from the men, she smiled coldly. Her eyebrows went up in an unconscious imitation of her husband’s. “You don’t back away in fear, Baron? Could it be that you know that this pistol won’t fire? A gun that has misfired once can fire most correctly on the second attempt, but you show no fear that I might do this.” She pulled the trigger calmly. The man blanched as nothing happened.
“Coincidence? Will the sheriff see it as such?”
“I have done nothing wrong, Lady Foxbridge!” he averred, but he was clearly shaken by her allegation.
With the regality of her title, Rebecca said, “We shall see about that. You had better hope Nicholas doesn’t die, sir, unless you are prepared to face a trial for murder.” She turned and went to where Sims was carefully bringing the carriage to where Nicholas still lay.
Curtis tagged after her. “Here, Rebecca, let me take that. You don’t need to worry about this. I will have the gun checked for tampering.” He handed her her hat, which had fallen from her head as she rushed to Nicholas’ aid.
“Thank you,” she replied softly, as she gave him the pistol. “If Nicholas dies, that man will never come to trial. I will kill him myself.”
“Rebecca!”
She did not reply to Curtis’s astonishment as she climbed into the carriage to help ease her unconscious husband into it. When his head rested on her lap and his long legs on the seat opposite, Curtis swung up to sit next to Sims. As gently as possible, the coachman turned the vehicle toward Foxbridge Cloister.
Intent on her husband, Rebecca did not look back to see the satisfied smile that had returned to Royce’s face. He had done as he had agreed, although his shot had been high. If all went well, Lord Foxbridge would die from his wounds and be a problem no more.
Screams of horror met them before they reached the door. Quickly, Rebecca instructed the servants to take Lord Foxbridge to his bed. She wanted hot water and clean cloths and whatever was available for wounds in the still-room brought to her immediately. Brody was instructed to send for the doctor. She would have preferred to have Dr. Scott attending Nicholas, but did not want to offend the loyal family doctor.
When she started up the stairs, a hand grabbed her arm and brought her back. She was spun to face her enraged mother-in-law. Lady Margaret demanded, “Are you satisfied, Rebecca? You have been the cause of your husband’s death.”
Coldly, in a tone she had never used to the older woman, she said, “I haven’t been the cause of Nicholas’s death, but you will be if you don’t let me get upstairs and take care of him!”
“How dare you!”
As the servants watched in secret satisfaction, Rebecca drew herself up to her slightly more than five feet of height and said, “I am Lady Foxbridge. This is my house. I will say and do as I please in this house, Lady Margaret. My husband has been wounded because of a gun which was tampered with. Is your hate for me more important to you than your son?” She started up the stairs before turning on the second riser to say, “If you wish to discuss this after Nicholas is well and that man brought to trial, I will be glad to do so. Until then, I will not be countermanded in any orders I give on Nicholas’ behalf.”
Although she heard her mother-in-law call, she ignored her as she raced up the steps. Rushing along the hallway, she reached their suite just as the men who had carried Nicholas into the house were coming out of the room. Each gave her a glance of sympathy as she thanked them for being so gentle with the wounded man.
Throwing her jacket on a chair, she crossed the room to see Nicholas resting on the pillows where her own head had been just a few short hours before. She went to the ewer and dipped a cloth in its cooled water. She placed it on his forehead. In his unconscious state, she had no idea where he hurt other than the hole in his shoulder. Until the doctor could check him, she did not want to risk hurting him more. She locked the door leading to the sitting room. She knew the door to her room was locked because the key rested, as it always did, against her skin.
As gently as she was able, she pulled off his boots and dropped them out of the way by the dresser. With no more resistance to her efforts and with no more help than a rag doll would have given her, his arms sagged around her as she removed his coat after cutting away the section near the bandage. That part she did not want to disturb. She did the same with his fine lawn shirt. For the first time, she saw the scar of the wound he had suffered five years ago. It was a crease under his left ribs. Unhooking his stockings attached to the button closing his breeches at the knee, she pulled them off his legs.
She pulled the blanket over him to keep him from taking a chill although the air was luxuriantly warm on this late-summer morning. When a knock sounded on the door, she called quietly, “Who’s there?”
A gruff male voice demanded admittance, but she opened it only when she was sure it was the doctor. Although others waited, she refused to let them in.
“Later,” Rebecca said gently when she saw the tears on Eliza’s face. “He’s still unaware of anything. As soon as he awakens, I will call you.”
The young woman nodded silently, knowing that to open her mouth would release all the sobs beating against her ribs, demanding a chance to escape in a great burst of hysteria. If Rebecca could be brave, she must be also. When Curtis pulled her down to sit next to him on a settee, she leaned her head against his shoulder to wait out what might be a long vigil.
Closing the door, Rebecca watched uneasily as the doctor removed the makeshift bandage and scrutinized the wound. Although she waited anxiously for him to say something, he was silent as he redid the covering. He stood and repacked his medical supplies.
“Doctor?” she queried.
“Who are you?” the squat, grey-haired man demanded sharply.
Startled, she realized that he had not noticed her while being involved with his patient. “I am Rebecca Wythe, Nicholas’ wife.”
“Oh, excuse me, Lady Foxbridge. I had forgotten that Lord Foxbridge has a wife.” He smiled compassionately. “It is a clean wound. Fortunately, it was bandaged quickly before dirt could get into it. I assume that was your handiwork, my lady.”
&n
bsp; Dismissing his unspoken praise, she stated tersely, “One learns much when there’s a war going on all around you.”
“You learned well. If it doesn’t fester, and there’s no reason to believe that it should, he should be up and about in a week or two.” He picked up his hat. “Damn dueling! It continues to confound me why otherwise intelligent men will face each other over incidentals. It was a shock to hear that Lord Foxbridge was involved. I didn’t think he would be as foolish as his brother.”
“He had no choice.” She glanced at the bed. “Why is he still unconscious?”
He patted her arm. “I think he must have hit his head when he fell to the ground with the concussion of the shot. That is nothing to worry about, Lady Foxbridge. I will be going now. If you need anything, don’t hesitate to send a boy over to my house.”
She thanked him and returned to the bedside. Dragging a chair near, she prepared to sit by him until he awoke. She had not counted on how long it might be and how exhausted she was by the emotional upheaval of seeing her husband shot before her eyes. Not until she felt a hand move over her hair in a tender caress did she realize she had fallen asleep with her head on the bed. Wiping the sleep from her eyes, she looked up to see Nicholas smiling at her.
“Not much of a hero, am I?” he asked in a gruff voice.
“How are you?”
He smiled weakly and wrapped his uninjured arm around her to pull her mouth over his. Although the kiss was brief, it said much of the love they had admitted so recently. He winced as he tried to move to face her more easily.
Plumping up some pillows, she placed them behind his back to raise him into a propped position. She promised to return immediately, then went to the windows and opened the drapes wide to let in the midmorning sunshine. By her guess, she had slept for nearly an hour.
Rebecca turned to find his dark eyes regarding her intensely. He asked, “It is a distortion of my mind, or did you really tell me that you love me?”
She smiled. “I told you, and I will tell you as often as you want to hear it. I love you, Nicholas Wythe, even though you are stupid to try to get yourself killed by that cheat.”
“The gun jammed.” He cursed imaginatively.
“He knew it would, I am sure. Why else would he have waited so patiently for you to fire? He knew your shot would disable him. I gave your gun to Curtis to have it checked. If what I think will be found is discovered, Baron Halsey Royce will find himself facing a charge of attempted murder!”
He motioned for her to come to the bed again. When she would have sat on the chair, he took her hand. “Here with me, my love.”
Happily, she rested against him as he placed his arm around her. They spent a few minutes simply speaking of the duel and what had happened from the time he had been shot. He chuckled as she told of confronting the baron with the useless gun. Although he knew there was little chance of proving that the gun intentionally had been fixed not to fire, the story that Royce had shot him in such a manner would make the man a pariah in society for a long time.
Realizing she could avoid it no longer, Rebecca told him that his family was waiting to see how he had fared. She started to rise, but he laughed and pulled her back onto the pillows. Leaning over her, he was smiling as his lips flitted lightly to her eyelids, her forehead, her cheeks, the tip of her nose. Her own lips turned upwards in a soft smile.
“Kiss me,” she begged, in a half-joking tone.
“In time, my love, in time.”
The husky rasp of passion in his voice urged her to put her arms around him and pull him down to rest with her in the nest of their love. She was afraid to hurt him if she touched him. All she dared to do was run her hand along his bared right arm.
Her eyes closed, and her body swayed toward his to feel him next to her. His right hand learned the variety of shapes of her body that he had waited to touch for too many months. He could not love her as he wanted, but it would not take him long to regain the strength sapped by his wound.
As his mouth continued to tease her, he unbuttoned the front of her shirt to slip his hand against the warmth of her skin. When his fingers followed the pleasing curve of her breast to its tip, she gave a soft moan of uncontrollable delight. At the same moment, his mouth settled firmly on hers to feel her desire building to that cataclysmic peak he longed to share with her.
A violent spasm of pain erupted through him as he moved his left shoulder. Immediately Rebecca sat and frowned. In the fantastical forgetfulness of rapture, she had not thought of his injury. She climbed out of the softness of the tester bed and redid her shirt. Bending, she kissed his forehead.
“We have all our lives for that, Nicholas, my love,” she admonished him gently. “You must get better. Then we will see if you are still interested in this.”
As she turned to go to the door, he grasped her hand. His eyes drilled deep into hers, eliciting a wave of yearning to submit to his loving. “I will never stop being interested in making love with you, Rebecca. Once you learn what it is that we can share, you will feel the same.”
“I don’t know,” she whispered, “but I want to learn, if you are my teacher.”
Lifting her fingers to his lips, he repiled, “As soon as possible, my love. As soon as possible.” Suddenly, he smiled. “Go, and get the family before they burst from worry.”
Rebecca went to the door, trying to control the trembling of her fingers that echoed the hasty beating of her heart. She had had a small sample of Nicholas’ love, and she had been left with the longing for more. Her voice quivered as she said, “Eliza, Curtis, he’s awake. Where is Lady Margaret? He is able to see all of you.”
“How is he?” asked Curtis as the young woman went for her mother.
She smiled. “He should be fine. Have you checked the gun?”
“You aren’t going to like what I found. I took the gun out behind the stables and tried it myself. It fired perfectly. If you had pulled the trigger one more time, you would have killed Royce.”
Her face paled as she turned away to lean against the wall. All the joy she had known in Nicholas’ arms vanished as she thought of how close she had come to killing Baron Royce. As much as she had threatened to see the man dead, she would have been haunted all her life if she had shot him outright.
Curtis put his arm comfortingly around her shoulders and drew her close. His hands sympathetically caressed the tense muscles of her back. “I know you want to think that Royce set up Nicholas, but it appears it was just a bit of bad luck. It could just as easily have been the baron who had chosen that gun.” He turned her face to him and gazed down into her incredibly beautiful face. Although Eliza was the women he hoped would one day be his bride, he could not help admiring the loveliness of Lady Foxbridge. Any man who looked at her wanted to possess her. He put those thoughts from his mind. “Luck was on Nicholas’ side after all. Royce was aiming his gun to kill him.”
“Why does he hate Nicholas so? Do you know?”
The man started at her blunt question. “Me? Do I know?” He forced a smile which covered his own turbulent emotions. Exactly what he knew, he was not going to divulge. “My dear Rebecca, I know Royce from the season in London, of course, but as to why he would choose you and Nicholas to torment, your guess is as good as mine.”
She sighed. The door to the hallway opened, and the two Wythe women entered. This was yet another trial she had to face. After her sharp words to her mother-in-law earlier, she knew she would have to apologize profusely.
Lady Margaret said, “He’s awake?”
“Yes,” Rebecca answered meekly. “He wants to see you. You can go in, if you wish.”
“If I wish?” she demanded with a frigid sniff. “Do you forget I am his mother? Of course I wish to see my son. I am not accustomed to being kept from my children’s bedsides by the very ones who endangered them in the first place.”
Stung by the venom of the words, Rebecca backed away from the closed door to allow them to enter. When the three had g
one in, she went instead to her own room. Ringing for Collette, she ordered her bath and fresh clothes to make herself presentable for the multitudes who would be swarming to the house to obtain all the gory, grisly details of the duel. The gossipmongers would have spread quickly the story of the jammed gun and the wounding of Lord Foxbridge.
From beyond the closed door connecting her room to Nicholas’, she could hear the soft murmur of his family’s voices. It was a family to which she would never be welcomed. Sometimes Eliza treated her very kindly, but Lady Margaret seemed determined never to forget that Rebecca was far from the proper wife for the respectable Lord Foxbridge.
She thanked Collette when everything was arranged. Undressing, she slipped into the tub. The water was deliciously warm, and she longed to be clean of the blood which had stained her hands so deeply that a quick rinsing in the bowl in the other room had failed to scour it away.
Soaping the remains of the powder from her hair, she wished she could wash away all of the events of the last day with the exception of her declaration of love for Nicholas and his for her. It seemed as if the fates were determined to keep them from bringing that love to full fruition. She smiled at the bubbles that were being rinsed from her hair. It was just a matter of time before the nights would be sweeter than the honeysuckle blossoms woven in the hedgerows.
She dressed in a formal gown of light green which would signal to her inevitable guests that there was no reason to be mournful. When she brushed her hair back, she ran through it a velvet ribbon that matched the bows on her gown. Standing before her mirror, she was satisfied with her appearance. She wanted to look as if the lady of Foxbridge Cloister did not consider this whole event to have any importance to her, her husband or the estate.
Her riding habit was on the floor where she had dropped it. She bent to pick it up and place it over a chair. As she did, she saw the wide splotch of blood staining the skirt where Nicholas’ shoulder had rested against her during the ride from the dueling green. She fought to keep from crying as she let it fall to the floor again.
Rebecca Page 24
