“Come on, Cap’n, I’ll be gettin’ ye out o’ ’ere,” Barnet muttered.
Attempting to draw his resisting master’s arm over his shoulder, looming above him like an angry, protective giant, Barnet now seemed bent on flight. The imposter, repelling Barnet with an impatient gesture, looked steadily at Gabby.
“ ’Tis a pity you and your sisters will be obliged to miss the season,” he said with an air of gentle regret, his voice quiet enough so that it could not be heard beyond the four of them. “The accepted mourning period for a brother is a year, I believe, is it not? And afterward, no doubt you will find your circumstances much changed.”
Gabby stared at him. She had only to tell what she knew, and he would be exposed for the charlatan he was. In his injured state, even with Barnet’s help, he had little hope of escape. Any punishment he might suffer would be well deserved. . . .
But she and her sisters, who certainly deserved nothing of the kind, would suffer, too. Once word of Marcus’s death was out, Cousin Thomas would assume his rightful position as the new earl, and she and Claire and Beth would be sentenced to a life spent, at best, as poor relations.
With all the surety of an incontrovertible truth, it hit her that permitting this man, whoever and whatever he was, to act the earl would surely be better for herself and her sisters than allowing Cousin Thomas to assume the title.
Unless, of course, he murdered her and Jem before her plan for securing the future could come to fruition.
All hung on what she did next. Her gaze met the imposter’s, and held. It was time to choose the path of honor and truth, the path of personal safety. . . .
Which was also the path of poverty and loss, for Claire and Beth as well as herself.
“You are undoubtedly a scoundrel,” Gabby said through her teeth, meeting his gaze. It occurred to her that if she had made a hellish bargain when she chose to keep Marcus’s death a secret, then here before her must be the devil himself, come to drive the bargain home. Then, finding that what she had thought was a choice was really not one at all, she raised her voice so that she could be heard by everyone.
“You had best allow us to send for a surgeon, Wickham,” Gabby said clearly, still holding his gaze. The imposter greeted her change of heart with the merest flicker of a smile and a slight inclination of his head. Beside him, Barnet stared at her suspiciously. At her own side, Jem gasped and then seemed to swell with indignation.
“Miss Gabby . . . what . . . Miss Gabby . . . !”
Transferring her gaze from the imposter—no, Wickham now, she reminded herself—to her servant, she caught Jem’s eye even as he began to sputter denials, and shook her head.
“Keep silent,” she whispered fiercely for his ears alone. Face working as he took in what had just occurred, Jem nevertheless obeyed, looking for the briefest of moments as if he were being forced to swallow a particularly nasty-tasting dose of medicine. Then his mouth closed with an audible snap. His gaze flew to Barnet and he looked at the bigger man with the kind of loathing he generally reserved for would-be horse thieves.
Then there was no more chance for private discourse of any kind.
“Begging your pardon for intruding, my lord, but I was awakened from sleep by what sounded like a gunshot in the house.” Despite being practically thrust into the room by the combined efforts of those behind him, who spilled in after, Stivers managed to retain his dignity as well as his feet.
“Gabby, what’s happened?” Claire, breaking through the logjam of people to hurry across the room to Gabby’s side, spoke at almost the same moment as Stivers. Claire managed to look fetching even while sporting a lace-trimmed cap tied under her chin to keep her curls silky smooth through the night, and demure although only a rather shabby lavender shawl had been thrown over her billowing nightdress. Behind her, Beth, wrapped up in a blue damask coverlet with her hair in long braids, stopped short just inside the door to stare at Wickham.
“Marcus is bleeding,” she said.
A chorus of gasps ensued as the eyes of all the newcomers focused on Wickham. For a moment the gathering stood frozen. Then they all rushed forward almost as one, exclaiming and chattering among themselves as they crowded around. Gabby found herself jostled, and glanced around to discover that she was hemmed in on all sides.
“Oh, Marcus,” Claire gasped, clutching at Gabby’s arm as she took a closer look at the injured man, whose blood now spilled freely onto the carpet as his shirttail, which was wet through, could absorb no more.
“My lord!” Twindle wrung her hands in horror as she took in the full measure of the disaster. “Oh, dear, my lord, you look pale as can be. Here, here, use this to press against the wound.” Tearing off the nightcap which she wore tied over her braided and wound gray locks, she passed it to Barnet. Barnet accepted it with a look of revulsion, but nevertheless folded the snowy linen into a pad and knelt again to press it to the wound.
“O’ course ’e looks pale. Look, there’s a bloody great ’ole blown in ’im,” scornfully averred one of the newly hired footmen, who then blushed under Twindle’s withering glance.
“The watch must be summoned at once. Only tell us who did this, my lord,” cried Mrs. Bucknell, who was glancing wildly around as if expecting to find a burglar hiding in the shadows.
“I fear it is quite my own fault: I was clumsy with my pistol,” Wickham said to them all, in a voice that was surprisingly strong. “I am ashamed to admit that I put it in my coat pocket, thinking it unloaded, and when I went to take it out again it went off.”
“Stivers, as you can see, His Lordship is wounded. I was just sending Jem to fetch you.” Gabby took charge with the ease of long practice. Clearly, if constructive action was to be taken, she would have to organize it. “A surgeon must be sent for right away. I am sure you will know where one is to be found.”
“Yes, Miss Gabby.” Clearly shaken by the sight of his bleeding master but with the air of one rising nobly to the occasion, Stivers acknowledged the directive with a brief bow. With an imperious gesture at the still-blushing footman he retired into the hall, said footman following at his heels.
“I told you, I need no surgeon. Barnet can do all that is required.” Wickham, practically draped over the chair now, gave Gabby a commanding look.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Gabby responded crisply, passing Wickham’s coat on to a servant. Wickham’s mouth compressed at this blatant disregard of what he plainly considered to be an order, but he made no reply. Perhaps, Gabby thought, judging from the now ashen hue of his face, he was growing too weak to argue. “Barnet”—the surly-looking giant crouched at Wickham’s side returned her gaze warily—“can certainly assist, but a surgeon must and shall look at that wound.”
Wickham remained silent. Barnet hesitated for the tiniest moment, then put in gruffly: “I’d say you’re in the right of it, miss.”
“Lady Gabriella, to you,” Jem growled. Gabby gave Jem a very hard look, warning him without words to mind his tongue.
The little crowd of servants and family members instinctively looked to Gabby for further instructions. A glance at Wickham showed that he was sweating profusely and slumping ever lower over the back of the chair, while the drops of blood at his feet grew so numerous that they were beginning to run together to form a puddle.
“Barnet, I think it would be best if you helped His Lordship to his chambers to await the surgeon. Francis—” Gabby spoke to the footman who had accompanied them from Hawthorne Hall “—you may assist Barnet. Mrs. Bucknell, if you would please fetch lint, clean towels, and hot water upstairs, I’ll see what can be done to staunch the blood until the surgeon arrives.”
Long accustomed to running a household, Gabby spoke with authority. All addressed sprang into action.
“Miss Claire, Miss Beth, I think it best that we return to our chambers. We can do nothing but get in the way here.” Twindle looked from one to the other of the younger girls.
“I shall never sleep a . . .” Beth’s v
oice trailed off under Twindle’s stern look.
“Gabby, how came you to be present? And Jem . . .” Claire, still standing at Gabby’s side, asked with a frown even as Twindle tried to draw her away.
Before Gabby could reply, there was a collective gasp from the servants.
“ ’e’s fainted,” Barnet proclaimed hoarsely. Looking around, Gabby saw to her dismay that Wickham had indeed lost consciousness. His face was gray, his eyes were closed, and he sagged bonelessly against Barnet, who had caught him with both arms around his waist. Even as Gabby watched, Barnet made some adjustments to his grip, then lifted Wickham like a babe.
Fear in his face, Barnet looked from his master, whose big body now hung limply his arms, to Gabby.
“Miss, I . . . ’e . . .” he gasped.
“Carry His Lordship abovestairs,” she directed calmly. Barnet nodded, looking relieved at having someone to tell him what to do, and headed toward the door with Wickham’s deadweight in his arms. Gabby turned to follow, glancing over her shoulder to add, “Mrs. Bucknell, fetch those supplies I requested now, please. Jem, I might need you as well. The rest of you will do the most good by going back to bed.”
9
By the time the surgeon arrived, dawn was at hand. The first faint fingers of light were beginning to probe around the edges of the tightly drawn curtains in the earl’s bedroom, and down in the street the clatter of wheels and the bell of the muffin man could be heard. The servants, so lately sent back to their beds, were once again stirring. Wickham, now stripped to the waist, his breeches loosened and eased down on one side to expose the full measure of the wound, his boots off, lay on his back in the middle of the vast, crimson-curtained four-poster that was the centerpiece of the chamber, his black head propped on a pair of soft down pillows. The coverings had been pulled to the foot of the bed, and, despite the faintly ashen cast to his face, his skin looked very bronze in contrast to the white sheets.
Considering how large the elaborate carved rosewood bed was, the degree to which he managed to fill it was surprising, Gabby thought. His shoulders spanned almost half the width of the mattress, and his stocking feet reached nearly to its end.
Even injured and undressed, he looked formidable. Gabby shivered inwardly as she remembered how helpless she had felt when he had wrapped those big hands around her neck.
It occurred to her again that this was a dangerous game she played. But at the moment, unless she was willing to jeopardize all she held dear, she didn’t see any other way out.
For the immediate future, at least, she did not think her connivance put her life at risk. Her modesty, now, was a different matter. In truth, she found the situation into which she had been thrust more than a little unsettling. She had helped to nurse her father through his final illness, and occasionally had been called upon to assist at times of accident or illness among the tenants at Hawthorne, and so was not a complete stranger to the male form. But as a maiden lady somewhat stricken in years, she had never expected to find herself in such close proximity to a nearly nude, blatantly virile stranger.
Trying her best to take no notice of the broad bare shoulders, the wide chest with its thick wedge of black hair, the muscular abdomen, or—blush!—his navel, which was almost fully exposed, Gabby still, with the best will in the world, could not completely focus on the task at hand. In the course of tending to him, it was impossible to keep her fingers from learning the faintly coarse texture of the hairs on his chest, or stop herself from noticing the heat and satiny smoothness of his skin, or the hardness of the muscles beneath, or the faint musky scent of him. Still, she was determined to take his nakedness in stride. At the moment, he was her patient, no more, no less.
Thus, though she perched rather warily on the very edge of the bed, her manner was calm and efficient as she did her utmost to stop the loss of blood, which was, in her judgment, the biggest threat to his well-being. Both hands, one on top of the other, maintained a continuous pressure on the thick pad of lint and towels she had lain over the still bleeding wound, and she was careful to let her eyes stray no farther than her own hands and the pad beneath them—at least, no more often than she could help. It was the second such pad she had employed in the past hour. The first pad had been soaked clean through.
So much blood. The question that troubled her now was, how much more could he stand to lose?
“If you’re trying to torture me, ma’am, you’re succeeding very well.” Wickham, who had regained consciousness some few minutes after being lain in his bed, watched her out of narrowed eyes. His voice was weak, but a sardonic note was evident nonetheless. Brow furrowed, he moved restively in a vain attempt to escape her ministrations. “Your treatment hurts more than the getting of the wound.”
“Lie still,” Gabby said sharply. “You only do yourself harm by moving about.”
“Considering that you put the hole in me in the first place, I am sure you will forgive me if I tell you that I find your expression of concern less than convincing.”
“Obviously you have not considered: if you die, having set yourself up as Wickham, then I am left in no better case than I was with my true brother dead.”
“Ah.” He smiled a little, although the effort obviously cost him. “Then I perceive I may safely trust my well-being to your hands.”
“I am sorry to say that you may.”
“Ow!”
The exclamation came as she shifted her position to apply pressure directly over the place where blood was beginning once again to break through. Beneath her palm, she could feel the telltale warm dampness. . . .
“Just bind the damned thing up and be done with it, why don’t you?” He shifted again as she bore down relentlessly on the pad. “Pressing on it like that hurts like the devil.”
“I would say that you are well served, then.” Her voice was cool and untroubled as she continued to apply pressure.
He grimaced, and sucked in air audibly through his teeth. “Oh, would you? No doubt you would greatly enjoy subjecting me to thumb screws, or perhaps the rack, as well?” His gaze rolled around to his henchman, who had about him a helpless air as he hovered beside the bed. “Get me something to drink, Barnet. I’m dry as a desert.”
“Yes, Cap—uh, milord.”
As Barnet moved away to do as he was bid, a soft rap sounded on the chamber door. Jem, an expression of grim disapproval on his face that had only grown more pronounced since Gabby’s claiming of the imposter as her brother, went to answer it. There was a low-voiced exchange of conversation, and then Jem opened the door wide.
“The surgeon’s arrived,” he said sourly. As the portly, white-haired surgeon entered with a bustle of importance, Gabby caught a glimpse of Stivers and Mrs. Bucknell, their faces worried, among a congregation of servants who seemed to have gathered in the hall outside the earl’s bedroom. Under the circumstances—who knew what her false brother might blurt out in a state of semi-consciousness, or under the influence of pain?—she had thought it best that only she, Jem, and Barnet should attend the injured man.
“Water? Water?” Wickham, spluttering, protested in an outraged tone even as Gabby kept her head turned to observe the entrance of the surgeon. “I want wine, or spirits. Take that away, and bring me something decent to drink.”
Barnet, who had tenderly lifted his master’s head from its nest to assist him in sipping from the glass he had brought, barely managed to keep said glass from being dashed to the floor by snatching it from Wickham’s hold in the nick of time. As a result he allowed the wounded man’s head to drop with a little less care than he had shown in lifting it.
“Damn it to hell, Barnet. Are you trying to kill me, too?”
“Sorry, Ca—er, milord.”
The surgeon reached the bedside then, rubbing his hands together, bowing at Gabby. “I am Dr. Ormsby, my lady. Now, let me see, what have we here? A bullet wound, I was told? Yes. Excuse me, dear lady, if I could just have a look. . . .”
Gabby relinquished her
place without a murmur, and stood up.
“Get off. I have no wish to be mauled by such as you.” Wickham glared at the surgeon, who was in the act of lifting the blood-stained pad to peer beneath it. Surprised, Ormsby dropped it and stepped back, looking very much affronted.
“My lord . . .”
“Don’t be such a baby,” Gabby intervened, speaking crisply to Wickham. “Of course the surgeon must look at that wound. If you are afraid of being hurt, I am not surprised at it, but it is something that you just must set yourself to endure.”
Wickham transferred his glower to her. “I am not afraid of being hurt.”
“Oh, I thought that must be it,” Gabby said.
He looked at her as if he wanted to throw something at her.
“Very well,” he said through his teeth, to the surgeon. “Examine me, then. But have a care what you are about.”
Gabby was careful not to smile as Ormsby, now wearing a slightly wary expression, once again lifted the pad away from the wound. He pursed his lips, and probed, and tested the patient’s hipbone and abdomen with his hands. By the time he looked up again, Wickham was several shades paler than before, and sweating profusely. Though not a sound had escaped his lips, Gabby was very sure the examination had hurt.
Under the circumstances—the man had threatened her life, and Jem’s, after all, among many other notable transgressions—she was not entirely sorry.
“The bullet is still lodged in the wound,” Ormsby pronounced, straightening up at last and addressing his words to Gabby. “An operation for its removal will have to be performed.”
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