Mavis started to cry. Ophelia, choked, put out a hand, but Mavis backed away from her. “You warned me, and instead of thanking you, I hated you. Oh, God, I’m so sorry! I just wanted you to know that!” Mavis cried before she rushed across the street to her waiting coach.
Ophelia tried to stop her, called her name, but Mavis didn’t hear her. She thought about running after her, but there was too much traffic and one coach seemed a bit out of control, veering too close to the other vehicles. She’d go see Mavis tomorrow and assure her that she didn’t hold grudges anymore—except where her husband was concerned. She and Mavis might even be able to become friends again!
But she still watched Mavis, wanting to make sure she reached the other side of the street safely. The girl wasn’t exactly paying attention, with her head lowered to hide her tears. And then Ophelia frowned. That out-of-control vehicle was heading straight toward Mavis!
She bolted out into the street, didn’t even give it another thought. She’d never run so fast. She made it around a slow-moving wagon, dodged a man on a horse. With just a little luck, she’d reach Mavis to yank her back out of the way. But the driver of the runaway coach did have a little control of his wildly frightened horses. He was fighting madly with the reins and screaming at people to get out of the way, and actually slowing down a little. With barely any time left, he veered his horses off to the side to avoid Mavis—and ran right into Ophelia.
It would have been a blessing if she’d been knocked out of the way, but she wasn’t. She crumpled beneath the horses. Pain was instant and everywhere, her chest, her shoulder, her face, so much pain that within seconds she could no longer tell where it was coming from. Then the light was blurring from her eyes. And then there was none.
Chapter Fifty-two
R APHAEL VAGUELY TOOK NOTE OF the crowd of people in the street who were surrounding a large coach, which usually indicated an accident. He rode past it.
Accidents happened all too often in London, and not just on busy streets like this one. If no one had been there, he would have stopped to help, but too many people were present and one more wouldn’t help, would more likely just add to the confusion.
He was searching the walkways, though, looking for a familiar blond head, hoping he could find Ophelia between her visits to shops, so he wouldn’t actually have to enter any. He was hailed by several acquaintances in passing. He merely nodded distractedly and continued on. One chap—Lord Thistle, was it?—came at him on horseback from the opposite direction and blocked his way for a moment.
“Been meaning to look you up, Locke,” Thistle said as he yanked his horse about out of the way. “Gad, man, I’ve been feeling so guilty about this. When I saw you kissing Lady O in her dining room, I was so surprised I didn’t even think to keep it to m’self. I hope you weren’t forced to marry her because of my loose tongue. Course I can’t think of any man who would mind being forced to marry her. But—”
“It’s all right,” Raphael interrupted the long-winded fellow and assured him by rote, “Think nothing of it.”
Raphael rode on quickly, before he could be stopped again. So she’d lied? His father had been right. It was as he’d first thought, the rumors weren’t her doing at all. She’d merely claimed responsibility so she could slap him in the face with it?
He was even more eager to find her now. Reaching the end of the street with no luck, he headed back down it for another pass. Nearing the accident again, which had attracted even more curious onlookers, it finally dawned on him that his wife might be in that crowd, just as curious as everyone else was to see what had happened. He pulled his horse to the side out of the way of the traffic, which was still moving slowly around the accident, so he could peruse the crowd more thoroughly.
He didn’t see Ophelia, but his eyes passed over and then came abruptly back to Mavis Newbolt, who was standing at the center of the crowd, crying her eyes out. He frowned, seeing that, but then the most horrible dread filled him. It was too coincidental that Mavis would be there, crying, when Ophelia was in the vicinity.
He leapt off his horse, pushed his way through to the center of the crowd. And saw the blond head he’d been searching for, on the ground, bloodied.
“What’d you do?” he shouted at Mavis. “Push her in front of this coach?”
The girl seemed to be in shock. All she said was “She was trying to save me.”
He barely heard her. He was already on his knees next to Ophelia. He was terrified to touch her. She looked so broken lying there, unmoving, barely breathing. One horseshoe, probably with a loose nail, had ripped through her coat and the dress under it. Blood was soaked around the tear and elsewhere. He couldn’t tell if it was from the same wound or if there were more along her body, but there was no doubt that she hadn’t just taken a fall, she’d actually been trampled. More than one dirty hoof-print was on her coat.
The horses that had done this had been moved back only several feet. They were still maddened, fighting their traces, stamping at the ground. A man, probably the driver of the coach, was standing in front of them, arms spread, trying to keep them back.
He was saying to anyone who would listen, “I tried to stop them. Some boy set off a popper, a child’s prank, but they got spooked good. But I tried to stop them!”
“Don’t touch ’er, gov,” someone else said at Raphael’s back.
“There’s ’elp coming, be ’ere any minute.”
“Someone went to fetch a doctor. Said they know one that lives on the next street over.”
“I seen it happen, both them girls running across the street right in front of that runaway coach. It’s lucky it is that it didn’t take them both down.”
“I seen it happen too. Saw her and couldn’t take my eyes off her. Like an angel, she looked. And then she just disappeared under those horses. Shoot ’em, I say. You can’t never trust a skittish horse.”
“Such a pity, pretty girl like that.”
The voices came from all around him now, not talking to him, just talking about what they’d witnessed. But it was like a roar in his ears. He couldn’t just leave her lying there. He couldn’t.
Someone tried to stop him from picking her up in his arms. “She’s my wife!” he growled, and they left him alone. He didn’t know tears were running down his cheeks. He didn’t know he looked like a madman.
“God, Phelia, don’t you die on me!” he kept repeating, like a mantra, praying she’d hear him somehow.
“I have a coach. I have a coach! Please, Locke, you can’t carry her on your horse!”
It was Mavis shouting at him and yanking at his jacket. He was at a dead stop, standing in front of his horse, having come to the horrible realization that he couldn’t get on it and still hold Ophelia gently.
“Lord Locke?”
He finally glanced down at Mavis. “Where?”
“Follow me. It’s not far.”
The crowd hadn’t dispersed yet. They actually held back the traffic on the street for him, so he could cross it with Ophelia in his arms. Mavis didn’t get into the coach with him when they reached it, she was afraid to after the way he’d looked at her. But she shouted up the address for her driver. The Reid house. He would have preferred to take her to his own house.
“I’ll bring your horse, and a doctor!” he thought he heard Mavis shouting as the coach drove away.
It was the longest ride of his life, even though it only took a few minutes with the driver moving the coach quickly but carefully through the congested streets. He couldn’t take his eyes off Ophelia’s bloodied face. One cheek was swollen terribly. He couldn’t see through the blood where the cut was, but with that much blood, it would probably have to be stitched and would leave a scar. That was the least of his concerns. At the moment, he wasn’t even sure if she would live.
Chapter Fifty-three
T HE PAIN WAS ALL-CONSUMING. OPHELIA floated in and out of it. It seemed endless. She had no way of knowing how much time was passing. And she couldn’t seem to fight h
er way up to real consciousness. Each time she tried, she could hear voices, she just wasn’t sure if she was replying to them with other than gibberish, or if it was all just part of the ongoing nightmare she was mired in. But the more she tried to concentrate, the more she hurt, so she never tried for long.
“Don’t you dare give up, Phelia. Don’t even think about dying to avoid me. I won’t allow it. Wake up so I can tell you!”
She knew that voice well. He couldn’t tell she was awake? Why wouldn’t her eyes open so she could see him? Was she really in danger of dying?
Voices continued to drift in and out of her head, but it hurt so bad to try to concentrate on them, she gave up. Would she remember them when she did wake up? Why couldn’t she wake up?
“The wounds will heal but the scars will be permanent. I’m sorry.”
She didn’t know that voice. What scars? And why was a woman crying? The sound faded away.
“The doctor has suggested that you try to sleep through most of the pain. This will help, dear.”
She knew that voice. Her mother. And the warm liquid running down her throat was beginning to taste familiar. She was being drugged? No wonder she couldn’t seem to wake fully or get any words out. And once again, she passed into blissful oblivion.
It hurt when the bandages were changed. The side of her head, her cheek, her shoulder. It hurt enough to make her run away from it to the deep, dark nothingness again, so she never stayed conscious long enough to know just how many bandages were spread across her body. Her head hurt the worst. The dull throbbing never stopped. It continued even in her dreams, an endless reminder that something was dreadfully wrong with her. Did she really want to wake up to find out what that was?
“Stop crying. Dammit, Mary, you’re not helping with those tears. What’s a little scar or two. It’s not the bloody end of the world.”
She knew that voice too and wished it would go away. She didn’t mind her mother’s soft sobs. It was actually a soothing sound. She couldn’t manage any tears herself. Her mother was crying for her. She did mind her father’s grating voice though.
“Go away.”
Did she manage to say it aloud, or did she only think it? But she went away instead, back to her blissful nothingness that held the pain at bay.
The one time she did get her eyes open, it was to see she was in her own room. Her father was sitting in a chair by her bed. He was holding her hand to his cheek. His tears were wetting her fingers.
“Why are you crying?” she asked him. “Did I die?”
He glanced at her immediately, so she must have gotten the words out this time. His expression filled with delight. She didn’t think she’d ever seen Sherman Reid look happy like that before.
“No, angel, you’re going to be—”
Angel? An endearment from him? “Never mind,” she cut in. “I must be dreaming.” And she promptly drifted off again.
But her brief spans of consciousness started to get longer after that. The throbbing pain wasn’t continuous anymore, either. She actually had moments where she felt no pain—as long as she didn’t try to move.
And then she woke one morning and stayed awake. Sadie was flitting about the room as she usually did, adding wood to the fireplace, dusting the tables, the vanity, the…
Oh, God, they’d put a cover over her vanity mirror. The wound on her face was so grotesque? They were afraid for her to see it? In horror, she brought her hands to her face, but all she could feel was the cloth bandages. They seemed to be wrapped tightly around her entire head and across her cheeks and chin.
She was afraid to tear the bandages off, afraid she’d damage herself even more by doing so. Unable to feel them for herself, she started to ask Sadie how bad the scars were, but the words lodged in her throat. She was afraid to find out. And the tears started. She closed her eyes, hoping Sadie would leave without noticing.
The irony was incredible. All her life she’d hated the face she was born with, and now that it was deformed, all she could do was cry about it.
And she cried, for hours. She cried herself dry. By the time Sadie returned around noon, she was just lying there staring at the ceiling. She wasn’t exactly resigned to her deformity, but she knew there was nothing she could do about it. She’d get used to it. Somehow. She hated self-pity, especially her own.
“Thank God you’re awake and can eat now,” Sadie said when she came near enough to see that her eyes were open. “This broth we’ve been trickling down your throat isn’t enough to feed a rabbit! You were getting close to wasting away to nothing!”
Sadie said that too cheerfully for it to be true. “How long has it been?”
“Nigh a week now.”
“That long? Really?”
“You obviously needed the rest, so don’t be fretting that. How is your head?”
“Which part of it?” Ophelia asked drily. “It’s been one big throb.”
“You took a bad bump on the side of your head. That wound bled the most. The doctor had the nerve to suggest you might not wake up from it. Your papa told him to get the hell out and sent for a different doctor.”
“He did?”
“Oh, yes. He was furious with the fellow. The new chap was more optimistic and rightly so. Look at you! Now that you’re awake, you’re going to be just fine. And I’ll be taking this broth back to the kitchen for something more substantial for you!”
“Poached fish,” Ophelia said, suddenly filled with the most horrible dread.
“Poached fish it will be,” Sadie said, still sounding overly cheerful. “Even if I have to run to market myself to fetch a fresh one.”
Sadie didn’t return anytime soon. She must actually have gone to market. But before she left, she’d let the household know that Ophelia was awake. Her father was the next to arrive, the one person who could get her mind off the possibility that she’d lost her baby.
She wasn’t his pretty bauble anymore, was she? Had she really woken during her nightmare to see him crying? If so, that was no doubt why.
“You’re finally coming out of it?” he asked. “I had to see for myself before I go wake your mother to give her the good news. She’s been sitting up with you most every night, so she’s still abed.”
“Did I really need so much bandaging about my head?” she asked as he pulled up the chair next to her bed and sat down.
“Well, yes, but it was twofold. Some of it was to hold down the cold compresses your mother insisted on for your cheek, which was quite swollen. But most of it is to keep the bandage on tight for that lump on your head. The alternative would have been to stitch your cut there and shave your hair back for it, and your mother had a fit about you losing even one strand of hair. So you were just bandaged up more tightly around that area, and as it happens, the cut did seal well enough without stitches. Those bandages can probably be removed when the doctor comes round later today.”
“How many stitches did I receive—elsewhere?”
He sighed. “A few.”
It was a lie. He should practice not blushing when he lies, she thought. And actually, she didn’t really want to know. She’d see for herself eventually—when she got up the nerve to pull that cover off her vanity mirror.
He still seemed quite uncomfortable as he continued, “I never doubted for a minute that you would recover, but—it could have been much worse, and coming close to losing you like that has given me some insight that I’m not proud of. I am not a demonstrative man. I’m set in my ways, I’m gruff, I’m—”
She cut in, “You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know, Papa, but why are you mentioning it?”
“It occurred to me that, well, that is to say…bloody hell,” he ended in frustration.
“What? Just say it.”
He sighed again. He even took her hand in his and held it lightly, staring down at it. “You and I fought so much over the years, it became a habit. And once habits form, we lose sight of other things. It occurred to me that you might n
ot think that I love you. There, I’ve said it. I do love you, you know.”
He glanced up to see her reaction. She stared at him incredulously. She didn’t really know what to say or if she could even say anything with the lump that was rising in her throat. Was that moisture gathering in her eyes?
“I’m going to tell you something that your mother doesn’t even know,” he continued. “I didn’t have an easy childhood. The schools I was sent to were the best, filled with the elite upper crust. I could have wished they weren’t. Boys can be cruel. It was rubbed in my face constantly that I wasn’t in their league. Can you believe that? An earl’s son, not in their league.”
He appeared to be looking back, caught up in old, unpleasant memories. Amazingly, she vaguely understood why he was telling her this.
“You weren’t on the street looking in, Papa. Your title has always been as good as any.”
“I know. I even came to suspect it was mere jealousy, because my family was quite rich, while many of those boys with loftier titles weren’t. But that made no difference to the driving goal I had to prove that I was as good as they were, to fit in, as it were. And that drive never left me, even when I had no way to accomplish that goal—until you were born, and you grew prettier and prettier every year. You were my proof. So, yes, I showed you off—too much. The amazement you caused, the claps on the back, the congratulations, I couldn’t get enough of it. It made up for all those years that I felt inferior. But I realize now how selfish it was of me, that I pushed you into social situations you weren’t ready for. I was just so damn proud of you, Pheli.”
“You weren’t proud of me, Papa,” she said in a small voice. “You were proud of yourself for siring me. There is no comparison of the two.”
He bowed his head. “You’re right. It took almost losing you for me to open my eyes and see just how many regrets I really have where you’re concerned. Your mother always tried to tell me. It was the only time she and I ever argued. I just never listened. I was too caught up in that misplaced pride. I wish I could do it all over. I know I can’t. But it’s not too late to correct my most recent blunder.”
The Devil Who Tamed Her Page 26