The Hazardous Measure of Love: Time Into Time Book Five

by Louise Allen

  ‘It is nothing,’ Luc said. ‘Scraped palms, a sprain. Jerald is dead. The magistrate and Constable and Coroner are at the Hall. He had admitted it all in front of Alexander, and Arabella could not stop talking until the doctor managed to get some laudanum into her. And Lord Tillingham – Doctor Prescott – has died. He heard the tumult on the terrace and somehow got himself down the stairs and outside. He had some kind of seizure when he saw the body and there was nothing anyone could do.’

  ‘The poor man,’ Lady Radcliffe lamented. ‘Is there any help we can give?’

  ‘Not now,’ Luc said wearily. ‘Tomorrow we can go and offer our support, but now I suggest we all go to bed – and at least try to sleep. It is going to be another very long day.’

  * * *

  ‘Shall we go direct to Whitebeams when the inquest is over?’ Lady Radcliffe looked more weary than I had ever seen her. ‘I feel the need for our own walls, our own grounds and some peace.’

  ‘I agree.’ Luc surveyed the party seated – or perhaps slumped, would be the better word – around the dinner table the next evening. We had done our best to help the confused, doubly-bereaved Prescotts, but it would be a long time before Horace’s family would be able to come to terms with what Jerald had done. ‘James?’

  ‘I should get back to Leicestershire, unless you need me, of course.’ Both his mother and his brother shook their heads. ‘In that case, if you are travelling through Dunstable, I will pick up the Mail there. It’s an easy run to Leicester, then I’ll hire a gig.’

  ‘Of course,’ Lady Radcliffe said warmly. ‘Cassie, dear?’

  ‘I would love to go to Whitebeams. As far as travelling back to my own time is concerned, it doesn’t seem to matter where I am. When it is time to go – I go!’

  * * *

  The inquest took place two days later. The Prescotts, poor souls, shut themselves away at Tillingham Hall for the very private interment of the Viscount, Doctor Frederick as was, in the family vault. In some distant corner of the graveyard, Jerald was laid to rest. Matthew had convinced the Vicar that his fall had been accidental, and not suicide, so at least his parents were able to bury him in consecrated ground. Percy escorted Arabella and her mother home, so perhaps, after all, there was some happiness ahead for her.

  After that it took a day to make the final preparations and to send some of the London staff back to St James’s Square, with others staying to carry out instructions on renovating Rook’s Acre.

  ‘By the time Matthew is old enough to decide what he wants to do with it, these horrors will be a distant memory for all of us, I hope,’ Luc said, as we climbed into two carriages very early the next morning for the journey to Suffolk. It would take us all day, but the weather was good and I thought that our spirits would rise the closer we got to Whitebeams.

  The twins, fully recovered from their fright, went in one vehicle with their attendants and the rest of us travelled in the other. ‘At least until we all brighten up a little,’ Luc said. ‘It is a miracle the boys have not picked up our mood the last few days.’

  ‘Adrien looked a little happier,’ I said as the carriage turned on to the turnpike road. He had ridden over that morning to say goodbye and had spent some time talking to Luc.

  ‘I suspect that his father is going to want to employ him as his confidential secretary,’ Luc said. ‘But he was also discussing with Marcus which estate they could let him occupy.’

  ‘Both his cousin and his Uncle Frederick left Adrien money,’ I said. ‘I think he will want to buy his own property with that to add to his legacy. He needs to be more independent, even if he does work with his father. And he is going to be able to marry Rebecca soon.’ I smiled. ‘At least his life is full of hope now.’

  We dropped James off at The White Hart in Aylesbury with half an hour to wait for the Mail and drove on steadily through the long, hot summer day, with several stops to let the boys out to run off some energy and to give their long-suffering attendants a little peace.

  At last Luc announced, ‘The final change,’ and we stretched and smiled and all, I think, were imagining cool baths, long drinks and a civilised supper.

  ‘I will ride with the boys,’ Lady Radcliffe said. ‘They look very tired now and that means they will be a handful for poor Nanny Yates.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Luc said immediately.

  ‘No, they need firmness and you know perfectly well you are putty in their hands when they are tired,’ his mother said. ‘Your father was just the same with you and James.’ She turned to the nanny who was sitting on a bench watching two harassed nursemaids chasing small boys around the village green. ‘Let us call them, Mrs Yates. We will set out first and we will soon be home.’

  ‘Yes indeed, my lady.’ The two of them walked towards the duck pond – an irresistible temptation, of course – and the twins came running at their grandmother’s call.

  ‘She is wonderful with them,’ I said, watching them all climb into the carriage.

  ‘She said she learned all there was to know about naughty small boys from James and me.’ Luc watched the team set off at a brisk trot. ‘How are you feeling, Cassie?’

  ‘Weary. Glad we are all safe, depressed for those two young people and their families.’

  ‘There’s hope for Adrien and for Arabella,’ Luc comforted me.

  ‘Yes.’ I found I wasn’t so very comforted: I was jealous.

  We sat side by side, my head on Luc’s shoulder, both too tired, I think, for talking or anything else, for that matter.

  I must have dozed because I came awake with a jerk when Luc said, ‘Here we are at last.’

  The carriage drive through the park at Whitebeams runs for almost a mile, and curves picturesquely to give tantalizing glimpses of the lake and the house. There is a final long sweep before the bridge over the narrow neck of the lake and we could see the other carriage, the team still keeping up a brisk pace.

  ‘Oh, look how close the deer are,’ I said, pointing. ‘So pretty.’ The herd of fallow deer were usually quite shy, but they must have been down to the lake to drink and were clustered close to the bridge.

  We never discovered what spooked them, but suddenly the deer erupted into movement, springing towards the drive, then rushing away as the carriage rattled towards them. The lead horses shied, then the whole team bolted, even as our own driver was slowing our carriage to a halt.

  The crash happened within seconds as the heavy coach swung and hit the pillar where the parapet began. The vehicle swung round, teetered and almost tipped on its side before righting itself with a thump.

  Luc was out of the door while it was still moving, running towards the bridge. I followed, running too, close enough to see the small figures tumbling out and hitting the water. Luc dived in and I scrambled down the bank after him, tearing at my skirts until the light cotton ripped and came away. There was deep mud at the edge and I floundered through it, reaching desperately for the small hand I could just see through the murky water. I grabbed it and pulled, then managed to lift the child into my arms, stagger back to the shore and lay him down.

  He was breathing. I turned him on his side, banged him briskly on his back and he threw up water, then flopped back, gasping.

  ‘Stay there,’ I told him and turned back to the lake in time to see Luc heaving an ominously still little body onto the grass. Which boy was which? I couldn’t tell.

  At least I had been trained for this. ‘Let me.’ I pushed Luc aside and cleared the airway, then began chest compressions, horribly conscious of how small the body under my thrusting hands was. ‘Watch me,’ I ordered. ‘It looks brutal, but it has to be. You must take over when I get tired, unless he starts to breathe first.’

  I could feel myself flagging, the words of Staying Alive, that I was using to keep time, were coming out in gasps. And then, under my hands, I felt a change. I stopped, turned him on his side and he gave a huge, rasping breath, then, like his brother, threw up a flood of lake water.

 
‘Thank God.’ Luc stood up, turned towards the carriages and stopped dead. ‘No.’

  The driver and Mrs Yates were sprawled on the grass, one of the nursemaids, kneeling by them. The other was standing by the door, blood on her hands and apron. Luc pushed her aside and I heard him say, ‘Mama!’

  Chapter Sixteen

  The driver of our carriage had cut the traces to free the team from the crashed coach and sent them galloping over the bridge towards the house. ‘That’ll bring someone out,’ he said when he reached me.

  ‘Help me get the boys into our carriage,’ I told him. We lifted them in, wrapped them both up in rugs, and I sent him off with them and one of the nursemaids. ‘Make sure someone stays with them the whole time,’ I told them. ‘Tell them to keep the boys awake.’

  He seemed reliable, so I just had to trust him. I turned back to the wrecked coach, dreading what I was going to find.

  The driver was sitting up clutching his head and groaning. Mrs Yates had her eyes open and was, quite coherently, demanding to know whether the boys were safe. I checked quickly that neither of them were bleeding visibly and that both could move all their limbs: then I looked inside.

  Lady Radcliffe was unconscious, breathing – and bleeding. ‘It is a head wound,’ I said to Luc. ‘They always bleed worst. Get me one of the trunks down and find some clean linen. The boys are fine, I have sent them back to the house. Help is coming.’

  He was white, but steady. We had the head wound bandaged, but I was very worried about the possibility of a neck injury. I explained to Luc what we had to do to immobilise her so she could be lifted out and, thankfully, when people began to stream out of the house to our aid they brought makeshift stretchers, more bandages and there were enough strong young footmen and grooms to get her out of the vehicle, strapped flat on a board.

  ‘We have sent for the doctor,’ Felbrigg the butler said as we reached the front door. ‘The boys are in the drawing room and recovering, I believe. They are making up a bed in the small salon for her ladyship.’

  I rarely see Luc at a loss, but I could tell he did not know which way to turn now. I gave his arm a brisk shake. ‘Go and check on the boys: they are conscious and will be frightened. I will sit with your mother.’ He gave a sharp nod and strode into the drawing room as I made for the salon. ‘Have anyone else with injuries made comfortable in the blue sitting room and send one of the maids to make sure they are all right,’ I told Felbrigg, then straightened my spine and walked up to Lady Radcliffe’s couch as though I was confident that I knew what I was doing.

  We had twisted one of the carriage rugs into a support for her head to keep her spine still, and that had stayed in place. I ran my hands over her legs and arms and could feel no breaks, so I tickled her palms and was rewarded by a slight movement of both hands.

  ‘Help me take off her shoes,’ I told Pettit, her abigail, who came running in. ‘We have to keep her body absolutely still.’

  I explained about the risk of spinal injury and together we managed to get off the half-boots. I tried running my fingernail down the soles of her feet but there was no reaction. We looked at each other and I saw the same fear in Pettit’s eyes. ‘Be quiet about this,’ I told her. ‘I don’t want to worry anyone unnecessarily.’ But how, in the absence of scans, was I going to be able to tell if there was a spinal fracture, even if she could move her legs?

  At which point Luc came in. ‘They are both conscious,’ he told me as he knelt beside the couch and took his mother’s hand. ‘Do you hear that, Mama? Both boys are all right, the water broke their fall.’

  He met my gaze and I murmured, ‘She is still unconscious. I cannot find breaks in any of her limbs, but I am still concerned in case she has hurt her spine. When the doctor comes, do not let him bleed anyone.’

  He nodded, still watching his mother’s face. ‘I remember what you told me about that.’

  * * *

  From then on the day blurred into the evening and then the night. The doctor came, checked everyone for broken limbs and found only that Nanny Yates’s left wrist was fractured. The two nursemaids and the driver were bruised and shocked but otherwise unharmed. They were all packed off to warm beds with staff allocated to attend them.

  The boys seemed all right, although tearful and very subdued. They wanted their Grandmama as well as their Papa and fretted when she couldn’t come.

  Thankfully, although inclined to poker-up at Luc’s refusal to have anyone bled, the doctor agreed about the danger of spinal injuries. Eventually we managed to get Lady Radcliffe undressed and into a nightgown and he examined her back and neck.

  ‘It is all aligned as it should be and I can see no swelling, nor can I feel any unnatural movement,’ he told Luc, when he was finally readmitted to the sickroom. ‘The blow to the head was severe, but the bone is not broken or pushed in. I cannot deny that I would be much happier if her ladyship was conscious.’

  He left us with a list of instructions which I glanced through and decided could be largely ignored. Then I set about rallying my troops. The boys were carried in and told that their grandmother was sleeping, which reassured them enough for me to pack them off with Luc to put them to bed, with one of the older and more sensible maids to sit up and watch them.

  Pettit told me that she would stay with Lady Radcliffe for the first part of the night so that Luc and I could get some rest. I had little hope of him sleeping, but he saw the sense in at least lying down for a while. Then, when we finally fell into bed together he turned to me and we made love with a kind of life-affirming desperation and, thankfully, he fell asleep as though drugged immediately afterwards.

  * * *

  A week passed in a haze of anxiety, sickroom routine and the constant struggle to manage the twins. Luc wrote to James, I wrote to Adrien, and they both arrived in the afternoon of the third day.

  Lady Radcliffe was still unconscious, although we could now get some reaction from touching her feet, which was a relief, because I felt more confident about moving her regularly to prevent bed sores.

  Adrien spent all his time with the boys while James took over command of the household. Luc and I shuttled between quick visits to the twins and long periods sitting by his mother, taking to her, dripping water between her lips. I knew that if we could not rouse her very soon, dehydration would be fatal. I think Luc knew it too, but we did not speak of it, even in the intimacy of his bedchamber after yet another desperate bout of lovemaking.

  And then, on the fifth day after the accident Luc, who was sitting holding her hand and reading the The Morning Post out loud to her, dropped the newspaper. ‘She squeezed my hand! Mama, open your eyes.’

  I thought she had slipped away again, but then her lids fluttered and those beautiful sea-green eyes, so like Luc’s, were looking at me, vague and bemused.

  ‘Quickly, prop her up.’ I seized the water glass and held it to her lips. ‘Drink, please drink.’

  She did, then her eyes closed again.

  I looked at Luc. ‘That may be the turning point. If we can just watch her like a hawk, get fluids into her at every opportunity –’

  The door opened and Adrien came in. ‘I may be wrong, but I think Matthew is throwing a fever,’ he said.

  I pushed Luc towards the door. ‘Go and check, I will watch her.’

  When they had gone I sat down, suddenly dizzy. Relief and now new anxiety, I supposed. I rang the bell and, when Pettit came, told her the good news and she understood what was needed immediately.

  ‘I will go and tell Cook to make barley water,’ she said, bustling out.

  I began to feel really peculiar. The room was swimming and there was a buzzing in my ears and, finally, I understood. Whatever force it was that moved me through time was trying to send me back, now. Why, when Luc needed me as never before, I could not fathom, but this was not something I could control. If I fought it I had no idea what might happen or where I would end up.

  There were two footmen in the hallway. ‘Run and
fetch Pettit, now,’ I ordered one of them. ‘And you go to his lordship, tell him I have to leave. Run.’

  I held on to the doorframe as though that might anchor me and then Pettit came, cap ribbons flying.

  ‘Go in to Lady Radcliffe. Don’t leave her until his lordship comes. I have to go.’

  Somehow I got up the stairs, bouncing from one side to another like a drunk. I staggered down the corridor, through the door into Lady Radcliffe’s dressing room and up to the long cheval glass with the original of Luc’s portrait miniature hanging beside it. The glass was already cloudy and gave as I touched it. I stepped through, the wind seized me and I was spinning away.

  I fell onto my own sofa which was a pleasant change from my usual crash-landing on the floor. That seemed to be about the only good news. Trubshaw plodded up, peered at me and expressed feline disapproval of life in general and me in particular, then marched back to the kitchen.

  Eventually I sat up, mopped my eyes, told myself that Luc would know I couldn’t control this and also that it was a long way from Whitebeams to Welhampstead and that, even if he sent a messenger with news immediately, I couldn’t expect to have a delivery from the solicitors’ office for at least forty-eight hours.

  I had seen pictures of the twins when they were older, I reminded myself as I sorted myself out, had a shower, made a fuss of Trubshaw and then fell into bed and slept the clock round.

  * * *

  Time passed and messages arrived. Matthew had pneumonia, Lady Radcliffe was conscious, but was desperately weak and unable to stand or walk. Luc understood and knew I would come back as soon as my personal black hole permitted me to.

  But it showed no sign of working and, a month later, I was still firmly in my own time, a little cheered by the messages from the past, but very confused about why I could not return. Matthew was getting better, but still had a worrying cough and little appetite. Lady Radcliffe continued to give Luc sleepless nights. I can’t say I was sleeping well either.