by Brianna York
“You see,” Connelley said with a smile. “There you go again.” He opened his bag and pulled out the instruments that he would need. “Your Lordship, could you see about some hot water?” Rob nodded and left the room. “Now,” Connelley went on in his pleasant, deep voice. “You are enough of an old hand at this to know that things are going to get somewhat unpleasant from here on out, but I want you to remember that I will be as careful and as quick as I can, all right?”
Matthew nodded again. “Carry on then.”
There was a sudden thunder of footsteps in the hall, and Connelley frowned slightly before glancing toward the door. “I did not expect the Earl to hurry to get that water for me,” he said, a note of consternation in his voice. However, it was not Rob, but Dobbs who burst into the room a moment later.
“Matthew!” Dobbs cried, gasping for air and bracing himself against the doorframe with one hand. “Matthew, Alex is gone!”
“What?” Matthew exclaimed, throwing himself upright thoughtlessly. He instantly regretted his sudden movement as the room began to spin.
“Lay back,” Connelley said firmly, pushing his patient back down onto the couch.
Matthew closed his eyes in an attempt to make the room return to its normal state. “What do you mean, gone, Dobbs?”
“I mean precisely that, Your Grace,” Dobbs panted. “I have looked everywhere and she is not in the house.”
“You have checked the Baron’s room as well?” Matthew inquired, feeling a thin thread of anxiety weaving its way into his consciousness.
Dobbs swallowed hard, then said, “I have. Baron Tyndale is asleep and there is no sign of Lady Alexandra.”
“Dobbs?” Rob inquired, arriving with the hot water. “Whatever is the matter?”
“Dobbs cannot find Alex,” Matthew told his friend, experimentally slitting his eyes open to regard his friend and valet in the doorway. “Will you help him look for her again?”
Rob’s eyes were round with worry in his pale face. “Indeed I will. Here is your water, Connelley.”
“Just a moment,” Connelley told Rob, rising and glancing about the room. “Ah, there!” he exclaimed softly, catching sight of a tea table a small distance away. He retrieved it and placed it near the couch that Matthew was laying on, then nodded to Rob.
“Put it on the table, if you will, Your Lordship.” With this duty discharged, Rob nodded to Connelley and gave Matthew a sympathetic half-smile before following Dobbs from the room to go and search for Alex.
“All we need now is an anesthetic and then we can get to work,” Connelley announced, rising and pouring a few liberal fingers of brandy into a glass.
Matthew made a sour face and shook his head before he thought. He groaned, and stilled. “No whiskey,” he said in a subdued voice. He was starting to feel lightheaded.
Connelley smiled. “I didn’t expect you to drink it all, Matthew. Just a couple of sips, all right?”
Matthew capitulated, sitting up carefully and downing half of the glass as quickly as possible. He flopped back, coughing and choking. “I hate that stuff,” he wheezed out. “Makes me feel sick.”
Connelley set to work immediately, cleaning the gash out as quickly but thoroughly as possible. He hesitated, needle in hand, letting Matthew recover some. “Ready?” He asked his patient. Matthew nodded grimly and closed his eyes. Connelley had perhaps the most accurate, skilled hands of any surgeon that Matthew had ever seen, and they did not fail him tonight. Even Matthew had expected worse than he got.
“That wasn’t so bad,” he said with a weak smile. “The whiskey was the worst part.”
Connelley nodded briskly. “Good. However, I know that you will be in quite a lot of pain tonight and perhaps for a few more days, so I will leave this for you.”
Matthew recognized the small vial that Connelley lifted from his bag and shook his head vehemently despite the pain. “No. No laudanum. The pain is a much better friend.”
Connelley did not look surprised. Matthew rarely accepted laudanum for an injury. “You are sure?”
Matthew’s reply was immediate. “Yes.”
Dobbs and Rob returned then, their faces wearing identically grim expressions. “She is definitely not here, Matthew,” Rob told his friend, pacing across the room to stand and stare broodingly out the window.
Matthew sighed and closed his eyes, trying to think. He was finding it very difficult to summon up any coherent thoughts between his headache and the alcohol. “Surely she did not go anywhere this late on a horse, but perhaps you should run down to the stables and make certain of that fact, Dobbs.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” Dobbs answered as he turned and left.
Connelley had been quietly packing up his things while Matthew spoke, and, having surveyed the room one last time, he picked up his bag. “I will come back tomorrow, Matthew. Try to get some rest at least. Sleep seems to do the most amazing things for all kinds of illness and injury.”
“I’ll try,” Matthew replied, closing his eyes again at another stab of pain.
“Summon me again if you should need me,” Connelley said before resting his hand on Matthew’s shoulder for a fond moment.
“We shall,” Rob assured the doctor.
“If you should require my assistance with Lady Alexandra, I could stay,” Connelley offered, but Matthew held out a quelling hand and shook his head very slightly.
“I am sure that she will turn up unharmed,” he told the physician.
“In that case, a good night to you both,” Connelley said before taking his leave.
Matthew struggled to a sitting position as soon as the doctor left and swung his feet gingerly onto the floor.
“Matthew?” Rob asked softly.
Matthew acknowledged him with a dismissive wave, then struggled to his feet and made his way shakily to his desk. He plopped down into the well-worn chair behind it, and opened the bottom drawer to extract a decanter of port and a glass. His shaking fingers combined with the fullness of the decanter caused him to overfill the small tumbler. He disregarded the stain that spread greedily on the felt surface, and downed the glass. He leaned back with a sigh, and closed his eyes.
“Do you need anything, old man?” Rob asked carefully.
Matthew opened his good eye and regarded his friend for a moment. His blood was spattered all over Rob’s face and white cravat, and his friend’s face was as white as the folds of linen that remained pristine. “My blood is all over your face,” Matthew informed him without answering the question that had been posed to him. Rob picked up a damp towel and began scrubbing at his face. “Well,” Matthew said on an out-blown breath. “We proved that my blood is most definitely not blue.”
Rob smiled at that, but his friend could not see him since his eyes had dropped shut again. “I am afraid that in some ways you are very conventional Matthew,” he told him.
Matthew chuckled. “Thank you, Rob. It is a dreadful thing to have happen to a person, being normal and average. I shall work on the problem of red blood. You’ll see.”
“I hope not,” Rob returned soberly. Matthew frowned at that, and took another sip of his port.
“Your Grace?” It was Dobbs, returned from the stables. “The horses are all accounted for.”
“Damn,” Matthew said on an out-blown breath. “Thank you, Dobbs. I shall call you again if I need your help.”
“Of course, Your Grace,” Dobbs replied, bowing out of the room.
“What are we to do now?” Rob asked of his friend. He came over to the desk with his glass from earlier and poured himself some port.
Matthew sighed and attempted to gather his thoughts by speaking aloud. “She did not take a horse, and yet there is no sign of a struggle at all. I am certain that she would not willingly leave after dark and alone.”
“She would not leave Forrest in any case,” Rob agreed, sipping pensively at his wine.
“That too,” Matthew said. “You did not see anything that should arouse suspicion when you
were searching the house?” Matthew asked next.
“Nothing,” Rob replied grimly.
Matthew opened his good eye to regard his friend. He found that the other would no longer obey him. Already, the left side of his face was feeling so far removed from his body as to be slightly unsettling. He supposed that the alcohol, combined with natural shock and exhaustion was causing that disembodied discomfort. He found, however, that his brain had cleared much. Logical thought was nearly possible now. It was amazing what lengths the body would go to protect itself. He downed the remnants of his first glass of port and poured himself another.
Rob frowned. “I doubt that a bleary hangover will do you much good tomorrow.”
Matthew laughed at that, pleased that his head no longer rang when he spoke or moved the slightest bit. “If you knew what kind of a headache I have, Rob, you would laugh at the idea of a hangover.”
Rob’s concerned frown deepened, but he shrugged as he relented. “All right. As you will.”
“Good evening, gentlemen,” a voice said from the doorway, and both men glanced up to see Forrest, draped in a dressing gown and leaning negligently against the doorframe.
“Forrest!” Matthew exclaimed. “Whatever are you doing out of bed! The doctor has only just left and I really do not feel inclined to call him back again!”
Forrest’s lip curled into a semblance of a smile. “The doctor will not be necessary. I assure you that I am quite well enough to be out of bed, Matthew.” Matthew watched, feeling a bit stricken as Forrest crossed the room a bit slower than usual, but steady nonetheless. He reached the drink cabinet, and poured a few liberal fingers of Madeira into a glass.
"I'm sick of lying in bed," he said with a touch of his usual vigor. "Besides, I heard your voices downstairs and decided to see what was the matter.” He tossed back a good swig of the sweet liquid in his glass, then regarded his friends with an expectant look.
Matthew sighed and leaned back in his chair. “It is rather a long story, my friend.”
“I am willing to be patient,” Forrest replied easily.
Matthew’s lips firmed into a thin line, then he sat upright again. “First of all we were shot at on the way home...”
“Which explains the doctor and your face,” Forrest cut in, taking another sip of his drink.
“Yes,” Matthew agreed. “We are not certain if the person who shot at us meant to shoot myself or Robert as I was driving Rob’s horses.” Forrest arched a brow at that, but said nothing.
“And now,” Rob said quickly, wanting to get the worst over with, “we cannot find Alex anywhere.”
Forrest stilled so abruptly that his two friends jumped a bit. “But she was here not two hours ago! She was reading a book by my bedside when I fell asleep!”
Matthew frowned a bit. It was nearly midnight. That meant that Alex must still have been in the house around ten o’clock. “We have checked the stables and she did not leave with a horse, but there is not a single sign of a struggle, or any indication that anything is amiss,” Matthew told his friend.
“She would not have left without at least leaving a note,” Forrest said harshly, stalking across the room to look out the window at the depressingly dark street. He whirled away a moment later, his eyes snapping and his mouth a grim line. He crossed to the doorway and shouted for Dobbs and Milton. Dobbs arrived first because he was already awake, but Milton, to his credit, was not far behind. Rob managed to stifle a laugh at the sight of Matthew’s haughty butler in a long nightdress.
“I need you two to summon the rest of the staff and begin asking anyone here in the square that you can awaken if they saw anything at all suspicious in the past two hours of so,” Forrest ordered the two servants, his military training rising to the forefront. “Ask them if they saw anyone coming or going, if they noticed a carriage in front of this house, if they saw Lady Alex herself, or anything else pertinent that might explain Lady Alexandra’s disappearance.”
“Yes, Your Lordship,” the two servants replied quickly, responding to Forrest’s authoritative tone like the best of soldiers. Forrest watched the two men exit the room, then turned back to his friends. “I am going to go and get dressed and help them canvass the neighborhood.”
“I shall help you,” Rob replied quickly.
“We shall both help you,” Matthew replied, placing his palms flat on his desk and rising slowly to his feet. The room swam around him for a long moment, and he shut his eyes and lowered his head as he waited for the world to right itself.
“But Matthew...” Rob began to protest.
“Do not argue, Rob,” Matthew cut across him ruthlessly. “I shall be quite fit to assist in the search for my sister.” Rob frowned but he remained silent.
“Right,” Forrest said then. “I shall get dressed.” He left the room swiftly, looking very much like his usual self, and Matthew felt relief course through him. So long as they were able to do something about the situation, he would not feel hopeless.
Thirty-Four
S
he was floating upward, away from the peacefulness of the thick, black abyss she had been so comfortable in. She became aware of the pain...again? Or for the first time? She did not know for certain. She thought that the pain should be in one location, not throughout her whole body the way it seemed to be. Steeling herself for the coming effort, she began to struggle as if in slow motion towards the surface and consciousness.
The first thing she heard was a loud banging noise that seemed to fill the entire world. She slit her eyes open carefully, but the room was pitch black and no threat to her sensitive eyes. Opening them the rest of the way, she turned her head toward the loud noise that had woken her. Moving her head reminded her of the injury that her brother had caused it and she closed her eyes against the swirl of pain that threatened to engulf her. When the pain had abated somewhat, she opened her eyes again, looking for the noise that had drawn her back to consciousness. It took her a moment to ascertain that one of her window shutters had been left open and was banging open and closed in time to the gusts of stormy air blowing in through it.
Shutting her eyes again, she slowly rose to a sitting position, waited for her head to cease pounding, then slid to her feet and made her way shakily across the room to the window. Her hand on the window frame, she stared out at the driving rain, feeling the strong wind pulling at her clothes and blowing her disordered hair about her face. She remembered her plan to warn Matthew and glanced down at the trellis which was now slick with rain. It looked much more hazardous at night in a storm than it had looked during the day. She sighed and closed her eyes, willing the pounding in her head to still somewhat.
You must get to Matthew! An urgent voice cried within her. You must warn him! “But it might already be too late,” she whispered aloud in reply, her hand tightening on the window frame until her knuckles were white. It might be, but you will never know unless you go to him! The voice said urgently, and she knew that it was correct.
Stepping away from the window, she made her way to her armoire and rummaged about in it until she had located a cloak, which she swirled around herself. She swiped at her loosened hair, then, with a growl, un-braided it and stuffed it underneath the hood of her cloak. She went to stand before the window again, gathering her courage. When she felt that she had found it, she slipped over the window sill and put her foot onto the trellis.
She valiantly ignored the howling wind when it ripped her cloak back off her head, but she found it harder to ignore the rain-soaked tendrils of her long hair driven by the wind into her mouth and eyes. She had made it halfway down the slippery, unsteady trellis, when she decided that she might take a moment to pull her hair away from her face so that she would be able to see where she was going. She took her left hand off the trellis and quickly pulled her hair off of her face. As she made to toss it back over her shoulder, her left foot slipped off its perch. She shot her left hand out to catch a hold of the trellis again, but her wet cloak was heavy a
nd slowed her arm sufficiently to make her miss. She made one last desperate lunge toward the wall and safety before gravity won and drug her backwards off the trellis.
She landed flat on her back in the street below, gasping for air and whimpering with pain. She writhed on the sopping wet pavement for a moment, the rain blinding her as she gasped in vain for air. Finally, she felt her breath returning and she managed to turn onto her side as she waited for the knifing pain to abate somewhat.
The street was a river of rainwater and she was already numb with cold, but she lay still until she felt that she would be able to get up again. She rose unsteadily to her feet, slipping once and falling down onto one knee before pushing herself up again, this time for good. She pulled the hood of her cloak back up over her face with a shaking hand, then gathered the sopping folds of material about herself and began to stumble forward in the direction of Matthew’s house.
Thirty-Five
“D
rink?” Matthew asked of his friends as they stepped back into the foyer an hour later. The sudden storm had come up just as they had set out to question the neighbors, and they were all soaked to the skin.
“Yes, please,” Rob replied, an audible chatter in his voice.
Matthew shrugged out of his soaked greatcoat and carried it with him to the library. He whirled a chair around and placed it in front of the fire before draping his greatcoat over it. He then went to the drink cabinet and poured drinks for all three of them. Forrest and Rob followed their host’s example, then sat down in chairs near the fire to await their drinks.
Forrest exhaled tensely and bent forward as he drove his hands through his hair. “All that work and only one person saw anything worth noting,” he growled.
“Yes,” Matthew agreed, “but it was definitely a helpful clue, Forrest.” He handed first Forrest and then Rob their drinks.