Iona tried to puzzle out the topic, but her head buzzed. She’d released the bees, but there were a lot of them and they lingered. She had to keep them from Gerard.
“Reckon he’s like his witchy mother?”
Finally understanding, Iona shrugged off the helping hands. “You had better hope Ives has abnormal talents so he may live to rescue others someday. He’s a hero.”
If the gentlemen looked startled, she didn’t know. Apparently awake again, Isobel ran toward her, and Iona stumbled over to hug her twin.
“Is that Dare’s carriage?” In relief, Iona dragged her sister toward the impatient horses. “Will the driver take us to Lord Dare’s home? I believe it’s closest.”
The strangers dashed up to assist them. “The marquess said we’re to take you back to the school.”
“That will only delay our arrival at Dare’s,” Iona said dismissively. “We need to be with Lady Phoebe and Lady Dare, and I’m quite certain they won’t be at the school.”
“You can’t—”
“Oh, dear,” Isobel interrupted their protest with a groan. “Please, never tell my sister she can’t.”
Smiling grimly, Iona shouted at the driver. “Take us back to the viscount’s, please. Lady Dare will need help.” Iona slammed the door on their white knights and hung on so they couldn’t open it.
“You might want to help the police haul off the miscreants,” she called to her disconcerted rescuers as the carriage began to roll.
“Malcolms,” she heard one of the men say in disgust. “You can’t reason with them.”
“Ives is a Malcolm,” was the last grumble she heard as she settled back against the squabs.
The earl had made a rather public display of his unreasonable heritage this evening, Iona acknowledged. Although, as far as she was concerned, the Ives brawling was more unseemly than dodging unseen bullets and fists. Still, if these men had actually paid attention and understood what he’d done, it might affect any diplomatic career he envisioned. She had brought him nothing but scandal.
“What happened to Mortimer?” Isobel whispered, interrupting Iona’s gloomy thoughts. “Will he live?”
Thinking of the still figure abandoned on the street, Iona shook her head. “I don’t know. He tried to shoot Lord Ives, and I became angry. I may have killed him. I almost hope he’s dead if he has harmed Lord Ives and his friends.”
Isobel squeezed her hand. “Don’t. Let us believe they are all fine.”
If the hustle and bustle of the Dare household meant anything, they weren’t all fine. The marquess’s speedy carriage had evidently arrived before they did.
A towering giant of a footman let them in. In the parlor, Lady Dare, garbed in one of her infamous saris, barked orders at young men twice her size. Dare’s medical students? The men rushed to do the lady’s bidding, joining the servants carrying water basins and bandages.
Lady Phoebe’s voice carried from down the corridor. What appeared to be a squad of urchins jumped and ran out the back door upon her command. There didn’t seem to be anything Iona could do. Wearing the uniform of a groom, with a cap on her short hair, she might pose as a servant. But she couldn’t abandon Isobel, who looked pale enough to faint again.
“Suggest to Lady Dare that you fetch Lord Ives’ Aunt Winifred. She’s a healer of sorts. She can sit with the patients while the others rest.” Iona maneuvered her sister toward the parlor while staying in the shadows.
“And what will you do?”
“Carry water basins and bandages.” Abandoning her twin, Iona scurried to the back stairs and the steady stream of servants hurrying up and down. No house had enough servants at times like this. These appeared to mostly be worried kitchen staff. Iona grabbed a tea tray cooling off on a table and hustled up the stairs with it.
Most of the activity seemed centered at the top of the central stairs, so she balanced the heavy tray down the upper hall in that direction.
She could hear Lord Dare’s voice shouting orders, so he, at least, was alive—and cursing. He was a physician. She wouldn’t worry about him.
Closer up, she could hear men consulting in quieter voices. The marquess? He, too, was a physician and reportedly a Malcolm healer. She eased nearer that conversation.
“Look for an exit wound. If there is none, you’ll have to cut into that hole and remove the bullet. Have they taught you that yet?”
Iona winced. But surely that meant either Phoebe’s husband or Gerard was still alive or they wouldn’t be operating.
A pair of gangly students abruptly emerged from the nearest chamber, off to dig into a bullet hole. Iona took a step back but they scarcely noticed her as they dashed the other way, past the door where Dare was shouting at his minions.
The marquess might recognize her, but she had to know—
Boldly, she carried the tray into the chamber he occupied.
Lord Ives lay half naked on the bed. She almost swallowed her tongue at the sight of broad, muscled shoulders and chest, except the blood everywhere had her swaying as badly as Isobel.
His valet—his own wrist heavily wrapped in bandages—attempted to remove his employer’s boots. A frightened maid dabbed at the blood running from the earl’s shoulder. The marquess alternately sponged blood from his patient’s hair to find the wound while attempting to staunch the bleeding gap revealed.
Iona had seen wounds sutured. She didn’t like watching, but she knew what it involved. She hardened her senses against the roiling odors of pain and fear. At least Gerard was unconscious, and it was only the servants she sensed. The marquess was oddly—odorless.
Setting the tray down, she washed in the basin by the table, picked up a roll of gauze, and made a thick compress.
Barely looking at her, the marquess nodded approval. “If you can press down on that part, I’ll start work on this end.”
Iona stayed silent in fear that any moment he would recognize her.
Another student rushed in to help with the shoulder wound. The maid retreated to help Lowell with the boots.
Another student arrived and was sent for clean water. The marquess calmly stitched at the head wound.
Lord Dare walked in just as Iona stepped back to allow Rainford to finish stitching. The physician/viscount wore his shirt unfastened and a bandage around his torso, but he seemed otherwise able and willing.
He glanced at Iona, and she was sure he recognized her, but he said nothing as he took over treating the shoulder wound.
Iona hovered in the shadows, praying. She tried to concentrate on the earl’s splendid muscles, but mostly, she watched him breathe. It wasn’t steady. He appeared to be gasping but that didn’t seem to concern the men. She took a breath for each of his, willing him to live. She tried not to watch too closely as one of the students sponged off all the blood.
“Drew has a bullet lodged in his thigh from a ricochet.” Lord Dare began winding gauze around the earl’s shoulder. “You should probably look at him next. I just have cracked ribs.”
“Ran into a chair, did you?” The marquess knotted his thread and held out his hand. Iona hurriedly handed him a clean bandage. “And Drew couldn’t pry his pistol out of his pocket?”
“It’s either that or tell the police Ives knocked us flying to protect us from a hail of bullets he couldn’t have seen coming. Your choice.”
Iona felt as if their words were directed at her. She hadn’t helped Gerard do any of that. All she had done was try to murder a man with bees.
Bees. There had been lots of bees. They shouldn’t have been near the earl. . .
She had nothing to offer to explain what he’d done.
“Exceptional hearing,” the marquess suggested when she didn’t claim responsibility. “But the chair and pistol will satisfy the authorities.”
Iona wanted to shout That won’t get those monsters hanged! But she didn’t know how the law worked. The thugs might hang simply for carrying weapons—provided they were caught.
Rainford w
ashed his hands and finally glanced at Iona. “That’s what you’ll tell everyone, right? Ives likes his privacy.”
“I was there. I saw it all,” she agreed solemnly. “Lowell did, too.” She nodded at the valet.
Lowell set down the boots he’d finally pried off. “Broken chairs all over. Scoundrels flung them about. Pistols fire when that happens.”
“Right. Let’s take a look at Blair. Tell us if this scoundrel wakes.” The slender marquess picked up his bag of supplies and stalked out, looking almost regal in his evening tails.
“He’ll make a proper duke one day,” Lowell said in admiration as the maid and students followed the physicians. Lowell was no fool. He recognized her too.
Iona wasn’t interested in the handsome marquess or his future dukedom. “I sent for Aunt Winifred. She’s a healer, but Lord Ives won’t appreciate her.”
Lowell furrowed his already wrinkled brow. “Head wounds can be bad. More important that he gets well than mad. You oughtn’t be here.”
“Just until Winifred arrives,” she promised. She nodded at the valet’s bandaged wrist. “You probably need a stiff drink and some rest. Does that door over there lead to a dressing room?”
Lowell peered in. “With a cot. Why don’t you wait there?”
“I’m not injured. You are. I smell whisky in that teapot. It’s cold. Does that matter?”
Lowell looked longingly at the tray, then back to his employer.
“Take it. That’s an order.” Looking less like a countess than she ever had, but commanding as if she’d been in authority all her life, Iona pulled a chair up to the bedside. She felt half naked in boy’s trousers. And she was shivering, probably from shock, but she refused to show weakness.
“He’ll have my head,” the servant muttered, but accustomed to following orders, he poured a cup and carried it to the antechamber.
He came back a moment later carrying a quilt. “You need it more than me.” He dropped it in her lap.
When the room was finally clear, Iona crept closer to the bed.
Gerard’s head and shoulder were swathed in bandages. His breathing was ragged. She touched the strong column of his throat but she was no doctor. She couldn’t tell if it was closing up.
Holding a lamp closer, she forced herself to look away from his naked chest and explore the more likely places for bee stings, like his hands and wrists.
And there they were, two swelling welts on his battered fists.
Twenty-four
Sun-drenched marble met the golden sand. In the distance, azure waves lapped. Was that a palm tree? A siren’s song called. Gerard climbed over the ancient ruins. . .
Blood dripped from the columns, sinking into the pitted surfaces and staining them crimson.
“I need honey from my hive.” Frustration tinted the siren’s voice.
Gerard tried to locate the source but struggled against the murky water closing over his head.
“We can telegraph them, of course, but it will still take a day or two to ship it here. It will be simpler to take him back to Wystan.”
Winifred? His aunt was in Italy? Why? Her son! Right, her son needed a sunny clime.
He dived under the water again. Why was he in the water?
“The books recommend inhaling cannabis or lobelia fumes for lung disorders.”
Rainford? Was that Rain out there?
“The books are written by dolts who recommend coffee for insomnia. It’s a bloody bee sting.” Dare.
Then he wasn’t in Italy? On what golden shore did Roman ruins exist in England?
He tried to speak, but his throat closed up, and he heard only a raspy breath.
“He’s coming around!”
Iona. That was definitely Iona, not a siren. Still, a vision of a goddess wrapped in white linen swam through his watery vision.
“My mother’s herbal agrees with Lady Iona,” Dare’s voice continued. “Honey is the best cure if he’s sensitive to stings. He’s not feverish any longer, so this jar is working.”
“Gerard?” Iona’s voice coaxed him back to the surface.
“Don’t wake him until I check this wound.”
Pain shot through his head, and he sank below the waters again.
When he woke next, his head throbbed, his eyes seemed swollen shut, and his shoulder needed to be hacked off before he could move.
“Our healing abilities are helping,” Winifred said soothingly. “The earl is still breathing, and that’s what matters.”
“I almost killed him.”
Iona sounded so mournful, he wanted to reach for her, but he couldn’t move.
“His own blockheadedness did that,” Winifred said with scorn and affection. “He had no business entering that den of thieves.”
“He wanted to protect us from Mortimer. We would have been fine once I married Mr. White. Mortimer couldn’t have touched us then.”
“Blockheaded,” Winifred repeated emphatically. “Ives are like that.”
Gerard wanted to laugh but could only manage a hoarse rattle. He was still an Ives in her eyes, then, not an insane Malcolm who knew things he shouldn’t.
A small, cool hand caressed his brow, and the scent of roses wafted around him. He desperately needed to open his eyes but they wouldn’t cooperate.
“Will he really be all right?”
“He’ll be sore for weeks. Go with your sister. It’s better this way.”
What would be better? He wouldn’t be better. He tried to tell her to stay, but the best he could do was clench his fingers into fists.
A soft kiss pressed his cheek, and then the roses were gone.
* * *
“Where is she?” Gerard muttered, rubbing his newly shaved jaw.
“Who?” Lowell fussed with cleaning off his razors.
Gerard tried to rip off his valet’s arm, but his grip wasn’t strong yet. Lowell easily yanked away.
“The beekeeper?” The valet shrugged. “With her sister at Calder, last I heard, preparing for her nuptials.”
Gerard ground his teeth. He’d recovered enough to resist being shipped off to the wilds of Wystan, but it had taken a week before he had the strength to sit up and breathe normally. A week. She could be married already.
“Mortimer is still alive then?”
Lowell tucked away his instruments. “Mighty sick, last I heard. Your friends swore to the coppers that he was the one who shot you, so they locked him behind bars. The American hired lawyers to bail him out. They’re still arguing over whether he’s a peer and entitled to privileges.”
“He’s no more than the younger son of a viscount. Can’t they read? I want him transported.” But that was fury speaking. Mortimer had not been the one to shoot him. The cad had been flat on his back, covered in bees at the time.
Iona was marrying wealth, as she’d wanted.
He should take his reward and order the roof repaired at Wystan so he didn’t have to worry about throwing out the ladies just yet. Transporting the library would be hell anyway. He didn’t think saving the orchard would save the castle in the long run, but maybe he’d find a wealthy heiress to marry. Then he could live in London, hoping Iona was safe under Wystan’s new roof.
He’d be dead by now if Iona hadn’t taken down Mortimer. She’d saved his life with bees.
The soldier philosopher in his head said nothing, and Gerard realized the medallion wasn’t in his pocket.
“Where’s my lucky piece?” he demanded.
“Wasn’t so lucky now, was it?” Lowell said complacently. “It’s in a drawer with all your other bits and pieces.
He should probably leave it there, but what if he no longer heard voices? His head still occasionally throbbed when he didn’t rest enough. Was there any point in going to Italy if he couldn’t hear the voices?
Did he actually feel disappointment that he might not have a gift for seeing the past? His head must still be muddled.
“I’m still alive, aren’t I? Find out when the wedding
is scheduled and where it will be held. If Mortimer is still alive, he’ll find a way to drain her coffers just the way he’s done White’s. His thieving cronies will be sure that he does.”
“The problem isn’t yours,” Lowell reminded him. “Your friends are still hobbling about after that last fracas. You can’t ask them to do more.”
He’d already had visits from Zane and Blair and knew they were recovering and enjoying the coddling of their wives, despite their protests otherwise.
Gerard didn’t want to be coddled. But he didn’t want a woman as passionate and courageous as Iona to marry a milksop either.
He wanted her for his.
That realization had him breaking out in a cold sweat.
* * *
Iona finished repairing the hackle covering a Calder hive and wiped a straying hair from her face. Her hair was starting to grow out. Perhaps she should have it trimmed off again. It was so much easier not dealing with the heavy length—and it wasn’t as if her fiancée cared if she wore snakes on her head.
A golden leaf fluttered past. It would snow soon. She needed to leave before then. Arthur could stay and petition the queen all he liked. She wanted to return to the comfort of Wystan and lick her wounds.
And use Arthur’s wealth to improve lives, she reminded herself sternly. He’d agreed to her settlement, poor fool.
Isobel raced down the hillside, waving a letter, her dark skirts fluttering in the breeze. Iona had no curiosity about its contents. Everyone in her world was safe and accounted for. Even Gerard was reported to be up and about.
“It’s from Balmoral,” Isobel cried as she came closer. “The queen agrees to take the title from abeyance. She wants to speak with us!”
Ah well, Iona could gift her fiancée with her title in exchange for his wealth. She had no idea how to go about rewarding him with a title of his own, but perhaps the queen could help. Or her staff. “I daresay the queen doesn’t wish to see us. It’s probably an interview with a secretary.” She took the letter and skimmed the contents.
“It doesn’t matter. We can go to Balmoral! I’ve always wanted to visit. They say it’s even larger than Holyrood!” Isobel practically danced in anticipation.
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