The Captain and the Wallflower

by Lyn Stone

  “Yes, sir. Not to worry.”

  Not to worry? When he could be losing all that was dear to him? The woman he loved and couldn’t live without?

  He began to pace again, running his fingers through his hair, pressing his temples, trying to banish the pounding ache in his head. Nothing could fix the ache in his heart except Grace regaining consciousness and assuring him she would be well.

  How had he ever believed he could let her go? Why had he ever thought she would be a drain on his time and an impediment to his proper service as earl? Now he doubted he would amount to anything at all without her.

  She had done more in organizing Wildenhurst than anyone in his memory. She had saved his uncle’s life. And helped save Caine’s and her own in that cellar. She had restored his own faith in women, surrendered her innocence without a whimper and, most surprising of all, had made him able to laugh again.

  He felt the tears on his cheeks and dashed them away. Hell, she made him cry, too. Made him feel again, and dwell on something other than his anger and vanity. Grace was all that her name implied.

  “God save her,” he whispered. “Please.”

  Trent came dashing down the hall from the main stairs. “The doctor’s coming up. Hadley insisted on sending a rider to London for Dr. Ackers, as well. How is she?”

  Caine shrugged. “Oliver and young Jane are seeing to her injuries where I may not.” He swayed and Trent steadied him.

  “Are you hurt, Caine?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”

  Caine shook his head and sniffed. “Fighting despair is all. She has to make it through this, Gavin, or I might not.”

  “Look at me, Caine!” Trent demanded. “Listen to me now. Grace is going to be all right. She’s the strongest woman we’ve ever met and you know that.”

  “You love her, too,” Caine guessed.

  Trent slapped his shoulder. “Of course I love her, you idiot! Everyone loves her but that lunatic Wardfelton. Grace is my friend, same as you are.”

  Caine nodded. “Any sign of the lunatic? I look forward to choking the life out of him.”

  “No one has seen him, but he can’t hide for long. Neville finally confided something to me today that you should probably know. He’s worked for the War Office for several years. Clandestine assignments, some abroad and some in England. He has suspicions concerning Wardfelton that have nothing to do with this.”

  Caine snapped to attention. “Perhaps they do have to do with it. Grace once overheard Wardfelton and Sorensen speaking together in French. He thought she understood them. That’s why he wanted to kill her. And me, because he was afraid she’d confided in me, or would do after we were married. He must have been spying for the French.”

  “Neville thinks it’s more likely he was a sympathizer or financier. He says Wardfelton’s inheritance has dwindled to nothing and he has no acquisitions to show for it. Could be gambling, I suppose, but Neville doesn’t think so.”

  “Grace told me he had sold off things of value from the country seat,” Caine added.

  “Yes, and he tried to sell the town house, too, but Neville’s man has uncovered records showing that it was left to Grace by her father and he couldn’t dispose of it.”

  Caine’s eyes met Trent’s as they came to the same conclusion. “Unless she was dead!” they exclaimed in unison.

  “And still unmarried, so he would have it as her next of kin,” Caine added. “This explains so much. The war’s over and he’s destitute with the possibility of being exposed for treason as long as she’s alive.”

  Trent blew out a sigh. “God, speak of motive for murder!”

  “He won’t live to be tried for it. I mean to kill him,” Caine said with cold determination.

  “Not if I find him first,” Trent said with a succinct nod. “And I’m off to do just that. Sorry you can’t come, old boy. Give Grace my regards.” He grinned as he backed a few steps down the hall. “And tell her I love her when she wakes, will you?”

  “Go to hell,” Caine said, but he smiled.

  “Sir?” Jane said, standing in the doorway to Grace’s room. “You may come in now.”

  Caine immediately dismissed Trent and Wardfelton from his mind and rushed to Grace’s bedside. He swallowed a groan. She looked…lifeless. Pale and unmoving, laid out in a clean gown with her hands by her sides. Afraid to breathe, he picked up one of her hands and pressed his fingers to her wrist as he had done earlier. There! A slow, steady pulse.

  The doctor arrived within the half hour, Dr. Samuels, the same fellow who had treated Caine’s gunshot wound here at Wildenhurst. Caine did not dislike the man, but nor did he trust him completely. His smile was too obsequious and his manner annoying.

  “Good day, Captain,” he said by way of greeting as he set down his bag.

  “Not thus far,” Caine replied. “Thank you for coming.” He stood. “The women have examined her and there are no open wounds. Her knees, one shoulder and one hip are bruised, probably as she fell. The scratches on her arms were acquired earlier, not in the explosion. She has been unconscious since we found her a quarter hour after the blast.”

  The doctor leaned over Grace and pried open one eyelid, then both. He raked back her hair and checked her ears. He ran his fingers through her hair, pressing at certain points as Caine watched.

  Then he straightened. “I believe she has sustained an injury to the brain, sir. I saw this in the war as you might have done yourself. There are signs the brain is swelling within her skull or loose blood is collecting there.”

  Caine had never felt such fear in his life, even when he thought he would die himself. “Will…will she live?”

  The doctor glanced at Grace and back at Caine. “I can relieve the pressure. That will give her a chance.”

  “A chance? How much of a chance?” Caine demanded.

  Samuels shrugged a shoulder. “I’m given to believe one out of four survive the procedure.”

  “You are given to believe? What procedure?” Caine watched as the doctor opened his medical case. He took out a vise of some sort. “What is that? It’s not…”

  “Yes, trepanning instruments.”

  Caine was already shaking his head. “You are not boring a hole in her head! Are you mad?”

  “Sir, it is the only way!”

  It took every restraint Caine possessed to refrain from tossing the man out the window. “You can’t be positive her brain is swelling,” he said, trying to sound reasonable. He looked down at the apparatus. “This looks brand-new. You haven’t done this before, have you? Even if I were convinced this was necessary, I wouldn’t allow a novice to do it!”

  Samuels wore an expression of studied tolerance. “Sir, I have studied, apprenticed and practiced surgery on the battlefield. Be assured I know what I’m about.”

  Caine almost lost his reason. “You are about to be shown the door, Mr. Samuels. We don’t require your services.”

  “She will probably die, then,” Samuels warned, his expression dark.

  “If so, it will be without another hole in her head,” Caine declared. “Leave.”

  Samuels tossed in the instrument, snapped his bag shut and stalked to the door. “I shall send you the bill for my trouble.”

  Caine collapsed in the chair and rested his head on the bed beside Grace. Mrs. Oliver lay a hand on his shoulder and he looked up at her. “Have I done wrong to refuse that?” he whispered.

  She shook her head and smiled. “No, sir. The earl’s physician will come soon. Our lady trusts him. He knew her da.”

  The hours crept by as Caine stood watch over Grace, alternately praying she would recover a
nd cursing Wardfelton’s murderous soul.

  *

  Grace struggled through the darkness, a viscous mass enveloped her, hampered her breathing, obstructed her limbs as she fought her way. One goal pushed her efforts. She had to find Caine. To save him.

  The grayness swirled into shapes that moved and slowly, menacingly, features formed out of it. Wardfelton’s smirking grin taunted her. His eyes promised a slow, smothering death. Grace tried to scream but her throat was so dry, her tongue so thick. She cried out for Caine, to warn him.

  *

  Dr. Ackers arrived at eight o’clock in the evening.

  “She moved a little,” Caine informed him as the physician entered Grace’s room. “Tried to speak, I think.”

  Ackers went straight to the bedside and did exactly what Samuels had done that morning. Caine’s patience almost snapped. Did no one know what to do for her?

  The doctor moved away after his cursory assessment and spoke to Caine. “There’s little to be done other than wait. Dr. Samuels is still downstairs, convinced that relieving the pressure is the thing to do.” He held up a hand to silence Caine when he started to protest. “I agree with you, sir. It’s too dangerous. At times, these surgeons are a bit too eager to ply their trade. As it stands, she probably has an even chance to come around on her own when the swelling subsides. Her chances are reduced by half again if we proceed with surgery.”

  Caine breathed a sigh so deep it made him dizzy. “What can we do for her?”

  “Cold compresses on the face, head and neck. Moving her limbs occasionally to encourage blood flow into them, away from the brain.”

  “Yes! That makes sense!” Caine felt vastly relieved at having something positive to do. And to have Ackers’s agreement that he had not condemned Grace, but had done the best thing after all.

  “The women can do what needs doing.” Ackers beckoned to Mrs. Oliver and Jane, then continued to Caine, “My advice to you is to leave her for a while. Have some nourishment and rest. You aren’t long out of a sickbed yourself.”

  “She might call for me. I need to be here,” Caine argued.

  “Then we shall find you on the instant,” the doctor promised. “Go now and do as I say.”

  Caine crossed to Grace again and kissed her forehead. With a last lingering look at her, he left the room.

  Others were depending on him, he knew, but he could scarcely think of anything but her. If she died, he feared nothing else would matter anyway.

  Trent met him at the foot of the main stairs. “We have everything sorted down here. How is Grace?”

  Caine shook his head, unable to answer. He clung to the fact that she had moved, slight as the stirring had been, it gave him hope. And her lips had opened, twitched a little. “I can’t leave her for long,” he told Trent. “How goes the search?”

  “Neville’s taken it to London. Harrell and I will commence here in the county at first light. God only knows where he went, but we will find him, Caine.”

  He found he couldn’t discuss Wardfelton any longer or his blast of anger would erupt full force and convince everyone he was mad. Instead, he tried to concentrate on a lesser concern. “The house,” he said as he surveyed the vestibule. “I think half must be brought down and rebuilt.”

  Trent took his arm. “But not tonight. Come with me. Mrs. Bowden has a good stew and decent ale, everything’s set up in the drawing room.”

  Caine went, noting absently that the doors to the damaged portion of the house had been closed and everything in the immediate area had been dusted. The floors shone. One would never guess from this vantage that nearly half the ground floor of the house lay in ruin with the floors over it highly unstable.

  His entire life might lie in ruin if Grace lost hers. But if she recovered, as she must do, she would be furious if he had done nothing in the meantime but brace himself for grief. If their conditions were reversed, she would be taking charge, issuing orders and doing her duty. Hadn’t she done precisely that when he lay abed with the gunshot?

  He forced down a hearty bowl of venison stew, emptied a tankard of stout and went to compose a letter to a London architect he knew who had engineering experience. There at the desk in the library, he fell sound asleep.

  “Wake up, sir!”

  Caine stirred, catching himself as he nearly fell from his chair. Someone was shaking his shoulder. “What?” he mumbled just as full awareness hit. “Is it Grace?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Mrs. Oliver shouted down just now for me to get you,” Judd added in a rush. “Lady Grace called your name!”

  “Thank God,” Caine whispered. “Dr. Ackers is there?” he asked, hurrying out ahead of Judd.

  “All night, sir. It’s almost six now.”

  Caine dashed up the stairs and down the hall. He burst into the room and hurried to her side. She looked the same as before, not wide awake as he had hoped. He leaned over her, took her hand and kissed her lips, a brief touch only. “Grace? I’m here, love.”

  She moved her head and issued a sound, not quite a word. Her eyes opened slightly.

  “You’re back with me, aren’t you! You came back,” he murmured, brushing her brow with fingers that shook. “All will be well now. You will be well.”

  Her lips stretched into a weak smile and she spoke his name, a mere breath, but the most precious sound he’d ever heard.

  She lapsed into sleep again, but he knew she would live. He kept her hand in his as he sank into the chair beside her bed, pressed his face into the edge of her pillow and wept soundlessly into the soft linen.

  Grace woke hours later as the small mantel clock chimed ten. She remembered waking before or perhaps had only dreamed that. Caine had been hovering beside her, coaxing her awake, his hand holding hers, chafing it, warming it. She moved her fingers and realized he held it yet. When she turned her head on the pillow, his hair brushed her face. He was sitting in the chair beside the bed, leaned over so that his head rested next to hers.

  She glanced around the room and noticed nothing had changed. Thank God the manor still stood and they had, by some stroke of good luck, avoided catastrophe. She figured she must have fallen and hit her head as she rushed to see if he had made it out of the cellar.

  “Caine?” she whispered.

  He raised his head immediately. “Do you hurt? Can I get you anything?” His free hand gingerly brushed her hair back, then cradled the side of her face. “God, I worried you would never wake fully! You’ve been in and out four times now. Does your head ache?”

  “I fell. But I don’t quite remember falling.” She closed her eyes and tried again to think of what had happened. “Clumsy of me.”

  “It’s all right, darling. You shouldn’t worry about anything.”

  She swallowed hard. “The rain wet the powder then? Everyone’s safe?”

  “Everyone else is fine.”

  “My uncle?” she asked.

  “Gone. You need not think of him ever again.”

  She sighed. “You…you have killed him then?”

  Caine shook his head. “No, not yet.”

  She closed her eyes again as she heard the intent in his tone. They had no proof of her uncle’s misdeeds and Caine would be arrested if he dealt out justice on his own. “You mustn’t. I don’t want you to.”

  “I know, love. I know you don’t. Rest easy and it’ll all work out in the end. You’ve had a terrible injury.”

  Her eyes flew open. “Do you believe I will die of it? You sound as if you do!”

  He smiled. “Absolutely not. You will live to a ripe old age and bear us a few hellion
s just like yourself.”

  Grace tried to nod, but it hurt. “They might have to be bastards. I think fate is against this marriage of ours.”

  He patted her face gently. “We’ll tie the knot as soon as you’re able to stand upright without the headache. I promise.”

  “Tomorrow, then,” she muttered as she drifted back to sleep.

  Tomorrow did not work out. When Grace woke again, it was to overhear Mrs. Bowden and Jane discussing the damages to the kitchen wing and bemoaning the fact that the house would never be the same.

  Grace was livid. Why hadn’t Caine told her the explosion had happened? Damn the man for his coddling and cooing to her how everything was all right.

  “Where is he?” she demanded in the strongest voice she could manage. The servants gasped and rushed to her side, but there was no calming her. Her home was ruined and no one had seen fit to tell her?

  Her anger had cooled somewhat by the time Caine answered her summons, but she still resented his keeping her in the dark. “Why was I not told?” she demanded. “I want to see for myself how severely the house is damaged.”

  He sat on the edge of the bed and took her hands in his. “Of course you will, but later, when you feel a bit steadier. Not to worry, all can be repaired. I have someone working on the plans already.”

  She pressed him for details, but he ignored that and cleverly guided her into a discussion of wedding plans. Grace allowed it, but only because she tired too quickly to sustain an argument.

  Two days later, Grace was chafing at her confinement to bed. Dr. Ackers had insisted she rest until he gave her leave to resume her normal activities.

  Caine kept her company most hours of the day and evening, letting her best him at cards, showing off his expertise at chess, teasing her with riddles and sharing stories of his childhood.