by Lydia Joyce
She hit the ground, but her momentum sent her sliding, rolling, tumbling ever faster down the hillside. Byron scrambled after her, heart in his throat, but it was no use. A dozen yards, two dozen—a boulder stood in her path, but there was nothing Byron could do but watch as she hit it, striking it with first her hip and then, with a sickening sound that seemed to crash through his bones, her head.
The breath sobbing in his lungs, Byron half crawled, half slid to where she lay. "Damned proud idiot!" he snarled, unable to coherently voice the fear and rage that tumbled inside him. He didn't know whether he meant her, himself, or both of them.
He ripped off a glove and grabbed her cold wrist, and for a second he couldn't see, couldn't breathe as he felt for a pulse. And then there it was—the faintest flutter under his fingertips.
He let out his breath all at once and sagged down next to her, weak with relief. He pulled her limp body away from the boulder, and his hand met with something warm and sticky. Blood. Her pale hair was matted with scarlet where her head had struck the rock.
Fearing what he'd find, he pushed aside the curls where the blood seemed the thickest. There was a shallow gash with a swollen knot already forming around it. When he prodded it, it was hard and unyielding, not the softness of crushed bone as he had feared. Thank God. He cast a glance back at the inviting shelter of the shepherd's building. A fire waited for them there, and shade. He could keep her warm and dry until someone came to find them.
But there was no water, only a little wine left from lunch, and she might die without a doctor. Carrying her unconscious to Raeburn Court might injure her further, but it had to be safer than simply hoping she did not become feverish before help came.
She hung limply from his arms as he levered her upright, and he had no choice but to sling her like a sack of flour across his shoulders, her head and arms dangling down one side of his body, legs down the other. He straightened under her weight. By his feet lay her ridiculous parody of a top hat; his own was nowhere in sight. With the momentum of Princess' fall and the steepness of the slope, it could be anywhere. He looked up at the sun, peering through the clouds, and imagined he could already feel it burning into his flesh.
"God!" The word tore at his throat, half oath and half prayer. But there was no help for it. He had to get Victoria back to Raeburn Court as soon as possible, and so the hat was lost to him. But the blanket—he remembered with knee-weakening relief that the blanket Mrs. Peasebody had packed for their luncheon was waiting back in the low stone building. First, he had to get Victoria back to the road. Then he would fetch the blanket.
Bent almost double, slipping with every step, he struggled up the slope to the causeway where Apollonia waited patiently. His boots found little purchase in the mud, making every step a treacherous, sliding lurch. Stones taunted him with the easy handholds they offered, but he didn't dare let go of Victoria to grasp them. Twice, the slick bracken refused to take his weight and he landed heavily on a knee, and once, he overbalanced and almost pitched backward, but he regained his footing at the last moment, gritted his teeth, and pushed on. It seemed like an eternity before he reached the road again, and when he did, he could only stand gasping stupidly and blinking in the sunlight for a long moment until he got his breath back.
He slid Victoria off his shoulders to check on her. She showed no signs of rousing, but her pulse was steady, though it seemed no stronger than before. There was nothing he could do but get her to Raeburn Court as soon as possible. His impotence mocked him, and it was with almost a physical pain that he left her there for the time it took to dash back to the shepherd's shelter, snatch up the blanket, and run back.
Apollonia shied sideways when he first tried to lift Victoria across the saddle, and he wasted precious time to calm his mount enough to accept the limp, flopping weight across her back. He managed to swing up behind on his second try, then levered Victoria around so she straddled the horse's withers with her face pressed against his chest. He hauled the blanket over his head, wrapping it around Victoria and as high as his own nose, awkwardly shading his eyes. One arm around Victoria's waist and the other holding reins and blanket both, he urged Apollonia into a fast walk, not daring the jolt of a trot.
"Lord preserve us from the stubbornness of women," Byron muttered, but the tightness in his chest was fear, not rancor.
The sun beat down mercilessly. Even with his collar turned up and his head ducked under the blanket against the light, he could feel it searing his cheeks. How long had he been out in it now? Five minutes? Ten? At this rate, it would take two hours to reach the shelter of Raeburn Court. He resisted the urge to nudge Apollonia into a gallop. Once they reached level ground, he promised himself. Even though the sun was drying the cobbles of the causeway, there were too many puddles and too many slick places to risk speed there. If Apollonia stumbled, he could not guarantee that he could keep Victoria from pitching over the mount's head.
Finally, finally, the end of the causeway neared. Apollonia, already restive from her rider's tenseness, sprang forward at the touch of Byron's heels, taking the last dozen yards as a flat run. Byron crushed Victoria against him. Her head flopped against his chest at every stride, and he prayed the gallop was doing her less harm than the increased speed was helping her. Already his face felt like it had been stung by a thousand bees; he could only hope his pain was not clouding his judgment.
Apollonia slowed at the tree line, and they passed through the shaded relief of the woods at a more controlled canter. It was with dread that he saw the bright end of the trail. But there was nothing to be done, so he braced himself as his mount plunged into the light.
The rest of the ride faded into a blur of brilliant agony. The blanket slid again and again, and a mask of fire spread from the skin around his eyes to the end of his nose and the lower half of his forehead, searing and constricting the skin until he couldn't think, couldn't do anything but tighten his grip around Victoria's waist and keep Apollonia pointed home.
After a blazing eternity, he finally spied the bulk of Raeburn Court on its bald bill, but it seemed to hang in front of him like a fevered dream as he rode and rode, never getting closer. Then suddenly, he was pounding around the side of the manor into the stable yard. Through the haze, he saw Andrew look up from his pipe in alarm as Byron reined in Apollonia to a halt and dismounted, pulling Victoria into his arms.
"Find, the groom," he rasped at the gaping man. "Tell him to saddle up Dob and ride to Weatherlea for Dr. Merrick as fast as he can. Then cool down Apollonia and send someone out to find Princess. Lady Victoria has had an accident."
"Aye, thy grace," the man managed, but Byron was already brushing past him, up the steps and into the blessed shadow of the house with Victoria cradled in his arms like an infant.
"Thy grace, thoo really should leave now. We'll take care of her ladyship just fine until Dr. Merrick gets here, and thoo needs to look after that face—"
"No." Byron cut Mrs. Peasebody off midsyllable, his tone harsh enough that she glanced up from her patient for a moment.
Victoria was laid out on top of the coverlet of her bed in the Unicorn Room, Annie supporting her while the housekeeper unbuttoned the back of her riding habit. She still hadn't stirred, and with every moment that passed, the sick knot in Byron's chest grew tighter. His face was burning, and though he refused to glance in the mirror over the washbasin when he paused to splash cool water over it, he knew from experience that it would look as terrible as it felt. And it would only get worse. He hadn't been burned so badly in years, not since that one careless day as a boy that he still remembered in his nightmares…
"Thy grace, it just isn't right, and with thy burns—" Mrs. Peasebody began again.
Byron's fraying temper snapped. "Listen to me, old woman. Either you leave me in peace, or I'll dismiss you and tend to her myself."
The housekeeper opened her mouth, then shut it again without saying a thing and pressed her lips into a hard line.
Byron
snorted and opened the chamber door.
"Where's the hot water?" he bellowed down the staircase, then slammed the door shut before anyone could give a reply.
"Thy grace, these things take time—" the housekeeper began, but one look at his expression and she silenced herself again.
The maid and the housekeeper had stripped Victoria to her petticoats. She was so fragile-looking, so cold and colorless that Byron had to fight the urge to snatch her away from the women and cradle her against the heat of his own body so that the stir of her breath against his chest could remind him every second that she was alive.
Instead, he stood with his back to the fireplace as two kitchen maids entered with buckets of steaming water, their heads turned away from the ruins of his visage as they hurried out again. Even these servants, who should have been used to the sight from his great-uncle's episodes, were horrified by him.
He glowered as the housekeeper stripped the last layer of clothes from Victoria and sponged away the mud and blood from the dozen cuts and bruises that covered her thin frame. His hands ached almost as much as his face—he should be the one washing her wounds, they told him. He should be the one to surround her with warm bricks and bundle her up in an eiderdown. When Annie lifted Victoria's head for the housekeeper to begin removing the hairpins around the gash, Byron could no longer contain himself. He took an involuntary step toward the bed, his hand extended to forestall them.
The two women looked up, pausing in their work. Even as preoccupied as he was, he did not miss the queasy fear on Annie's face as she looked at him. If Victoria woke now, would her expression be the same?
"I—I will do that," he managed. "And I will sit with her until the doctor comes. You are dismissed until then." His voice sounded strange and harsh, as if it belonged to someone else.
Mrs. Peasebody opened her mouth, the look in her eyes one of automatic protest, but she paused and her expression softened, and when she spoke all she said was, "Of course, thy grace. We'll be waiting outside if thoo needs anything."
A moment later, they were gone.
Byron's sigh caught strangely in his throat. He took the comb from the night table, sat above Victoria's head, and began to work his fingers through her hair, slowly, carefully finding each hairpin and pulling it out, setting them gently aside as if they were the most precious things in the world. Once he was certain they were all gone, he unwound her hair and began to comb through it softly, picking out the bits of twigs and bracken that were caught in it and sponging away the mud. It seemed like forever before he reached her scalp, and he set aside the comb and took up a soft cloth instead and daubed it carefully, working closer and closer to the angry gash until he finally cleaned the wound itself.
Victoria groaned and stirred the first time he touched it, her face creasing but her eyes remaining resolutely closed.
" 'Tis only I," Byron said hoarsely, a new fear welling up in his throat—this one entirely selfish, a fear of being seen and repudiated.
But he had no reason to worry, for she silenced at his voice and did not stir again, and he returned to his work.
His own pain dulled with the distraction of tending to hers.
Finally, he was finished. He dried her hair as best he could and replaced the damp pillow under her head with a dry one. Then he blew out the lamp beside her bed and sat in the darkness to wait, clasping one of her limp hands between both his own, the burning of his face echoing the burning fear that tightened his heart.
* * *
Chapter Seventeen
A sense of speed, a rush, a sudden piercing pain that lanced through her body. She swam up through fog, toward the red-tinted light on the other side of her eyelids …
Voices, like birds, chirping incomprehensibly from far away, high and female and nonsensical, and then another, deep and measured—
"Head injuries are tricky things, your grace, and I would not stake my reputation on what she's suffered until I can talk to her, but I shouldn't think that this one will cause any more damage than a blinding headache for a day or two. The ankle, now, that will take longer to heal. She's broken it, right enough, but it seems to be a clean break, and she'll be just fine in six weeks or so. I've bandaged it and elevated it, which is all that can be done for her now."
"Thank you, Dr. Merrick."
That voice—that voice was not like the others. She knew that voice, and it both soothed her and stung her like a whip. She struggled through the fog, but still it dragged her under again, a thousand feather quilts pressing upon her.
"Now, I'll leave these drops with you, Mrs. Peasebody. Put one of them into a cup of beef tea every two hours and dribble it through her lips, if she'll drink…"
She fought, but the sounds of the voices slurred, ran together, were lost in the dark pit that opened under her to swallow her up.
She struggled against oblivion—for seconds, hours, days, she couldn't tell. Then—Red light, flickering, and the sense of confinement. She dragged her eyes open against the weight of her lids. The light went from red to yellow and hammered into the back of her skull. She moaned, and a shadow rose in front of the light.
"Hush, now, dearie. Everything will be fine."
She wanted to shake her head, but it hurt too much to move. The voice was wrong, the cool, soft hand on her head was wrong. The hand she wanted was larger, rougher, and the voice was a soft rumble, not a twitter.
"Where is he?" The words stumbled from her thick lips. There was something important she must remember, before the flight, before the tumble…
"Hush, now," the voice twittered again. "Hush, now, and drink this."
A cold edge was pressed against her lips, and warm liquid sloshed against them. She opened her mouth automatically and swallowed when the liquid hit the back of her throat, then swallowed and swallowed again. Her eyelids grew heavier, too heavy to keep open, but she didn't fight them because she remembered what had come before.
She had left. And he would never forgive her.
"I called you here for Lady Victoria," Byron said roughly. "There is nothing your science can do for me."
Dr. Merrick frowned, eyes still flickering over the ravaged skin of Byron's face. "I can make you a plaster and give you some medicine to keep fever at bay, your grace. I am familiar with the peculiarities of the condition. Your uncle had great faith in me."
"For all the good it did him. Your plasters only burn." Byron sat—slumped—on the desk chair of the Henry Suite's office. He was tired to his core, more tired than he'd ever thought possible, and his face still felt like a brand had been passed across it. The clock on the mantel declared it to be only just past midnight. But he felt as if the bone-deep weariness of the past two years had been condensed into one crushing moment in which he was suspended. "I will take your medicine, though, whatever it is. There seemed to be some value in mat, the last time."
"Of course," the doctor murmured and dug in his small black bag until he produced a green jar of powder. "Dissolve a teaspoon in a glass of water or tea and drink every four hours." He set the jar on the table beside Byron's chair. "And keep cold compresses on your face if you won't have my plasters. They will lessen the pain and the scarring."
Byron stared moodily at his desktop. "Do you think a man could die of it?"
Dr. Merrick paused delicately. "Of your condition, your grace? I do not know. I suppose it is possible, if you spent a very long time out in the sun and got an infection in the burns. But I have seen only one other case of it—your great-uncle's. He was not killed by it. One may argue that it drove him mad, but it did not kill him."
"Pity."
When the elderly man spoke again, Byron recognized the impatience doctors reserved for patients they felt were being self-indulgent. "There is no reason that one with the disease and your wealth cannot lead a long, happy, fulfilled life. If you choose to let it drive you mad, you have only yourself to blame."
Byron turned and leveled a glare at him. The doctor subsided with a murmure
d, "Your grace," but his expression remained stubborn.
Byron shook his head. "The life of a hermit—yes, that is mine to freely enjoy. Good night, Dr. Merrick. It is late, your room has long been prepared, and you have not had any rest yet. Tell me when you visit Lady Victoria again. Until then, good-bye."
With a small, stiff bow, the doctor left Byron to his black thoughts.
Darkness and light, each with its own pain. Dreams of running, sometimes with the fear of flight, sometimes with the soul-branding terror of the pursuit of something that was lost. And through the mist, his voice, wordless, bodiless, calling her, mocking her, but always, when she stumbled to the place it had been, gone.
"Where is he? Where is he?"
"It seems she's become a little feverish. Nothing unexpected, after what she's been through."
"Hush, dearie."
"Nothing to worry about. Keep the dosage steady, and she should be fine."
"Drink this, now."
"Where is he?"
"Her fever should break soon. It doesn't seem to be serious, but the body frequently responds to such trauma in that way," the doctor said, shutting the door of the Unicorn Room behind him.
Byron grimaced, then regretted it immediately. Despite the hours he had spent with cool, wet cloths on his face, it still throbbed abominably. "Let us hope so. And her injuries?"
"The swelling on her head is already beginning to recede, and her broken ankle is just that. In two months, Lord willing, she won't even have a limp."
"Thank God," Byron muttered, but there was more bitterness than gratefulness in his tone. It seemed so monumentally wrong that she should be injured at all that it was hard to feel anything but anger.
Dr. Merrick took off his spectacles and rubbed them on his handkerchief. "She keeps calling for someone, your grace." His expression made it clear that he had a good idea who she was asking for, though he wouldn't guess outright.