After what seemed an eternity, I remembered 999.
Katherine regained consciousness in the ambulance and groaned. Tears of pain filled her blue eyes and she tried to lift a hand to her head, then groaned again at the pain in her wrist. I wished—how I wished!—it were my own wrist burning in agony, my own head streaming with blood. How could I have let this happen to this precious girl?
“Jordy,” she said weakly. “What happened?”
“You fell off Nicky, honey,” I said. “Remember?”
She tried to shake her head but winced again at the pain. Tears flowed down her face.
“Don’t try to move,” the EMT and I said at the same time.
The EMT, a strapping young man with cornhusk-blond hair and broad, hairy arms, leaned forward. “You don’t remember what happened, miss?” he asked.
“No, I . . .” She looked at me in mute appeal. “Nicky? Is he okay?”
“He’s fine,” I said a little grimly. The goddamned stupid horse had tossed his head and whinnied with pleasure when I led him back into his stall while the EMT was seeing to poor Katherine; he had dived into his oats with greedy delight. Bloody stupid horse.
“My head hurts,” she said pitifully. “It hurts so much.”
“I know, sweetheart,” I said, aching for her. I knew too well the pain of a concussion after a hard fall off a horse. The ground seemed so far away, and so unyielding, in those seconds of panic. Why, oh why, had I let myself be distracted? Pamela and Lady Olivia were right; I wasn’t fit to be taking care of these helpless children.
My cell phone buzzed, but I ignored it. It buzzed again.
“Please turn off your cell phone, ma’am,” said the EMT. “We don’t allow them in ambulances or hospitals.”
Obediently, I pulled out the phone and looked at the display. Two missed calls from John. He would just have to wait. I turned off the phone.
The casualty department was quiet, and they took Katherine right into an empty room. The nurse said briskly, “You’ve certainly gotten yourself into a state, young lady.”
Nurses in the UK apparently weren’t the kindly, nurturing nurses that we had in the U.S.; here, they seemed to blame the patient for being foolish enough to land in the hospital.
“It was all my fault,” I said. “I wasn’t watching her carefully enough.”
Katherine started crying again. “It was my fault,” she whimpered. “I never should have tried that fence.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” snapped the nurse. “Riding when you should have been in school!”
“School was closed today,” I said coldly, and squeezed Katherine’s good hand in support.
The nurse, busily cutting away Katherine’s favorite £150 ruffled riding shirt, glanced at me and asked, “You’re her mother?”
“My stepmother,” Katherine said.
“Ah. Should you call her father? I presume there is a father?”
Katherine’s lips trembled. “Don’t call Daddy. He’ll be so mad at me.”
I pulled out my cell phone and looked at it. More likely, he would be mad at me. Especially coming on top of his anger over the newspaper article this morning.
“No cell phones in the patient rooms!” the nurse snapped. “You’ll have to go outside to use that.”
Katherine clutched my hand. “Don’t leave me, Jordy,” she begged.
I put the phone away. John would just have to wait.
So I was shocked to my very core an hour or so later when I heard a familiar cold, clipped voice in the hallway. “A private room, please, Sister,” John said.
I swung around. What was he talking about? Katherine was already in a private room.
I was shocked once again to see Mary lying gray-faced and frighteningly still on a stretcher, pushed by the same EMT who had brought Katherine in. Mary looked tiny and shrunken on the stretcher; an oxygen mask dwarfed her small face, and her hands looked limp and helpless against the white sheets.
John saw me at the same time. “Jordy! How did you find out?”
“What happened to Mary?” I asked dazedly.
Katherine twitched nervously on the bed, and the nurse told her to keep still.
“She had an asthma . . .” His voice dropped off as he took another step forward so that he could see behind me into the tiny room. “Katherine! What happened? Good God, Jordy, what is going on here?”
Good God, indeed.
The nurse’s head came up alertly, and she said, “Is this the child’s father?”
John strode into the room, almost pushing me out of the way in his haste, and took Katherine’s hand. I looked at his thunderous face and tiptoed out of the room, going to Mary’s side and taking her hand.
“Mary, sweetheart, what happened?” I breathed. She tried to smile up at me, but her eyes drooped closed and my heart froze. “Is she okay?” I asked the EMT anxiously. “Did she pass out?”
He looked at me and registered my face for the first time. “Is this your daughter, too?” he asked in surprise.
“Yes, my stepdaughter. Is she okay?” I demanded.
“Yes. She’s just reacting to the meds; they’ll make her very drowsy.” He patted her hands, now relaxed in sleep on the sheet. “She should be fine, ma’am.”
“But what happened?” I persisted. When Katherine and I had left in the ambulance, Mary—wide-eyed and trembling—had been in the kitchen with Doris, her inhalers within reach. I had made sure of that.
John swung around, scowling, and even the huge EMT took a step backward. “She had a massive asthma attack,” John hissed at me.
“But her inhalers—”
“She panicked, and Cook did, too. They couldn’t find them, and you were God knows where!”
“But one was right there in the kitchen drawer!”
“Did Cook know that?”
Of course I had shown Doris that precious little medicine box in the drawer next to the cutlery. She must have been mightily panicked to forget. “Mary knew,” I said weakly.
“Mary was very busy trying to breathe!” he snapped at me.
I took a deep breath. I understood his fear—which must have been that much greater than mine—but I was getting tired of being his punching bag.
Fortunately for both of us, the nurse came up behind him and my angry response went unsaid. With no little satisfaction, she said, “I’ll be calling Social Welfare now. My goodness, two casualty visits in one day!”
John turned his scowl on her, but she was made of much stronger stuff than the EMT and me. “I’ll thank you not to interfere,” he said shortly. “My wife and I will deal with this.”
“And I’ll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head,” she retorted. “Two injured children in one household—I hope I know my duty to those poor girls.”
Katherine, the “poor girl” whom she’d been barking at one minute earlier, raised her head weakly. “Don’t yell at them,” she whimpered. “It’s all my fault.”
“It’s my fault,” I said. “I got distracted, and—”
With a quick glance at the nurse, John took my arm none too gently and guided me out into the corridor. “Let’s not fan the flames, shall we?”
Gulping back tears, I nodded.
“What happened to Katherine? And spare me the recriminations and self-flagellation, please. Just the facts.”
“She fell off Nicky,” I said unsteadily. “And it was all my—”
“Yes, all your fault. I understand.”
His face was stony, but I sensed the fear behind it.
“What happened to Mary?” I ventured.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“But she hasn’t had an asthma attack in weeks and weeks! And she knows where her inhalers are! Why did she get so panicked?”
With a visible effort, Mary pushed the ox
ygen mask aside. The nurse tsk-tsked, but Mary waved a feeble hand. I hadn’t even known she was awake.
“It was all my fault,” she whispered, and behind me, I heard John stifle an exasperated sigh. “I thought Katherine was dead—all that blood—and I just forgot where my inhalers were. I’m sorry, Jordy, I know you told me and told me—”
John said, “If I hear another ‘sorry’ or ‘it’s my fault,’ I shall lose my temper.”
The nurse eyed him. “I’ll just be calling Social Welfare, then,” she said stiffly, and marched off.
Katherine sniffed. “It’s all my fault. I’m so sorry, Daddy. I’m so sorry, Jordy. Now they’ll take us away, and we’ll have to live in some grotty horrible housing estate with a woman who hates little girls and—”
I could see she was feeling better; the painkillers must have kicked in, and she was having a high time envisioning herself as the romantic heroine of Cinderella or Annie.
But Mary’s eyes were huge above the oversize oxygen mask, and I hurried to comfort her. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, of course no one’s taking you anywhere but home. Daddy will fix it.”
“Indeed,” John said drily.
Our eyes met, and I could see that he had no doubts about who was to blame for the whole mess: me. I felt guilty enough already without him piling it on. He turned on his heel and strode out of the ward, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket. I wondered whom he was calling. The minister of Social Welfare, perhaps?
I felt a fleeting moment of pity for the nurse.
But John was back in just a few minutes. Once again he took me by the arm and pulled me from the room where I was sitting between Mary’s and Katherine’s hospital beds, telling them stories of my own horse-related mishaps while we waited for the doctor.
“Now what?” I asked warily. “Am I under arrest?”
“No, but Henry may be.”
I gaped at him. “Are you joking?”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
His jaw was set, and his eyes were glittery cold blue ice. “N-no,” I said.
“My six-year-old son is at the headmaster’s office with police and firefighters who are investigating a flood and fire alarm that he apparently set off.” John’s thin aristocratic mouth curved in distaste.
“But what on earth—?”
“He and some friends flushed all of the men’s room toilets at the same time, when their games master was taking a shower.”
I stifled a nervous giggle. “Is that all?” I had met the games master, a steroidal, humorless hunk with no neck and, I suspected, a locker full of Arnold Schwarzenegger sayings. I couldn’t blame the boys for wanting to give him a blast of hot water.
“Is that all?” John whisper-shouted at me. “No, it’s not all! The boys didn’t count on the medieval piping system, so the toilet flushing flooded the entire first floor and set off the fire alarms! The headmaster’s desk is awash in smelly brown liquid. And they say that Henry—my Henry—was the ringleader!”
Absurdly, I felt a tinge of pride. My Henry, leader of men. Just like his father.
I tamped down the unworthy pride and said, “That’s too bad, but no one can blame Henry for faulty pipes.”
“It is enough for me, my lady,” John said stiffly. “In one day I have two children in casualty, one being questioned by the police, and my eldest daughter—”
A guilty hand flew to my mouth. “Oh no, Jane! I forgot to pick her up at school! Where is she?”
Grimly, John said, “At her headmaster’s office. The police found her hitchhiking.”
Chapter 38
THE LOCAL CONSTABLE had seen a young girl trying to thumb a ride just outside the august gates of her school, and returned her in disgrace to the headmaster’s office. It was a blessing that he hadn’t brought her to the police station, I supposed, but it was bad enough. I could just see the headlines now: “Local MP’s Daughter Runs Away from School” would follow on the heels of the “Lady Jane Grey as Slut” story from the morning. If our luck didn’t change, some enterprising reporter would pick up on the Social Welfare threat, and tomorrow morning’s headline would be “Reformist Tory MP Is Unfit Father.”
John dispatched me to the various schools to collect our juvenile delinquents, and I was glad to leave the disapproval of the hospital behind. I had to drive his gleaming Mercedes, though, since I had ridden in the ambulance with Katherine and the sturdy old Volvo station wagon was back at the house. As I pulled in to Henry’s school, I clipped the corner of the stone gate with the car fender. I got out and looked at it despairingly. Could nothing on this dreadful day go right?
Fortunately, noblesse still obliges in rural England, and the chief inspector was apologetic over the “questioning” of Viscount Bradgate. “My laddies didn’t know who he was, ye ken,” he said, his Scots accent deepening almost to incomprehension with his anxiety.
The headmaster looked as if tarring and feathering would be too good for his young student, but he held his tongue.
I patted the chief inspector on the arm. “It’s all right. But Lord Grey is concerned about publicity . . .” I let my voice trail off suggestively.
“Oh, no, Lady Grey! We would never!”
I doubted that very highly but thanked him with the prettiest smile I could muster and turned to the little miscreant. “March,” I ordered, and he marched.
At Jane’s school, the tight-lipped headmaster told me that they had never had such an incident but let us go after a stern scolding. Jane started whining as soon as we got into the car. “No one came to pick me up,” she complained, “so I had to hitchhike home.”
“No, you didn’t,” I snapped. “You could have called me or Daddy. Or used the Uber app on your phone, like I showed you.”
“But—”
“No buts. And as for you, Henry—”
But the little Viscount Bradgate was fast asleep, his cheek smushed against the car door and his mouth open, emitting gentle snores.
I left the children at home under the ashamed eye of poor Doris, who promised to stay the night, and drove back to the hospital. When I crept into the girls’ room, both were asleep and their father was sprawled in a leather recliner that someone must have found for him. His tie was loosened and his shoes were off and his shirtsleeves were rolled up, revealing the fine curls of blond hair on his forearms that I liked to stroke when we were in bed.
I almost softened, seeing the lines of worry and fatigue around his mouth. I realized how frightened he must have been to see two of his daughters weak and helpless in hospital beds. He must have driven like a maniac to get here from London when he received the call about Mary.
But then he woke up. His eyes found me, and his face tightened, and I turned away, heartsick.
Both girls stayed at the hospital that night, and John insisted on staying with them. He dispatched me home with a brusque “See if you can keep my other two children out of jail and hospital until the morning.”
The next morning, I left Jane and Henry with Doris again; feeling guilty about her panic the day before when Mary had the asthma attack, she was preparing mountains of food for the two sufferers. The entire house was bathed in the delicious scents of chocolate pudding, chicken soup, and buttery shortbread. I realized I hadn’t eaten since the previous morning, and I longed to stay in Doris’s kitchen with the lovely aromas and the purring kittens. Instead I climbed back into John’s dented Mercedes and returned to the hospital to pick up the rest of the family.
They were waiting outside the entrance when I pulled up. Katherine sported a businesslike white cast on her forearm, and Mary looked pale and subdued; John was gray with exhaustion. But he came to life as soon as he saw the Mercedes. “Bloody hell, Jordy! What did you do to my car?”
“I’m sorry, I—”
“Never mind,” he snapped. “Just get out and let me drive.”
When we pulled into the graveled forecourt of the house, there was an unfamiliar car in the back, by the stables. Katherine wailed, “Oh no, the vet is here! Is something wrong with Nicky? Did I kill him?”
Her voice wobbled at the end, and I said quickly, “I called the vet and asked him to come check out Nicky, but I’m sure he’s fine. He was eating everything in sight when I put him back in his stall yesterday.”
She would not be consoled, and as soon as John cut the engine, she was out of the car and running toward the stables. John and I exchanged glances, and I set off after her.
“Slow down, Katherine! Don’t run with that cast on your arm!” I called.
She slowed down to a fast trot. When we got to the stable, there was no sign of the vet, and Nicky was standing peacefully in his stall, munching on fresh hay and looking as if he couldn’t possibly have thrown his rider the day before. I glared at him, but Katherine unlatched the stall gate and flung herself on his neck. “Oh, Nicky, oh, I’m so sorry! Is he all right? Is sweetums feeling all right?” The horse whickered gently at the sound of her voice, and Katherine burst into tears. “I know I was bad,” she whispered to him. “It was all my fault. I’m sorry, Nicky. I’ll try to focus more, I promise.”
I cleared my throat. “You shouldn’t have tried that jump, Katherine, but Nicky’s an experienced horse, and he should have known better, too. He could have gone over or around the jump.”
She looked at me in surprise. “I thought it was always the rider’s fault.”
I shrugged. That was what I had been taught also. “Nicky should have known better, too,” I repeated.
We walked back up to the house together, my arm around her shoulders. Somehow I wasn’t surprised to find the handsome young vet comfortably ensconced in the warm, fragrant kitchen, chatting away with Doris and downing an enormous scone, fresh out of the oven, with cream and strawberry jam leaking over his fingers.
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