That, finally, seemed to cow the old drunk. He blanched and, for once, Will was entirely thankful for the effect of his scarred and ruined visage.
Miss Copperweld watched while her father was hauled off, but then she turned to Jane, who had exited the carriage at some point to gauge the situation. Soon enough, she was sobbing onto the front of Jane’s blush pink dress. Whether predominately out of shame, relief, or sadness, Will had no idea.
His entire being wanted to comfort her. All her ties and claims to a father, however despicable that father might have been, were now fully and irrevocably severed. He had never been through anything like this, but her distress was written plainly in the sound of her sobs and lines of her shoulders.
The crowd seemed content to part momentarily rather than look on as Augusta shattered. Will conjectured that they were pleased with the appearance of their lord and the way he had meted out justice, and he almost said something to the effect that they were dismissed.
He kept himself from saying so, though, because it struck him as being a little too similar to the actions of a schoolmaster.
Just as they all began to disperse of their own accord, a careworn man dashed into the square, screaming for help. Startled, Will made his way to him, wondering what had driven him to such public hysterics. Even Miss Copperweld and Jane looked over to see what was the matter.
The man gasped, bending over with his hands splayed on his thighs, “Someone must help me—my boy, my little boy—he is stuck in a tree. Stuck on a branch, my lord. He is bleeding and I dare not move him!”
Chapter Nine
Will had never been more lacking in self-confidence as he was in the moment when the stranger ran to him for help. Surely, he said, there must be someone who was more capable than him. Will’s prevarications fell on deaf ears, and the remaining villagers joined him in soliciting Will’s aid. Finally, he said that both Copperweld and Benedict should be kept under strict watch, and agreed to go to the site where the boy was in peril. It was not far, a small parcel of land where the boy’s father, the hysterical man, farmed his crops.
He’d no idea how it happened, but his boy was somehow caught from behind on a broken branch. Between his halting explanations and moans of terror, or mumbles of self-chastisement, Will could only gather that the boy was, in general, an avid climber, and his father had, therefore, left him unattended.
Confused and beside himself with the fear of failure, he came away with the farmer and a few men and women. Miss Copperweld and Jane, who could not be dissuaded from accompanying him, were by his side.
His anxiety mounted when he finally caught sight of the poor boy. There in a tree, and Heaven could only tell exactly how it happened, he was impaled on a jagged remnant of a broken branch. Perhaps the lad fell? Rotten, rotten luck, thought Will, his mind going into its automatic state of professional assessment even despite his rampant nerves. If the boy moved, it would cause him agonies. Certainly, I’ve never seen anything like this, but that doesn’t mean it is impossible. Obviously. His eyes roved over the spot where he guessed the boy had been stuck. It was his upper back, near a shoulder blade.
Certain that he would make matters worse should he intervene alone, Will worried his lower lip. This lad probably needed at least two physicians, or a physician and surgeon, to ensure that he was done no further injury. Will chanced a look at Croft, who had accompanied them, and the old man’s face mirrored his trepidation.
“I will do what I can,” said Will to the boy’s father. “But we will have to be very, very careful. What is your name?”
The man said, “Allan Cooper, my lord.”
“Mr. Cooper, I have to warn you that I am very out of practice. My first patient in a long while was Miss Copperweld.” He smiled at her white face. She was intent upon the little boy in the tree. “I know you do not want to hear this, but I worry that I may do more damage trying to free him.”
Mr. Cooper raked a broad hand through his sandy hair. “I told him not to move. Would it not be better for him to die with us trying?” he asked grimly. “If the Good Lord sees fit to take my boy away from me, I won’t leave him stuck in a tree.”
Jane spoke up, then. She had, Will knew, no patience for dramatics or pessimism. “Let us hope it does not come to that, Mr. Cooper. My nephew is highly skilled. He has treated men on battlefields and the destitute in London. If anyone can find a way to save your son, it is William.” She laid a hand gently on Mr. Cooper’s arm and Will’s affection for his aunt surged. She was so kind to everyone she met, when it was deserved. Class and standing did not factor into her fair assessments of men.
Or of women, thought Will, looking once more at Miss Copperweld.
Who was now taking long strides toward the tree, hiking her skirts up in the grass.
Jolted into action, Will hurried after her. “Miss Copperweld!”
“We cannot stand about gabbing when he’s in such pain,” she insisted. It was clear that as she stared up at the tree and the crying boy, she was formulating some kind of mad scheme to rescue him, herself.
“We do need to agree upon a plan of attack, so to speak,” said Will quietly, filled with approval for her tenacity. “I do not think one petite woman such as yourself can manage, though I admire you for trying.”
“Now isn’t the time to tease me for my stature, Lord Ainsworth,” she said dryly, although she did let her skirts fall to their normal height. “Will you, then, do as you have been begged?”
I’m terrified that I shall ruin the boy even further.
But if she asked him to do anything, possibly even cut off his own nose, he would do it. He hesitated the merest fraction of a second before kissing her lips very lightly.
From behind them, he could hear Jane’s pleased little gasp and sounds of utter confusion from Croft and Mr. Cooper. If any of the other villagers voiced their surprise, he did not hear it as Miss Copperweld’s lips parted for his.
“Now isn’t the time for that, either,” she said, breaking away from him with a tiny smile.
His heart in his throat, he took a step back and removed his overcoat, handing it to her.
“I agree.”
Carefully, he reached for the lowest branch and began to climb. His heart thudded fiercely in his chest, and cold sweat broke out on his skin. It was not the height that bothered him. It was the prospect of failure.
“My lad, what do they call you?”
“Eggy,” he sniffled. Will did not have time to wonder if Eggy was more terrified of his face, or of the plight he faced. “But my real name, that’s Joseph.”
“Why ‘Eggy’?” asked Will, smiling up at him.
He was nearly to the branch Eggy was straddling, and just above that was the wicked shard that had gouged his back so harshly.
“We keep chickens. I like eggs,” Eggy said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world for him to be called “Eggy”. “Eat a lot of ’em.”
“Fair enough. I do, too, though not enough to have it become my name,” said Will. “Now, I need you to keep very still. Can you do that for me?”
Eggy nodded once, then did as Will said. His little face was tight with pain and, even from this angle, Will saw blood staining the back of his torn white shirt. Very, very gingerly, Will straddled the same branch as Eggy so that they were almost nose-to-nose. He advanced very slowly to peer behind the lad. Will inspected the point of entry into the boy’s body. The shard was not so far into the boy—perhaps only an inch or an inch and a half deep into the muscle, but still too much for a young child to be able to wriggle free without causing himself considerable pain and damage.
Will was thankful the sun was high and his vision was the best it could be. He felt he could accurately assess the depth and angle at which Eggy’s back had been penetrated. With some luck, all they would have to guard against would be infection. He was breathing without much strain, aside from the obvious signs of pain, and that was a good omen.
Without being told, Mr
. Cooper stationed himself at the foot of the tree, ready to catch his son at a moment’s notice.
Will’s eyes, tearing from frustration and hesitation, found Augusta’s below and she nodded trustingly at him. She believes I can help. She was holding on to the crook of Jane’s arm, and both women gazed at him with full belief.
He drew strength from their trust and took Eggy’s shoulders.
“How old are you?”
“Eight,” came the tearful reply.
“You can be brave, then. Eggy, would you be so kind as to do me a favor?”
The boy stared at Will as though he were raving mad. “What kind of favor?”
“Nothing impossible.”
Perhaps sensing the solemnity in the duke’s words, he nodded.
“Thank you. Now, I will tell you what you must do. You must be as a man and endeavor not to shake or cry as I pull you off this nasty bit of tree. Do you reckon you can do that?”
Again, Eggy nodded, albeit with hesitation.
“Splendid,” said Will, much more cheerfully than he felt. His entire body was covered with a sheen of sweat.
Calling on all the calmness of nerve that he could muster, he began to tug Eggy away from the tree, little by little. So shaken were both the duke and the boy that the first pull wrenched a cry from them both.
“Remember your promise,” Will said with a shaky smile, even though he had cried out himself.
To his credit, Eggy made no sound after that. He sobbed, but almost silently, as Will continued to tug slowly and carefully. Blood dribbled from Eggy’s wound, but there could be no helping that circumstance. With each tug, Will took another glance at the broken branch to make sure it was coming cleanly out of Eggy. It did not seem to be leaving many splinters or shards, if any.
When the boy was free, he grinned at Eggy, who looked positively faint and nauseated.
Then he fell limply into his father’s waiting arms.
Will clung to the tree, irrationally fearful of having killed a boy of only eight.
*
Eggy was saved.
They took him into the house and laid him on a sitting room table, which was where everything was swiftly carried out.
Will was so intent on assessing Eggy’s wellbeing that he was incapable of much speech the entire time he examined the boy. At times, Jane or Miss Copperweld would try to break the tension by making small talk or asking what they could do to help, but it was all too distracting to Will. He gently had to dismiss them to Mr. Cooper’s kitchen, where they made Mr. Cooper tea and sat with him and his distraught young wife.
After he was left alone save for Croft, his skills and training returned swiftly to him. He took charge of Eggy with alacrity. Poor Eggy had lost a copious amount of blood, and he was largely in need of rest and some medications for pain. Will was so wrapped up in caring for the boy that, in retrospect, he recalled very little about what he had actually done to save him. He simply knew that he had.
Even leaving the Cooper farm was a blur.
But Jane was more than willing to recount all of it to him, and she did so countless times in the ensuing days, often without an invitation from Will, who would rather have let the whole incident pass without much more discussion at all.
Miss Copperweld, seeming to sense his reticence to relive the afternoon, added less than Jane, but both women were keen to assure him that he had acted very heroically, indeed.
“I was not being a hero,” Will insisted. “I was being a physician.”
“Heroically,” insisted Jane. “I don’t understand how you didn’t let your nerves get the better of you. I was terrified the entire time. Poor little Eggy.”
Joseph’s pet name had stuck even for a woman who seemed to generally detest pet names.
Nothing could remove the shine from the “selfless service” and “courageous act” that Will had undertaken. Back in the manor, it was all he could hear spoken. Soon, all the servants, from the scullery maids to Marcus, were speaking of little else.
Down in Brookfield, nothing else could gain the same amount of attention as little Eggy’s rescue.
Not even the announcement that all taxes had been returned to a tenth, and that Lord Ainsworth himself was busy calculating the amount his tenants had been overcharged so that he could return it to them in installments.
Chapter Ten
Will had never been one to make scenes or engage in confrontations. If he were a woman, some might call him “mousy” or even, maybe, a wallflower. He detested melodrama and avoided fraught situations wherever possible. When his brothers would squabble, he was the natural mediator, the peacekeeper. It was not that he did not have strong emotions. He just preferred to intellectualize them instead of allowing them to explode.
Going to see Miss Copperweld’s father was the direct result of, for once, choosing not to intellectualize. He’d notified the requisite authorities and the magistrate, all of whom had to travel some distance to Brookfield. Since it was historically such a sedate place, there were no official constables. There were those who volunteered as night watchmen, and if they had need of locking someone up, they simply used the inn’s attic. It was easiest to secure and nobody could think of escaping without rousing notice, as the inn was so centrally located. As far as Will knew, he’d only heard of it being used for the purpose twice.
Will strode up to it, still marveling that the few villagers who were out in this early morning, glittering sunlight greeted him without fanfare or, conversely, reservations. Once inside the inn, he passed Quick Peter dozing in the taproom.
He must have been there to keep an eye to Benedict and Copperweld. There was probably no one better. Will was not afraid of the man, but had to admit that he looked like he had possibly served some kind of sentence in the past.
“Good morning, Your Grace,” he said, rising when the creaking main door woke him from his place on a bench. “Any word on the magistrate?”
“Good morning. We can expect him this afternoon. His bailiffs will come here, and I believe he himself will go to Blackbrook to have me sign some papers. Are they upstairs?”
Quick Peter nodded, a sharp smile on his wide face. “Mr. Benedict is so terrified, he won’t speak to anybody. Though I’m sure he would talk to you if you wanted, and Mr. Copperweld hasn’t had a drop to drink since the day we locked him in. He’s not faring well.”
It was easy for Will to imagine and even easier for him to relish. Good, he thought. He deserves every bit of discomfort he suffers. His internal pronouncement surprised him a little. He had never really thought anything of the kind.
“You don’t seem to mind.”
“I don’t, do I?”
Will chuckled at his airy tone. “To be clear, I don’t think you should.”
“If you go up, Your Grace, I find the best way to wake Copperweld is with a bit of cold water flung at his face. It rouses him.”
“Does it?” I was thinking of using my fist.
“It does, sir.” Quick Peter’s expression was positively wolfish.
“We mustn’t ruin any of the inn’s furnishings or fixtures with too much water,” said Will, arching an eyebrow. “I shall leave it to you to rouse him with more, if you wish to before the authorities arrive, but I’ll mange to wake him, myself.”
“Very good, Your Grace.” Quick Peter handed him a heavy set of keys that could have been cast a century ago.
Will went through the taproom, then up the stairs, wondering if the innkeeper might be in the kitchen. Surely, he was not still abed. As he drew closer to the attic, the stairs grew more and more narrow, and he found he had to move deliberately and hunch his shoulders. When he reached the heavy, locked door, he heard no sounds from behind it.
Taking a breath and summoning all of his self-restraint, he opened the door, taking care to block the entrance with his body. Then he shut it behind him.
It took his eyes several moments to adjust. The space was long, running the length of the building, and was u
sed for storage. Right now, there was not as much occupying the space as there could be, and he noted that Benedict had taken the far corner behind some wooden crates, while Copperweld was a snoring huddle under the only tiny window.
Will didn’t care about Benedict. He only had a mind for the sorry mess of a man who was nearly just at his feet. He stepped forward and the floor squeaked under his tread.
Copperweld stirred at the noise, but did not wake.
Will took the opportunity to survey him. His face, though it still had its ruddy cast, was pale under the pink. Though he was ostensibly sleeping, his limbs shook minutely. Disgusted, Will nudged his shoulder with the tip of his boot. Copperweld did not react.
Deliberating over the action only briefly, Will aimed a kick where he had nudged.
Copperweld cursed himself awake, but it took him a few moments to register who had kicked him. He scowled up at Will, shivering on the floor. He was clearly incapable of standing upright. Will had seen enough patients who went through the withdrawals brought about by abstaining from drink. It did not matter to him if Copperweld stood or not.
“Your Grace,” he sneered.
“Good morning, Mr. Copperweld.”
“Why have you visited me?”
“Oh, mostly to gloat,” Will assured him. “You do not need to do much for me to accomplish what I want.”
“You won’t have long to feel smug,” said Copperweld. “You’ve no way of having me held and charged for disciplining my own kin. I don’t know why you have my daughter, though I can guess.” He tossed will a sly smile. “I will have her back soon enough.”
Though I can guess. The words were tinged with something unsavory, but he expected no less from the man laying at his toes on a dusty, wooden floor.
Will had anticipated this line of argument. It was, after all, how Copperweld had always thought of her. As his property. “I’m flattered that you think enough of my morals to assume I won’t stoop to lies or good, old-fashioned bribery.”
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