Gil cursed.
“Harold, go out there and get them inside the lodge.”
“How? What do I say to them?”
“Anything you like, but get them out of sight without any screaming. Tell them Fanny is ill — that will do it.”
But it did not. One of the women argued vehemently, pointing first at the lodge and then at the gates and then, worryingly, back towards the house. When she set off determinedly in that direction, it was time to act.
“Gus, Humphrey, grab her and get a hand over her mouth. Reggie, Carrbridge, get the other one.”
“We have a house full of constables,” Reggie grumbled.
“Not our jurisdiction,” one of the constables said. “We’re only here to make the arrests. The rest of it’s up to you.”
“What will I do?” Monty said.
Gil grinned. “Pray for us, brother. And look after Lady Gil.”
Had he thought about it, Gil would have supposed that two rather slender young ladies would not be any match for five well-grown men, but he would have been quite wrong. Those two ladies put up such a spirited defence, and the Marford brothers were so wary of injuring them, that Gil was forced to wave a pistol at them to enforce their compliance.
Just as they were half-dragging and half-carrying the two towards the lodge, a mob of men armed with knives and pitchforks appeared on the far side of the gates.
“Oy! What’s goin’ on!” someone shouted. “What you doin’ to them ladies? Right, lads, over t’gate. Let’s get ’em!”
And at that precise moment, a stylish travelling carriage bowled down the drive from the house. The coachman saw the confusion and pulled up the horses well short of the gate. The carriage door opened, a face peered out and then, almost before the carriage had stopped moving, two figures leapt to the ground and ran off in separate directions.
Gil swore. “Everyone outside!” he yelled. “Quick, get after them!”
Mrs Ballard was a lady of more than fifty, who had been stout before imprisonment had weakened her, and had not walked further than the twenty steps to her carriage for years. She was soon caught and brought, struggling mightily, back to the lodge. Sharp was fitter, but even so, he would undoubtedly have been caught in time, with Gus’s long legs in hot pursuit. However, some of the mob beyond the gates had managed to climb over and open the gates from the inside. Seeing the opportunity for escape, Sharp veered back and headed straight for the open gates and freedom.
Gil, not able to run like the others, watched it all unfold. The drive in front of the gates was now a boiling mass of humanity, angry villagers mixed with his own troops, with fights breaking out here and there, the constables shouting unheeded orders and two screaming women. And Sharp was headed straight for the chaos, and perfectly capable of slipping through the milling crowds to freedom. With the pistols still in his hands, Gil pointed one into the air and fired.
The noise echoed violently. The women screamed once more and fell silent. The fights stopped, heads turned, frightened eyes looked in Gil’s direction.
“Stand!” he yelled in his most commanding voice. “Everyone stand still! You there, and you — get those two ladies to safety in the lodge. Constables, hold that man!” And he pointed at Sharp, who had stopped running but was edging towards the gates.
As the constables closed in on him, Sharp backed against the lodge’s garden wall, dropped the bag he had over one shoulder and pulled out two pistols.
“Keep away!” he yelled. “I will shoot the first man to approach.”
They kept away. The mob, Gil’s troops and even the constables backed slowly away. Only Gil and his brothers, and Mrs Ballard, still held firmly by Reggie and Humphrey, remained within range.
“You cannot escape, Sharp,” Gil said. “Not this time.”
“Constables!” Carrbridge called out. “I identify this man as Ambrose Sharp, my former land agent, who has defrauded me of a great deal of money. Arrest him at once!”
One of the constables, braver than the others took a step forward. “You’d best put t’weapons down and come wi’ me, Mr Sharp.”
“Never!” he cried.
“At least we have this one,” Gus said, pointing at Mrs Ballard. “Humphrey, hand her over to the constables.”
“No!” Mrs Ballard screamed. “I won’t go back to prison, I won’t!” She struggled violently, but she was held fast. “Ambrose! Ambrose, you promised me!”
Sharp looked around at the assembled crowd. Between the villagers, Gil’s little army, the constables and the Marfords, there were at least fifty men surrounding them. He nodded once. Then he raised one pistol, and fired straight at his wife. She crumpled and lay still.
With a wild laugh, Sharp raised the other pistol to his temple.
“Do not let it end like this, Sharp,” Carrbridge said, taking a step forward. “You had much better surrender. At least then you could make your peace with God.”
“God? Pah!” He looked around at the assembled Marfords. “You’re the ones who think you’re God!”
“Do not shoot yourself,” Carrbridge said, moving nearer. “Please.”
Sharp straightened himself. “As you command, my lord.”
He lowered the pistol, and then pointed it directly at Carrbridge.
Gil had no time to think, no time to position the pistol in his other hand, no time to aim with precision. He fired directly at Sharp and prayed. The report echoed in his head. He thought he heard a scream. Then everything went dark.
~~~~~
Genista gave a little yelp when she heard the first shot fired. Monty was at the window, watching.
“Gil fired into the air,” he said.
“I didn’t know he had a gun with him,” she said anxiously.
“We all brought pistols,” Monty said. “He was the only one sensible enough to carry them with him when he went outside.” He waved an arm ruefully at several boxes sitting on the kitchen table. “They are not much use in here.”
“I wondered what was in the boxes,” she said. “Still, better here than shooting at people.”
Monty smiled at her. “Perhaps, but a pistol is a powerful threat, even without being fired.”
The riotous noise outside died away, and, into the silence, Gil’s voice sounded very authoritative. “Stand! Everyone stand still!”
More talking, with long pauses. Then the door burst open and two women almost fell into the room. One was crying, but the other was red-faced with anger.
“This is the most appalling—” She looked around, seeing only Monty in his clergyman’s attire, the lodgekeeper and his wife with anxious faces, and Genista. “Oh.”
“Are you injured?” Genista said quietly.
“I don’t think so. We have been manhandled, rather, but… whatever is going on, Fanny?”
“Secret mission for t’King,” she said promptly. “Would you like some ale, Miss Haversmith? Miss Platt? Do sit down, and have some cake.”
And then, just as they were getting comfortable, another shot, shouts, then an ominous silence. More shots, and a scream. Then yelling.
“Someone is down, but I cannot see who,” Monty said. Then, urgently, as she moved towards the door, “Do not go outside until you are sent for, Lady Gil, not with firearms in use.”
“No, I shan’t,” she said, standing uncertainly, holding her bag of medical equipment.
More yelling, and feet running around on the gravel. She waited, head bowed, dreading what she might find out there. How many shots had there been? Two — no, three, after Gil had fired into the air. Three shots, perhaps three men dead. And there had been fighting before that. But no more shots had been fired, and thank God the other pistols had remained safely in their boxes.
The door burst open once more. Humphrey, grinning. “All over,” he said. “It is safe to come out now.”
“Is anyone hurt?” Genista asked fearfully.
“Sharp needs Monty’s care rather than yours, but you might be able to save his
wife for the hangman’s noose.”
“No one else?”
“A few bloody noses, nothing worse.”
She released her breath, relief washing through her so fast that she almost laughed. Gil was safe! They were all safe, apart from Sharp and perhaps his wife.
Genista followed Humphrey outside. There were crowds of people everywhere, standing in groups talking animatedly or ambling around or just watching, with more appearing from the village every moment. She looked around for Gil, but couldn’t see him anywhere in the scores of people milling about.
“Where is Gil?” she whispered to Humphrey.
“No idea where he went. We will find him for you in a moment. Here is your patient.”
He led her into a small crowd gathered at a respectful distance around the fallen woman. Her gown and pelisse were dark, and it was not, at first glance, possible to see any blood. Only when Genista knelt beside the woman could she see the spreading stain on one side of her stomach, the liquid glistening.
Reggie was kneeling beside her, holding her hand, murmuring encouragement. “Ah, here is Lady Gil to sort you out. You will be as right as a trivet in no time.”
The woman moaned a little.
“Reggie, go and find Gil, will you?” Humphrey said. “Lady Gil is concerned about him.”
Reggie disappeared in a crunch of gravel, and Genista bent over her patient. It was but the work of moments to determine that there was only a single bullet wound through her side. If she could stem the bleeding, then with luck the woman would survive.
She pulled scissors from her bag to cut the clothing away from the wound, then she placed pads of cloth over the wound.
“Don’t you dare!”
Genista looked up from her work in surprise. The woman was fully alert and glaring at her. “I beg your pardon?”
“Don’t you dare fix me up! They’ll only hang me anyway, so what’s the point?” For a moment, she clenched her jaw in pain, eyes closed. But after a moment, she recovered. “And I won’t go back to prison, I won’t! It’s evil in there. Have pity on me, please.” A gasp, and a low moan, but with astonishing willpower, she overcame the pain to speak again. “Ambrose is gone, and there’s nothing left now. Let me go. Please… have mercy…” She finished on a hiss of pain.
Genista stared at her, then at Humphrey. He gazed back at her, understanding in his eyes. “If you do not need me, Genista, I shall go and see what is keeping Gil,” he said.
And then she was alone with the shot woman, the watchful crowd a little distance away. No one to see precisely what she did. No one to know whether she tried to save her or not, whether she did everything in her power to stem the bleeding, or whether perhaps she held the pad in slightly the wrong place, or failed to press hard enough. After all, she had never dealt with so serious an injury before, so no one could blame her if her efforts were to no avail. And perhaps the woman would have died anyway, no matter the exertion, or the skill of the physician.
Whatever the case, the blood continued to flow and flow, and gently, silently, the woman’s life trickled away with it. Genista had seen death before many times, but never violent death, like this, a woman who had been perfectly well not a few moments ago, and now lay motionless in a pool of her own blood. Just an hour or two ago, she had been drinking tea in her own drawing room, with nothing more to trouble her than the dishes to order for dinner and whether to wear a blue gown or a green. The constables had come and shaken her little world, but even then, it was not irrevocable. There was still a chance of escape. She had escaped more than once already — from a menial life at High Berenholme all those years ago, and then from her mill town in the north, and more recently she had contrived to escape from prison. But this time, there had been no escape, and her blood seeped unresisting into the gravel of the drive. With the first shower of rain, it would be washed away and it would be almost as if she had never been. But Genista would remember her.
Just as she stood up, Reggie returned.
“Ah, you could not save her then,” he said. “Pity.”
“Pity, yes, indeed. Did you find Gil?”
“I did not.” His face creased in puzzlement. He turned to his brother, who came tearing up to them. “Humphrey, have you found Gil?”
“No, I hoped you had. He seems to have vanished. Where was he standing last?”
“Beside that big bush… oh! I see a boot.”
The three of them raced over to the bush and Humphrey furiously pulled branches back to reveal Gil’s motionless form. Genista uttered a squeak of alarm, but she could see at once by his colour and his steady breathing that his life was not in danger.
“Silly boy has got himself shot again,” Humphrey said, with a grin, clearly seeing the same positive signs. “At least it is the other leg this time. He will have a limp on both sides now.”
“Really, Humphrey!” Genista said crossly. “You are too frivolous, when two people have died this day. He looks well enough, but why is he unconscious from a leg wound?”
“Must have hit his head as he fell and knocked himself out cold. I beg your pardon, Lady Gil. My levity is just relief, I suppose. Matters could have gone much, much worse.”
She couldn’t argue with that. They had been very fortunate. “Would you be so good as to lift Gil out of there so that I may tend to him, if you please.”
Together, Humphrey and Reggie gently lifted her husband’s unconscious form.
~~~~~
Gil woke to brilliant sunshine. He was warm and comfortable in a soft bed. Above him, the velvet bed hangings were blood red where the sun caught them, and near black in the shadowed hollows. Nearby, someone was humming. He smiled and turned his head. There she was, her hair lit up into a thousand shades of gold and copper and amber and rich burgundy.
As soon as he moved, her head lifted. She set down her sewing and stood up, bending over him to feel his forehead with the back of her hand.
“My angel,” he murmured.
That made her laugh. “You don’t feel hot, but you must be fevered to talk such nonsense. Are you thirsty?”
“A little.” She lifted him up and helped him to sip from a glass.
“Do you remember what happened?” He shook his head. “I’m afraid to say that you were rather a hero again. You managed to shoot Mr Sharp quite through the heart, which everyone agrees was an impossible shot from that distance and angle, and thereby prevented him from killing Lord Carrbridge. Unfortunately, Mr Sharp’s shot bounced off the wall somehow—”
“Ricocheted,” he said.
“Yes, that. Anyway, it hit you in the leg. The other leg. But don’t worry, it was the most glancing of injuries, and you will be as right as rain in a week or two, so long as you rest it.”
“And if I do not?” he said, suddenly terrified.
“You will, because your brothers have sworn to sit on your head if you even think about walking about on it just yet. They are very protective of you, you know. Humphrey has gone off to have a special wheeled chair made for you.”
He pulled a face. “Must I? That is a hideous prospect.”
“You must, because it’s the only way I’ll allow you to attend Humphrey’s grand opening night.”
“The gaming house! Oh, famous! I must be at that. Shall I try to break the bank on the first night?” Then he saw her face. “Well, maybe not. But I must be there, and I shall have to play high, you know. My own brother, after all.”
“I suppose he won’t make you pay if you lose money to him, will he?” she said.
“Hmm, that is not quite how it works. A gentleman must pay his gaming debts, as a matter of honour.”
“Even to your own brother?”
“Even so.”
“Oh.”
“Have no fear, I shall be very circumspect.” But he was aware of a tremor of apprehension, all the same. Would he be able to play a little and then draw back? So many times he had gone on, getting deeper and deeper into trouble. What if the madness took him
again?
29: A Long Night
Humphrey’s gaming house was rather a splendid place, very well positioned in the centre of York, with a reputable inn just round the corner for the benefit of patrons from the country. The ground floor was given over to a cloakroom, office, kitchen and supper room. On the floor above, four rooms had all their interconnecting doors thrown open to make a capacious gaming room, with tables for every kind of play. Two floors above that held bedrooms for family and guests. Humphrey had appointed a cousin, Julius Whittleton, as his office manager, whose pleasant manner and ingratiating ways had already wheedled numerous subscriptions from the wealthy merchants, burghers and financiers of York.
Gil could not remember when he had last played properly. At Bella’s house, he supposed, but even that was tame compared to a real gaming house. There was not the same thrill in playing against old friends, for one knew them too well, knew exactly how they would play and how deep they would go. Besides, they mostly played cards, and although Gil had some skill there — he could not be Humphrey’s brother and not learn a few tricks — he favoured dice. Now that was a game for a man of strong nerves. Luck, not skill — that was true gambling. A run of luck with the ivories was an incomparable experience.
Gen and Davy between them got him dressed, an awkward business, since he was not allowed to put any weight on the newly injured leg, and the leg with the old injury was not yet capable of holding him aloft. Then Davy left and Gen swiftly dressed herself. She had made the lack of accommodation for the servants her reason for leaving Holland behind, but he guessed she was still uncomfortable with a maid. She had a new gown for the occasion, pale blue silk with dark blue trimmings, which suited her admirably. All she wore in her hair was a silver circlet, with one long ringlet falling to her shoulder and the delicate cameo he had given her around her neck.
“You look magnificent,” he said, and meant it. She blushed, of course. How he loved to see her blush.
They sat down sixteen to dinner — the six Marford brothers and their wives, Merton and his wife, Julius Whittleton and Uncle Lucius, who had arrived uninvited.
Lord Gilbert (Sons of the Marquess Book 5) Page 28