A Hero to Hold

by Sheri Humphreys

  “Oh, God!” It was a wail, a curse, a prayer. Then David moved and Charlotte breathed. She stepped forward, but David and Vivian began grappling and forced her to step back.

  The blood came from his head, Charlotte saw, and it was obvious he was greatly affected. Vivian pounded on his back and shoulder with her free hand, but David ignored her and appeared to put all his effort into gripping the wrist of her gun hand and pinning it to the floor.

  “Charlotte, get out of here,” he roared.

  He wanted her safe, but she couldn’t leave. He needed help.

  Vivian’s fist bashed against David’s bloody head. “Ungh.” His hands loosened and the baroness jerked her gun arm free. She struggled out from under him and sat up, aiming the pistol at his head.

  Noooooooo. Charlotte sprang forward and kicked at Vivian’s chest. She connected, hard, and it felt good. A fierce satisfaction overrode Charlotte’s panic as her enemy fell back. Not giving her time to recover, Charlotte kicked again, aiming this time for Vivian’s ribs. The woman jerked, gave a thin cry, and raised her hand in a protective motion.

  Charlotte jerked the pistol away. It was heavy, unfamiliar and frightening, and she stared at the first gun she’d ever held. Thank God she had it, though, and not Vivian.

  She’s not going to get it again, Charlotte vowed. Then she dropped to her knees at David’s side.

  “David?”

  His stillness scared her. Settle down. David’s depending on you. Charlotte forced a shaky breath deep into her lungs, but the sharp smell of gunpowder filled her head. He still lay prone atop Vivian’s lower legs. Vivian groaned and clutched her side, but she didn’t attempt to move or get up. Charlotte stuffed the pistol into David’s coat pocket for safekeeping then pulled him off of her.

  He was heavy, but she managed. As gently as she could, she rolled him onto his back. His legs didn’t quite come with the rest of him, so she turned them and positioned them naturally. Blood ran down the side of his head. Charlotte grabbed up a handful of petticoat and pressed it to his wound.

  His moan filled her with relief. She stroked his hair away from his face.

  “David.”

  Hadn’t anyone heard the gunshot? There were workers in their front office, although they were separated by two heavy doors and a long hallway. And what about the office above them? Yet if they’d heard they would have come. It was growing late in the day, so perhaps the workers were gone. Blast! She needed help. If only the overdue Mr. Chetney would return.

  Vivian moved, snagging Charlotte’s attention. Her half-sister seemed to have gotten her breath back and with a moan rocked onto her hands and knees and slowly rose to her feet. The snood that had confined her hair was gone and golden curls hung to her waist. Bloody hell. Charlotte didn’t want Vivian to get away, but she was not going to leave David. She wasn’t about to threaten her with the firearm, either.

  Her half-sister staggered to the door and leaned against the doorframe, facing away. David’s hand lifted. Charlotte grabbed it and held on.

  “David?” she said.

  He opened his eyes and blinked. The dazed look passed, and his blue eyes regained their usual sharpness.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  Charlotte nodded. “Vivian shot you.” She felt like her throat was full of prickly bramble stems, and her rough voice quavered. She swallowed angrily. She had to get hold of herself. There was no one else to help them.

  David grunted and looked around the room. “Where is she?”

  Charlotte glanced around. Vivian had disappeared from the doorway.

  “Gone, I think. Her gun is in your pocket.”

  David grimaced. “Charlotte, try to speak up. My ears are ringing from the gun discharging so close. I can barely hear you.”

  “You saved my life,” Charlotte said loudly. She peeked under the wad of petticoat to check his wound. As soon as the gash was exposed it began bleeding anew, but the flow had slowed, thank God.

  David pushed her hand away and felt the wound. Above his temple, the bullet had torn a furrow from the edge of his forehead through his hairline and along the side of his head for more than a finger-length.

  “David, stop fiddling with it. You’re making the bleeding worse.” Charlotte pulled his hand away and pressed her petticoat back atop the wound. In those few moments, her tension drained away. She wanted to hold David, wanted to feel him warm and alive against her.

  “What the devil?”

  It was Wakefield, crouching beside them, examining David’s wound, stripping his tie from his neck and folding it into a neat pad. The relief of him taking command left Charlotte struggling to maintain the appearance of someone capable of providing David with assistance and comfort, though. She braced herself. She wouldn’t let him down.

  “I come by to see if you’ve heard anything from Detective Inspector Ridley and find you’ve engaged Lady Garret yourselves, eh? At least I assume it was the baroness who shot you.” He’d dispensed with Charlotte’s bloody wad of petticoat and had David holding the pad made of his tie. “Can you sit up?” he asked, putting a hand behind David’s shoulders.

  Charlotte had been glad to see Wakefield, but what was he about now? Making David hold the pad to his injury himself, and wanting to sit him up? She laid a staying hand on David’s chest.

  “Lord Wakefield, please. I think we’d best summon a physician before he’s moved.”

  Wakefield and David exchanged a look. David sat up.

  “Wakefield, give me a hand, can you?” David asked. His friend righted his chair.

  Ire rose like a fountain in Charlotte at their off-hand manner. Persa ran in, barked twice, and began scampering around the room, sniffing David, Wakefield, Charlotte’s petticoats, and the floor. Mr. Chetney’s sudden appearance right behind Persa was a relief. She could count on Chetney to be level-headed.

  “Ah, Chetney,” Wakefield said. “Just in time. Let’s give him a leg up, shall we?”

  Without hesitating, Chetney took the other side of David. A moment later the two men had hefted him up and set him in his chair.

  “Now may I summon a physician?” Charlotte asked.

  They ignored her, and Wakefield began giving Chetney a summary of events. David’s face softened and he held out his hand to Charlotte—right in front of Wakefield and Chetney, who’d wiped their hands on her ruined petticoat but still had streaks of blood on them. Charlotte didn’t hesitate, and the warm, familiar feel of David’s hand provided a huge measure of comfort.

  “I don’t think I need a surgeon,” David said. “Boone can take care of this. Chetney, if you’ll send a message to Boone and have him bring my coach ’round? We’ll go to Lady Haliday’s home. She can change her dress and Boone can look after this wound. Wakefield, if you’ll be so good as to find Detective Inspector Ridley and give him a report, he can attend us there.” He looked at Charlotte. “We’ll ask your father to come, too.”

  Her father. Yes, they had a lot to discuss. With all the turmoil she’d temporarily pushed what Vivian revealed to the back of her mind.

  “Evidently Lady Garret is my half-sister,” she explained to Wakefield and Chetney. “Everything she did to me, she did to hurt our father.”

  The men exchanged surprised looks, and then Chetney went to his desk to write the note to Boone.

  David took Vivian’s pistol from his pocket and extended it. “Take this with you.”

  Wakefield slipped the gun into his coat pocket. “Anything else I can do before I track down Ridley?”

  David shook his head. “No. But thank you, Miles. This isn’t the first time I’ve been wounded and you’ve acted in my interests.”

  Wakefield winked. “You’ve applied a few battle dressings to my sorry ar—” He stopped and shot a look at Charlotte. “Well. It was about time I returned the favor.”

  Charlotte recalled it had been Wakefield who David saved at Balaclava, and afterward Wakefield had gone back to search the battlefield for David at first
light. She could imagine both men behaving in the same commanding way they had acted today, making sure the needy got help and were properly cared for.

  Her irritation at their cavalier attitudes drained away.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  The intensity of David’s headache increased while he and Charlotte answered Ridley’s questions. Then he waited with her while the detective inspector questioned her father. Now his head pounded like a cannon firing with every heartbeat.

  Boone cleaned his wound, put a few stitches in to hold it together, and dressed it as tidily as any he’d done in Her Majesty’s service. David’s ears still buzzed and probably would for another few hours. That meant he had to listen carefully to what was being said, and concentration wasn’t easy with his head taking artillery fire.

  There was one more conversation he intended to be part of—the one between Charlotte and her father. Matthew Shelby could practice his overbearing, superior manner on someone other than his daughter. David wasn’t going to let him lord anything over Charlotte tonight.

  He watched her pace back and forth across the foyer, her gaze locked on the sitting room door. Ridley had left and Shelby waited inside.

  Charlotte strode to the door, stopped, and put her hand on the knob. She looked at him, eyes huge and apprehensive, and he pushed at his wheels.

  “Can I come in with you? Be your watchman?”

  Charlotte’s stiff shoulders relaxed. “Yes, please.”

  He rolled across the foyer and gave her a cheeky wink to bolster her spirits. She leaned down, placed a soft kiss on his mouth, and he wrapped his hand around the back of her neck. As she eased away, he pulled her back for a longer, firmer press of lips. He drank in her smell, that lovely scent of roses and jasmine that was so uniquely hers. When he released her, he was happy to note she looked distracted. The reaction of certain parts of his aching anatomy left him less happy.

  “Thank you for being here,” she said.

  He looked at her, absorbing the marvel that was Charlotte. He said nothing.

  Her brows furrowed. “Did you hear me?”

  “I did.” It was just that she took his breath away.

  She bent closer. “Must you go home tonight? I’m sure Boone is a wonderful attendant, but he’s not me. I know I won’t sleep for worrying about you and wondering how you’re faring. I want to be near you.”

  “Shall we go to the cottage?” David asked. While she watched over him, he could then take care of her. Once she spoke with her father, he suspected she was going to need a great deal of tenderness. He wanted to be the one to whom she turned.

  In answer, she gave him another too brief kiss and a firm squeeze of the shoulder. Then she straightened, took a deep breath, and opened the door. He followed right on her heels.

  They found Shelby pacing the length of the room, much as David had watched Charlotte doing a few minutes ago in the hall. The man stopped, strode over to them and took Charlotte’s hand. Deep grooves bracketed his mouth and scored his forehead.

  “I’m so sorry she sought her revenge through you.”

  The man never looked less than commanding, but today Shelby looked at least ten years older than the last time David had seen him. His eyes held great weariness.

  David ground his teeth and tried to ignore the pent-up urge to throttle the man. I hope you’re feeling every bit of the shame you deserve.

  “Can we sit down?” Charlotte asked. Christ, but David was proud of her. Was there another woman who could do what she’d done today and then be calm and levelheaded as she answered Ridley’s questions and confronted her self-absorbed bastard of a father?

  Shelby dropped her hand and led them to the cluster of chairs and divans. Beckham maneuvered David next to the seat Charlotte chose, and David requested liquor, tea and sandwiches—in that order. He felt wrung out, and though Charlotte’s posture was as correct as always, she had to be feeling much the same. They both needed sustenance.

  Beckham nodded and moved to the sideboard. A minute later they each held a glass, and the servant slipped out the door.

  “Charlotte, I’m going to make sure that woman—”

  Charlotte interrupted. “Vivian said you wouldn’t help her son. Is that true?”

  Shelby scowled. “Her son?”

  “She blames you for his death. Did you even show her the least bit of kindness? She grew up being taunted and whipped. Did you know that? It’s no wonder she’s deranged. She had no one to turn to, no one to help her. I might have helped her, if only I’d known.”

  Shelby stiffened. “When did you become an expert on Vivian Garret’s motivations?”

  “Perhaps when she held a gun on me and I listened to her.”

  David tightened his lips to keep from smiling as an additional measure of pride speared through his chest. He needn’t have worried about Charlotte standing up to her father. Not anymore. Shelby was an intimidating man and she had spent most of her life under his protection and following his dicta, yet she faced him here straight and steady-eyed, with the kind of mettle David had wished for in the troops he commanded.

  An almost comical look of bewilderment appeared on Shelby’s face. “I gave serious consideration to her request for funds to pay for that Prussian sanatorium. After consulting my physician, I determined I might as well throw the money away as give it to her.”

  Charlotte slammed her empty sherry glass down on the table. “Her name is Vivian.”

  “Bloody hell. What makes you think I had no feelings for her? I did. I especially did for her mother—whose name was Amelia, by the way.”

  Lips parted, Charlotte stared at her father. “I… Vivian said her mother was a mistress you discarded.”

  “If she were, that wouldn’t make me any worse than hundreds of other men. But I didn’t discard Amelia. She wanted to marry a title. We were both unmarried and wanted the same thing, you see. We understood each other, which made me like her even more. Our liaison was brief and ended by mutual accord. When she realized her condition, she asked for money enough to attract an aristocratic husband.” For a moment David saw Shelby’s eyes grow distant, and his mouth softened. “She never wanted me.”

  “Vivian told a very different story.”

  Shelby shrugged. “Either she lied or Amelia lied. But I’ve told you the truth.”

  The tea arrived, and they all fell silent until they’d each been served and Beckham left the room again. Charlotte spoke as soon as the door closed.

  “What really matters is that Vivian wanted you to acknowledge her and help her.”

  Shelby opened his hands as if pleading for understanding. “I couldn’t do that to you.”

  “To me?”

  Shock had transformed Charlotte’s face. David knew enough of her relationship with her father to know she protected her feelings around him, but right now her face—and, he suspected, her heart—was laid bare.

  Shelby rubbed his hand across his mouth. “Giving her such a sum of money…if anyone learned of it, she could have made me, and by extension, you, the object of gossip. You had just married. I couldn’t jeopardize your marriage and your life that way. I knew Haliday. It would have disgusted him.” He picked up his teacup then set it back down. “And my decision was right. She went on to ruin your marriage and publish lies about you. Such a person doesn’t deserve to have me champion her. Once I realized what kind of manipulator she was I knew I’d been right not to submit to her demands.”

  Charlotte shook her head. “Haliday would have been disgusted?” Her angry tone slid toward incredulity and her lips thinned. “You’re renowned for your brilliance, Father, but in this regard you’ve been obtuse. Why didn’t you tell me? Surely, since it affected me, I should have been consulted. We might have had a private relationship with her. Did it ever occur to you that I might have wanted to know my sister? And my nephew?”

  “Perhaps I should have informed you, but the boy was already lost and I saw how jealous Vivian was. How bitter. Even if I’d
given her what she wanted, I think she still would have attacked you. If I’d known the extent of her madness, that ultimately she’d become capable of murder, I would have done anything to appease her and protect you.”

  Eyes wide, Charlotte stared at Shelby. She said nothing.

  “Charlotte? Surely you know that.”

  “I…I’ve not always been sure that you loved me.”

  Please, go to her. Take her in your arms, David though. He waited, silently urging, but Matthew Shelby didn’t move. Instead, the man’s brows snapped together.

  “I can’t imagine why you’d assume anything else.”

  David grabbed the soft pink shawl draped across the back of Charlotte’s chair and wrapped the garment around her shoulders. She turned her head as he tucked it under her chin, and her love and gratitude hit the center of his chest with the force of a physical blow, making warmth unfurl and spread through him. This was Charlotte. Even in dire need of comfort herself, she filled him with gladness.

  He trailed his finger along the edge of the shawl, gently brushing her neck, and the corners of her mouth edged up. He’d managed to assuage some of the hurt Shelby’s callous words had created, thank God, so he did his best to conceal the animosity he felt toward the man, but he doubted he kept all of it disguised.

  “It would have helped Charlotte to know why Vivian was so focused on hurting her.”

  Shelby bowed his head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know whether or not to tell. If I’d thought there was any possibility she’d put Charlotte in physical danger, of course I would have warned her.”

  And yet, the man had stood over his daughter’s sickbed when she was poisoned and not said a word.

  David clamped his teeth together. Accusations would only make her feel worse.

  “All the hurt she caused when Haliday was alive… I should have known then.” Charlotte gathered the shawl tight and straightened. “She subjected me to scandal. It hurt when society believed her and ostracized me. You keeping quiet only kept your name from the gossipers’ lips.”