“So,” he said, walking slowly forward. “I think there is an easy way to solve this, eh?”
He reached out and held Chlodie against him, the muzzle, cold and smooth, pressed to her scalp. She tried to roll her head away, make the shot less fatal, but he had her shoulder in his other hand and held her inescapably.
“Let her go.”
Domnall spoke, his voice quiet. Chlodie, knowing him, heard all the menace in that tone, and felt her heart start to beat faster. McLammore, oblivious, merely chuckled.
“So, you say,” he said. “Not so easy to make me do it, eh?” He cackled again and turned to face Domnall, twisting Chlodie, in his grasp, round with him.
“So,” he said. “The pretty dies of a bullet in her temple, or I win the duel.”
“Of course, you win, then…” Domnall said, but the fellow lifted his hand, demanding their attention regally.
“Not so easy,” he said. “I don’t just want to win this. I want my men reassembled, all of them. I want you to issue a public apology. I want to see you join my ranks as a menial, and to myself I grant the title of colonel.”
Domnall went pale. “You think those men…”
“I know your tricks!” The fellow spat. Chlodie screamed as she felt the gun slip down her forehead slightly, terrified that the fellow would, in an uncontrolled moment, press the trigger and end her life without even meaning it.
“What tricks?”
This voice was Tam’s. Chlodie saw him step forward from somewhere behind the overseer. His chin lifted, he looked angry.
“Tam…” Domnall whispered, urgently.
Again, the fellow shook his head, loftily. Chlodie, held against his chest, couldn’t see him, but she felt the gesture in the motion of his collarbone.
“I think you can do something for me too, milady,” he slurred, meaning Tam. “I think you can put your pistol on the ground, very carefully, like that, and walk away. Or the lass dies.”
“Tam,” Domnall whispered. His face was white. His eyes were dark holes in pale canvas, and they were tight with urgency.
“Aye, Domnall,” Tam whispered reassuringly. Chlodie saw him lay the weapon on the grass and walk away, two paces. She could have wept.
Now the only men with guns are McLammore, and Domnall. I can’t imagine Domnall shooting, lest he hit me.
She looked round, an idea occurring to her. If she slewed left, then lay flat, she would have perhaps a second to roll away before he regained his balance and shot close range. She felt her heart start to thud. Licking her lips, which were dry, she looked at Domnall, and tried to indicate, with a rolling of her eyes, what she intended.
Horror all over his face, he wasn’t watching her. Instead, he was looking at Bethann. She could see a message written in his eyes.
Taking a slow breath inward, she readied herself.
And a one, and a two, and a…
“Now!”
Domnall screamed it, just as Bethann stepped forward. Chlodie saw Bethann produce a dagger from his belt and run, screaming, at McLammore, just as she dropped, and Domnall ran, so fast, but achingly slow, too slowly, to her.
She felt the man behind her unclasp her, letting her fall slowly with gravity to the ground. As she did, she saw Domnall running. Felt the moment when McLammore shifted again and brought the pistol round, straight to Domnall’s heart.
“No!”
Chlodie, screaming, did the only thing she could. She threw herself forward, into the line of fire. She would block the bullet meant for him.
The world exploded in a roar and pain and then, abruptly, silence.
* * *
“No!”
Domnall, seeing Chlodie rear up like a buck, to take the bullet aiming for his heart, felt his world stop.
He ran toward her, screaming wordless rage. Then, fists out, he slammed into McLammore.
“Take that!” he screamed, feeling his knuckles split as they connected the fellow’s nose. He felt warm blood and didn’t care if it was his or his opponent’s. He drew back his left fist and hit again, feeling bone break.
“Take that! And that. And that…”
He was screaming words he didn’t even know he knew, didn’t know he screamed, his fists flailing, delivering punch after heavy blow into an unmoving form.
“Sir!” the voice of the overseer hovered on the edge of his awareness. “Sir! No…”
“Lieutenant Dunning..?” a woman shouted, urgent.
“Domnall!” Bethann’s voice cut through the red fog, the only sound of sense he recognized as the red haze filled his vision, clouding everything. “Domnall! Let him up.”
Domnall snarled, but stepped back. Chest heaving, he felt cold. He looked down and saw his shirt was soaked in blood. It made no sense to him. Was his shoulder bleeding so? Had his wounds re-opened?
It was only when the overseer stepped up and threw a coat over the form that lay on the grass that he realized that the blood was almost solely that of McLammore.
His eyes fell on the other stillness.
“Chlodie!”
He was saying her name, sobbing incoherently. He could hear noises rising in his throat, the sounds of an animal in torment. He dropped to his knees beside her body. She was so still!
“Chlodie. Chlodie. Chlodie!”
He said it as he lifted her hand. He looked down at her hand. So pale, the skin like satin over the long, tapering fingers, the ends just pink where the life pulsed close to the surface…
“No!”
“Hey, Domnall,” a voice said in his ear. Bethann again. “Domnall. Stop!”
“No…” He was wailing again, making sounds he didn’t recognize as ones a human made. Her hair lay across the green grass, the color touched to scarlet with the sunshine. He bent and lifted them, kissing the curls tenderly.
“Domnall…”
He could hear Bethann saying something, but it made no sense. The words came slowly through the red haze in his brain, penetrating the mist.
“Domnall! She’s. Not. Dead.”
“Eh?”
Domnall turned and frowned up at him, struggling to put the sentences together as people spoke to him. His head was clogged up with a grief too big for sensing, too big for speech.
“She’s alive. Tell him, sir. She’s not dead. The doctor’s coming. She can be tended if you’ll just step back.”
“Step back!”
“Step back, Domnall!”
This last was Bethann’s voice, urgent. Again, it managed to reach him where the doctor, or Tam, or overseer, could not. He nodded mutely. Allowed himself to be pulled away from her form.
“Chlodie…”
“Whist,” Bethann said softly. “The doctor’s tending her. He’s lifting her now. We’ll take her into the inn. He’ll treat her there. It might not be dangerous…”
“She’s hit in the chest by a pistol,” Domnall said.
“High up, though,” Bethann said, sounding hopeful. “Her shoulder.”
“I know how shots work,” Domnall retorted, feeling suddenly frustrated at being treated like a child. He was a veteran, same as Bethann. He’d seen men hit exactly thus in battle, and seen them die of their injuries. He wasn’t about to let Bethann talk him into some daft ignorance.
“Come on, man,” his friend was holding his shoulder, holding him back as, together, the doctor and the overseer and Tam lifted Chlodie. He ran forward, meaning to help, but the doctor pushed him away, gentle but insistent hand pressing into the sternum in his chest.
“Your sort has caused enough damage today, sir,” he said tightly. “Now let me pass.”
Domnall felt the rage against that statement fill his mind. Then he turned to Bethann.
“After them,” he said.
Bethann shrugged and nodded. “You and me together?”
“Yes,” Domnall agreed, walking more slowly as the blood from his grazed shoulder trickled down his arm and sapped his strength.
And I am not even truly hit, lik
e she is.
He looked down at her, feeling so ridiculous. What were they dueling over, anyway?
He looked at Bethann again, who was already walking in the direction of the inn.
“Let’s go.”
Domnall walked away, feeling the cool air burn him.
They went up the steps into the inn. He watched Chlodie, where she lay in Tam’s arms, her body utterly unmoving, and the doctor walking beside them.
“She looks dead,” he said.
“She’s not dead.”
They watched as the overseer and Tam together carried her upstairs and to the parlor. There, they laid her carefully on the desk, and closed the door.
“I will remove the bullet,” the doctor said stiffly. “Fortuitously, it’s quite shallow. I can see it – observe it glinting.”
“Good,” Bethann replied, though Domnall said nothing. He could do and say nothing. All he could even think of was the fact that he had been fighting, and, thanks to him, Chlodie would die.
“I need a bucket, clean cloths, a kettle, a linen towel, a bowl,” the doctor rattled off swiftly. Domnall felt the words land on his consciousness, without making any impression.
Bethann coughed. “I’ll get the cloths. You get the bowl.”
Domnall, wordless, did as he was bidden. He headed down the stairs to the kitchens, his conscious mind not aware of the fact that he’d noted them and knew yet where they were.
Returning with a highly polished bowl, he joined Bethann. The latter held a pile of what looked like handkerchiefs.
“Found them in the laundering cupboard,” he said. “Don’t know what they’re doing there.”
Domnall didn’t laugh, though any other day he would think it amusing. He nodded to the doctor.
“I’ll do anything,” he said.
The doctor said nothing, bending to the wound. After a long quiet moment, during which he slid delicate tweezers into the wound, he looked toward him.
“You can hold the towels,” he said.
Domnall, nodding eagerly, grabbed the linens Bethann supplied. Holding them, he obeyed the doctor’s every instruction, passing him one or swabbing blood whenever he suggested.
“We’re almost there…” the doctor sounded entirely absorbed in his task. Domnall, feeling ill, tried not to watch. He still heard the grate of the tweezers, and felt his insides twitch.
This is Chlodie. My Chlodie. And it’s all my fault…
“There,” the doctor said. “And a lucky miss. An inch lower and the fellow would have hit her clean in the chest. Nothing anyone could have done, about that.”
Domnall heard the words, but they meant nothing to him. He nodded mutely. It was Bethann who rested a hand on his lower arm, squeezing it gently.
“He would have killed her, if you hadn’t run.”
“He would have killed me, if she hadn’t run.”
They heard the doctor snort, but fortuitously he didn’t say anything. Then, just as abruptly, the words sank in.
I didn’t do nothing, Domnall thought.
He had tried to save her. She had tried to save him. As it happened, neither was dead. Just wounded.
“Just…wounded,” he echoed, mutely.
“Yes, that’s it,” the doctor sounded tired. “Just wounded,” he repeated, like he spoke to a recalcitrant school child. “Now. If you’ll let her rest? I’ve bandaged the wound, tourniquet tightened, and padded her shoulder, to stop it moving and opening the wound again. Now, if you could all let her sleep? It may be some time till she wakes.”
“Yes,” Domnall said dully.
He heard the doctor snort again, but didn’t care about the fellow’s censure of himself. That meant nothing. All that mattered was Chlodie.
“We should leave her,” Bethann said slowly, directing his words down the tunnel of Domnall’s thoughts to sanity. “We need to rest.”
“You need to keep up your strength,” the doctor echoed, voice censorious. “Lots of use you’ll be, all blundering about like mole rats, tomorrow.”
Domnall nodded, though the words meant nothing to him. The doctor left.
After a long minute, while he simply drank in the sight of her, Bethann spoke.
“Come on, Domnall,” he said. “Let’s take rest.”
“Can’t…leave her.”
“I’ll stay.”
A woman’s voice spoke behind them and Domnall recognized Lady Adeline. He nodded.
“Thank you, milady.”
Then, as he saw her settle herself, he let Bethann take him firmly by the upper arm and lead him out of the parlor.
“Get some rest,” he said.
“Not down there.”
Domnall was not going into the room he’d shared. He didn’t want to think about it. Didn’t want to leave her.
Bethann sighed. “You really are difficult.”
Then, before Domnall could protest, he felt himself led through a door. Bethann sat down heavily on a white-covered pallet, his head in his hands.
“Here,” he said. “My room. Now, find somewhere to sit. And let me rest.”
Domnall nodded wearily and leaned against the wall. His mind kept on going over the scene he’d witnessed, playing, over and again, the moment when the bullet had hit Chlodie’s shoulder.
“I can’t leave her.”
He stood and, seeing Bethann was resting, tiptoed slowly to the door. He opened it. Looking around – the hallway was dark now, the sun just setting outside – he slipped back to the parlor.
The fire was lit, and the flames burned low in the grate, the orange-red warmth spreading scarlet through her tresses. He noticed a seat by the table and sat down in it, taking her hand.
“Chlodie,” he murmured. His thumb stroked her skin, again.
He sat silently a long while. Her face was so peaceful, red lips pressed together, green eyes closed, the freckles on her nose where the sun just touched it with its rays still fresh and dark.
“Chlodie,” he said, speaking as if she was awake, and it was just the two of them, in the room alone. “I told you I love you, more times than I count. But I think I never realized what that really meant, until I saw you lying here like a statue. You died – or tried to die – to save me. You loved me so much that you acted without thinking. I like to think I did the same. But, Chlodie, you are the dearest, bravest, sweetest…” he drew a breath, feeling tears start, “most-impatient woman who ever breathed. And I love you, now and always.”
He heard his words fall, heard her breath, drawn in slowly like a gasp. Nothing moved.
Feeling foolish, he laid her hand beside her on the table.
“She’s cold,” he said.
Standing, feeling guilty and stupid and useless, he threw a sheet across her, and looked down. She looked a little warmer, he thought, foolishly.
“Chlodie,” he said. “I love you. I always will. Live.”
Then, his throat too raw for speech, he turned away and sat down on the settee. Here, he curled up and, planning to keep watch all night, he fell asleep.
* * *
It was dark. Chlodie, feeling her eyelids flicker open, noticed that. She felt hot, and something hurt, high up near her shoulder. It was a stiffness that burned and tugged and ached, and made movement of her arm impossible.
“What…”
She groaned, realizing her mouth was dry, and her head throbbed.
She moved her legs, eyes still closed, and felt a coverlet lying heavily on them.
Memory came back, slowly. The duel. The light of day. The shot, splintering the daylight and the sound around her into shards like potsherds.
I was struck.
She recalled someone – Domnall – running to save her. A terrible thought visited her. What if she hadn’t managed to block the shot, or if another hit him? What if he’d been struck?
Domnall. No!
She sat up. Her head pounded. Her mouth was dry like parchment. She had a fever, she realized, eyes pinched tight shut as she sat up and the
n twisted round. She stood, feet cold and nerveless as they slipped onto the wooden floor boards.
Her eyes fell on something where it lay on the settee at her left hand. She stood. The red hair was fanned out on the wooden seat, his body prone, the sleeve of his so-white shirt torn and ragged and clinging to his shoulder where blood crusted it.
“No!”
Gasping, she stumbled to him. She fell on her knees, just as he awoke.
“Chlodie!”
“Domnall!”
She stared at him. He stared at her. Gently, he stroked her forehead, his fingers gentle and tender as they ran down the sides of her skull, over her hair. She felt as if he was trying to commit her form to memory.
To compare it with his memory of her. To check she was real, and not a fantastical vision.
“Domnall,” she said softly. “It’s me. Chlodie. I was shot at. You were shot.”
“A graze.” He was laughing now, his wonderful firm mouth twisted in a grin. “Chlodie! Oh, Chlodie! You crazy, amazing, brave…you were hit! You tried to save me. You took the bullet that was meant for me. The doctor took it out…”
“But you took the bullet that was meant for me,” Chlodie said, mind working slowly, brain still in the heated grip of fever. “I saw you. You ran for me.”
Domnall stared at her. Slowly, his brown eyes lit with the tenderness of his smile.
“You’re right,” he said slowly. “We each ran to save the other, without thought.”
“Yes,” Chlodie chuckled. “Why am I not surprised, overmuch?” She stroked his cheek. He laughed.
“Yes, I could do well to think more often,” he chuckled, smiling. “And you?”
“I think. Sometimes.”
They both laughed. Laughing, they embraced. Embracing, she felt his lips beside hers and very gently stroked them with her own.
Then the fever started to cloud her vision and he shifted on the settee very slightly, fastening his arms tight around her so that he, too, could stand and, very carefully, escort her back upstairs to bed.
A RETURN AND A RENEWAL
A Highlander's Gifted Love (Blood 0f Duncliffe Series Book 9) Page 20