by Laura London
“No. Only kissed me, and that was distasteful enough, not at all like when you do it. I don’t think that he could have been speaking the truth when he claimed to know about the manly arts, do you?”
Linden shifted the cloth and was relieved to see the bleeding had diminished. “Oh, a blanc-bec of the first water. Now, Katie, I’m going to bandage your shoulder and then well go for a short ride on Ciaffa.” Katie watched the practiced hands as they packed and bound her shoulder. She could tell he was taking great care not to hurt her but still she had to take her lips between her teeth to keep from crying out. His sober brown eyes scanned her blanched countenance. “Here, stay a moment, Katie. I’ll be right back. Sing again.” He left her side and she tried to sing, though it was harder now to concentrate on the words.
“A-sleep in Je-sus! Bless-ed sleep! From which none… none ev-er wake to weep.” How thin her voice had become. “A calm and un-dis-turbed re-pose, Un-broken by the last of foes.”
“Cheerful,” observed Lord Linden, as he re-entered the room carrying a silver flask. He sat beside her on the couch. “Katie, I’m going to lift you some. No, don’t try to help me, let your body relax. That’s right. So. I think you’ll stand the ride better if I make you a little drunk first. Can you sip from this if I hold it for you? Try now. Dieu, what a face, child. And this my best cognac! A palate that can tolerate sour milk has no business rejecting vintage brandy. Come, Katie, again.”
“Very well, my lord… but it tasted like you filled your flask from the ditch.”
Chapter Thirteen
Perhaps imbibing a liberal amount of Linden’s brandy had something to do with it, but Katie found no extraordinary discomfort attended the transition from the couch to Ciaffa’s well-muscled back. Lord Linden had arranged her before him on the saddle to give her the greatest support. There could be no joy in holding her thus; in feeling the vital child reduced to this pathetically limp creature whose head fell so heavily against his chest. Katie unconsciously clasped and unclasped her cold, benumbed hands, and on her wrists he could see the flayed skin where Guy had bound her. The flesh had contracted over her cheekbones until they stood out in drawn and rigid bas-relief. There was no key in Linden’s hard young face to the emotions that moved him, nor did he permit any uncertainty to flaw the rocklike steadiness of his hold on the wounded girl.
Ciaffa’s slow, musical canter flew across the earth like the free wingbeats of a blue heron in flight. Katie could see the sparkling milky paradise of the night sky; it seemed as though she were floating through the stars, a lonely, wandering comet. But not alone.
“Still with me, little one?” said Linden.
Katie stirred in his arms. “Yes… my lord? I don’t remember—did I thank you for coming? Have I thanked you for all the times you’ve saved me? I would have been killed many times if you hadn’t saved me.” She giggled weakly. “Although you’ll probably tell me that it is an anatomical impossibility, for a person to be killed more than once. Anyway, I wanted to say thank you.”
“Forget it, child. How’s the pain? Do you think you could sleep?”
“The pain is better than it was, but I don’t want to sleep. I want to enjoy being awake and safe.”
The moonlight lent a silvery cap to a nearby stand of European larches rising in narrow pewter towers from the corner of a hop field. She was lying very still, and he had begun to wonder if she had fainted when she spoke again.
“There is something—I wish I could stop thinking about.”
“What?”
She looked up at him with dazed misery. “Ivo Guy said that he was going to—going to take me beneath him, and he would give me to Chilworthy too. It makes me afraid when I think of it.”
“Don’t think of it.”
“I can’t help it. What would have become of me if that had happened? My cousin said it would be better if I died. Do you think so?”
He was shocked by his own reaction to the horror in her voice. “No. No matter how they had hurt you, Katie, I would have found you and taken care of you.” He stopped, silenced by an awareness of the inadequacy of his comfort. To his amazement, though, some of the tension seemed to leave her body, and she said with something close to contentment, “Oh, yes.”
Involuntarily, his arms tightened their hold. They rode on in silence, Katie lying quietly against him. The houses were becoming closer together, and the traffic was increasing to a regular rush, until the passing of a vehicle was no longer as remarkable as a clear space in the road. They were coming into Mayfair now; passing to their left a palatial mansion lined with glimmering windows and crowned by an array of improbable pinnacles. Linden kept Ciaffa to a steady pace, riding through pools of amber streetlight, finally turning onto a beautiful square. Katie saw across the square a giant abode, fourteen windows wide, with a gray stone front and unadorned portico and pediment, set within a graveled courtyard.
“My lord, that house…” said Katie, struggling to sit up.
“Carefully!” said Linden sharply. “Katie, you mustn’t move, or the bleeding will increase.”
“But, my lord, this is your grandmother’s house, isn’t it? Lady Brixton? I thought you were going to take me to a doctor.” He heard real fear in her voice.
“S’death, child, will you be still? There’s a doctor only down the street; he will be fetched.”
Katie turned her head to stare at the crenelated outline of the mighty house. “Take me to him at his home. Please.”
“So haughty, My Lady Disdain? You lived above The Merry Maidenhead, you lived with Laurel,” he said quizzically. “Won’t you try living with a duchess? It’s uphill all the way.”
“I didn’t want to live with Laurel,” pointed out Katie. “You made me. That was one thing, but this,” she faltered, “is quite another.”
“I’ve never heard it so well put,” he said with mock admiration. “Stop squirming.”
“Well,” said Katie, “I’m not very articulate but I do know that duchesses don’t entertain nobodies. And I’m worse than nobody. I’m… I’m an ivory-turner’s daughter! And your grandmother is, oh, the elite of the elite! And that kind of people despise me, my lord. Please, you can’t know. The squire near my home in Essex had three daughters, all respectable, and once when they were out riding they found me playing with one of their father’s lambs and they said…”
“Hell and damnation, Katie, will you spare me any more of your pitiful scenarios? Bon Dieu, they’re enough to harrow Attila the Hun! I’m willing to believe you’ve been insulted and mercilessly mistreated on any number of occasions, but you have a bullet lodged in your shoulder that will kill you if it doesn’t come out and I’ll be damned if I’ll take you to a place where you won’t get proper care. If it’s any consolation to you, my grandmother was one of the town’s most notable fallen angels in her youth. Age may have lent her the cachet of moral rectitude, but believe me, fifty years ago no one would have called her respectable. Our family is noted for wild youth and pompous old age.”
They reached the stone steps of the portico and the tune of Ciaffa’s even pace faded.
“Even so,” said Katie, her frigid hands clutching at the neck of her cape in agitation, “she won’t like me to come into her house.”
“Of course she won’t like it. So what? She’ll calm down after I explain. Besides, when I think of it, this is a damn good time to take you into her house. She can’t throw out a wounded juvenile,” he said callously. He slid lightly from the saddle, leaving one sustaining arm around Katie. “Relax your body and fall toward me. Don’t worry, I won’t let you drop. There. Katie, what the… stop! Saints save you, you’ll kill yourself.”
“I don’t care,” said Katie, squirming desperately in his arms. “At least let me walk. That’s all I ask—not to be carried in like a hunk of mutton. Let me stand. Please!”
Linden bent one arm to set her feet on the top stair. “You’ll collapse before you go two steps, little tiger. And I’ll have to carry you
anyway.” He saw the hysterical shock bright in her pained eyes. He didn’t dare try to collect her in his arms against her will. The Lord only knew what kind of damage she might do to herself with a struggle.
“I won’t faint,” she said shakily, “I never faint and I never cry and I never get sick. Except that I almost got sick when Ivo Guy kissed me.” She gave Linden a wavering smile. “I’m not off my head, really I’m not. Only I feel enough of a spectacle without being carried. Can you understand that?”
“No,” he said uncompromisingly. “You’re out of your mind. I think it would be in your best interest if I slapped you insensible, and I’d do it, too, if you weren’t staring at me like a lost dove. Come on, then. Step.” He urged her forward, keeping a firm hold of her shoulders. It amazed him that Katie could even stand in her condition. When they reached the door, Linden banged the knocker with his free hand.
The door was opened by an imposing white-haired butler whose salt-and-pepper eyebrows levitated at the sight of the surprise visitors.
Linden returned his stare with annoyance and said, “Don’t stand there gawking like an underfootman, Fawnmore. Find a groom for Ciaffa. Where’s Lady Brixton?”
“Here’s Lady Brixton,” came a strong female voice from the vestibule. “Linden, is that you? You have deigned to answer my summons at last? Come in!”
Linden drew the shrinking Katie beside him through the massive stone threshold to stand before Lady Brixton, the Perfect Duchess. She was a ramrod straight woman with an air that was almost martial. Her three score and ten years had added wrinkles and an uncrossable dignity to what once had been great beauty; her skin was translucent white as though to hint at the blue blood which ran beneath, and her hair was the palest mix of silver and gold. When she saw the red-haired sylph at Linden’s side, her expression became one of incredulous consternation.
“Grandson! Have you taken leave of your senses?” demanded Lady Brixton, nearly shouting.
Katie huddled closer to Linden.
“Don’t be a fool, Grandmère,” snapped Linden. “She’s an unplowed field. Do you think I’d ask you to play pimp to one of my pigeons?”
“Linden! Would you try to cultivate a less ribald tongue? And lower your voice,” said Lady Brixton in a furious tone. “This has got to be the most far-fetched stunt you’ve deeded yet. Pigeon, canary, or game pullet, she’s not going to be plunked under my roof! Get her out before I have her thrown out!”
“Do,” invited Linden with a snarl, “and she’ll die. Look.” He loosened Katie’s cloak and let it slide to the floor, revealing her trembling, blood-drenched frame. Lady Brixton slapped her palm to her forehead, clenching her teeth.
“Of all the stupid, overdramatic… Am I to suppose it was beyond the scope of your imagination to walk into the house and say, see here, Grandmother, I have a wounded girl, could you render me assistance? Someday, Lesley,” said Lady Brixton with conviction, “you’re going to give me an apoplexy. Fawnmore, for God’s sake, send for the doctor. Well, Linden, pick your victim up and follow me upstairs. Unless it would amuse you to watch her bleed to death in my foyer?”
When Linden lifted her, Katie made no move to resist him. The slender reserves of strength that had held her on her feet had fled, leaving her alone to face this spinning world. Linden felt her nerveless fingers pluck spasmodically at the collar of his riding coat as he mounted the colossal stairway.
“In here, Linden, it’s the closest,” said Lady Brixton, leading him into a lovely blue bedchamber. Linden eased Katie onto the japanned four-poster, noting with concern that the frost-blue tinge in her lips had deepened and all pigment had faded from her skin.
Light footfalls sounded on the carpeted hall outside, and Lady Suzanne McDonald fluttered into the room. She was a diminutive lady in sober black, the plainest, least clever, and sweetest natured of all the Brixton grandchildren, a group of cousins noted for their intelligence and good looks. Her own parents had been staid and provincial; in the worldly, sophisticated Brixton household she’d always felt like the cricket who came inside for the winter. She looked at her grandmother, at the tall, rather frightening cousin she’d always secretly admired, and then at the injured girl on the bed. Her eyes grew wide as dinner plates, and she clasped her hands over her round cheeks.
“Linden!” she said. “You’ve shot someone!” She stumbled back against the door frame with whitened cheeks. “My smelling salts! Hartshorn!”
Linden swore and grabbed her upper arm with a grip that would leave her bruised for a week. “A crack in the mouth would work faster than smelling salts,” he hissed. “Do you still feel faint?”
“N-not at all,” she replied limply. “Please, my arm.”
He released her. “Sorry,” he said shortly. “But, Jesus, it’s outside of enough for you to pull vapors on me right now, especially since I need you. This child’s got a bullet in her shoulder.”
“Oh, the poor, poor little girl,” said Suzanne, pulling herself together. She hurried across the room to lay a hand on Katie’s brow. “How terrible! Has Dr. Carr been summoned? I’ll call for Nurse. We’ll have her put to bed and made ready for the doctor.” She pulled the bell rope and looked toward her cousin. “Never fear, Lesley, I shall take the greatest care of her, I promise. And, of course, Nurse will know just what ought to be done. You must take yourself below, however, so she can be undressed and made comfortable before the doctor comes.”
Katie had slipped behind a spinning screen of fatigue, but Suzanne’s words swung her back into reality.
“No,” cried Katie, nearly flinging herself from the bed in alarm. She clung to Linden’s arm in a sick, childlike plea. “Don’t leave me. I need you, I need you.” She stopped then, horrified that those frantic, mewling words were her own. She raised a dazed hand to her lips and whispered, “Help me. What’s happening?”
“Nothing, chérie, it doesn’t matter. Here, softly now, easy. It’s only shock from the wound,” said Linden, pushing her gently down. “I won’t leave you. I’ll only be downstairs, I promise.”
“Stay,” begged Katie. She gave Linden a tiny, sweet smile. “It won’t be anything you haven’t seen a thousand times before, my lord.”
“Oh, dear,” said Suzanne, seeing Lady Brixton puff like a steaming teapot.
“My lord,” said Lady Brixton, “ought to be ashamed of himself.” She draped an arm around her grandson’s taut shoulders and said dulcetly, “If it’s a thousand times, then I’m afraid the field’s been plowed, mulched, cultivated and very likely seeded as well. You might as well stay.”
He did stay. And neither Lady Brixton nor Suzanne, or even Nurse, who had known Linden since his cradle, could recognize the harsh, cynical rake in this tender man who sat beside the ailing child, teasing, distracting, and talking inventive nonsense to her while they bathed her in warm water, laid her under smooth sheets, and tucked heated bricks at her cold feet.
He stayed, too, while Dr. Carr made his careful examination of Katie’s wound and announced with finality that the bullet must come out. Katie’s eyes dilated as Carr laid out the shiny surgical implements.
“No, Katie, look at me,” said Linden, taking her cheeks inside his palms.
Dr. Carr regarded Katie with a frown. “I’ve given the child all the laudanum I can. I think we might proceed. It’s taken what hold it will.”
Which is not a great deal, thought Suzanne worriedly. Katie was certainly confused, both from blood loss and the judiciously administered drugs, but she was still very much awake. Suzanne watched Lord Linden’s face spark with feeling as Dr. Carr began to probe the injured shoulder. She sensed rather than saw Linden’s anguished pity, and thought that never had she seen the warm sable eyes so vulnerable.
“Doucement, little one,” he was saying, stroking the wisps of hair from Katie’s cool, sweaty brow, “breathe deeply. Poor butterfly. Hold me. Katie. Katie.”
Katie saw him through a shimmering net of chiffon. “Would you… like,” she gasped,
“to hear the Declaration of Ind… Independence?”
“Yes, say it,” said Linden. Dear God, he thought, why doesn’t she faint?
“When in the course… of human events… my lord?”
“I’m here, little star. What comes next?”
“Next. It becomes… it becomes necessary for one people… one people…” Katie could hear her lips repeating the words after she could no longer understand them. It was as though her mind had sent one final meaningless message before dropping a heavy film between herself and all outside. Four giant eclipsing suns covered the corners of Katie’s vision; in a single, concise, mercy-serving explosion they bloated until merging. She jerked one hand over her eyes and fainted.
It was sometime later that Lady Suzanne made her way into the evening room where she found her cousin Andrew, still wearing his evening formals. He had been sitting in one of the elegant Hepplewhite armchairs, his head thrown against its concave oval back panel while he made an absentminded study of the ornate plaster ceiling.
She blinked with suppressed agitation. “Oh, Drew, is it you, back from Almack’s?”
“Of course it’s me,” he said with some impatience. “Who did you think it was?”
“Why… you, of course,” she said, blinking her eyes again, with surprise.
Drew looked pained. “Stupid. And there’s no need to act like you’re guarding the Secret of Life. I’ve had the whole story of Linden’s precipitous arrival this quarter hour from Fawnmore. But you look like you’ve swallowed a grapefruit. Come.” He drew his cousin down beside him on a cream and floral settee, laying an arm across its serpentine back. “Was it dreadful when the sawbones came?”
“Yes,” she said, shuddering with remembrance. “Poor girl. The laudanum hardly helped and she suffered and suffered and finally blacked out as Dr. Carr was removing the bullet. Horrible. And the girl bore it like an Amazon. Why, she’s valiant to the heart.”
Drew frowned. “Do you know how she came to be shot? Did Lesley tell you?”