by Laura Landon
He staggered toward the entrance, then stopped short.
“No!” he bellowed.
Millicent’s crumpled form lay on the ground ahead of him. Blood pooled on the floor of the cave near her shoulder and her side.
He ignored the pain in his own side and the blood oozing from the wound in his chest and stumbled toward her. When he reached her, he turned her over. She moaned, and his own heart started beating again.
“Stay with me, Millicent. Don’t leave me. Not now. Not now.”
He scooped her into his arms and staggered to the cave entrance. The screaming pain in his side escalated, and his legs threatened to buckle beneath him. Every step of the way, he prayed for the strength to get Millicent to safety. It was taking hours—lifetimes—between each stuttering step.
He didn’t care about himself. He’d been injured enough to know his wounds were severe enough to claim his life. But that was no longer important. All he cared about was Millicent. He couldn’t let her die.
He struggled to take another step, then another. He saw the light from the entrance and knew he was close. If he could just reach the mouth of the cave, someone would see them. Someone would come to help.
Barnaby stumbled, then crashed against the rocky wall. He cried out in pain but was able to right himself and take another step forward.
“Linscott!” a voice called.
“Help,” he answered, but his plea came out no louder than a whisper.
“I’ll take her,” the voice said.
Millicent’s weight lifted from his arms.
“Get her out,” Barnaby said. “Before it blows.”
“Renfrew’s got her,” Radburn shouted. “I’m not leaving you.”
Radburn wrapped his arm around Barnaby’s waist and almost carried him away from the cave.
Blackness crept in from the corners of Barnaby’s eyes, shutting down his vision as he felt his body descending into darkness.
They’d made it less than thirty yards before the ground shook beneath their feet. A massive explosion rent the air, powerful enough to knock Barnaby and Radburn to the ground.
“Millicent,” Barnaby whispered.
“She’s safe. Her brother got her to safety. You got her out in time.”
Barnaby lay on the shore while explosion after explosion shook the ground. Large rocks shot out of the cave, and then, in one grand, trembling quake, the ground above the cliff collapsed. The headstones with the Earl and Countess of Renfrew’s names on them tumbled down the cliffside and into the sea.
Barnaby lowered his head to the sand. The earth beneath him trembled while the sun came out above him. But that couldn’t be. It wasn’t even dawn yet. He floated within the glow of it, observing everything from a place high above him.
He knew what it meant. He was dying. Life was flowing out of his body with every drop of blood that soaked into the sand.
He reached for Radburn’s hand. “Remember your . . . promise . . . Radburn. Take care of Millicent.”
“Take care of her yourself, Linscott.”
Barnaby attempted a smile. He knew Radburn didn’t mean it. He knew he’d take care of Millicent. Of course he would. He’d offered to marry her, after all.
But before he could say more, six burly men approached to carry him from the shore, and he let consciousness slip away.
He wasn’t sure he’d wake up this side of heaven. But that would be all right. At least the pain would be gone.
Except the pain of missing Millicent.
That would never go away.
Chapter 23
Millicent slowly opened her eyes and took in as much of the room as she could see without moving her head. She looked for Barnaby but didn’t find him. She closed her eyes and waited for the pain to subside before she dared to open her eyes again.
Every inch of her body cried out in agony.
“How do you feel, my lady?”
Millicent opened her eyes. Lady Carlisle stood over her. Sophie hovered next to her.
“Was I . . . run over . . . by a cart and team of . . . eight?”
“I’m sure you feel as if you were,” Sophie answered. “Take a swallow of this,” she said, holding a glass to Millicent’s mouth. “It will help.”
“What is it?”
“A little wine laced with a drop of laudanum.”
“I might need more than one . . . drop,” Millicent said, then took a sip from the glass.
“I’ll mix you another potion should you need it later. But for now, this much will suffice.”
Sophie held the glass to her lips again, and Millicent drank another swallow. She finished the wine-laced laudanum, then closed her eyes, allowing herself to be consumed by the euphoric feeling. The pain slowly faded.
“What a strange sensation,” she slurred.
“Which is why I will be the only one in control of the amount you are given,” Sophie said.
“Get some rest now, Millicent,” Lady Carlisle said. “I will stay with you through the night. You won’t be alone.”
A nagging thought appeared at the edge of her consciousness. She wanted to ask a question. And that question was vitally important, but she couldn’t think clearly enough to recall what it was.
She suddenly decided she didn’t like the effects of laudanum as well as she had thought.
It wasn’t until she closed her eyes that his face appeared before her.
Barnaby.
“Barnaby,” she slurred. “Where’s Barnaby?”
Neither Lady Elizabeth nor Sophie answered.
Millicent struggled to clear her head. She needed to know where Barnaby was. What had happened to him.
She looked up, and through her drug-induced haze, she saw Sophie and Lady Carlisle exchange a worried look.
“Where’s Barnaby?” she repeated. The words were even more slurred and didn’t come out as forcefully as she intended.
“Rest now, Millicent,” Lady Carlisle said, reaching for her hand and holding it. “We’ll talk later.”
“No!”
Millicent could think of only two possibilities for Barnaby not being with her. He was either so severely wounded he was unable to get out of bed, or he was . . .
“No!”
Millicent fought the opiate Sophie had given her. She tried to lift her arm. She couldn’t. It weighed too much. She tried to roll from the bed. She couldn’t. Her body was like a boulder buried in mud.
“Sophie, please,” she cried out. “Is Barnaby dead?”
Sophie clasped her hand and held it. “I don’t know, sweeting. I don’t know.”
“No!” she cried out. She couldn’t lose him. She wouldn’t survive if he died. She wouldn’t want to.
She sobbed with grief until sleep overtook her and she lost consciousness. Then she dreamt she found him. He was dying. She ordered him to fight to stay alive, but he refused to listen to her.
With a final sigh, he smiled at her, then died.
. . .
Millicent had always hated water. She didn’t like swimming in the lake at Cliffside, even though Thomas and Polly would go swimming every chance they got. Which was why she couldn’t understand why she was enjoying herself as much as she was.
The water was warm, and she moved lithely through it without having to surface for air, the same as a fish moved through water. She seemed able to swim beneath the water forever without having to surface to breathe.
Millicent tried to open her eyes, but the cloudy water made it impossible to see anything. She needed to surface. She needed to come up where the air was clear and she could see her surroundings.
She struggled for what seemed forever, yet no matter how much she fought to find the water’s surface, she couldn’t. She realized she never would.
She wasn’t a fish. She wasn’t able to breathe beneath the water, yet she was trapped under the surface and couldn’t find her way to the top.
Millicent opened her mouth to take in a breath, but she couldn’t. She gasped
for air again and again, but her lungs refused to fill.
“My lady,” a voice said from somewhere in the distance. “You’re fine. You have nothing to fear.”
“Breathe, Millicent!” a male voice demanded. “Breathe!”
It was Thomas. She’d recognize his voice anywhere. He sounded exactly as Father did when issuing a command.
“Breathe!”
Millicent didn’t need to be told a fourth time. She opened her mouth and sucked in a huge gulp of air, then released it and took in another and another in jagged gasps that caused her to cry out in pain.
Strong hands wrapped around her, and she prayed the hands belonged to Barnaby. She’d never needed him as desperately as she did now.
“You’re safe, Millie,” he whispered, but the voice wasn’t Barnaby’s.
“Is Barnaby here?”
“No, Millie. I’ve been with you the last few hours.”
“Where’s Barnaby”
“The doctor’s with him. So is Lord Radburn.”
“Is he dead? I dreamt he was.”
“No, Millie. He isn’t dead. But prepare yourself. The doctor doesn’t expect him to survive the night.”
“No!” she cried out.
Her brother held her closer. “He took a bullet in the chest that did a great deal of damage. And another in his side. The doctor tried to stop the bleeding but was unsuccessful for a long while.”
“What time is it?”
“It’s the middle of the night. Nearly three o’clock.”
“Take me to him,” Millicent said through her tears.
“There’s nothing you can do, Millie.”
“I don’t care. I need to be with him.”
She saw the hesitancy in her brother’s eyes but refused to allow him to keep her away from Barnaby.
“Don’t force me to beg, Thomas.”
“You won’t have to beg, Millie. I know how much it would cost you. But prepare yourself. Watching someone die is never easy.”
Millicent wanted to tell her brother that doing everything in her power to keep Barnaby alive wouldn’t be nearly as difficult as staying away and doing nothing.
“Get Lady Millicent’s robe,” he said to Sophie. He helped her put the robe on, then placed her slippers on her feet. “Are you ready?” he asked when she was covered.
Millicent nodded, then wrapped her uninjured arm around Thomas’s neck.
“Moving is going to be painful,” he said, then lifted her into his arms.
A stab of pain shot through her, but she bit down on her lower lip to keep from crying out.
Thomas carried her down the hall to Barnaby’s room. When they reached it, a footman who was stationed beyond the door in case something was needed—or in case the house needed to be alerted that Barnaby had died—opened the door.
“Are you sure you want to go inside?”
“Yes,” Millicent whispered past the lump in her throat.
Her brother carried her across the threshold, careful not to jostle her. If she could have, Millicent would have jumped to her feet to run to where Barnaby lay on the bed. But she was forced to endure Thomas’s cautious pace. He still limped from the injuries he’d sustained in the fire. Finally, they reached the side of the bed.
Thomas had tried to prepare her. He’d warned her that Barnaby had lost an immense amount of blood and that he was injured so severely that the doctor didn’t expect him to live. But nothing could have prepared her for what she saw.
She’d nursed him when he was injured before, and she was expecting something similar. But not this. Not the complete undoing of a man who’d seemed so invincible.
“Lower me to the bed, Thomas.”
Thomas hesitated, but he didn’t argue. Nor did he refuse. Perhaps he knew it wouldn’t do any good. He slowly lowered her to the edge of the bed where she could sit and face Barnaby.
Her body screamed in pain, but she refused to let Thomas or Lord Radburn know how much she hurt, for fear they would insist she return to her room. And she knew she couldn’t leave. She somehow knew that if she wasn’t near him to tell him he couldn’t leave her, he would.
She reached for Barnaby’s hand and held it. His flesh was warm—perhaps a bit too warm. The strength she was used to feeling was absent, but he was alive. Nothing else mattered. He was alive.
“I’m here, Barnaby,” she whispered. “I’ve come to tell you I expect you to get well.”
Millicent lifted her hand to brush her fingers across Barnaby’s brow and down his cheek. He didn’t move. He showed no indication that he was aware of her at all.
“You were successful,” she said, cupping her palm to his cheek. “The explosives have been destroyed, and Roseneau is dead.”
She held his hand again and prayed she was strong enough to hold him until he healed. That she had enough strength to share with him. But her body betrayed her, and she swayed on the side of the bed. Thomas’s hand reached out to steady her.
“You need to return to your room, Millie.”
“Yes, Lady Millicent,” Radburn agreed. “Allow me to carry you. Your brother will stay with Mr. Linscott until I return.”
“No,” she answered. “I’m not leaving.”
Millicent ignored them and continued to talk to Barnaby. She told him how proud she was of him. How brave he was.
She told him that Roseneau never really expected the explosives were going to blow up. She told him that Silas Armor had been working for Roseneau, and that Roseneau had shot him after he’d led him to the hidden room where she waited with Polly.
She told him that Roseneau overpowered her and tied her, then locked Polly in her room and forced Millicent to tell him where the emeralds were. She told him there was a secret passage that led from the house to one of the outbuildings where Roseneau had a horse. She would show it to him when he was well enough to walk.
And she told him several other things. There was nothing important in what she said, other than her continued demand that he fight to stay alive and never leave her.
She watched his chest move up and down—a movement so minute she sometimes wasn’t sure that he was breathing. At those times, she would speak louder, her words more of a demand.
“Millicent,” her brother whispered, but she held up her hand to stop him midsentence. She knew what he was going to suggest. Knew he was going to tell her she needed to return to her room where she could lie down and rest. Well, she could lie down right here. She could rest on the bed beside Barnaby.
She eased her body to a reclining position and tried to lift her legs, but the wounds she had sustained in her side made that impossible.
“Millicent,” Thomas spoke again.
“I could use your help, Thomas,” she gasped.
“Ah, Millie,” he whispered on a sigh of resignation. She knew he’d given in.
He slowly lifted her feet from the floor and picked her up to position her so she’d be more comfortable on the bed. When she was lying close enough to Barnaby that she could hold his hand, Thomas placed a cover over her.
“I’ll send Sophie to stay with you.”
“I’d . . . appreciate . . . that.”
“You won’t appreciate it so much when she discovers that you’ve opened the wound in your shoulder and she might have to sew it shut again.”
“Thank you . . . Thomas,” she said, trying hard to smile and knowing that she failed.
“I will leave now, too,” Lord Radburn said. He stood where she could see him. “I will station a footman outside your door. Instruct your maid to call on him for anything you need.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
Both of them turned to the door, but Lord Radburn stopped before they left the room. “I owe you a sincere apology, my lady. I didn’t know Silas Armor was working for Roseneau.”
“They were both . . . truly evil,” Millicent whispered, then turned her head to look at Barnaby.
“Yes, they were,” Radburn agreed. “Now, rest, my lady, so yo
u can recover. I’ll send your servant to you directly.”
With that, Radburn and Thomas left the room.
She was alone with Barnaby. She held his hand tighter in hers and brought it close to her body. She wanted him to feel her. Wanted him to know she was with him.
“Don’t you dare leave me, Barnaby. I wouldn’t want to go on if you weren’t here to take this journey with me.”
She made slow, gentle circles on the top of his hand with her thumb, praying that he would stir. She needed any indication that he was fighting to stay alive. Any hint, no matter how remote, that he wasn’t leaving her.
“I want you to fight very hard to stay alive. Do you know why?”
She paused.
“I can’t be sure, of course. It’s still too early. But I believe there’s a possibility that I am carrying your son.”
She waited for a change in his breathing. Perhaps just a small hitch. Anything to indicate he’d heard her.
She studied the expression on his face. Perhaps she’d see the hint of a smile. That was all she needed—just a smile to show her that he was pleased to know he was going to have a son. But she saw nothing except the paleness of his face growing whiter.
“Barnaby, do you hear me?”
She turned enough to place her hand over his chest. She wanted to feel his chest rise and fall as he breathed.
The door opened and Sophie entered. “Ah, my lady,” she whispered as she rushed to the bed and checked Millicent’s bleeding wounds. “You’ve not done yourself any good.”
Millicent ignored Sophie’s concern. “Is there anything you can do for Barnaby?” she asked.
“Let me care for you first, then I’ll take a look at the lad.”
“No, care for Barnaby first.”
“But—”
“Barnaby . . . first.”
Sophie walked to the other side of the bed, then placed her hand on Barnaby’s forehead. Her expression turned grave, and she leaned down to check his breathing. The forlorn look on Sophie’s face told Millicent that her worst fears were a reality.
Barnaby was no longer breathing.
Chapter 24
“No!” she cried. “No. No. No no no!”
The door opened, and Lord Radburn rushed inside.