by Regan Walker
“It will do you no good to fight me, Katherine.” Shifting his body over hers, his heavy weight stopped her futile struggling. “It seems we were here once before,” he reminded her, huffing with exertion. His face was only inches from hers, and she felt his arousal press hard against her.
He tried to kiss her again, but she jerked her head to one side, avoiding what would have been a punishing kiss. “No! Let me go!”
“Take your hands off my wife!” Martin bellowed from the doorway, and he stomped into the room.
“Martin!” Relief flooded Kit at seeing her husband stride toward the bed like some fierce dark angel of wrath. He had come for her!
Rutledge let go of her hands and started to move, but Martin’s eyes were frozen blue flames and his intent more terrifying. Grabbing Rutledge by his shirt, he dragged the earl from the bed and in one lightning strike slammed his fist into the earl’s face.
Kit scurried from the bed and watched as the two men grappled. She’d never seen Martin use fisticuffs, but given all she knew she was unsurprised that he had the speed of a wildcat and the force of a lion. Yet the earl fought back, determined and mean.
Breaking free of Martin’s blows, Rutledge staggered backward, hand to his jaw. Blood trickled from his mouth. “Your wife? And just who are you?”
Ignoring his question, Martin drew his pistol from his coat and trained it on the earl.
Kit rushed to her husband’s side and welcomed his arm around her shoulder as he drew her close. His eyes still on Rutledge, his voice full of concern, he said, “Did he harm you, my love?”
Her heart still pounding in her chest, she said, “No, but thank God you appeared when you did. I was so afraid you didn’t know where I was. How did you find me?”
“It will soon be apparent. Now I must remove this vile creature.”
Rutledge scowled, wiping the blood from his face, and arrogantly said, “You have not answered my question. Just who in the hell are you?”
“Your hell, perhaps. I am Sir Martin Powell. And the woman you have twice tried to violate is my wife. Now, down the stairs with you!” He gestured to the open door with his firearm. “Your landlord, the duke, would have a word.”
Rutledge seemed to accept defeat and proceeded haltingly through the doorway. As he stepped into the corridor, over his shoulder he said, “Powell? The Crown’s agent? I understood she was married to a Frenchman named Donet, one of the revolutionaries.”
“It is not important what you know,” Martin sneered. “Twice you have tried to force yourself upon my lady. If you want to remain among the living, you will never come near her again.”
Martin prodded Rutledge with his pistol, forcing the earl into the corridor and down the stairs. Kit followed. From the top of the steps, she glanced down to see a tall man with chestnut- colored hair standing in the entry next to a footman in livery bearing a pistol. Kit realized the elegantly dressed man must be the Duke of Devonshire, Ormond’s friend. She’d not met him before and was surprised at his youth, for he was barely older than she.
The two guards who worked for Rutledge were tied up on the floor. Standing nearby, the old housekeeper wrung her hands and trembled in obvious fright.
With Martin’s continued prodding, Rutledge arrived at the base of the stairs, still wiping blood from his face.
“Wasn’t my doing, Yer Grace,” the old housekeeper assured the duke, her gaze darting between all the men in the room.
Devonshire nodded his acceptance and then said to Martin, “All in hand, I see. Well done!” To Rutledge: “You have much to account for, sir.”
Martin shoved his pistol into the earl’s back, and the duke stepped aside to allow them to pass through the entry hall. Kit felt the tension in Martin’s body as he reached out with his free arm to pull her to him.
As he passed the footman, Rutledge grabbed the pistol from the servant’s hand. The footman reached to retrieve it but was too late. Kit gasped. Rutledge backed out of the house, pointing his weapon at Martin. Slowly, Martin retreated with Kit back toward the stairs.
It all happened at once. Kit heard Rutledge cock the weapon, the sound echoing off the walls. Martin thrust his body in front of hers, shouting, “Get down!” Then, before she could move, two gunshots sounded.
Martin’s body slumped, his weight driving her to the floor. She looked out the door and saw Rutledge lying on the ground in front of the house. The entry was full of the familiar bitter smell of gunpowder. The duke held a smoking pistol.
Kit struggled to move from under Martin, gently laid him on the floor and saw the blood oozing from his jacket. “He’s been shot!”
The patch of blood on his jacket was growing larger, and Martin’s unfired pistol dropped from his hand to the ground. The duke set aside his weapon and knelt next to them. Martin, still conscious, looked up and said, “It seems I was a bit slow.”
“Not slow,” replied the duke gravely, “just protecting your lady. And had you not made that sudden move to put yourself before her, I suspect the ball would have struck your heart.”
Kit lifted Martin’s head onto her lap just as he closed his eyes. “Martin,” she whispered.
He must have heard the fear in her voice as it faltered. Opening his eyes slightly he said, “Not…fatal, I think.” Then he closed his eyes, and his head rolled to the side.
Feeling the warm blood soaking through her husband’s shirt, waistcoat and coat, Kit reached down and tore a strip from her petticoat to staunch the bleeding. Shouting to the housekeeper she demanded, “I need clean cloths and hot water.”
The old woman, eyes dazed and mouth agape, came out of her stupor to respond.
The duke reached inside his coat and took out a cloth. “Here,” he said, “this should help until she brings more.” He faced his footman. “Get a physician, and on your way check on the earl.”
“Yes, Yer Grace.” The footman hurried to where the earl lay on the ground in front of the house. Shortly, he returned. “I’m leaving now, Yer Grace, to fetch the doctor.”
The duke eyed the door where the footman stood. “Rutledge?”
“Alive, though he needs a healer if he’s to stay that way. He’s bleeding like a stuck pig.”
“We’ll do our best for him while you summon the physician. Be quick.”
Kit heard a horse’s hooves hitting the ground as the footman galloped away, and she pressed her cloth to Martin’s wound, now a pool of red on his chest. The blood quickly soaked through the duke’s handkerchief, a warm wet heat under her palm. She stared down at the man she loved and knew fear.
The housekeeper returned, stepping around the two guards lying tied up on the floor, handed Kit several linen cloths and set a bowl of steaming water on the floor. Ripping open Martin’s shirt, Kit pressed linen to the wound, tossing aside the blood-soaked handkerchief and strips from her petticoat.
The duke, watching, said, “I am hopeful, Lady Powell, that Sir Martin has the right of it. The wound does not appear fatal. The physician is not far, just in Codner. He’ll be with us soon.”
“I do hope you’re right,” Kit said, still staring at her unconscious husband.
The duke spoke to the waiting housekeeper. “More cloths, good woman. Bring them to me outside where the earl lies. We must see what we can do.”
The old woman nodded. Hastening to another room, she soon returned with more cloths and another bowl of water and followed the duke through the open door. A moment later, the duke returned.
“Is he still alive?” Kit asked.
“For now, yes. I hated to shoot a peer, even this one,” the duke said, wrinkling his brow, “but I had to stop the man before he killed your husband. It seems I was not entirely successful.”
Kit wasn’t at all sure she cared for Rutledge to survive. He had tried to kill Martin and violently attacked her. She gazed down at her husband, pale and still, though she was glad to see him breathing steadily. With her free hand, she brushed the lock of ebony hair from his forehea
d and stroked his cheek.
“You have my gratitude, Your Grace,” she said to the duke. “You saved his life.”
“It was an honor to help Prinny’s man, Lady Powell. I wasn’t aware until your husband paid me a visit that Rutledge had even rented this house.”
She gazed up at him. “Thank you for aiding in my rescue. I will be forever in your debt.”
“My pleasure. How is he?”
“The bleeding has slowed, I think, but I will be more at ease when the physician is here. The ball needs to come out of his shoulder.”
It wasn’t long before the physician arrived. He first assessed the earl and, with the footman’s help, both Rutledge and Martin were moved to beds. Shortly thereafter, the duke informed her that Rutledge was not likely to survive, a major vessel having been severed.
“Yet another pistol wound,” the physician said to Kit as he dropped his bag and leaned over the bed Martin lay upon.
“I think the bleeding is stopped,” she told him. “I’ve not disturbed the wound.”
“You did fine.”
Kit forced herself to watch, and she assisted as she could while the doctor cleaned the wound. She was glad Martin was unconscious when the physician removed the shot from his shoulder and stitched up the flesh; it appeared a painful and bloody process. And she was worried. While she was relieved to learn the shot embedded in his shoulder had severed no major blood vessel, she knew men could die of such wounds, especially with fever.
“Will he recover?” she asked anxiously.
“If a fever does not claim him, he should recover with rest. See that the bandage is changed once a day.”
The duke stepped into the room as the physician completed his work. “I insist you and Sir Martin return with me to Chatsworth, Lady Powell,” he said. “He’ll be well cared for, and you can rest. My carriage should be here soon.”
Kit was only too happy to agree to the duke’s kind invitation, though she had no intention of leaving Martin’s care to others.
Soon the footman returned with the duke’s carriage. Another footman was dispatched to take a message to John. Arrangements were made for the care of Rutledge and for the two bound guards to be taken to the nearest magistrate.
Martin, still unconscious, was carefully lifted into the carriage and settled onto the seat. Climbing in with the duke’s assistance, Kit lifted her husband’s head onto her lap. The duke followed, sitting across from them, and as the carriage departed he said, “I had intended to offer you and Sir Martin some time at Chatsworth as my guests, a beginning of your delayed wedding trip. It seems you will be my guests after all, but under slightly different circumstances.”
“Your Grace,” she responded with a grateful heart, “we cannot thank you enough for all you have done.” She could not imagine taking Martin back to Pentridge in his condition.
“When Sir Martin is better,” the duke said reassuringly, “and he will be better, Lady Powell, then we will see about tidying up this business he was handling.”
“He has told me little of his affairs in Pentridge, Your Grace,” Kit admitted. “Perhaps as we travel to Chatsworth you might illuminate me?”
“I can at least share what I know,” the duke offered. “And you may call me Hart. All my friends do.”
Chapter 25
Fever could kill!
The words were a shout in Kit’s mind, reminding her what a thin thread held Martin to this earth. She’d refused to leave his bedside when, shortly after they arrived at Chatsworth House, his temperature began to rise.
Martin’s face was flushed with the fever that consumed him. He faded in and out of consciousness, restless in the huge and elaborate bed he’d been given. Bathing his sweating body with cool wet cloths and changing his bandage, Kit cared for him the best she knew. She had taken care of her sister and her mother in their last months of life, and the foreboding she experienced tending her husband was a familiar constant worry she wore like a cloak.
She kept watch by his bed should he wake and need her. When her fatigue proved too great, she sat on a chair and leaned onto the edge of the bed, resting her head on her folded arms. Occasionally he woke and looked at her as if through a haze, only to fall back into a restless sleep. In his dreams, he murmured of France and relived the night his wife Elise was killed. It pained Kit to hear him cry out for the young woman, but it told her what a horror that night had been and why he felt so responsible, why he had been so concerned for Kit’s own safety.
Tonight he rambled about the man named Oliver. “Sidmouth’s spy” he called him, and the man Brandreth, the one she knew as the Nottingham Captain. The duke had told her much of what happened and she could still scarcely believe it. All those Derbyshire men led astray by a treacherous viper.
“Must get a message to Prinny. Must do something,” he mumbled over and over.
From what she had learned, all along he had wanted to prevent the rebellion that was eventually stopped by the King’s Dragoons. She watched as he became more agitated, tossing and turning on the bed. Fearful lest his bandage come off, she drew close to soothe him, but his head rose off the pillow and his glazed eyes stared straight ahead, not seeing her.
“Kitten!”
Wiping the moisture from his fevered brow, she gently lowered his head to the pillow and took his over-warm hand between hers. “I am here, darling. I won’t leave you. I love you.”
At some level he must have heard her, because he calmed and succumbed to a deeper sleep.
If it were possible to fall more deeply in love with him, she did. It didn’t matter he was unkempt, sweat-soaked and smelled as if he long needed a bath. He was hers, and as his fever raged, the thought she could lose him caused tears to flow unimpeded. The duke’s servants were ever gracious, looking in on her and Martin several times a day, bringing food and asking if they could help.
“Why don’t you get some sleep, child? There’s a bedchamber just next door you can use,” said an elderly servant one night, stopping to inquire of her needs and frowning at her disheveled condition.
“I will when his fever breaks,” she promised the gray-haired woman. “I don’t want to leave him until then. He is often delirious, and bathing him with the cool water you bring seems to help.”
“I am only too pleased to help the duke’s friends. There’s more water on the side table when you have need of it.”
“Thank you,” Kit said, but she kept her eyes on her husband.
Making ready to leave the woman said, “The lad John Spencer has arrived, my lady. He brought your trunks. If you will allow it, I will bring you a change of gowns.”
“Certainly,” Kit said, grateful to be free of such duties.
“There’s a tray of food on the table should you be hungry, and some broth for Sir Martin if you can get him to take any. You must keep up your strength, child. His Grace has been most insistent that we see to your health as well as your husband’s.”
John stopped by shortly after she changed gowns, concerned about Martin and also agape at the grandeur of Chatsworth. “’Tis a palace, my lady. Have ye seen it all?”
“No.” She smiled. “But I can imagine the rest from the halls and rooms I saw when I first arrived.”
“Should you wish to take a walk, I will stay with Sir Martin,” the young man promised. “’Tis my duty, and he is my friend. I’ll never be far.”
“There is little to do, John, save watch him, feed him broth when he’ll take it and bathe him. I will let you know should I need your assistance.”
Too tired to keep up the conversation, after hearing of the meals John was sharing with the duke and the luxurious bedchamber he’d been assigned, she sent him away. She knew from the servants that, as he said, he never went far.
She refused to allow the physician to bleed Martin, telling the affronted man, one Dr. Wendell, that her husband had lost enough blood already. The next night, however, when she removed the bandage, what at first appeared to be a normal wound—tho
ugh awful as one could imagine sewn-up flesh to be—had become a red swollen mass seeping pus-like liquid with a foul smell. Feeling the rising heat of Martin’s body, Kit’s concern rapidly turned into alarm.
He could die!
Panicked, she wondered if the doctor had closed the wound too soon; she recalled her father telling her of men who died of battle wounds when the surgeon in his hasty attempt to deal with too many wounded men at one time failed to properly drain an injury before stitching it up. She was no doctor, though she had cared for her sister until the end. But her efforts to save Anne had ended in her sister’s death. Would she be equally unsuccessful in trying to save Martin?
Calling for a servant, she asked for a clean sharp knife and someone knowledgeable in herbs. She would do all she could. He had to live.
A woman she’d not seen before appeared a few minutes later with John Spencer behind her.
“What has happened my lady?” John asked.
“The wound is festering and I must cut it open to drain the purulent liquid.”
John and the woman came closer to examine the wound. “Aye, ’tis bad,” John acknowledged. “Tell me how I can help.”
“You can summon the physician and let the duke know.”
John left immediately, and Kit turned to the female servant. “Did you bring the knife?”
“Yes, my lady.” The woman handed it over. “’Tis new and sharp. I’ve also brought supplies for wound-stitching as well as the ingredients for poultices to reduce the redness and swelling.”
While not trained in the healing arts, Kit knew enough to know the wound had to be cleaned and drained. She poured a small amount of brandy onto the cut then carefully sliced through the stitches. Making a small cut, she pressed gently on the sides of the reddened area, draining the wretched fluid. She grimaced at the foul odor and forced herself to go on. This could save his life.
She didn’t re-stitch the wound but drew the sides together, cleaned the area and applied the poultice the woman gave her. Then Kit bound the wound tightly with a clean bandage. She feared it was not enough.