Once Upon a Wager

by Julie LeMense

  He leapt to his feet and sprinted back toward his carriage. He would need the knife in his coachman’s travel box. There was also a blanket he could cut into strips. In the distance, he could hear the cries of the injured horse, softer now.

  His own horses were unscathed. One of the Layton grooms must have unhitched the team from his carriage, which lay on its side in the grass. After grabbing the items he needed, he ran back to Annabelle. Kneeling down beside her, he took a deep breath, and gingerly sliced open the breeches with his knife.

  What he saw nearly turned his stomach. Her leg had been snapped in two, her thigh bone stabbing through the skin, blood oozing from the wound. Alec ripped the linen cravat from his neck and tied it tightly around her thigh above the break to fashion a tourniquet. God, please let it work! Moving quickly, he shredded his carriage blanket, draping strips of it over the wound. They were immediately soaked, but as he pulled them away and applied new ones, over and over again, the bleeding seemed to slow. He was desperate to believe it.

  He took more of the strips and pressed them as gently as he could against the gash above her ear. Head wounds bled profusely, but how could Annabelle lose so much blood and live? His hands were covered with it, faintly chilled and sticky. And she was so terribly still, her eyes yet open, as blue as the spring sky above him, the pupils dilated and round as the full moon.

  Alec heard the heavy thunder of approaching horses. They were coming in from every side. He could see Digby with Sir Layton and several men. One of the grooms and an accompanying footman were speeding toward him, riding in carts that were piled with supplies. From the other direction came Dr. Chessher, racing in at a full gallop, his horse laden with medical bags. He could also see Mrs. Chessher close behind, a formidable woman who helped her husband in emergencies.

  Alec could hardly take in the unreality of it all. It was a beautiful morning, bright and still cool, yet here at the junction of the King’s Highway and Two Boulders Road, the world as he knew it was flying apart, splintering in different directions like shattered glass. His oldest friend lay no more than a dozen feet away, dead in the grass. And there was every chance that Annabelle would not survive.

  People were swarming about him. Dr. Chessher moved with efficiency and purpose, but he was obviously alarmed. He barked out orders for supplies from the cart: ice; water; fresh bandages; straight, clean boards; threaded silk; the smallest of needles; scalpels; clamps; an ample dose of laudanum. Annabelle was finally stirring, moaning faintly, but Alec knew that a few more minutes of unconsciousness would have been preferable. It would be desperately painful when Dr. Chessher reset her leg. If it could be reset.

  Mrs. Chessher rushed over with the laudanum, as well as the doctor’s bag, which the surgeon tore open, hurriedly setting out tools on a fresh linen cloth. Alec could feel her hand on his shoulders as she gently drew him away from Annabelle. He could see Digby aimlessly walking along the road, picking up pieces of the wreckage. The grooms were padding a flat board; it would be used to ease Annabelle’s move to the horse cart that would bear her home. The men who had come with Digby were standing around Gareth’s body, ready to carry it to the litter that would transport him back to the castle. Sir Layton was standing beside the body of his only son, his chest heaving, tears rolling down his face and onto his jacket.

  A woman’s scream split the air, and they all turned. Annabelle was writhing in anguish as Mrs. Chessher held her down, aided by the footman who’d brought the cart. The doctor stood above her, struggling to pull her leg straight so that he could align the bones. He swore at Alec to stand back when he came running forward, hoping to somehow assist them. So instead, Alec watched, helpless as Annabelle suffered. She was staring straight at him, covered with her own blood, her eyes wild with fear. He could imagine soldiers like this, terrified men torn apart, caught between the last few moments of life and death, but dear God, this was Annabelle. His beautiful, irrepressible girl. He would give anything, promise anything to save her.

  She fainted then, and he whispered a prayer of thanks. With the break set at last, Dr. Chessher tied a splint crafted with boards and cotton batting to her leg. He then threaded his needles and sewed shut the skin about her thigh wound and head. Mrs. Chessher, her face glistening with perspiration, declared that every wound needed a good drink—-an old superstition, it seemed—as she swabbed the sutured flesh with alcohol from a bottle, and then took a restorative swig herself. Alec hardly cared, so long as it had a chance of working.

  The footman and Dr. Chessher lifted Annabelle onto the padded board, and then into the cart that would take her home. The one bearing Gareth’s body soon followed behind, and then Sir Frederick, and Alec, and the rest fell in line to follow.

  Once at a carnival as a small child, Alec had been fascinated by an artist who’d rendered dozens of palm-sized drawings, each of them minutely different. They’d been gathered in book form, and as the artist flicked through them, his thumb quickly separating every page, the drawings had come alive. The subject had been a little dog who’d sprinted across a precisely rendered street, narrowly avoiding an out-of-control carriage, a meaty bone the prize for a journey fraught with danger.

  If only Alec could play the pages of this day in reverse, so time moved backward, and accidents were undone, and foolish words were unspoken.

  If only shattered bodies could be made whole again.

  Chapter 4

  As he draped another cold, wet cloth across Annabelle’s brow, Alec was certain he could see steam rising. She was burning up. “Mary, I think we must call the doctor back,” he said in a low, harried voice. “There must be a way to bring her fever down.”

  The young maid, face tense with worry, shook her head gently. Little older than Annabelle, she had served the Laytons for most of her life. “Dr. Chessher said to expect this, my lord. Cold cloths and water, he said, and laudanum. The fever has to burn itself out.”

  Of course, Mary was right, but Alec wasn’t accustomed to this desperate sense of helplessness and regret. He’d lost all track of time. Had he eaten today? It didn’t matter. He had no appetite. Not when she lay there, looking impossibly young and fragile, her head wrapped in linen cloths, her leg bruised and swollen so badly he feared it would break through the splint Dr. Chessher had fashioned. A double incline plane, he’d called it. Rather than a single flat board keeping her leg stiff, it was made from two boards, allowing her knee to be elevated and bent slightly. Supposedly, it was better suited to her type of injury and would help her retain mobility. If the leg could be saved. If Annabelle lived.

  The biggest threat was infection, and little could be done to prevent it. Willing to try anything, Alec and Mary were following Mrs. Chessher’s superstitious habit. They’d applied so much alcohol to Annabelle’s wounds, the room smelled like a distillery. Whether he was dizzy from the fumes or exhaustion, he could not say. Since the accident, he’d stayed by her side, returning to Arbury Hall only to bathe and change. It was flagrantly improper. Father, above all else, would be furious, but Annabelle’s parents were beside themselves and unable to care for their daughter. They’d crumbled in the face of disaster, a telling sign, his father would say, of instability.

  Sir Layton was overwhelmed by Annabelle’s severe injuries. He’d come several times to her chamber, face ashen, eyes tormented, hardly noticing Alec in the room. If only Annabelle were one of the butterflies in his collection, he kept murmuring, he could make her better. He had the glues and the supplies to keep her preserved under plate glass. His confusion was alarming.

  As for Lady Layton, she hadn’t been in to see Annabelle. Not once. She hadn’t even met them at the doors of the castle that terrible morning. Upon hearing of the accident that had claimed her son, she’d taken to her bed, immobilized by her loss. According to Mary, she barely spoke a word to anyone. It was not healthy. As if the fear and grief he felt were healthy. Or the anger.

  What had possessed her? When she was young, Annabelle had made a habit of
sneaking into the carts he and Gareth raced through the countryside, but she should have been past such foolishness by now. Yet she’d dressed in boys’ clothing to disguise herself. Doubtless, Gareth hadn’t even known she was there, or he’d never have allowed the race to get under way. Again, Annabelle had done as she pleased, but never had the consequences been more tragic. The proof lay there, broken and bleeding, on the bed.

  He dropped his head into his hands with a long, shuddering breath. If only he’d controlled his temper. Or stopped the race. The thought that she might not recover was more than he could bear.

  • • •

  It was almost midnight. Annabelle was sleeping peacefully, her lips slightly parted, her breathing soft and steady. Her cheek, so smooth beneath his hand, was cooler to the touch, and Alec was dizzy with relief. Her fever had broken.

  He stood slowly, every muscle protesting the movement, and stepped away from her bedside chair. Mrs. Fritchens, the Laytons’ formidable housekeeper, had insisted that he and Mary get some rest. She would look after Annabelle tonight. Yet Alec found it difficult to give up his watch. He needed to somehow show he cared—that he always had. Even in ways he should not.

  He slipped from the room, walking through the darkened halls, one hand on the Tudor-era wainscoting to help guide him through the old home. It was almost empty now. Following the accident, the houseguests had departed in a panic, nearly tripping over each other’s belongings in their haste. Digby, of course, had fled before Gareth’s body was cold. Many of their friends from university, though, had taken rooms in town for the funeral. The doors and windows of the castle were hung with black crepe, the mirrors covered. Alec felt a fresh rush of grief. It seemed impossible that Gareth was dead.

  As he crept down the main stairs, he heard someone singing softly, which made no sense. Not in a house shrouded in black. The sounds were coming from the small chapel, located off the Great Hall, where Gareth’s body rested in repose on a block of ice. Astley Castle was said to be haunted, and in the dark of this night, he could well believe it.

  As he edged closer, the singing grew louder. A woman’s voice filled the chapel, plaintive and ghostly. He looked past the doorway into the heart of the room lit by candelabra, and the hairs rose on the back of his neck. Beside his friend’s catafalque sat Lady Layton, clad in a wrinkled dressing gown, hair tangled about her head, her face tortured with grief. She was singing an old nursery song, the same one she’d sung when Gareth and Annabelle were small and crying over scraped knees. The one they had always relied on to make their pain go away and set everything right.

  Alec’s heart was in his throat. There was no way to set things right.

  As he turned back toward the hall, the singing suddenly stopped. He could hear the quick approach of her bare feet on the stone floor, and he turned to face her. “Lady Layton, I am so very sorry …” The words died in his throat. Her eyes were wild with loathing.

  “You did this. You killed my son!” She advanced on him, her breath coming in quick pants.

  “Lady Layton, I assure you …”

  Holding a letter in her hands, she thrust it toward his face, moving so close he could feel her anger like a palpable thing.

  “This arrived earlier,” she hissed. “Read it!”

  Numb with shock, he took the note. He could just make out its words in the dim light.

  Lady Layton,

  You have my sincerest condolences on the death of your son, my dear friend Gareth. The loss of a child at any time is heartbreaking, and it must be all the more so, considering the circumstances.

  If only Lord Dorset had taken the time to ensure that his carriage was in good working order! His burden must be painful indeed, to know that his carelessness caused such a tragedy.

  I will continue to pray for the full recovery of your lovely daughter, Miss Annabelle. May I beg you to keep me apprised of her condition?

  With my deepest sympathies,

  Damien Digby, Esq.

  Like a blow from a hammer, his heart slammed in his chest, air rushing from him in a single breath.

  He hadn’t inspected his carriage on the morning of the race. Surely he’d have noticed a weakness in the wheel if he had. He’d been so caught up in his anger that he’d been unforgivably careless. He could’ve prevented the debacle to begin with. He’d practically forced the race with his outrageous bet. He could see that now. He’d had a direct role in Gareth’s death, in Annabelle’s suffering.

  “I am so sorry,” he whispered. He was burning up in the cold room, sweat trickling over his brow.

  “Don’t you dare apologize. It does no good. It will not bring my son back.” Lady Layton’s hands were in her hair, fingers entwined with clumps of it, pulling so viciously that the skin on her face was distorted.

  “I do not know what to say.” Guilt pounded through him.

  “I carried him in my womb, and gave birth to him in a wash of blood. I raised him, coddled him, kissed him. Look at him now.” With a shaking hand, she pointed at Gareth’s pale, gray body in the candlelight.

  “It was a terrible accident,” he said. Yet his had been the defining role in the whole tragedy, setting events in motion until they crescendoed in destruction.

  “I know what you are about upstairs. You sit like a specter, haunting my daughter’s bedside, waiting and watching.”

  “I am only trying to help Annabelle.”

  “I won’t allow you to ease the burden of your guilt.” Her voice was rising now, gaining power. “You’ll not take my last child from me. I want you gone from this house. Vow that you’ll never return.”

  He stilled. “But Annabelle …”

  She slapped his cheek in a burst of fury, snapping his head to one side. “As long as I live, if you dare approach my daughter, I will kill you myself.”

  “Lady Layton … please.”

  “You’ll never see my daughter again. You’ll never speak to her, or write to her. Swear it!”

  He didn’t think he could. He couldn’t leave Annabelle like this. She needed him. God in Heaven, Lady Layton was in no condition to care for her.

  “She’ll despise you when she learns what you’ve done,” she said. “If you have a shred of honor, you’ll leave and never return.”

  He took a deep breath, trying to force back air into his lungs, and fight off a mounting sense of anguish. He’d caused Annabelle so much pain. In such a real and tangible way, he was responsible for the whole of it. Hadn’t his father spoken of recklessness and repercussions? Could it be that honor was all he had left?

  Perhaps it was.

  “I swear it then,” he said softly. He turned and made his way toward the door, his footsteps ringing like a death knell in the empty hall, their sound following him into the dark night.

  • • •

  He watched from a distance as the cortège accompanying his friend’s body made its way to the Layton’s burial plot at St. Mary the Virgin church. Alec could see Paul, the young Earl of Linley, and Benjamin, Lord Marworth. He walked with an arm around Gareth’s visibly shaken father, and Alec was grateful that the baron had Marworth’s steadying presence beside him. Sir Layton walked with his head down, his shoulders stooped, and with a grief so profound that Alec could feel it radiate to where he stood with his horse, hidden a hundred feet away. A woman shrouded in unrelieved black walked beside them. Though her face was covered with a heavy veil, Alec knew it must be Lady Layton.

  Another wave of intense guilt rushed through him. Annabelle was not there. Even the consolation of mourning her brother properly had been taken from her. According to Mary, who had crept over to Arbury Hall with the news, Dr. Chessher was encouraged by Annabelle’s improvement. She was confused, though, during her fleeting moments of consciousness. Mary had promised she’d send additional updates when she knew more. Would Annabelle’s leg ever heal, or be of any use? It was devastating to think that her spirit and vibrancy might be confined to a chair. And that he was to blame.

 
He had written a last letter to Annabelle. Despite Lady Layton, he could not leave without saying goodbye. She had to know that he was horrified by his actions and by what they had cost her. She had to know that if she ever needed him, she had only to write and he would be there, honor be damned. He’d bribed a footman to see that Annabelle got it. By the time she was well enough to read it, he’d be gone. He only hoped his departure would bring her family, and most especially Annabelle, some measure of peace.

  He turned from the distant scene, spurring his mount toward Arbury Hall. Given his plans, he had much to prepare for, even as this horrible afternoon slipped into evening.

  • • •

  “I warned you, Alec, did I not? I knew that going to the Layton boy’s party would bring no good result.”

  His father was pacing the library at Dorset House, caught up in the scandal that Alec had brought back from Nuneaton. For the past hour, the earl had lectured him on the ramifications of irresponsible behavior, while Alec stood ramrod straight, hands clasped behind his back—a habit from his childhood. But Alec could not keep his focus. Not when the moss-green Aubusson carpet on the floor recalled Gareth dead in the grass. Not when the red Chesterfield sofa reminded him of the blood covering Annabelle. Or when the massive fireplace beside him looked like a portal to hell, with flames licking up at him.

  That had always been one of Father’s tricks, to have him stand next to the fire. As a child, Alec had never known if he was sweating because of its heat, or because he was frightened by the punishment to come.