by Cheryl Bolen
He watched in terror as one of the highwaymen leapt from his horse to mount one of Alex’s team. He wasn’t afraid for himself. He’d faced far worse in the Peninsula. But if they saw how lovely Georgiana was, they might want more than her jewels. . .
How cursed cruel it was that he had nothing more than his bare hands with which to defend the woman he had come to love.
His carriage lurched to a stop. Alex snatched his coin purse and tossed enough coins for tonight’s lodgings to Lady Hartworth. “Hide these.”
She stuffed them into the bodice of her dress.
Then with one last look at a terrified Georgiana, he threw open the door. If he stayed in the coach, it would be impossible to defend the ladies. He had to get on his feet. Perhaps then he could parry. In a fair fight Alex was considered to be a fine pugilist, quick of feet and fist, but this would in no way be a fair fight. Still, he had to try.
He jumped from the carriage and slammed the door. A quick scan confirmed that the vile man who’d stopped his team now held a sword to the coachman’s throat, and another man with a black cloth obscuring his face and a musket aimed at Alex had dismounted and was closing in on the coach while two more accomplices remained on horseback, their muskets trained on Alex.
“Here,” Alex said, procuring his coin purse. “You may have all my money.” He tossed it to the man who stood in front of him. The jingling sound of the nearly full purse should appease them. The crest on the carriage identified him as a duke, and even the lowest born knew how wealthy dukes were.
To Alex’s surprise, it was not the man on foot who spoke, but one of the horsemen. Was he the gang’s leader? “We want the women’s jewels, too.”
How did they know he was traveling with women? They must have been following at a discreet distance for several hours. Had they been at last night’s inn? Alex wanted to threaten to kill them if they so much as touched the women, but an unarmed man against four armed men had nothing with which to threaten or to bargain.
He continued blocking the coach door with his body, even knowing such a ploy was foolish.
“Move, or he’ll kill ye,” the mounted leader said. Was the man who stood a foot from Alex mute?
His hands balling into fists, Alex heaved a sigh and moved. He stood where he could still look into the carriage when the assailant opened the door. If the man hurt Georgiana in any way, Alex was prepared to fight him off—even if it meant dying.
The man on foot, who was an inch or two taller than Alex, rushed past him and threw the door open. He said but a single word. “Out.”
So he can talk.
“But my mother’s an invalid,” Georgiana protested. She stripped off a sapphire ring and offered it to him. “Take this. It’s all I’ve got with me.”
The masked man snatched it.
Lady Hartford removed pearl earrings and pendant and a ruby ring and held them out to the man, who greedily took them.
Alex detested his own helplessness. He vowed to never again travel without a weapon. He chided himself for not at least bringing Gates. His valet had more than proven himself to be exceptionally capable with either musket or sword.
The almost-mute man brushed past Alex and tossed the jewels to the leader. Unconsciously, Alex noted the horse beside him—the horse of the man on the ground. There was something familiar about the horse.
From out of the blue, Alex cried out in pain. It felt as if his skull had been halved. Blood streamed from his head. He spun around to face the man who had attacked him. The man on foot aimed the bloodied butt of his musket at Alex again. Alex’s vision clouded, but he was cognizant enough to lunge at his attacker and ram a fist into his masked face.
The man fell back, cursing. Then he sturdied himself and turned the gun around until the barrel pointed at Alex. Alex’s heartbeat drummed madly. He was not quick enough to prevent the foul man’s finger from pressing the trigger and firing.
It felt as if Alex’s chest had exploded.
The last thing he remembered as he dropped to the ground was the whorl on the riderless horse’s hide.
* * *
“Alex!” Georgiana shrieked as she flew from the carriage. She was aware that the man who’d taken her jewels—the man who’d shot Alex—was mounting his horse, but even if he’d held a gun on her, she would have bolted from the coach. All she cared about was Alex, whose bloodied body lay crumpled on the muddy earth.
Was he dead?
Her heartbeat pounding out of her chest, her hands trembling, she hurled herself to kneel beside him. Great rivulets of tears flowed, obscuring her vision. Even though drawing her own breath was a struggle, she wanted to determine if he still breathed but didn’t know how to do so. She’d thought to place her hand over his heart to see if it beat, but the front of his shirt was puddled with his blood. She recoiled. This couldn’t be happening! Minutes ago, he was teasing her. Now he showed no signs of life. It was worse than the most grotesque nightmare. God, please let him be alive.
She leaned into him, her tears slickening his bloodied cheek as she placed her face close to his mouth. Her breath stilled as she tried to determine if he were breathing. Several seconds passed, and she still could not tell.
In the meantime, the fourth highwayman had left the coach’s box, mounted his horse, and ridden away, freeing the coachman to come to her assistance. He leapt down, his landing splashing mud everywhere, scurried to her, and spoke in a somber voice. “Is the master dead?”
There was anguish in her voice when she answered. “I don’t know.”
“Allow me, my lady.” He came to squat beside Alex’s lifeless form, lifted his employer’s wrist, and placed his fingers upon it in an attempt to feel his pulse.
Her very breath trapped in her lungs as she waited for him to either verify that Alex had died—or give her the best news of her life.
By now her mother had managed to climb from the coach unassisted. She had removed her cloak and came to place it over Alex’s wound. “We must sop up the blood. The important thing is to minimize the loss of blood.”
Mama would not believe him dead!
Georgina somberly watched the coachman as she fervently prayed for Alex’s life to be spared. It wasn’t just that she . . . loved him. He was put on this earth to do good. He had to live!
Finally, a smile seeped across Prine’s bearded face. “I feel his pulse.”
“Thank God,” Georgiana and her mother said at once.
At that point, her mother took charge. “My grandfather was a surgeon, and each summer when I stayed with them, I would accompany him on his calls. I know a thing or two about musket wounds.”
Georgiana was astonished. She herself could barely view the massive amounts of lost blood and not spew and swoon—yet her frail mother was going about the business of removing Alex’s bloody shirt and attempting to stop the flow of blood. It was a side to her mother she’d never before seen. It was difficult to believe this was the same woman who had always been exceedingly coddled by her late father.
“Mama, I beg of you . . . do not let him die,” Georgiana whimpered.
“I most certainly will not allow my future son-in-law to die.”
“He hasn’t offered for me.”
“He means to.”
* * *
Her mother tended to Alex’s wounds—he also had sustained a head wound—and wrapped his head and bare torso with strips of a clean shift taken from her valise. Prine and Georgiana lifted Alex into the carriage for what turned out to be a short ride to the closest inn, The Roost. Preferring to suffer the cold herself rather than inflict another hardship on this man fighting for his very life, Georgiana wrapped him in her Sardinian velvet Prussian Hussar cloak for the journey.
Despite that Georgiana held his hand and murmured to him throughout the ride, Alex did not gain consciousness—which made her feel woefully low. Not only was she sick with worry that he wouldn’t survive, but she was also ashamed that her mother and not she had ministered to him in the l
ife-and-death situation. Georgiana was apologetically useless in a sick room. She’d never been able to tolerate the sight of blood.
The porter at the inn assisted Prine in carrying Alex to the inn’s best room where they laid him upon the large tester bed. “Quick!” Georgiana commanded the porter. “We must have a fire to warm the chamber.”
Instructions had already been given to summon a surgeon to remove the musketball.
The porter set about lighting a fire, and each minute thereafter the flames increased.
Within a half hour a doctor much the same age as Alex came. When he saw how the linen wrapped his torso, he commended Lady Hartworth. “That’s the very thing. Unfortunately, I shall have to remove it in order to remove the musket ball.”
Lady Hartworth moved to Georgiana. “Go sit down by the fire and don’t look at what the surgeon does. We don’t need you keeling over. One cracked skull is all I can tolerate.”
Her mother sensed that Georgiana would not have been able to leave the chamber where the man she loved held on so precariously to life.
Whilst the surgeon worked on Alex, Georgiana was aware that he was doing things to his patient that would previously have had her hitting the floor in a dead faint. When the surgeon near Alsop put stitches in her younger brother’s head after he had fallen from a tree, she had lost consciousness. But, oddly, tonight she was too frightened for Alex’s welfare to be sick herself.
The sweetest sound she’d ever heard was when Alex moaned in pain. It was the first noise emanating from him since the musket felled him. Her pleasure was tempered with sympathy. She did not want him to suffer.
“You are giving him laudanum?” she asked.
“Most certainly, my lady. And I will leave a store of it with you. He’ll be needing it.”
After the surgeon removed the musket ball and closed the hole, he turned his attention to Alex’s head. Holding her breath, she looked away when he began to unwrap the bloodied strips of linen from Alex’s head.
“Should you like for me to procure more linen strips?” she asked.
“That would be most helpful,” the surgeon said. “These are saturated with blood.”
How peculiar that she could hear blood discussed without becoming woozy. She went to the room next door, which had been allotted to her and her mother, and retrieved her own linen shift, which she proceeded to tear into strips.
When she gave the strips to the surgeon, she avoided looking at Alex.
“A few stitches are all that’s needed here,” the surgeon proclaimed, “The wound’s not deep.” When he finished he said, “I shall come to check on his grace at midday tomorrow. I don’t think the head wound’s anything serious, but I’d like to check a few things when he’s conscious. Feel free to summon me if there’s need.”
“We are most indebted to you,” the dowager said.
The surgeon found the dowager. “By the way, my name’s Ferrers. I hadn’t wanted to take needed attention away from the patient for introductions. I understand the patient’s a duke?”
“Yes. He’s the Duke of Fordham. I am Lady Hartworth, and this is my daughter, Lady Georgiana Fenton.”
Georgiana curtsied. “We are very grateful you came to us, Mr. Ferrers.” She moved to him. “Will he . . .”
“He should make a full recovery—barring infection, which is always a concern. No vital organs were impaired.”
“What do we need to look for?” Georgiana asked.
His face went grim. “Fever, but I think it’s too soon for that. If infection should set in, it probably won’t do so until he’s showing symptoms of recovery.”
“I pray there’s no need to see you before noon,” Georgiana said solemnly as he left the chamber.
One look at her mother told Georgiana that the ordeal of the past two hours had greatly fatigued the convalescing woman. “You need nourishment and rest, Mama. Oblige me by going to our chamber. I promise I’ll fetch you if there’s any regression in the duke’s condition.”
Even Lady Hartworth’s eyelids were drooping. “Very well. You’ll stay with him throughout the night?”
Tears brimming her eyes, Georgiana nodded. “I couldn’t bear to leave him.”
Her mother patted her shoulder. “I know, my love. I know. I’ve asked that a tray be sent to you.”
Georgiana shook her head adamantly. “Eating would be impossible.”
Left alone with his eerily still body, Georgiana was unable to remove her gaze from him for fear of some catastrophe. How helpless he looked as he lay there, his head wrapped. At least the linen was now free of bloodstains. At the base of his skull, little tufts of his golden hair poked out from beneath the bandage. Her gaze shifted to his closed eyes. The lashes matched the golden tufts. All that he’d been through that night had not altered his fine looks.
She studied his face. For an instant she remembered standing there staring at Freddie’s face after he died. If this man who looked so much like Freddie died, she did not believe she would want to continue living.
The rise and fall of his chest made her feel less melancholy. She prayed her thanks that Alex was alive and continued to beseech the Almighty to preserve his life.
Though he was unconscious, she felt compelled to communicate with him, even if it was just by touch. She took his hand and threaded her fingers through his, faintly squeezing. “You are not alone, my dear Alex,” she murmured. “You will be surrounded by those who care about you. I vow I will do everything in my power to see that you fully recover.”
He did not respond.
For several hours she stood at the side of his bed, holding his hand and murmuring endearments to him. She regretted that she had not acknowledged her love for him. She regretted it profoundly if her rejection of him had caused him any melancholy. She vowed that if he recovered she would do anything in her power to make him happy. He had desired the deepest physical intimacy with her. If he recovered, she vowed to give herself to him—even if he chose not to offer marriage. Even if Society scorned her.
For Georgina’s love for this man was more powerful than a surging tide.
Even though there was a chair by the bed, it was so much lower than the bed she wouldn’t have been able to clearly see his face in the soft candlelight. So she stood until exhaustion overtook her in the early hours of the morning, then she went to the other side of the bed and climbed on top it, stretching out beside the invalid. Comforted by his light snore, she went to sleep.
* * *
The surgeon returned an hour before noon. Georgiana had just returned to her chamber to change her clothing while her mother sat at Alex’s bedside, but when Georgiana heard the surgeon, she hurried back, even though her hair had not been dressed.
“No, he hasn’t regained consciousness,” Lady Hartworth told the surgeon as Georgiana strolled into the chamber.
“That’s not unheard of with these head wounds. Laudanum, too, will promote deep sleep,” the surgeon said. He lifted the covering. “I’ll just redress the bandage around his chest. Blood’s been oozing through it.”
A wave of nausea crashed over Georgiana, but she managed not to swoon.
“Would it be safe to move him?” Lady Hartworth asked.
The surgeon paused, pursing his lips. “I would definitely advise against it. Not on these muddy roads. It would be best to wait until the wounds heal and the roads dry.”
Awakening to sunshine had helped lift Georgiana’s spirits—that and the fact Alex had made it through the night.
After the surgeon left, Georgian addressed her mother. “Prine can take you on to Alsop. You could be there long before dark. I know you want to be with Huey. Prine can be back in the evening to be here with me until Fordham’s well enough to travel.”
“I don’t like leaving you—an unmarried maiden—alone here with a man at` death’s door. If he were in dire need, you’d likely faint dead away!”
“I think the gravity of his injuries pulled my thoughts away from spilling—either
myself or the contents of my stomach.”
Her mother looked pensive. “I do believe you may be right.”
“And you mustn’t think of me as a helpless maiden. I am four and twenty. Do not forget, the surgeon will be at my beck and call.”
Lady Hartworth sighed. “I do need to be with my precious Huey. And I do need to send Prine back with more money with which to pay for the extended stay at the inn and to pay the surgeon. Such a nice man.”
When her mother left the chamber, Georgiana took her place beside the bed. She placed her hand on Alex’s forehead. “No fever. That’s good.” Then she pressed his hand within hers and spoke tenderly. “Good morning, Alex.”
Her hopes for a response were dashed.
Chapter 19
The next several days would have been intolerable for Georgiana without Prine’s assistance. He was not only a devoted servant, but he was also genuinely attached to his master and helped Georgiana in innumerable ways. He would hold Alex up while she coaxed him to swallow laudanum. He would see to it that meals were brought to her and tea brought for the duke. He changed the duke’s clothing each day.
In one way, though, she would not accept his help: she would not allow him to spell her at the sickbed. Though she trusted the man, there was an exceedingly slim chance that he might have been Freddie’s murderer, on account of his young son’s accidental shooting death.
Georgiana could not bring herself to leave Alex’s side. When she needed sleep, she’d taken to climbing upon the bed beside him. Hang her reputation! She cared not for anything except Alex and his recovery.
It occurred to her that Alex would want his closest friends to know of his current situation, so with tears streaming down her cheeks, she penned a letter to Lord Slade—to share with Lord Wycliff—apprising him of the duke’s injuries.
The surgeon came each morning and evening, and each night she lay beside Alex, mournful of his recovery and yearning for his touch. In three days she had seen almost no progress, save a slight reduction in instances of his moaning from pain. She had to console herself with that.