20
The Phantasmagorical Embroidery of Time
Her scream awoke him—ripping through the heavy quiet of night with stark terror. Valen bolted upright, his heart pounding like gunfire.
Another of her nightmares. Devil take Merót!
The second scream was cut short. He threw back the blankets. She would wake the entire household. He jumped up and yanked on his trousers. Perhaps Biggs was right, maybe he ought to wear something to bed. It might save him time in situations like these. But a nightdress? He pulled on a shirt as he stumbled out of his room and down the hall toward her chamber.
“Elizabeth?” He pushed open her door.
She sat up in bed, trembling, her eyes wide, hugging her pillow, shaking her head at him. The curtain hung open, the window thrown wide, allowing a soft breeze to ruffle through the room. Moonlight trickled in from behind racing clouds.
She looked so terrified of him, Valen wondered if she might still be half-asleep. Her face was nearly as white as the bed covers. “Izzie? Don’t be afraid, sweeting. It’s only me. You’re having another of your dreams.”
“No!” She held out her hand, warding him off, shaking her head frantically, gulping for air.
“Don’t be frightened.” Valen went to her and sat on the edge of the bed. He cupped her cheek, smoothing back her damp dark hair. “You’re safe, Izzie.”
“N-o.” The simple word fell from her lips in two syllables, broken by gasps of air and fear. Her gaze darted to the gloom in the corner of the room, and her panic intensified. Valen realized, too late, his error. He spun around.
From the shadows, he emerged. “An interesting tableau, eh?” A pistol leveled at them.
“Merót.”
“The same.” He inclined his head. “Good evening, Monsieur Hawk.”
Valen reached back and pulled Izzie close behind him, keeping his body between her and the Frenchman. He kept his voice steady, fighting the fury swelling up inside him. “I see you evaded my men in London.”
“Evaded? Ha! I strolled out of London without the least hint of trouble. You British, you are so egotistical. So deliciously overconfident.” He kissed his fingers and threw it at them, chuckling. “Your king is insane. Your prince is a fat idiot. Your people are hungry. And still, you think you rule the world. Bah! Soon you will see—you are nothing but a pathetic little island.”
Valen eased off the bed, keeping Elizabeth behind him. “You may have escaped for now, but my men will soon be on your scent.”
“Ahh. So you think you are the hunter, no? The infamous Red Hawk. You would do well to remember the renard, the fox, n’cet pas? He is a hunter as well.” No more flippancy in his tone, his voice resonated with challenge. “And so we meet, the hawk and the fox, over this fearful little rabbit. Which of us shall have her for dinner, I wonder.”
Valen took a step toward Merót, still shielding Elizabeth. “She has nothing to do with any of this.”
“Oh? You think not? She is all part of the game. Part of the hunt, yes? The lure.”
“She wasn’t a spy, if that’s what you think. Purely an accident that our paths crossed at Smythe’s.”
“I do not believe in accidents.” Merót shrugged. “Fate, perhaps. But it does not matter. She is the bait which brings us together. And now the fox will devour the hawk.”
Valen took another step. “Very well, let us settle this between ourselves. I will meet you outside.”
“How very convenient for you. But no. I wish to have this delectable little rabbit for dessert.” He smiled and bobbed the pistol in Valen’s direction. “Kindly stay where you are. I did not make the mistake of bringing a single shot this time. As you can see, I have two bullets—one for you and one for our quivering hare.”
Valen frowned at the over and under. Would one shot from the small pistol drop him? He doubted it. But, if it did, Izzie would fall next. He had to think of something.
“I think you will find Lady Elizabeth is not the helpless little creature you perceive her to be. Why do you think she sleeps alone at her great age?”
Even in their situation, she would huff up. He could envision the indignant pucker on her brow, and it brought a twitch to the corner of his mouth.
He had piqued Merót’s curiosity. Valen crossed his arms casually to put the Frenchman off guard. “No. She’s no rabbit. More of a marmot.”
“Ha!” Merót waved his hand to Elizabeth. “You see, the insensitive Englishman—he insults you, my lady. This marmot, it is a ground squirrel, no?”
“Hedgehog,” she muttered plaintively. Valen felt her lean her forehead against his back.
He grinned. “A unique creature—the marmot. Deceptive. She has hidden fangs and claws.” He demonstrated the claws coming out. “And her tongue...” He shook his head gravely. “It is pure poison.”
“C’est la vie, it is thus with all women.” Merót shrugged, unimpressed. “This is foolishness—”
“Ah. But the marmot is deadly. A man doesn’t stand a chance. At night, she climbs up into the trees, waiting for her unsuspecting quarry, and then—”
* * *
Elizabeth guessed what he planned to do. Rather than a marmot leaping, it would be Valen. Surely Merót would see it coming. How could he not?
A shot blasted through the darkness. Roaring with death. And then another blast. And another. Blazing orange flashes. Elizabeth lurched forward to catch him. Valen would fall against her. Dead.
Three shots. Her ears still rang.
Three.
It made no sense. Elizabeth’s mind skipped around in time. What had happened? A flash of light from the door. She turned. Lord Ransley teetered in the entrance, a pistol in his hand, smoke curling around the double barrels.
He coughed, grabbing the top of a chair to balance himself, and fought back a spasm, faltering as he stumbled forward to stand over the fallen body of the French spy.
“Good evening, son. Does this finish up your small administrative affair?” he asked cynically and nudged the dead man with his toe. “One to the head. Thought I missed that first shot.” He glanced up at his son. “You were too long-winded by half, Valen. Thought you were never going to make your play.”
“If you’d waited...” Valen’s arm went around Elizabeth, hugging her to his side. He murmured in her ear. “Are you unharmed?”
She nodded and saw it then, a red stain spreading on his white shirt. Her throat seized.
His face bent to hers, his mouth moved in soft sounds that twisted her stomach in answering pain.
“The marmot wins,” he whispered and chuckled faintly before he collapsed.
“Dear God, no,” she cried out. “No. Valen! No.”
Elizabeth caught him as he collapsed against her.
* * *
Funny, Valen had thought, how everything slows to a crawl in moments like these. He’d seen it before, on the continent in the heat of battle.
He had spotted his father in the doorway, bracing himself for a shot. Time began to crawl. Valen heard the hammer fall, glimpsed the tiny spark, and saw the fire flare out from the barrel of the gun. The pistol sang out and the ball struck its mark.
What Valen didn’t expect was the blaze that spouted from the end of Merót’s gun as the Frenchman fell back. A bolt of light streaked in his direction. A second shot bellowed from his father’s gun and brought The Fox down.
Izzie’s scream resonated off the walls, stabbing his eardrums, making him want to shout to silence her. Just when he figured he would be deaf for a fortnight, a voice penetrated his numbness.
“Thought you would never make your play.” It was his father, scolding him for waiting too long, his voice slow, protracted, his motions distant, removed, as if Valen watched it all from the end of a murky spyglass. His ears hummed, buzzed.
Fire burned in his upper chest. He glanced down and saw the ring of blood. He’d been hit. Instantly he turned, fearing the ball might have passed through him and struck Izzie as well.
He could no longer stand straight. The effort cost too much. So he leaned against her, hoping to smell her sweet scent instead of the acrid gunpowder. Allowing his head to droop toward her neck, he breathed in one more time. Vanilla and roses. He would take the memory of it with him to the place consigned for him in the next life.
“The marmot wins,” he whispered, thinking it somehow funny. But she didn’t laugh. Her stricken expression whipped him. His strength whistled away.
The last thing Valen felt before blackness overtook him was the incredible softness of her breast against his cheek as he slid down toward a whirling abyss. She called to him, but he had no power to answer.
Some defiant part of him fought to hold on—tightening his grip on the thin cotton of her nightdress. If only he might stay a moment longer, he would die and be satisfied. She cried out his name. It sounded so very far away.
Vanilla and roses.
Raven black hair.
The face of their son that did not yet exist.
Her breast against his cheek.
All these images swirled together, spinning faster and faster until the whirling gray swallowed him up.
21
Darning
Elizabeth managed to heave Valen onto her bed. The room filled with servants, lighting lamps, exclaiming over the shocking scene, and Lord Ransley fell into a coughing fit.
Elizabeth ripped open Valen’s shirt. A bloody hole above his left breast marred his broad chest. She whimpered, unable to hold back the small cries that kept coming from her throat. Charred skin and the smell of blood curdled her nostrils. The familiar bilge in her stomach began to rise, but she shoved fear aside and gritted her teeth. No!
No time for that nonsense.
Anger that this should happen to him and an overwhelming determination to set it right drove her forward.
Lady Alameda charged into the bedroom, her hair awry and an expression on her face that would have put Medusa to the blush. “Good God! What happened? Is he dead?”
Elizabeth didn’t know if the countess referred to her nephew or the Frenchman on the floor, and she had neither the time nor the inclination to look at Merót. No time to be sick.
“Send for a doctor.” Elizabeth ordered.
“You heard her, man. Go! Send a rider. Fetch the sawbones, and hurry up about it.” Lady Alameda shoved a manservant out of the door. She turned to her brother. “William, what are you doing out of bed?”
Lord Ransley’s coughing subsided. He stooped over, breathing heavily, a kerchief pressed to his lips. “Lad was in a bit of a tangle.”
“So I see. Excellent shooting.”
Lord Ransley had no interest in surveying his marksmanship. He shuffled toward Elizabeth. “How bad is it?”
Elizabeth cautiously slid her hand under Valen’s shoulder, probing to see if the bullet had passed through. It hadn’t. She sighed, bowing her head as she answered. “I pray it did not hit his lung. But the lead is still lodged in his shoulder.”
For a moment she thought grief would overtake the frail lord, but his countenance suddenly turned resolute. “Honore! Tell the rider I will pay a hundred sovereigns if he carries the doctor back within the hour.”
Lady Alameda wasted no time. She ran to the window and leaned out. “You there!” She relayed Lord Ransley’s promise to the messenger as he ran to the stables. Indeed, the lady’s voice bellowed with such force Elizabeth calculated half of Britain had heard the offer.
“What shall we do in the meantime?” Elizabeth pulled a blanket up over Valen, thinking his quaking meant he must be cold.
Lady Alameda turned from the window. “We’ll need some whiskey. You there—build a fire. We’ll want potash if the wound turns sour.”
Lord Ransley dropped resignedly into a chair. “Cart that vermin out of here.” He waved at Merót’s body.
Servants sprang forward to rid the room of The Fox’s remains.
“I should have acted more quickly.” Lord Ransley lowered his head into his hands.
“Don’t!” His sister commanded and patted his shoulder. “He will not die. Far too stubborn, our Valen. You have my word on it.”
He glanced up at the wild-haired countess. Hope flickered in his eyes, but it was only a small candle standing in a breeze. “Would that I could hold you to it.”
Valen groaned.
“Laudanum. Find some laudanum.” Lady Alameda clapped her hands at the maid who was on her knees wiping up blood from the floor. “Run, girl.”
Elizabeth held Valen down while Lady Alameda poured hot whiskey into the wound. He roared like a lion. His eyes flew open, but they were wild and unseeing. Both women nearly landed on the floor when he fought them off.
After she regained her equilibrium, Lady Alameda adjusted her bed jacket and leaned cautiously over their delirious patient. She glanced up at Elizabeth. “Clearly I didn’t dose him enough.”
That seemed impossible considering the amount they’d forced him to swallow.
Finally the doctor arrived, his clothing askew, his hair mussed, looking as if he’d been snatched out of bed, thrust on a horse, and hauled across the countryside with the devil nipping his heels. Which must have been exactly what happened.
He blinked when he entered the brightly lit room gripping a leather case in one hand and lugging an apothecary box in the other. “What happened?”
Lady Alameda exhaled loudly. “For pity’s sake! Isn’t it obvious? He’s been shot. The ball is still in and you must take it out.” It sounded such a simple thing, like removing a loaf of baked bread from the oven.
It would not be simple. Elizabeth dreaded the procedure, but it must be done. She vowed she would not get sick. She would see it through. Assist in whatever way she might.
The gentleman didn’t look much of a doctor, a pock-faced middle-aged man, far too reluctant as he peeked at his patient. “Fellow this size—we’ll need a couple strong lads to hold him down.”
Lady Alameda had her hands on her hips. “I dosed him quite heavily with laudanum.”
“So I see.” He pulled up Valen’s eyelids and checked the pupils. “Ought to have waited until after. But never mind. We’ll still need two men.”
Lord Ransley coughed and added in a hoarse voice. “I’ll triple your customary fee if he lives.”
The hesitant doctor was not immune to this incentive. “Right.” Suddenly more confident, he rolled up his sleeves and frowned at his benefactor. “Lord Ransley, you ought return to bed. It’ll do no good to stay here. The strain will be too much for you. I cannot cope with two crises at once.” He opened the latch on his leather case and displayed a frightening set of instruments. “As soon as the procedure is complete, I shall bring you a full accounting.”
Lord Ransley answered with a coughing fit, and then relented. “So be it, but I insist you report to me as soon as possible.” Lady Alameda assisted her brother back to his room.
The surgeon turned to Elizabeth. “And you, young lady, off to bed as well. This is no place for the faint of heart.”
“This is my bed.” Elizabeth straightened her shoulders and elevated her chin stubbornly. “And I am certainly not fainthearted,” she lied. “I’m staying. You’ll need my help.”
“Very well, but I’ll not have you getting missish on me.” The doctor selected several gruesome-looking tools and placed them on the bed table. He raised a long slender probe and directed two footmen to hold Lord St. Evert up in a sitting position. Elizabeth prayed fervently that she’d be able to live up to her promise. The doctor inserted the probe and began his grisly search for the bullet and any other matter that might have been carried into the wound.
Valen groaned in agony, clenching his teeth. The footmen tightened their grips, although, amazingly, he seemed to be cooperating.
“Surely he can’t be conscious?” Elizabeth held her hand over her heart and presse
d down in a feeble attempt to control the rapid beating.
“In and out, I expect.” The doctor plucked out a small bloody corner of fabric and shook it onto the floor. “A soldier, wasn’t he? They know what to expect.” He lifted some tissue out of the way and peered into the wound, and clucked his tongue. “Looks as if the ball struck bone, but didn’t break it completely.” His elbow cocked up as he elevated his angle, digging deeper in Valen’s chest.
Valen bellowed like an angry bull. Elizabeth expected at any minute that the two footmen and doctor would be sent flying across the room. But Valen only rolled his head back, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, growling.
“Right! Got it.” The surgeon pulled out a splinter of bone, dropped it in a metal dish, and smiled as if he’d discovered a gold nugget amongst the muscle and gore.
Bile rose in Elizabeth’s throat. She held her stomach and turned away.
“Hand me that one.” Without looking at her, the doctor waved his fingers at his array of instruments. “Quickly. The long extractor.”
She took a deep breath, ignored her stupid stomach, and gave him the long thin pincers, and braced herself for Valen’s next cry of pain. But his head bowed forward, sweat-drenched strands of gold and fire fell beside his agonized features. She clamped her trembling lips together and sent desperate prayers to heaven.
The doctor muttered to himself and fished deeper for the lead. At last he withdrew, holding a misshapen bullet in his forceps. He inspected it before plunking it down on the table. “Looks to be in one piece.”
Blood cascaded in a steady stream down Valen’s chest. “Thread that needle with the silk.” He pointed at a card wrapped with white thread. “And call for more rags.”
Cut from the Same Cloth Page 15