by Corwin, Amy
“Joshua, please fetch the doctor immediately. And Brown, if you be so kind as to wake Cook? I am sure we could all do with some tea.” Her arm moved around her uncle’s waist. She hated doing it, but she maneuvered so her body shielded her uncle from Mr. Dacy.
“Brandy,” Archer interrupted.
“Do not be ridiculous. You’ll become feverish if you drink now, Uncle.”
“Do not quibble with a broken old man, my dear. Brandy—Brown—fetch the brandy.”
She stared into Brown’s faded blue eyes. She shook her head at his silent question. He gave an infinitesimal nod, turned and lumbered with excruciating and exacting slowness towards the kitchen.
“I’ll get it, Archer,” Mr. Dacy offered, leaning heavily on his cane as he followed them inside. His face was grim as he clumsily moved toward the hall leading to the study.
“You will not!” she called to his back. “Haven’t you done enough?”
If she hadn’t had her arms around her uncle, she would have clapped her hand to her mouth. She was flustered and upset about her uncle. She hadn’t meant to sound so suspicious, even if she did wonder if Mr. Dacy might have accidentally pushed her uncle.
What had they both been doing out there, in the dark?
Mr. Dacy paused with his back to her. Studying his stiff posture, she felt confused and ashamed.
He might be innocent.
Very few of her uncle’s friends could be considered innocent by any stretch of the imagination, but Mr. Dacy might be the first. Ever since he had arrived, she had valiantly tried not to leap to conclusions. But given her uncle's condition, what was she to think?
Her accusation flapped in the air between them like a black crow. The two men had been outside alone when the accident occurred.
Alone.
And she knew nothing of Mr. Dacy or why her uncle allowed him to stay. She thought about the Bow Street Runner who had wormed his way into their household a year ago, pretending to be her uncle’s friend. He nearly arrested Uncle John. But at the last minute, he received a summons back to London and was gone within the hour.
She had never been able to determine what prompted that withdrawal of the enemy, but she was grateful.
Now, her instincts were confused, and she didn’t trust her logic. In all honesty, she never thought of herself as having a superior or even moderate intelligence. She wasn't sure she was up to dealing with the drama unfolding around her.
She felt exhausted trying to cope with irrational men.
And Mr. Dacy’s hard edge frightened her. Her intuition said he was hiding something.
And yet she liked him. She longed to smooth away the lines bracketing his mouth and see the dark grayness lifted from his eyes. If only he would be honest with her, she could help him.
However, he was also a friend of her uncle’s and most probably unfamiliar with honesty. She couldn’t let herself forget that.
When he turned slowly to face her, her heart pounded so rapidly her lungs refused to fill with air. Her chest felt about to burst like a soft, ripe grape squeezed between two fingers.
His face appeared hard in the wavering candle light. The scar on his forehead shone like a streak of white lightning across his brow. His eyes, deep-set with pain, were as cold and black as a Nordic storm god.
Suddenly, she feared she had lost him.
“What did you say?” His soft words whispered through the hallway.
“Oriana,” Uncle John said, his voice low. “The boy tried to help me.”
“He’s not a boy, Uncle. He is a man.” Her eyes never left Mr. Dacy's face.
He stood in the shadows, leaning against his black walking stick. The silver handle glittered between his long fingers. The smell of blood flowed around them like the terrible scent of violence.
Uncle John patted her hand, but out of the corner of her eye she noticed that he, too, kept watch on Mr. Dacy.
“Get the brandy, Dacy,” Uncle John said.
For one moment, he appeared ready to argue. Josephine’s soft whine suddenly broke the silence. He glanced down at his dog and brushed his fingertips over her head. When he raised his eyes, there was a look of unutterable sadness in the gray depths.
“Mr. Dacy, I’m sorry.” She made a move to step forward only to be halted by her uncle’s weight on her arm.
A half smile played over Mr. Dacy's mouth. He shook his head. “Never mind. I shall fetch the brandy.”
He turned and limped down the hall.
Josephine followed at his heels, her three-legged gait curiously similar to her master’s limping walk. Oriana felt the warm sting of tears filling her eyes. She blinked, watching his tall figure pass out of the light into the darkness beyond. His receding footsteps echoed across the bare wooden floor, the sound gradually diminishing. She gazed after him. Her heart contracted. She had made a terrible, and perhaps unforgiveable, mistake.
“Are you going to stand here all night?” Uncle John asked plaintively.
“Oh, I’m dreadfully sorry.” She guided her uncle up the stairs, wishing her heart didn’t ache so desperately. “Won’t you tell me what really happened?”
“I told you what happened,” her uncle lisped, wiping blood off his upper lip before holding the handkerchief to his nose. “I slipped and fell.”
She didn’t believe him. There was a grayish cast to his face and the lines around his eyes had deepened. The wiry muscles in his back felt taut with nervous energy. A man in his forties, and a healthy man at that, didn’t break his arm and bloody his nose by slipping.
She thought about Mr. Dacy’s hard, dangerous face and his silver-headed cane. A cane could do a lot of damage with very little effort, even in the hands of an injured man.
“Please, Uncle, you’re frightening me. Who is Mr. Dacy? Do you owe him money? Is he here to force you to pay a debt?”
“Will you stop fretting, girl?” he replied querulously.
They entered his room, and he sat on the edge of his bed, his face perspiring freely. The skin around his lips was a ghastly white. “Just send that blasted horse’s ass of a doctor up when he arrives and leave me alone!”
“Uncle!” She stared at him in shock. She had never seen him lose his temper before.
The fact he lost it now seemed to prove how much pain and tension he felt. She wished he would confide in her, but the stubborn set of his chin—a trait all the Archers had in common—told her it was useless to pester him.
“I shall send him up when he arrives and I won’t let Mr. Dacy bother you.”
“By Jove, you won’t tell me who I can and cannot see! He’s bringing me brandy. You will let him in, or I’ll—”
“Don’t get upset. I am not trying to keep your friend out, if that’s what he is.”
“Well, he is! He is the only friend I’ve got. And I won’t stand for any more of your interference. Women!”
“Really, Uncle, I understand. I do,” she repeated in a low voice, trying to soothe him.
He dabbed at his nose in agitation, his hand shaking.
There was a noise outside the door and a light tap. She turned away gratefully, hoping it was Brown with the doctor.
“Come in,” she called.
The door opened to reveal Mr. Dacy standing outside, leaning heavily on his cane and clutching one of their crystal decanters.
“No glasses.” He limped into the room.
“I’ll fetch some,” she replied, eager to escape.
His expression was bland, but his gray eyes were remote and hard as the smooth stones at the bottom of a pond. He wouldn’t easily forget her careless accusation.
She smiled tentatively as she neared the door, hoping he would respond. Paradoxically, she regretted her words and yet still mistrusted both him and her uncle’s story. However, something had changed in him—hardened—when she voiced her fears. The difference brought an almost physical pain to her heart.
Why hadn’t she held her tongue?
His flat gaze caught her
s and then insolently looked right through her. She wanted to touch his arm as she passed to establish some sort of contact. But he moved aside when she neared, staying out of reach.
“Come in, boy. Don’t just stand there like a dolt.” Uncle John gestured at the chair next to his bed as she walked out the door.
Hurrying down the hall, she was relieved to hear the sounds of the doctor’s arrival. She told Brown to show him up to her uncle’s room. Then she ran for glasses, making a detour along the way to grab a piece of linen from the kitchen rag bag.
By the time she returned upstairs, the men had cut away her uncle’s jacket and shirt. There were several ugly bruises on his side and back, along with deep purple marbling over the break in his arm.
“It’s a clean break, thank goodness,” Doctor Barker asserted, adjusting his glasses. He manipulated her uncle’s arm, feeling along the areas of darkest bruising with short, pudgy fingers that were surprisingly gentle. “Ah, Miss Archer, good. Give your uncle a glass of that excellent brandy. And pour me a glass while you are about it. Then we shall see to setting this.”
The doctor took off his dark jacket and threw it next to them on the bed. His balding head gleamed in the lamplight as he ran a quick hand over the dome, absently fluffing the fringe of graying hair.
“Brown, please go down to the lumber room and see if there are any slats left from the chair that broke last winter.” She kept her eyes fixed on her uncle’s arm. She tried to avoid imagining the pain he must be enduring. However, she couldn’t gaze at the waxy gray pallor of his face without wanting to cry.
His brown eyes were sunken into black wells. Drying flakes of blood encrusted his nose and upper lip. Suddenly, he looked terribly fragile and small, propped up against a mound of pillows in the vast expanse of his bed.
Frowning, Mr. Dacy poured a full glass of brandy and placed it in her uncle’s hand. Her uncle's grip wavered, sloshing the pale amber liquid on his bed. Mr. Dacy gently gripped her uncle’s hand and raised the glass to his whitened lips.
“Drink all of it, man,” Doctor Barker grunted, emptying his own glass. “You’re going to need it when I set this. Where’s that blasted butler with the splints?”
“I’ll bring them.” She hurried out of the room again. She ran into Brown lumbering up the stairs with several lengths of smooth cherry in his hand.
“These be the chair arms, Miss. The slats were gone.”
She snatched them away, trying not to imagine their ultimate use. Every time she thought about her uncle's pain, her heart almost stopped. She distractedly told the butler to go to bed. At least a few members of the household could get some sleep.
Stiffening her back and forcing a calm, reassuring smile on her face, she hurried back to the sickroom.
“Will these do?” She held out the pieces of wood as she entered the room.
“Nicely.” The doctor eyed them over the rim of his glasses. “We can replace them with plaster tomorrow, if you wish. Are you ready, Mr. Archer?”
Uncle John nodded and fixed his eyes on the flickering light of the lamp sitting on his dresser.
“I can hold his arm steady,” Mr. Dacy offered, his face a carefully blank mask.
She glanced at him in surprise. Her cheeks flushed as his flat gaze raked over her face, his expression dismissive.
Full of regrets, she picked up the linen and began tearing it into strips, using the action to feel less useless. After another, lingering glance, Mr. Dacy moved over to sit next to Uncle John on the bed. He put a muscular arm around her uncle’s waist and then used his free hand to steady the broken arm.
The doctor murmured a few instructions. Mr. Dacy nodded and then shifted his grip slightly to provide additional stability. His mouth compressed into a harsh line as if the procedure facing them hurt him as much as it would undoubtedly hurt Uncle John.
A hush fell over the room, broken only by the harsh breathing of the men, and short bursts of grunted curses.
Oriana tore at the rag in her hands more desperately, trying not to listen. Her overly vivid imagination kept spinning over what her uncle must be feeling. Even her arm ached in sympathy.
Then, when she thought she could stand it no longer, there was a dreadful, muted snapping sound. She gritted her teeth to keep from screaming in sympathy. A loud groan tore from her uncle, followed by a series of low moans like the last, breathy chuffs from a dying animal.
Staring at the pile of rags in front of her, her hands clenched.
Then, Dr. Barker stepped back from the bed and announced himself satisfied in what seemed to her to be an inappropriately cheerful voice. He rubbed his hands together before gesturing to her for the linen strips. She grabbed a handful of material and held them out to him, trying not to glance beyond him at her uncle.
Dr. Barker took the strips, picked up the two pieces of polished wood and bound the arm with swift, sure movements.
When she dared to look at her uncle, his eyes were heavy with pain. His Adam's apple bobbed in his throat as he kept swallowing convulsively. Mr. Dacy eyed him, frowned and murmured something to the doctor that she didn’t hear.
The doctor nodded in agreement and pulled a blue bottle from his case. He carefully measured out a few drops into a glass and then added a mouthful of brandy.
“He’s had enough brandy, no more tonight. Just this last swallow, and he’ll sleep until the morning.” Dr. Barker eyed her with the cautiousness of a man who expected hysterics or worse from most women. “He will be fit as a fiddle in a few days. It’ll be many a year before the good Lord wants to see an old sinner like him show up at Heaven’s gate.”
She smiled, although her lips trembled. She rubbed her nose to gain some measure of control over her features before addressing the doctor. “I’m sorry we had to send for you so late, but I am grateful you were not engaged in anything more pressing.”
“Nothing more important than sleep,” the doctor said gaily, relieved at her calm tone. He picked up his glass of brandy and watched the amber liquid swirl for a few seconds before he finished it off. He set the glass on the bedside table with a sharp, precise gesture. “Send Joshua if he becomes feverish.” His tired eyes took in her worried frown. “But he won’t. Rest assured, he will be quite well in the morning.”
After seeing the doctor out, she returned to her uncle's room, thinking to sit with him for a few hours. She was startled to find Mr. Dacy seated in the bedside chair again, his long legs stretched out in front of him and the bottle of brandy near at hand.
He glanced up at her and spoke as she wavered in the doorway. “I’ll sit with him. Go to bed. There is nothing else you can do for him tonight.”
Her hands twisted the fringe of her shawl. “Really, Mr. Dacy, you’ve done—” She stopped abruptly, horrified to repeat her earlier mistake.
“Enough?” he drawled. One lean hand picked up the brandy bottle and filled his glass. “Do not worry. I have no intention of murdering your uncle while he sleeps.”
“That is not what I meant, and you know it! You are scarcely mended yourself and should be resting.”
“You thought I was well enough earlier to break the arm of a healthy man. Surely you aren’t worried about me now?”
“Did you break his arm?” she asked bluntly. She held her breath, waiting—and fearing—his reply.
“What do you think?”
“I...” she hesitated, uncertain.
She didn’t honestly know what to think. He was a hard man and a dangerous man. And yet she couldn’t forget the gentleness in his touch when he bent to caress his dog, or how he had helped the doctor. Those weren’t the gestures of a brutal criminal.
But, physical violence wasn't the only way he could bring disaster. If he wasn’t a gambler like her uncle, then he could very well represent the law. A Bow Street Runner would be as dangerous to her family as a criminal.
In either case, she couldn’t trust him. She had to protect her uncle and her family. Without knowing anything of his bac
kground, combined with the sense of unspoken secrets, she couldn’t rely upon her unfounded certainty that she could trust him.
“Your silence speaks for you. I know what you think.”
“You know nothing of what I think. I may not be brilliant, but I know this, you haven’t been honest with us. Therefore, how can I trust you?” She paused. “Should I trust you?”
Mr. Dacy stared at his glass, his gaze hard. Then he drained the amber liquid in one swift movement. He leaned his head back and rubbed his eyes tiredly by pressing the lids with a thumb and index finger.
“I’m not here to harm you, Miss Archer.”
“That may be true. But if you do anything to injure my uncle, you will hurt me.”
“I am aware of that.”
“Then be honest with me, please. Why are you here?”
He laughed, although the sound's bitter edge sliced the air painfully. “That should be obvious. To convalesce.”
“And that’s all, Mr. Dacy? Is that the only reason?”
“What other reason could there be?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know who you are. Or how you came to know my uncle. Or what your purpose may be.”
“Then you know remarkably little. And yet you still seem inclined to judge me as harshly as possible. So perhaps it would suit us both best if I bid you goodnight.”
Frustrated and worried, she acquiesced with a brief nod. She turned back to her uncle’s door, but she paused at the threshold to glance at Mr. Dacy. His eyes meet hers and held her there for a long, aching moment.
Her heart thudded. Her pulse quickened as his gaze grew more intent until it was almost unbearable.
She had never been so conscious of a man before. She could almost feel the heavy aura of masculine strength he exuded. He stretched out lazily in his chair, holding her gaze as one hand idly caressed the glass he held. The room smelled of wood smoke from the fire and the sharp tang of alcohol.
Unwillingly, her body responded with increasing languor. Hand gripping the doorknob, she cleared her throat, unable to bear the tension any longer.
A slow, devilish smile curled his lips as if he was perfectly aware of his attraction for her and her failing efforts to resist that attraction.