One Whisper Away (34 page)

In an abstract way, he knew the lassitude was a true danger, for if he did nothing and just lay there, bruised and bleeding, he would die, and if at any time of his life he had ever wanted to live, this was it.

A shadow fell over him and he realized that it was Seneca, who blew out a restless snort and nudged his leg. He wasn’t surprised the big horse hadn’t left him; he’d had the stallion since he was a colt and trained him by himself. It was obvious, though, that the animal disliked the smell of blood.

The miracle was the lead rope hanging from his halter.

“Closer,” Jon managed to croak around the metallic taste in his mouth, trying to reach for the dangling lead and wondering if he would faint again in the attempt.

And though he wasn’t at all sure if Seneca could understand him or if it was merely luck, the horse did swing his head just enough that the rope brushed his hand and he managed to catch it. With gritted teeth, he used the support to rise, swaying and cursing softly in what choice words he knew of his mother’s native tongue, which included a few phrases that would have made the average Englishman blanch.

But he gained his feet, now wishing he’d bothered to use a saddle, for getting on his horse in his weakened condition was going to be an interesting feat. Leaning against Seneca’s solid weight, he slowly turned, spied a fallen tree and wondered if that might serve . . . if he could get to it.

Twenty steps, which he could have sprinted in seconds that morning, took five grueling minutes to complete. His shirt, stiff with blood, was also damp with sweat by the time he made it, and he wasn’t at all sure he could accomplish what would normally be the simple task of climbing up on the log to give himself the advantage of being closer to Seneca’s back.

Somehow, in the twilight of increasing weakness, he managed to plant his foot on the fallen elm, balance his weight with his fist in the stallion’s mane and his old friend stood extremely still, patient when he was usually restive and eager to run, and Jonathan eventually slid into a halfway-mounted position, the lead still trailing, no way to give the animal direction except with the pressure of his knees and the subtle nudge of a heel, neither of which he was very capable of at the moment.

“Back,” he whispered.

Maybe it was the instruction, maybe it was a gift from the gods, or maybe now that his master was on his back the horse understood he was free to head back to the stable where he knew oats, water, and a comfortable stall awaited him after his morning run and vigil—whatever it was, Seneca swung around in the right direction.

Barely holding on, Jonathan slumped over his mount’s neck, the mist of consciousness floating over his senses like an elusive ghost.

L
ily did her best to look enthusiastic at Sir Norman’s offer of a stroll through the park. She smiled as graciously as possible, but before she could even answer, both of them poised on the steps, she spotted the horse moving slowly up the drive.

It was not hard to identify her brother’s large, sleek black stallion. She’d been wondering why Jonathan felt it appropriate to absent himself all day, but as the horse got closer, his gait considerably slower than his usual spirited pace, she realized there was no rider.

Or was there?

Horror hit her as she saw that someone—and no one but her brother could even think of riding the intractable animal—was astride, collapsed forward, one arm dangling.

“Help me.” She unceremoniously grabbed her companion’s arm, practically dragging him down the steps. “Hurry!”

“My dear lady,” Sir Norman sputtered, but then he too seemed to catch sight of what had her sprinting down the long drive, for she heard him mutter, “Dear Lord. Oh, dear Lord.”

At least her would-be suitor—one of the ones who was obviously poor but eligible—was young and reasonably well built, for her brother was a tall man.

If she still had a brother.

Blood. It was everywhere—on the horse’s side in a dripping stream, and Jonathan’s shirt was dark crimson with it, his right shoulder lodged against the horse’s withers. Though normally no one could approach Seneca, much less a female in swirling skirts at a full run, now he came to a halt and merely watched her with liquid eyes, his stance tense but unmoving.

“What happened? Dear Lord . . . I don’t . . . oh, dear . . . I . . .”

If Sir Norman continued to babble, Lily might ruin the vestiges of whatever reputation she had left by murdering a baronet in the prestigious driveway of a duke. “Help me get him down,” she ordered, heedless of her new day gown of sprigged muslin that she thought rather fetching. She doubted Jonathan would mind her ruining it under the circumstances. “Gently. He’s hurt badly.”

An understatement, if his gory appearance was any indication. Luckily, one of the footmen had seen either the horse or her frantic dash, because he came running up then, and the three of them were able to ease Jonathan off the back of his horse.

Under the bronze of his skin he was deathly pale as they laid him down. His long raven hair was disordered and even his lips were colorless. Lily could not repress a sob, and if she hadn’t glimpsed the slight flutter of his eyelids, she might have become hysterical, but it was not the time to dwell on how much she would miss him now that they knew each other at long last. If this was as bad as it seemed . . .

“Bloody hell.” Sir Norman had gone green. “He’s . . . he’s shot.”

The footman, a young Scot, looked rather pale himself at the sight of all the blood, but at least he didn’t seem as if he was going to faint dead away and so was deemed the best choice for decisive action. She said sharply, “Go to the house and tell the duchess Lord Augustine is severely injured. Obviously a physician is needed. And send help for us to get him up to the house. Now!”

The young man nodded and set off at a pace that satisfied her that he understood haste was needed. Sir Norman, on the other hand, took out a handkerchief and started to act as if he would wipe his brow, but Lily reached out for it. “Give me that, if you please.”

She knew next to nothing about patching up a wound, but it was obvious enough that Jonathan needed to stop bleeding and so she folded the white square and pressed it to her brother’s shoulder. It was rewarding when he groaned.

Not dead yet.

Hurry
.

“Give me your cravat. And take off your shirt.” She glanced up at Sir Norman. “Be smart about it, please. We need to make some bandages and I want to have enough.”

To his credit he did start to remove his coat, but then he mumbled, “Can’t take my shirt off in front of a lady.”

“My sensibilities are not that delicate, remember?”

At the reference to her supposedly tarnished past, he flushed, but it worked. He handed her his cravat before he shrugged out of his coat and unbuttoned his shirt.

She was almost afraid to see what had happened, but it did appear that perhaps the assumption that Jonathan had been shot was correct. Besides the shoulder, there was a hole visible in the blood-soaked material near his waist, as if something had torn through the fabric. She gingerly tugged the shirt free from his breeches and placed the cloth over what seemed to be a jagged and ugly wound in his side that caused her stomach to lurch as she saw the lacerated flesh.

How this had all occurred, she was not sure, but what she was sure of was that he needed help immediately.

“Jonathan.” It was a helpless whisper. She had no knowledge at all to help him other than to try to stop the blood still seeping from the wounds, and tears she did not know she was shedding fell on his ashen face in small crystal splashes as she spoke to him.

He heard her, which was encouraging, because his eyes opened briefly, but they drifted shut almost immediately, and all she could do was take his limp hand and kneel there beside him in the grass and pray.

 

They weren’t more than halfway up the long drive before Cecily realized that something was gravely wrong. It wasn’t that the knot in her stomach hadn’t already grown tighter and tighter on the ride back from the village but there were at least a dozen of the guests in a cluster near the front of the house, including her grandmother, who broke away from the crowd and in an unprecedented event, walked out to meet them rather than letting them come to her.

Everyone, she saw, was staring at her and all conversation had stopped.

“James,” she said, the tremor in her voice evident.

“I know,” he replied grimly, kicking his horse into a canter. “Something’s happened. We should hurry.”

The dowager duchess stood resolute by the big fountain as they rode up, a small, regal figure in her signature gray, her face set. Cecily had seen that expression once before. When her grandmother had imparted the news to her, Roderick, and Eleanor that their mother had “passed on,” as she called it.

A chill ran through Cecily and she didn’t bother to wait for James to help her dismount but slid off her horse instantly. “Grandmama?”

“There’s been a terrible accident.”

Though she knew he would normally have shown more deference to the duchess, James, who had practically flung himself off his mount, said harshly, “What kind of accident? Where’s Jon?”

“Mrs. Hawkins is with him now, but the physician has been sent for, I assure you, Mr. Bourne, and I gave clear instructions that he is to get here with all due speed.” Her grandmother paused and refused to look at her. “Lord Augustine has been severely injured, I’m afraid.”

All due speed
. That had an ominous ring to it, and judging by the gravity of the tone in which the news was delivered, the cold fear that seemed to have clenched around Cecily’s heart was warranted. Her tongue was unwieldy, as if she’d forgotten how to talk. “I need to see him.”

If her grandmother replied she didn’t hear it, for she went past her toward the house, up the steps without regard for the sympathetic looks of the gathered group of guests, though if it hadn’t been for James’s supportive hold on her elbow, she would have stumbled. He looked every bit as shaken as she did and they didn’t exchange a word. During their fruitless ride, they’d both agreed that they’d had a feeling of growing foreboding all day and now there seemed nothing left to say.

Two of Jonathan’s sisters were in the upper hallway outside the door of the room he’d been given, and it helped not at all to see their tear-streaked faces. At the sight of James, the youngest, Carole, jumped up and ran to him, and he put his arms around her.

Whatever had happened was bad indeed. Cecily opened the door without knocking and stepped inside, the rest of the elegant bedroom a blur, her gaze focused on the tall form lying on the bed.

Jonathan.
Her
Jonathan, though at the moment he didn’t much resemble the wickedly attractive lover she knew. His bare chest was swathed in bloody cloth and his skin did not have the usual bronzed tone but was almost a grayish hue. The side of his face that she could see sported an enormous bruise from his hairline to his cheekbone, and his features were drawn. It was obvious that he was unconscious, as his body lay lax and unmoving.

Lady Lillian was sitting by the bed and she looked up at Cecily’s entrance, her demeanor calm but her own face ghostly pale. She said with no inflection at all, “Please do not take offense, but I was hoping you were the physician.”

“I did as well.” Mrs. Hawkins, the housekeeper, rinsed out a bloody cloth. “I kin patch up a scrape here and there, but this is too much for me.” Then her face softened. “But don’t worry about your young man, my lady. He’s strong as an ox.”

Perhaps he had been, but it was a little hard to believe at the moment.

Cecily’s hands were trembling and she clenched them into fists to try to stop it as she approached the bed: fearful, desolate, and a whole gamut of emotions between. His hair was starkly black against the white of the pillowcase, and she bent and touched the dark silk of it, uncaring about the intimate gesture, even though by now James had also come into the hushed room and stood silent behind her, and both Lily and Mrs. Hawkins were watching.

“What happened?” James demanded in a low voice, as if speaking too loudly would make the injuries worse. “The duchess said there was an accident.”

Lily said, “He was shot. Twice.
That
is no accident.”

Cecily froze, her fingers smoothing back a lock from Jonathan’s brow.

“Shot?” James’s question reflected her sense of shock and outrage. “Lily, by whom?”

“No one knows.” Jonathan’s sister’s tone was bleak.

“Do you have any idea why?”

Roderick. Cecily’s first thought was that her brother might have acted after all on his sense of outrage over a possible indiscretion, but she dismissed it as fast as it came, for two reasons: the bruising on Jonathan’s face and that he’d been shot twice. Her brother would never have shot a wounded man a second time,
if
—and it was doubtful—he could have bested her fiancé in the first place. Besides, why would he challenge a man who wished to marry her when their father approved the match?

He wouldn’t.

Who else?

“Where was Drury?” James’s voice was tight and even through her distress Cecily registered the implied accusation.

The viscount was no more guilty than Roderick, but before Cecily could say so, the arrival of the physician stopped the conversation. The man, small, neat, and dapper, came into the room, took one look at the patient on the bed, and banished all of them. “Out, please. All of you except Mrs. Hawkins.”

Had she not known Dr. Gilchrist since she was a young child, she might have obeyed, but Cecily straightened. “No. Please. Lord Augustine and I are to be married. I want to help, even if it is to carry linens.”