The Bachelor Trap (15 page)

She felt rather than saw his hand raised to strike her, and pure animal instinct took over. She launched herself at him, grappling for the gun. Her strength was no match for his. With a mighty shove, he sent her toppling to the floor. That was when Brand came storming in. He paused for a moment on the threshold, clearly outlined with his back to the only light that entered that room.

“He has a gun,” Marion yelled.

As Brand dived for the floor, a shot rang out. “Get behind me, Marion,” he called out. “Give me a clear shot at him.” He had a pistol in his hand.

That was enough for the intruder. He vaulted through the open window and ran off.

Marion quickly crossed to Brand and knelt in front of him. “You've been hit,” she cried.

On a groan, he got out, “In my thigh.”

She didn't waste time on words. She undid his neckcloth, made a pad with it, and told him to place it on the wound to staunch the bleeding.

“I can hardly see in this light,” she said. “I'll get a candle lit.”

Heart pounding with fear, she felt her way to the mantelpiece, found a candle, and used the tinderbox to light it. Her fingers were shaking so hard that the small flame went out and she had to do it over. When she came back to Brand, he was sitting with his back against a dresser, his pistol in one hand and the other pressing his padded neckcloth against his thigh. His face was chalk white, but he didn't appear to be seriously hurt. The vice squeezing her heart seemed to ease a little.

She put the candle on top of the dresser and knelt beside him. “I'll get the brandy.” Her voice was shaking as badly as her fingers. “I think we could both do with something to revive us.”

He grasped her wrist. “You're not getting out of my sight. Manley must have heard that shot. He'll be here in a moment or two. Until he arrives, we stay together.”

“But the thief is gone.”

“You don't know that! In fact, the villain may be reloading his pistol at this very moment. Did you see him, Marion? Would you recognize him if you saw him again?”

She shook her head. “It was dark, and I was too frightened to notice anything but the gun in his hand. His voice was odd, hoarse, but I think that was deliberate so that I wouldn't recognize it if I heard it again.”

Brand's voice was sharp. “What did he say?”

“He asked for Hannah's letters, but there aren't any. Why would anyone go to such lengths for a young woman's letters?”

“Because he thinks there may be something in them that incriminates him.”

She sat back on her heels. “What's going on, Brand?”

He shifted slightly and groaned. “It's a long story. I'll explain everything later, once I get this wound looked after. Meanwhile, you and your sisters are not staying here. Manley will take us to the Priory, and that's where you'll stay until I look into this.”

She stretched over him and picked up a small, round object that was lying on the floor.

“What is it?” asked Brand.

“A button.” She passed it to him. “Did you lose a button?”

Brand shook his head. “It must have come from the coat of the man you were grappling with.”

He cupped it in his hand while they both studied it. There was nothing out of the ordinary about it, a simple cloth-covered button in a nondescript gray that could easily match any man's jacket or coat.

“So, we're looking for a man's jacket that's missing a button,” said Brand.

When they heard Manley calling from outside the cottage, he slipped the button into his pocket. “Let's hope we get lucky,” he said.

Manley appeared at the door. “I heard a shot.” He was out of breath.

“Did you see anyone?” Brand asked.

“No. What happened?”

Marion said, “Mr. Hamilton has been shot, Manley. Let's get him to the Priory and send for a doctor. I'll explain everything later.”

Before they had got Brand inside the coach, he was issuing orders, telling them what had to be done. It was a break-in gone wrong, were his words to Marion. That was all she was to tell the magistrate. Meantime, she and her sisters were to stay at the Priory, and he would explain everything after the doctor had taken care of his wound.

Brand heaved a sigh of relief when Dr. Hardcastle arrived and took charge. The first thing the doctor did was clear everyone out of the room except for Manley and a footman with a wrestler's physique. As he set out his instruments and prepared to take the bullet out of Brand's thigh, he asked a few desultory questions about the attack, and made suitable clucking sounds, but Brand knew that that was to distract him from what was to come.

He groaned when Hardcastle probed gently around the wound. He couldn't wriggle because he was lying on a board on top of the bed. The board was the doctor's idea.

“You'll take a drop of laudanum?”

Brand accepted the glass the doctor offered, took one sip, then handed it back. He wanted a clear head when he spoke to Marion.

As he examined the wound, Hardcastle began to regale them with stories of the soldiers whose mangled limbs he'd amputated while cannonballs were flying overhead.

“Brave lads, every one of them,” Hardcastle said.

He was in his sixties and had resided in Longbury as long as Brand could remember, but he talked of his years as an army doctor as though they'd happened yesterday.

“We had nothing to give them, no brandy or opium, but they bore all our ministrations with a smile. I remember one in particular…”

Brand had heard the same stories since he was a boy and could now recite them by heart. He was half convinced that the doctor did it on purpose so that his patients would think themselves lucky to get off so easily, and act accordingly.

As the good doctor rattled on, it occurred to Brand that if anyone knew the Gunn sisters, it would be a doctor who also happened to be one of Longbury's longtime residents. He waited for the first lull in Hardcastle's monologue before he asked about them.

“Dr. Hardcastle,” he said, “do you remember Edwina Gunn and her sisters?”

“Of course I remember them. I knew all the Gunns, and I'm very happy to hear that Edwina's cottage has passed to her nieces.” He picked up a pair of sharp-pointed tweezers and examined them closely. “Brace yourself, lad.”

At a signal from the doctor, Manley placed his big hands on Brand's shoulders while the footman held his ankles.

“Wait!” Brand wasn't finished yet. “Where is Hannah now? Do you know?”

Hardcastle looked surprised. “She eloped, didn't she? That's what I always understood.” He smiled into Brand's eyes. “Now then, be a brave little soldier. I'm afraid this is going to hurt.”

Hurt
wasn't the word for it. It was excruciating, so excruciating that Brand could do no more than suck great gulps of air into his lungs. He went as rigid as the board he was lying on. Manley was mangling his shoulders, while the wrestler seemed determined to crack his ankle bones, and a red-hot poker was boring a hole in his thigh.

“Good lad,” said Hardcastle, beaming. “Now, that wasn't so bad, was it?”

Beads of sweat were running down Brand's cheeks into his ears. Tears of pain stung his eyes. But the worst was over. By slow degrees, he allowed himself to relax.

“No,” he said weakly. “Not bad at all.”

“And here is the little bugger that caused the damage.” Hardcastle held up the tweezers with a bullet prized in its jaws. He studied it for a moment and frowned. “There's a chip missing. Manley, give him the laudanum. I'm afraid I have to go back in there and poke around a bit until I find it.”

This time Brand drank every drop in the glass. Marion would have to wait.

It was a subdued group of people who waited in the drawing room for the doctor to come downstairs. No one had bothered to change. Lord Robert and Andrew were still in their Cavalier costumes, and the only difference in Marion's dress was that she was wearing borrowed slippers and a borrowed shawl. Emily had gone off more than an hour ago to put Phoebe to bed. She had yet to return, and Marion was wondering what was keeping her.

From time to time, they heard a step in the hall. Marion's heart would leap to her throat but it was never the doctor, only a servant passing. After one such occasion, Andrew got up and stalked to the window.

“Hardcastle knows what he is doing,” he said. “He was once an army doctor.” He turned to face the company. “And I've never heard of a wound to the thigh that was fatal.”

Those were the words that had been drumming inside Marion's head for the last half hour, or words very like them. Her mind told her that Andrew was right, but there was a niggling fear that she could not quell.

Lord Robert responded to Andrew's comments. “In this case, far from fatal. You weren't there, Andrew, when his manservant helped him into the house. Brand was issuing orders as though he were a general, and the servants all scurried to do his bidding.”

“That sounds like Brand,” the dowager said. “What were his orders?”

“Let me see.” Lord Robert gazed at the glass he'd been drinking from. “That Marion and her sisters were to take up residence here until he was satisfied that their cottage was secure. To get the magistrate onto finding the culprit—”

At mention of the magistrate, Andrew snorted. “Sir Basil is in no fit state to do anything. He's in a drunken stupor and is sleeping it off in one of the cellars. Not only that, the constable is with him.”

“Yes, so we heard,” replied Robert. “At any rate, we sent for the doctor and sent footmen and gardeners to secure Lady Marion's cottage until the authorities have a chance to look it over. I forget what else Brand told us to do, but he was far from ready to give up the ghost.”

Andrew chuckled. Lady Theodora's expression softened and Clarice blew her nose. On the other side of the room, Miss Cutter came to herself after dozing off, and the dowager regarded Marion with an expression that held as much curiosity as sympathy.

Marion thought she understood. She wasn't a member of the family, but here she was in the dowager's drawing room, as though she had every right to be there.

She didn't care what they thought. She wasn't budging until she had heard from the doctor's own lips that Brand was out of danger.

Brows down, she returned the dowager's stare and was surprised to see a smile creep into those pale, aristocratic, all-seeing eyes.

As the silence lengthened, Marion studied Brand's family, and that's what they were, Brand's family. They weren't loveable or loving; they didn't know how to show their feelings, but she never doubted for a moment that they cared in their own eccentric, FitzAlan way. Just as Brand cared for them.

If this were her family, she would be sitting beside the dowager holding her hand. If she were Theodora, she would go to her husband and say something encouraging to wipe that anxious look from his face. As for Andrew, she would give him something to do to use up that restless energy that she could feel from halfway across the room.

When the door opened without warning, everyone straightened.

The doctor entered, a tall, stately gentleman with dark hair liberally laced with silver and an austere face softened in a smile.

When everyone saw the smile, a collective sigh went up. He walked straight to the dowager and bowed over her hand. “A trifling wound, Your Grace. I've given him a draft of laudanum, but he is still conscious. You may have a few minutes with him. No need to worry. He'll be out of bed in a few days.”

The dowager swallowed a small constriction in her throat. “Thank you, Dr. Hardcastle.” She got up. “Will you give me your arm?”

“I'd like to go, too,” interrupted Andrew quickly. “Someone should be there to take care of him in case he wakens during the night. Besides servants, I mean.”

His grandmother smiled and nodded, and they turned to go.

“Wait,” cried Marion. She was on her feet in an instant. “What about me?”

They were going to leave her to stew about Brand until he wakened in the morning. She could see it in their faces. She wasn't a member of the family. In spite of everything she and Brand had been through, in spite of him saving her life, she was only a guest in this house. Everyone else in that room had a better claim to go to him than she.

The thought made her bristle.

“What about you?” asked Miss Cutter, breaking the long silence.

The words formed on Marion's lips as though they had a will of their own. “I,” she said clearly and without hesitation, “am Brand's betrothed.”

It was the oddest thing. When she knelt by Brand's bed and saw with her own eyes that he was sleeping peacefully and that the color had returned to his cheeks, she turned into a watering pot. She, who never cried, was behaving with all the decorum of a frightened child.

“A trifling cold,” she told the dowager gruffly as she blew her nose.

They did not stay long because the doctor wouldn't permit it, so she had no chance to question Brand or tell him that they were now betrothed.

For the sake of a few minutes at his bedside, she had perjured herself. How on earth was she going to explain this to Brand when he wakened?

She had a good reason for claiming to be his betrothed. She had wanted to see with her own eyes that he was all right. Then there was the mystery he had promised to explain to her. He could not expect her to play the shrinking violet after all that had happened tonight.

These were the thoughts that crowded her mind as she walked down the corridor to Emily's room. There were no candles lit, so she left the door open so that she could see her way to the bed. Curled up under the blankets, their arms around each other, were Emily and Phoebe.

Marion gave a watery sniff and collapsed into the nearest chair. She sat there for a long time, staring at her sisters, thinking, thinking, thinking. All she'd ever wanted was to keep them safe and happy. Now a third person had insinuated himself into her little circle and she had three people to worry about.

She gave another sniff. A few weeks ago, David Kerr had been her most pressing problem. Now she didn't know what to think. It hardly seemed likely that he was the man who had attacked her. She had paid him off; she had given him her mother's emeralds. That should have been the end of it. And the most telling piece of evidence in his favor was that he knew nothing of Hannah.

Where are Hannah's letters?
She quaked, remembering how her breath had been cut off. She would never forget the sound of that menacing voice. That was not David's voice. This was something new, something that Brand understood and she did not.

She did not know how she could contain her impatience until he told her all he knew.

Sighing, she got up. If there had been room in her sisters' bed, she would have crawled in beside them. She wondered if she would ever feel safe again.

Her own room was only a few steps down the corridor. She lit a candle from the embers in the fire and set it on the mantel. A footman had brought a trunk containing her clothes, and she was rummaging through it for a nightgown when someone knocked softly on the door.