To Have and to Hold (32 page)

“Oh God, Peter!”
Isobel murmured as she eyed the blooded mass of her husband.
 
His white shirt was stained pink with
blood.
 
Dirty and torn, it was obvious
even through his shirt that there were numerous cuts and bruises and most
probably broken bones beneath.
 
Placing a
hand upon his chest, she swallowed a sob as she felt the gentle rise and fall
of his chest.
 
“He’s alive.”
 
She murmured softly as relief swept through
her.
 
“He’s alive!”

Swiping at the
tears from her eyes, she turned towards Manvers.
 
“Go outside. Whatever you do take someone
with you and check to see if Dominic’s horse is there.
 
If it is, bring any bags or affects back to
me.”
 
Fists clenched, he eyed the mistress
warily.
 
She had the look of a warrior
goddess about her that was a sight to behold.
 
Personally he had had his doubts she had survived all alone for two
months with very little to her name, her being a lady of quality and all
that.
 
But seeing the cool determination
on her face, he had no hesitation in her ability to handle such a dire
circumstance.
 
This wasn’t a woman who
would collapse into uncontrollable sobs.
 
This was a woman who would stand up and fight.
 
He could see why she had captured the
master’s heart so thoroughly.
 
Abruptly
making his decision, he led two armed footmen out of the front door, to do as
his mistress asked.
 

“We have to get
him upstairs.
 
Have we something to carry
him on?”
 
Peter raised a brow to
Sebastian, who quickly despatched two men were sent down to the cellars to
fetch anything
suitable.
 
Isobel carefully cushioned the
door that appeared with an array of blankets, issuing brisk orders to Mrs
Holcombe and the maids before following her husband to their suite of rooms.

Dominic had
insisted upon her sleeping by his side at night, and had instructed the Lady’s
rooms to be stripped, lest Isobel get it into her mind to move in there when
she was angry with him. As a result the master suite had become softer and held
several feminine touches.
 
The rooms were
now known as the main suite for the Lord and Lady of the house.
 

Carefully the
men eased Dominic down onto the bed, taking the opportunity to remove his
sodden cloak from beneath him.
 
As they
worked, neither Isobel nor Peter needed to question what had happened.
 
They knew exactly who had done this. Rupert.

Rage poured
through Isobel with a fiery fury that caused her hands to tremble.
  

“Are you
alright?”
 
Peter murmured, eyeing her
pale cheeks as she began to strip the shirt off her husband.
 

Teeth clenched,
she nodded brusquely and continued to tug and pull until the top half of her
husband’s chest was laid bare.

“Maybe you
should leave him to us.
 
We can strip him
and get him into bed.”
 
Edward murmured
as he gently tried to ease Isobel toward the door.

“No!”
 
Isobel shot him a fiery look of temper,
warning him not to argue.
 
“He is my
husband.
 
There isn’t anything here that
I have not already seen before.”
 
Her
teeth were clenched to stop them from chattering.
 
At that present time, it was helping her
considerably to hold on to her anger.
 
She would collapse into uncontrollable sobs when Dominic’s needs were
seen to, and she had seen for herself the full extent of his injuries.

“We don’t know
how bad he is Isobel,” Peter murmured, staying her hands as they worked on the
fastenings of his cuffs.
 

“It isn’t
anything I haven’t already seen before.”
 
Isobel murmured glaring across Dominic’s supine form towards her
brother, willing him to understand she had seen her fair share of bruises and
grazes.
  
“Now let us get these clothes
off him before he catches a chill on top of his injuries.”
 
She shot her brother a chiding look, “Are you
going to help me or not?”

The men seemed
to know when they were beaten and silently set to work.
 
Between them, managed to strip Dominic bare
and were just tucking the sheets around him when Mrs Holcombe arrived with two
maids, bowls and towels to the ready.
  

“I will do it,
thank you Mrs Holcombe.”
 
Isobel murmured
relieving the Housekeeper of the bowl and placing it upon the bedside table.
 
Immediately she began to set to work
dampening several small cloths in the bowl.
 
She didn’t see the silent shake of Peter’s head as he looked sternly at
Mrs Holcombe.
 
Wisely the elder lady
studied Isobel’s rigid back before nodding.
 
“We’ll be outside if you need us, ma’am.” Quietly, she beckoned towards
the two maids and the door shut softly behind them.

“Dominic would
not wish you to see him like this Isobel”, Peter murmured as he eased the
sheets down off Dominic’s bruised body leaving them to rest at his waist.

“And
why not?”
Isobel murmured as she began to dab at the mixture of mud and blood splattered
across Dominic’s flat stomach.
 
“He has
seen me worse than this Peter.”
 

“I know my dear,
but he is the master of the house.”
 
Edward tried to find another way of getting Isobel out of the room so
they could check on the full extent of Dominic’s injuries for himself.
“Sebastian, Edward and I can deal with him.
 
This is no place for a Lady.”

“Oh
rubbish!”
 
Isobel’s voice brooked no
argument.
 
“Don’t be so pompous.
 
I am his wife.
 
My place is beside my husbands.
 
Right now he needs me, and I am going to be
there for him.”

Shaking his head
in defeat, Edward knew Dominic would not be happy at what his wife was doing,
but was helpless to persuade her to do otherwise.
 
She would be spitting if he physically picked
her up and put her outside the door.
 
Indeed, with the temper she was in at the moment, Edward wasn’t certain
if she would just kick it back down again anyway!
 
Heaving a sigh he gave in and set about
helping Isobel, Peter and Sebastian make his brother more comfortable.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Hours later
Isobel sat in the high backed chair beside the bed watching the steady rise and
fall of her husband’s chest as he slept.
 

The anger was
gone, replaced by a bone deep weariness that Isobel had only ever encountered
living on the streets.
 
Still, despite
her tiredness, sleep wouldn’t come at all that night.
 
Vaguely, she recalled waking several times
during the first few nights in Tavistock to find Dominic seated beside
her.
 
She could now understand how
difficult that time must have been for him as he had waited, for she now felt
truly helpless.
 

The Doctor had
been a few hours earlier.
 
After much
deliberation and a lot of tutting and sighing, he had declared that Dominic had
suffered several breaks to his ribs as well as concussion and numerous cuts and
bruises.
 
They wouldn’t truly know the
extent of any other injuries until Dominic awoke and was able to tell
them.
 
Until then, they had to keep him
warm and feed him the Laudanum for the pain.
 
The Doctor had also left a poultice to apply to his battered flesh.

The rhythmic
tick of the clock resting upon the mantle paused as it chimed two in the
morning.
 
Isobel could faintly hear the
soft snore of the footman sitting outside of the bedroom door, ostensibly on
guard.
 
Still she couldn’t bring herself
to go outside and nudge him awake.
 
The
evening had been exhausting and immensely worrying for everyone within the
house.
 
For Isobel, it was another of
those occasions she could add to the growing list of one of the worst
experiences of her life.
 

If she lived to
be one hundred years old, she would never forget the sight of the sodden bundle
that had landed upon the hall floor in a bloodied mess.
 
Or the sickening feeling of dawning horror
upon realising it was Dominic.

“Dominic,
my darling?”
Isobel softly ran her fingers through the soft strands of her husband’s
hair.
 
“Be strong for me,” she
whispered.
 
Gently she placed a soft kiss
upon the side of his lips that weren’t cut or bruised, relieved at the warmth
of the soft breath that wafted across her lips.
 
“I love you.”
 
Carefully she
lowered her brow to rest upon his, willing him to take some of her strength and
all of her love.
 
“I love you.”
 
Guilt assailed her.
 
If it wasn’t for her, he would not have
endured such a beating.
 
It was all her
fault for accepting his proposal. She knew now that she should have left as soon
as she was strong enough, and moved back to Willowbrook Hall in Oxfordshire.

Slowly, she
eased back in the winged chair and stared across the room into the
darkness.
 
Isobel had no doubt Rupert and
his henchmen were behind tonight’s warning.
 
Sebastian had earlier found Dominic’s sword and scabbard, both equally
as bloodied as Dominic himself.
 
He had
obviously fought a fierce battle.
 
Isobel
considered it a miracle he had managed to get home at all, given the sharpness
of his blade. The fighting must have been brutal.
 
Inwardly she shuddered, and fought the urge
to lose the contents of her stomach.

Rupert had
finally taken the first step in this particular skirmish.
 
Unfortunately, he had caught Dominic alone,
and off-guard and according to Sebastian, it was only Dominic’s skill and
dexterous swordsmanship that had kept him alive, as there had been numerous
attackers of that he was certain.

Isobel knew it
was her fault Dominic had met his attackers at all.
 
If it wasn’t for her, he wouldn’t have needed
to travel to Northampton, nor would he have suffered Rupert’s brutality.
 

Her stomach
flipped over at the thought of going back out into the cold once again.
 
Heartbroken, she felt sick as she remembered
with vivid clarity the numbing sense of being completely alone in the world.
 
Her heart clenched at the sense of betrayal
she knew Dominic would feel once he discovered her gone.
 
For she knew now the only way to bring Rupert
down, was to regain the disguise she had adopted with such success before, and
gather sufficient evidence of his crimes to ensure he was unable to slither out
of the arms of justice.

She didn’t have
the stomach to actually bring him to death by her own hands, but having
witnessed his brutality at first hand, she had no compunction against seeing
him swing from a gibbet.
 
She would certainly
be there at the docks to ensure he departed if he was transported.

She wasn’t sure
what it would mean to her marriage.
 
Dominic may very well not forgive her disobedience or waywardness.
 
Indeed, going back out into the cold might
just mean she was banished there forever, but she knew that while Rupert roamed
the countryside and didn’t face justice for his crimes, she could never sleep
soundly in her bed at night.
 
Nor could
she raise the children she would have with Dominic knowing there was a very
real possibility they would be in danger as well.
 
As much as she loved Dominic, and as much as
he was willing to undertake the risk of continuing life as normal with Rupert
free and undeterred, she knew she couldn’t face the very real possibility that
Dominic might not be so lucky next time.

Lost in her
silent planning, sometime during the night her eyes must have closed and she
gave way to the exhaustion that claimed her.
 

 
She awoke some time later with a sore neck,
very much aware of being watched.
 
Instantly she looked at the solid presence of her husband upon the bed.
A delighted smile suffused her features as her gaze locked with his.
 

“Oh
Dominic!”
Isobel murmured, launching herself from her chair to carefully lean over
him.
 
Tenderly stroking his hair away
from his brow, her gaze ran over his battered face.
 
“Are you in much pain?”
 
She couldn’t think of anything else to
say.
 
Confusingly she wanted to both
smother him with kisses and scold him for scaring her in such a way.