Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue (40 page)

She refocused on Breckenridge, on the blood welling between her fingers. Her palms side by side barely covered the wound. She needed material to staunch the flow.

With no shawl, and no hands free to undo his cravat, she grabbed the loose side of his jacket, bundled it up, and pressed it down—then let go, leapt to her feet, stripped off her lawn petticoat, and shook it free as she fell back to her knees. She wadded the material, lifted aside his coat, and pressed the makeshift pad firmly over the wound.

Better. She leaned on the dressing and the bleeding slowed.

She glanced at his face. From the set of his lips, knew he was still conscious. Was it better if he remained so? Staring at his face, at the angles and planes now beloved, she felt a chill touch her soul.

He might die.

“Don’t misunderstand,
but how dare you risk your life
? What the
devil
did you think, to leap over like that? You could have stayed safe on this side and
just helped me over
.” Even to her ears, her tone bordered on the hysterical.

Beneath her fingers, the white lawn started to redden.

She sucked in a shaky breath. “How could you risk your life—your
life,
you idiot!” She leaned harder on the pad, dragged in another breath.

He coughed weakly, shifted his head.

“
Don’t you dare die on me
!”

His lips twisted, but his eyes remained closed. “But if I die”—his words were a whisper—“you won’t have to marry, me or anyone else. Even the most censorious in the ton will consider my death to be the end of the matter. You’ll be free.”

“Free?” Then his earlier words registered. “
If you die
? I told you—don’t you dare! I won’t let you—I forbid you to. How can I marry you if you die? And how the hell will I live if you aren’t alive, too?” As the words left her mouth, half hysterical, all emotion, she realized they were the literal truth. Her life wouldn’t be worth living if he wasn’t there to share it. “What will I do with my life if you die?”

He softly snorted, apparently unimpressed by—or was it not registering?—her panic. “Marry some other poor sod, like you were planning to.”

The words cut. “
You
are the only poor sod I’m planning to marry.” Her waspish response came on a rush of rising fear. She glanced around, but there was no one in sight. Help had yet to come running.

She looked back at him, readjusted the pressure on the slowly reddening pad. “I intend not only to marry you but to lead you by the nose for the rest of your days. It’s the least I can do to repay you for this—for the shock to my nerves. I’ll have you know I’d decided even before this little incident to reverse my decision and become your viscountess, and lead you
such
a merry dance through the ballrooms and drawing rooms that you’ll be gray within two years.”

He humphed softly, dismissively, but he was listening. Studying his face, she realized her nonsense was distracting him from the pain. She engaged her imagination and let her tongue run free. “I’ve decided I’ll redecorate Baraclough in the French Imperial style—all that white and gilt and spindly legs, with all the chairs so delicate you won’t dare sit down. And while we’re on the subject of your—our—country home, I’ve had an idea about my carriage, the one you’ll buy me as a wedding gift. . . .”

She rambled on, paying scant attention to her words, simply let them and all the images she’d dreamed of come tumbling out, painting a vibrant, fanciful, yet in many ways—all the ways that counted—accurate word picture of her hopes, her aspirations. Her vision of their life together.

When the well started to run dry, when her voice started to thicken with tears at the fear that they might no longer have a chance to enjoy all she’d described, she concluded with, “So you absolutely can’t die now.” Fear prodded; almost incensed, she blurted, “Not when I was about to back down and agree to return to London with you.”

He moistened his lips. Whispered, “You were?”

“Yes! I was!” His fading voice tipped her toward panic. Her voice rose in reaction. “I can’t
believe
you were so foolish as to risk your life like this! You didn’t need to put yourself in danger to save me.”

“Yes, I did.” The words were firmer, bitten off through clenched teeth.

She caught his anger. Was anger good? Would temper help hold him to the world?

A frown drew down his black brows. “You can’t be so damned foolish as to think I wouldn’t—after protecting you through all this, seeing you safely all this way, watching over you all this time, what else was I going to do?”

She stared at him, at his face. Simply stared as the scales fell from her eyes. “Oh, my God,” she whispered, the exclamation so quiet not even he would hear. She suddenly saw—saw it all—all that she’d simply taken for granted.

Men like him protected those they loved, selflessly, unswervingly, even unto death.

The realization rocked her. Pieces of the jigsaw of her understanding of him fell into place. He was hanging to consciousness by a thread. She had to be sure—and his shields, his defenses were at their weakest now.

Looking down at her hands, pressed over the nearly saturated pad, she hunted for the words, the right tone. Softly said, “My death, even my serious injury, would have freed you from any obligation to marry me. Society would have accepted that outcome, too.”

He shifted, clearly in pain. She sucked in a breath—feeling his pain as her own—then he clamped the long fingers of his right hand about her wrist, held tight.

So tight she felt he was using her as an anchor to consciousness, to the world.

His tone, when he spoke, was harsh. “Oh, yes—after I’d expended so much effort keeping you safe all these years, safe even from me, I was suddenly going to stand by and let you be gored by some mangy bull.” He snorted, soft, low. Weakly. He drew in a slow, shallow breath, lips thin with pain, but determined, went on, “You think I’d let you get injured when finally after all these long years I at last understand that the reason you’ve always made me itch is because you are the only woman I actually want to marry? And you think I would stand back and let you be harmed?”

A peevish frown crossed his face. “I ask you, is that likely? Is it even vaguely rational?”

He went on, his words increasingly slurred, his tongue tripping over some, his voice fading. She listened, strained to catch every word as he slid into semidelirium, into rambling, disjointed sentences that she drank in, held to her heart.

He gave her dreams back to her, reshaped and refined. “Not French Imperial—good, sound, English oak. You can use whatever colors you like, but no gilt—I forbid it.”

Eventually he ventured further than she had. “And I want at least three children—not just an heir and a spare. At least three—more, if you’re agreeable. We’ll have to have two boys, of course—my evil ugly sisters will hound us to make good on that. But thereafter . . . as many girls as you like. . . . as long as they look like you. Or perhaps Cordelia—she’s the handsomer of the two uglies.”

He loved his sisters, his evil ugly sisters. Heather listened with tears in her eyes as his mind drifted and his voice gradually faded, weakened.

She’d finally got her declaration, not in anything like the words she’d expected, but in a stronger, impossible-to-doubt exposition.

He’d been her protector, unswerving, unflinching, always there; from a man like him, focused on a lady like her, such actions were tantamount to a declaration from the rooftops. The love she’d wanted him to admit to had been there all along, demonstrated daily right before her eyes, but she hadn’t seen.

Hadn’t seen because she’d been focusing elsewhere, and because, conditioned as she was to resisting the same style of possessive protectiveness from her brothers, from her cousins, she hadn’t appreciated his, hadn’t realized that that quality had to be an expression of his feelings for her.

Until now.

Until now that he’d all but given his life for hers.

He loved her—he’d always loved her. She saw that now, looking back down the years. He’d loved her from the time she’d fallen in love with him—the instant they’d laid eyes on each other at Michael and Caro’s wedding in Hampshire four years ago.

He’d held aloof, held away—held her at bay, too—believing, wrongly, that he wasn’t an appropriate husband for her.

In that, he’d been wrong, too.

She saw it all. And as the tears overflowed and tracked down her cheeks, she knew to her soul how right he was for her. Knew, embraced, and rejoiced.

And feared.

His voice had faded almost to nothing; she could no longer make sense of his words.

The fingers that had gripped her wrist so tightly were weakening.

She sniffed, glanced around. “Where the devil are they?”

At least the bleeding had slowed, grown sluggish, but in her estimation he’d lost far too much blood.

Drawing in a breath, holding it, clinging to her sanity and her strength, she leaned forward and brushed her lips across his. “Hush. Hold on to me, keep hold of me—never let go.”

Her voice threatened to break. She sucked in a desperate breath, blinked hard, then went on, “They won’t be long now. I want you to hang on, to stay with me. You have to hold on for me because I can’t live without you.”

She kept speaking, low and steady, willing him to live, yet she sensed him slipping further away.

She barely registered the rush of feet, the swirl of energy as the household descended, couldn’t take her eyes from his face.

He slipped into unconsciousness as they neared.

Then Catriona, Algaria, Richard, and all the rest were there, sweeping around them, taking charge, taking over, gently easing her aside.

It was Richard who closed his big hands about her shoulders and raised her, then drew her away. “Let them have at him.”

She swallowed, nodded, but when Richard handed her over to Mrs. Broom, who gently suggested she come back to the house, she refused with a curt shake of her head. “I’ll stay with him.”

She wasn’t going to let him out of her sight.

Catriona had brought supplies to bandage the wound before they risked lifting him. She and Algaria worked swiftly, cutting away his clothes, then cleaning the wound.

Heather breathed deeply, felt her composure, fragile though it was, firm. With a smile that was more a grimace, she thanked Mrs. Broom, then went forward to the still figure on the ground.

Halting at Catriona’s side, she stated, “I need to help. Tell me what to do.”

Both Algaria and Catriona glanced at her, sharp glances that stripped her face bare, then Catriona nodded. Indicated a set of unguent pots nearby. “The one with the blue lid. It’ll only be temporary, but we need to make what stand we can against infection.”

Heather picked up the pot, loosened the lid, and held it ready.

He’d saved her.

Now it was up to her to save him.

Chapter Twenty

T
he men of the household carried Breckenridge back to the house on a stretcher. The last of the light was fading from the sky as Heather followed them through the side door into the house. Catriona and Algaria had diverted to the herb garden, seeking extra ingredients for potions and tisanes. Mrs. Broom and Henderson had rushed ahead to prepare Breckenridge’s bed.

Lamps were being lit throughout the house. As Heather crossed the front hall, someone handed her a small lantern. A footman appeared ahead of the stretcher, carrying a large lamp to light the bearers’ way.

The main staircase was wide with a sweeping curve. After carefully negotiating the climb, the men turned toward the turret and Breckenridge’s room on the next floor, only to find Mrs. Broom waiting to wave them to another door along the gallery.

“Ye’ll never make it up the turret stairs, not without jiggling him something fearful. We’ve made up the bed in here instead.”

The room they entered was a bed-cum-sitting room. Two maids were tugging sheets and fluffing pillows on a big four-poster bed. Henderson and a footman were feeding a blaze already roaring in the hearth.

Richard and the other three stretcher bearers carried Breckenridge to the side of the bed closest to the hearth. They laid the stretcher on the floor, then, under Richard’s direction, with Mrs. Broom kneeling on the bed to help settle the patient, they carefully transferred Breckenridge’s long and heavy body onto a plain cotton sheet spread over the covers and pillows.

As soon as Breckenridge was stretched out and settled, the other three men gathered the stretcher and left. Richard hovered by the side of the bed, looking down at Breckenridge.

Heather stood at the foot, her gaze locked on his face.

Then Catriona swept in, Algaria and three older women of the household behind her. Catriona came straight to the bed, circling to halt by Breckenridge’s shoulder. Her hand briefly gripped Richard’s, then she released him. “We’ll handle this from here.”

Heather felt Richard’s gaze flick to her face, then he looked at his wife. “How bad is he? Should I send for Caro and Michael?”

Catriona studied Breckenridge, then held the back of one hand against his cheek. She hesitated, then drew breath and said, “He’s very low. He might not die, but . . . yes, I think you should send for Caro.”

“He also has two sisters—Constance and Cordelia.” Heather’s voice seemed to come from far away. “He . . . they’re close. Caro will know how to contact them.”

Richard’s gaze rested on her face for a moment, then he nodded. “I’ll send a rider to Michael immediately.” With a nod to Catriona, he left her side. Reaching Heather, he paused, laid a hand on her shoulder, lightly gripped. “He’s alive. While he is, there’s hope.”

Without taking her eyes from Breckenridge’s still, pale face, she nodded.

Richard left.

Behind and about her the three women were setting bandages and bottles, pots and implements, on various surfaces. A footman appeared in the doorway carrying a brazier. Catriona saw him and pointed to the middle of the room. “Set it there.”

Algaria paused by the bed, opposite Catriona, watching as Catriona checked Breckenridge’s eyes. Algaria glanced at Heather, then came around the bed to halt at her side. “Go and wash your hands.”

Heather frowned, looked down at her hands, and realized they were covered in dried blood.

“Go to your room, wash thoroughly, and change into something warm and comfortable.” Algaria’s tone was even, certain, and compassionate. “Then go to the kitchen and let Cook feed you. When you’ve done all that, you can come back and spell us. There’s nothing we’re about to do that we haven’t done many times, nothing we need help with. There’ll be nothing you can do to help him through the next hour or so, but after that . . . that’s when you need to be here, when he might need you to be here. Best you’re in as good a state as you can be to help him then.”

Algaria had spoken slowly and steadily. Heather took in her words, could find no reason to argue. She drew in a tight breath, then nodded. “All right.”

After one last, long look at the still figure on the bed, she turned and walked from the room.

S
he returned an hour later, washed, fed, and garbed in a soft, plain woolen gown a helpful maid had found for her, along with the knitted shawl she’d slung about her shoulders.

Refreshed in body she might be, but inside . . . she’d never felt so frozen, so full of icy dread.

Walking into the sickroom, she saw the three older women bundling up sheets, the remnants of Breckenridge’s clothes, bloodied bandages, and basins of bloodied water. Despite their industry, their expressions remained serious. Hoisting their loads, they bustled out.

In the silence that fell, Heather approached the bed. Algaria was crouched before the fire, carefully setting more logs onto the blaze. The bedcurtains nearer the door and across half the bed’s foot were drawn, the better to ward off drafts. Passing beyond their screen, she looked into the now shadowed bed.

Breckenridge lay on his back beneath the covers, stretched out straight, his arms by his sides. His face was pale, the elegant but severe lines set, unmoving. His lips were a thin line, showing no animation at all.

His eyes were closed, his long lashes black crescents stark against the white parchment of his skin. His dark locks had been pushed back from his forehead.

He looked like an effigy.

Catriona stood beside the bed, arms folded, her gaze on his face.

Eyes widening, Heather sent Catriona a suddenly fearful, pleading look.

“He’s alive.”

The relief nearly brought her to her knees.

Catriona hadn’t looked up; she continued, “We’ve stopped the bleeding—you did well with that. We did the rest, and, Lady be blessed, the horn didn’t damage anything vital.”

“So he’ll recover?”

Catriona hesitated, then said, “He shouldn’t die from the wound itself. From that, he should recover well enough. Infection is the threat. We’ve done all we can for now. The poultices we’ve put on are the most powerful I know. We’ll renew them twice a day, every time we change the bandages. But in fighting infection, it’ll be his strength and his will that will turn the tide.”

Finally raising her gaze, Catriona met Heather’s eyes. “All we can do now is wait, and pray, and support him however we can.”

Drawing in a deep breath, Heather nodded. “I’ll be here.”

Catriona studied her for a moment—another of her sharp, seeing-beneath-the-skin looks—then she relaxed her arms and walked around the bed, with a wave indicating that Heather should take her place by Breckenridge’s head. “The bellpull is by the mantelpiece. Ring if he stirs, or if you need anything at all. Don’t hesitate to ask for help.”

“Or advice.” Algaria rose from the fire. She, too, looked assessingly at Heather, then nodded as if saying she’d do. “One thing to remember—belief is the key. It’s the one thing we can give them when they wake, when they stir, when in their delirium they’re searching. We have to believe. We must believe. We must convince them we do. Only our absolute, unswerving belief will be strong enough to anchor them, to make them believe, too.”

Heather looked into Algaria’s eyes—eyes that were old, eyes that were wise. Was she talking of life, or love? Or both?

Perhaps in this case, life and love were one and the same.

Raising her head, Heather nodded. “I understand.”

“Good.” Turning to follow Catriona, who, after watching the exchange, had turned and was walking from the room, Algaria added, “One of us will check with you every few hours, in case there’s any change, or if you need anything. He may not wake tonight, but as long as he continues to breathe, there’s no reason to suppose all is not proceeding as it should.”

Grateful for the reassurance, Heather watched Algaria follow Catriona from the room, watched the door close.

Then she looked at Breckenridge, lying so silent on the bed.

A straight-backed chair stood angled between the bed and the hearth. Drawing it to the bed, she sat, leaned her elbows on the covers, took one of his hands—so cold and lifeless—in hers, cradled it between her palms.

Willed him to live.

Ignoring the vast, chill emptiness inside, the devastating desolation hovering, she focused her mind, all her inner energy, on that one single goal.

He had to live.

Whatever it took, whatever she could do.

He was her all, her everything. She knew that now, believed that now—believed with her mind, her heart, and her soul, believed with every fibre of her being.

No matter what it took, she wasn’t going to let him go.

H
e didn’t wake. Not through that first long night, nor the day that followed.

Heather left the room, his bedside, only for minutes. Through the deep watches of the first night, she climbed onto the bed, and lay alongside him; she slept—napped—with one hand wrapped about one of his, just in case he woke.

He didn’t even stir.

The next day dawned gray and chill, with a flurry of rain hitting the windows. Catriona and Algaria were in and out through most of the day, assessing his condition, changing the bandages and the poultice they were using to draw the infection.

Heather helped; between the three of them they could manage his weight, could shift him, strip him, wash and cleanse, then bandage him up once more.

She spoke little; there was little to say.

To her eyes, the wound was cleaner, yet still horrific, a hideous tear through his side. Having seen the damage, she redoubled her prayers to God, to the Lady, to any deity who might consent to listen, grateful for his survival thus far, even more desperate for his continuing life.

Catriona and Algaria exchanged observations in low murmurs; Heather didn’t need to listen to know what they said. Their tones, their grave expressions, told her all she needed to know.

Breckenridge literally lay at death’s door.

When night came again, he yet lay silent and still. The manor quieted; Catriona came to check on him one last time before seeking her bed. After examining him, she straightened, sighed. Then she laid a hand on Heather’s shoulder, lightly gripped. “Have faith.”

Releasing her, Catriona left.

Heather sat on the chair beside the bed, her gaze locked on his face. Unbidden, her fingers rose to touch the rose quartz pendant beneath her bodice.

Have faith. Believe.

She did.

She understood now what fate asked of her—to have the strength to hold on regardless. To acknowledge that, even if he died, even if he left her, she would still love him until the day she died.

Love didn’t care. Love simply was.

Love was unconditional.

Love was for ever more.

She had faith in love. She believed in love.

She would love him in life and in death.

And if the chance came again she would convince him of that.

As the night closed around her, she closed her eyes and prayed.

H
is senses swam back to him, returned to him, yet not in the usual way. He felt . . . detached. Distanced. Still a part of reality, but as if a thin veil separated him from the earthly world.

He was floating.

Free of the pain that had gripped him for days.

Free of the body he’d inhabited for three and a half decades—the body lying, weak and wracked with agony, in the big bed.

That body—his body—was chilled to the bone.

He could see, but not with his eyes. He could feel, but he wasn’t sure how or why. Which senses were telling him what he now knew, he could no longer discern.

The cold and the pain . . . they’d driven him out.

Out of his body, out into the night.

Out beyond the veil.

He could feel a tug, a gentle tempting encouraging him to just let go and float away, away from the world, from the pain and the cold and the devastating agony.

All he had to do was decide, just make up his mind and let go, and his connection to the world would fade away and he would find blessed peace.

Blessed peace waited one last heartbeat away.

He—his body in the bed—drew a deeper, pain-wracked breath . . . and he thought of making that decision.

His last decision.

What reason did he have to live?

What was left to hold him to this world?

Even as the thought formed, the answers flooded in.

His father.

His two, dear, evil ugly sisters.

Heather.

He paused at that last, wondering why she was still in his list. She hadn’t loved him, had told him to leave, to walk away . . . why, then, did his connection to her remain?

That connection . . . he could, in this odd state, almost feel it. Touch it, see it. Like a shining rope, stretched out yet strong, it glowed in his consciousness, vital and true, powerful, alive . . . living.

Real.

He’d thought he was alone, lying cold, agony-wracked, and silenced in the big bed, but that shining rope . . . led somewhere. It was fixed somehow. It anchored him to the world, to life.

Another whisper from beyond shivered through him, beckoning, calling.

But now he’d seen what lived inside him, been dazzled by its beauty, he had to know—needed to know—before he took that last irrevocable step and turned his back on the wonder, on the joy.

On the incomparable beauty of love.

He opened his senses—not touch or sight, but whatever in this state passed for those—and immediately knew where the shining rope ended.

Heather was sitting by his bedside, but she had crossed her arms on the covers and laid her head down. One slim hand was nestled in his lax palm. Her hair was spread fanlike, a golden veil flung across the covers, gilt strands a delicate net across her cheek.

She was sleeping.

His immediate thought was that she couldn’t be comfortable, that he should rise, lift her, and settle her in the bed . . .

He paused, thought.

Remembered she’d rejected him.

Remembered that he’d still risked his life—brought himself to this, to the edge of life—in order to save her.