Page 18 of The Last Debutante
WHEN THE MANfell, he took Daria with him. She landed half on top of him, half off, and had to work her arm out from beneath his shoulder. She put her hand beneath his nose. She felt the warmth of his breath and a rush of relief went through her.
She lay there for a moment or two, that sliver of a thought skipping through her mind of how—no,why—she was here. She’d scarcely gained her feet when she heard pounding on the cottage door. “Off with you, you mangy dog!” Mamie shouted. That was followed by the sound of more banging.
“Now you’ve done it,” Daria whispered to the man lying on the floor.
She hurried to the door and slid the bolt open. Mamie swept in, slamming the door shut on the dog. “Did you bandage him?”
“I did—” Daria started, but Mamie was already striding to the back room. Daria ran to catch up.
Mamie cried out when she saw the man on the floor. “What in heaven’s name has happened?” she demanded as Daria entered the room behind her.
“He wanted to test the strength of his leg,” Daria said. “One moment he seemed fine, and the next, he... he just fell.”
“Well, of course he did. The salve had something in it to help him sleep,” Mamie said, and knelt to press the back of her hand against the stubble on his cheek. “He’s not feverish.”
Daria stared at Mamie. “You put something in the salve? That’s a rather dark shade of deceit, is it not?”
Mamie clucked and gave Daria a dismissive wave of her hand.
“Honestly, Mamie, if I didn’t know you better, I’d think you put something in the salve because you know he doesn’t want it, and then gave it to me to administer so he’d not suspect it,” Daria said accusingly.
“What an imagination you have!” Mamie said, but the color in her cheeks was rising. “Help me, darling. We must return him to his bed.”
The man sprawled on the floor weighed fifteen stone if he weighed one. “We can’t possibly lift him. We’ll have to leave him on the floor until he comes to.”
“We can’t very well leave him on the floor!”
Daria stood up and stalked to the bed, grabbing up a pair of pillows. “Then perhaps the Brodie lads might finally appear to help you.”
Mamie gave her a dark look but did not give her the satisfaction of a reply.
Daria knelt down, lifted the man’s head, and slid the pillow underneath him. His head lolled to one side.
“He’ll catch his death here,” Mamie said.
The fleeting thought that if he were to die, then Mamie would have succeeded swept through Daria’s mind. She quickly forced it out. “Pray that he’ll not sleep as long as that,” she said crisply, and stood again to retrieve a blanket from the bed, which she draped over his body.
She paused, staring down at him. For a potential criminal, he looked handsome in his sleep, really. There was the dark growth of beard on his face, and his hair was matted from lying in bed, but there was a softness in his features that she did not see when he was awake. He didn’t look as hard or as angry.
“Come, Daria,” Mamie said, and Daria reached down to help her as she clumsily gained her feet. Her grandmother paused, her hands to her back, bending backward, then walked out of the room.
Daria followed her. “Did you find help?” she asked when they were in the kitchen.
“Hmm?” Mamie said, as if she’d momentarily forgotten what she’d gone out to do. “Unfortunately, not as yet. The Brodie lads were not to be found.”
The mysterious Brodie lads were never quite where anyone needed them, were they? But why in God’s name would Mamie lie about this? What possible reason could she have to keep this man sedated in her house?
The question of what to do plagued Daria well into the night. She tossed and turned in the freezing third bedroom, wrapped in a wool shawl and huddled beneath the coverlet. There was no hearth in this room, and it was cold as ice. She burrowed down and closed her eyes, but could see only a pair of hazel eyes, a square chin covered with dark stubble, a jagged wound in a man’s thigh.
She’d never been so challenged. A life of tea and dancing and gossip had left her woefully ill-prepared for these obstacles. But if Mamie would not seek help, Daria would have to. The only thing she knew to do was to walk the ten miles or so to Nairn.
All right then, she would have to plan for it. First, there was the issue of shoes. Perhaps Mamie had some boots she might borrow. She would need to pack a bit of food, wouldn’t she? And then... then she would follow the road. It couldn’t be that difficult, could it? Follow the road to Nairn, where she would send a letter to Charity and ask her to come straightaway. And then she would prevail on any authority there to help her. All very easy!
She had to believe it was easy because she had no other hope. If she was successful, Daria couldn’t even guess what it might mean for Mamie. She feared for her grandmother. But she feared more for the stranger’s life.
Morning came quite early after such a sleepless night. Daria pulled on a woolen robe Mamie had given her and combed her hair, letting it fall loose down her back. She padded down the little hallway to the main living area. She could smell ham, and found the one Mamie had buried beneath the hot coals at the hearth last night. She dug it out and removed it from the covered cast iron skillet, placed it on a platter, and put that in the middle of the table. Funny, she thought sleepily, that after only a matter of days, she was quite comfortable pulling hams from glowing embers. As she stirred the embers she heard a door open. She expected to hear footsteps, but the heavy, lurching step and dragging foot were decidedlynotMamie’s.
Daria quickly stood and wrapped the robe tightly around her. The stranger came into view, dragging his injured leg. He was wrapped in his plaid, belted precariously with a soiled bandage. His matted hair stood on end, his beard had thickened, and dear God, how his eyes were blazing. Not with fever. With anger. He glared at Daria as he wordlessly passed her and roughly pulled a wooden chair from the table, landing on it with a grunt and then laboriously arranging his leg beneath the table. He saw the ham and instantly leaned forward, his hand reaching—
