Page 28 of Too Wylde To Tame
“You will ask your very wise and very insightful husband for guidance and I… I will be able to read a novel in peace for once!” Her cousin teased.
Charity was laughing, as Delia had intended. For the moment, her worries were put aside. They were still there, lingering on the periphery of her mind. But for the time being, she could ignore them and try to focus only on the happy events that lay ahead.
* * *
It hadn’t takenhim very long to realize that the graze was a bit more than that. The amount of blood that had drenched the sleeve of his coat and then trickled down his arm was alarming in its sheer volume. Strangely, the pain was gone. The burn had grown more and more intense until it simply vanished.
He’d also stopped looking over his shoulder. It wasn’t the belief that Jameson wasn’t in pursuit. It was that doing so would only have slowed him down or, even worse, given his present state might have sent him toppling from the saddle. So he’d stayed low, leaning over Balthazar’s neck and galloping as fast as he could.
When he jumped the fence, it took all he had in him to keep his seat. That in and of itself told him just how weakened he was by his injury. Frederick hadn’t fallen or been thrown from a horse since he was a boy, intentional sabotage not withstanding. He was more at home on horse back than walking.
By the time he reached the stables, he was hanging on to consciousness by a single, fragile thread. Dismounting, he held onto the saddle for a moment to steady himself. Vaguely, he was aware of someone speaking to him, of a stable boy rushing up to take his mount from him and a pair of grooms propping him up beneath his arms. Then they were walking to the house. In truth, they were half dragging him because he couldn’t quite manage to make his feet move as they ought to.
That was his last conscious thought before a veil of gray surrounded him. Slowly the world went dark and he no longer had any awareness of what was happening around him. But even as he slipped into unconsciousness, he whispered a word that had the grooms looking from one to another with unease. He’d saidbrother.
TWENTY
Charity stared at the tangled mass of threads and sighed with frustration. She had wanted to do something for Frederick, a small token that would be somewhat intimate. She’d had a length of silk in her sewing basket that she’d purchased with the intent that she would make a lovely gown for Felicty’s first born, whenever she made an announcement that one was imminent. But now she’d elected to repurpose that silk to make new neckcloth for Frederick, embroidered with their intertwined initials. It might have been a lovely gesture, if she wasn’t so distracted that all of her stitches kept going awry. Now there were so many holes in the silk it was likely beyond repair.
The door to the morning room opened and she saw Marguerite standing there, her face quite pale and stricken. “What is it?” Charity demanded. “What’s happened?”
“It’s Lord Frederick, Charity.”
Had he cried off? Had he changed his mind? Immediately, she dismissed the notion. He would not have. And even if he did, he certainly would not be so dishonorable as to have the information delivered to her secondhand. “Is he unwell?”
“He has been shot,” Marguerite said. “He is injured, but the severity is unknown yet. A physician has been summoned… he is unconscious and appears to have lost a great deal of blood.”
The ruined silk fell from her numb fingers, fluttering to the floor where it lay utterly forgotten. “Where is he?”
“They’ve taken him to a room off the kitchens. His condition was unknown and they didn’t wish to risk the time it would take to cart him upstairs, or that in the process they might worsen his injury,” Marguerite explained. “Felicity is with him now and Phinneas, as well. They are tending him and… well, you should be there. It’s hardly proper, but until we know—”
Marguerite’s abruptly halted speech was telling enough. “Until we know if he will die? Is that what you meant to say?”
Marguerite nodded. “It is. Now is not the time to fall to pieces, Charity. That can come later. For now, you must gather your strength and face this. For his sake and for yours.”
Knowing it was necessary and being able to achieve it were entirely different things. Still, Charity managed to set her things aside and get to her feet, despite her trembling knees. Grimly, she followed Marguerite form the room and toward the kitchens. There was a flurry of activity—maids and kitchen girls bustling to and fro. But one corner of the busy place was strangely quiet. Through the open door, she could see Phinneas washing blood from his hands. Her stomach rebelled and it was all she could do to avoid vomiting right there. It wasn’t missishness that caused the response, but fear. Fear held her in its grip even as she stepped toward that open door.
The sight that greeted her when she entered the room was one that she would never forget. Frederick lay on the bed, his clothing had been cut from his body and lay in a discarded heap on the floor. Even from a distance, she could see that they were saturated with blood. It was a shocking sight. Above the sheet that had been pulled up over his chest, his skin was so pale, the normal vitality that he displayed having vanished in the wake of his injury.
“How… is it very bad?” she asked.
“I have seen worse,” Phinneas offered. “But the pistol ball is lodged in his shoulder, but not deeply and does not appear to have injured anything vital. To have ridden so far with no chance to staunch the bleeding and no doubt in a considerable amount of pain—that is likely why he is unconscious. Hopefully the physician will be able to remove the ball and stitch the wound. Then it’s simply a matter of keeping it from festering. Fever is our greatest enemy now.”
Her knees were quaking with fear as she sank down onto a chair that had miraculously been placed behind her. In a voice that sounded completely alien to her, Charity asked the dreaded question. “Who could have done this to him?”
Immediately, her brother in law looked away. But the muscle working in his jaw showed the anger he clearly felt. Why? Oh, certainly, he and Frederick were friendly acquaintances. They liked and respected one another but were hardly bosom chums. So what prompted his response?
It was Felicity who answered the question, her tone unbearably gentle. “When Lord Dartwell was being helped into the house by the grooms… he indicated that Lord Jameson was his attacker. His brother shot him. The motive remains unclear.”
“It’s quite certain,” Phinneas corrected. “Frederick and Charity are on the verge of marrying. It stands to reason that children will follow, which result in Jameson lose his position as heir apparent.”
“This is all because of me,” Charity whispered in horror.
“No,” Felicity said sharply. “It’s happening because Lord Jameson Dartwell is a conscienceless, scheming, criminal. Do not take this on yourself, Charity. Not when you are not at all to blame! If he were awake to do so, no doubt your betrothed would tell you the same.”
Further conversation was halted by the arrival of the doctor and the local magistrate. The stable master had sent grooms to fetch both and bring them back to the estate. Suddenly the small sick room was a flurry of activity.
“The ladies should leave. I’ll have to dig out the pistol ball and that will be… a grim sight,” the doctor said.
