Page 84 of In Compromise with the Earl
He saw no one outside—yet—but heard the hurried fall of horse’s hooves and the raged hollering of several men who now surrounded the carriage—muggers. Belatedly, he realized he should have driven away when the steeds were intact, but it was too late now; all he could do was deal with the robbers himself.
He should have paid more attention before all this happened or he should have gone home and arranged for a standard meeting with the Duke like a sensible Lord. With his back to front of the carriage, he heaved a seething breath, readying his pistol.
Muscles tense in anticipation, he moved, crouching along the carriage floor toward the door. He reached for the door handle, ready to shoot the moment he saw any of them, when the door ripped open.
He leveled the pistol and let one fly between the man’s eyes. He lurched out of the vehicle, and landed on his feet, only to throw himself into the bushes. Rolling up he aimed but a mugger landed on top of him and kicked the gun away before he dropped on Oswald and the two wrestled in the dirt and brambles.
A punch to his jaw had his vision wavering for a moment before his instinct took ahold of him and the beast inside him took over. He punched harder than he ever did in the boxing ring, not stopping even when he heard bones snap and cartilage crunch under his fist.
When the body was unresponsive, Oswald shunted him to the side and reached around, blindly searching for the pistol when the third attacker landed a kick to his side, sending him on his back and just as his hands landed on the cold handle of the gun—moonlight glinted off the barrel of another gun before it went off; right into him, sending his vison black.
The mugger ran off into the night, leaping onto one of the horses and racing away just as his eyes closed and he slipped unconscious.
* * *
Aphrodite tightened her robe while gazing out on the dark driveway. The grandfather clock in the hall below had chimed ten o’clock and Oswald was not home. She could not stop the sinking feeling in her heart that something was wrong.
She did not know what was happening to him and that scared her more than she could ever admit. Even worse, she hated sleeping alone in that enormous bed not three feet away from her. She had become so accustomed to his big, warm body in the bed beside her, his strong arms holding her close.
She missed his familiar scent on her skin and the solid beat of his heart under her ear when they slept, wrapped around each other so tightly, it was difficult to decipher where she ended and he began.
Downcast, she went to the bed praying that when they saw each other again, they would have the single conversation that would be a linchpin of their marriage. If he was straying, she would leave—but the very notion of it made her heart lurch as she loved him, truly, undeniably loved him.
Slipping under the sheets, she reached out for one of his pillows and hugged it to her chest.
“Come home, Oswald,” she whispered. “Please, come home.”
* * *
The pain in his arm jolted Oswald awake. Pain was a hot greased knife right through his body, sinking deeply and radiating through his body with every pulse of his heart; when Oswald dared suck in a breath, it grew worse.
Reaching up with his uninjured hand, his fingers inched to his arm, and he felt warm, metallic blood pulsing from the wound. Oswald knew the attacker had aimed for his heart, and he thanked God that he had been hit in the upper arm instead.
The wound was still fresh which meant he had not been unconscious for too long. It was still a trial to sit up and maneuver his ripped jacket from one shoulder and down the other.
Now and then, he had to stop to suck in a hot, shuddery breath because his head was fogged up with pain and the pulsing from his arm was not helping.
When he got the cloth off, he reached into an inner pocket and pulled out a handkerchief that he gingerly wrapped around his arm and using his teeth made a tight tourniquet around the wound, tight enough that the bruised flesh started to get numb.
Little by little, he pushed himself to his feet and after grabbing the pistol, he shoved it into his waistband and went back to the carriage. His driver was dead and so was one of his dappled grays, but he managed to unhitch the lone horse, mount it and ride off the way they had come, hoping that he could find his way back to the Hall.
Guiding his horse with his knees, he took to the streets and managed to get to Seven Dials Square. On secure footing, he slid from the horse and hailed a hackney.
It proved how desensitized the men of that town were that the man did not blink an eye at how ragged and bloody Oswald was. “Soho, and be quick about it,” he ordered, thankfully that he still felt the bag of crowns and silver pressing against his arm from his folded jacket.
As he settled onto the seat, he pressed his head to the windowsill and sucked in a breath—if this had been a robbery, why had they left him with his money?
“T’wasn’t a mugging,” he breathed out painfully. “It was an assassination.”
He could not go back home this way as showing up beaten and bloody would bring more questions than he had answers—so the only recourse was to find Leo and have his cousin help him.
When the hackney trundled into the Leo’s street, Oswald painfully descended from the carriage and paid the man a crown. He labored up the walk, and climbing the single step made him dizzier than ever before.
He rested his good shoulder on the frame of the door and he sucked in a shuddery breath as his mind was swimming in pain. He banged on the door, thumping as he hard he could. If he could talk, he would have shouted Leo’s name but he was in so much pain and weak he did not have that strength.
The cold, misty air was seeping through his lawn shirt and chilling him to his bone, and he barely held onto to the thinning shreds of his strength. He lifted his hand to bang again, when the door was yanked open and Leo, clad in a plain robe, gazed at him with an open mouth.
“Oswald, what in God’s name—”
