Page 91 of The Rebellious Lady and the Phantom Lord
The sailor wrenched the cane away from Weylin and cracked it with bone-shattering force upon the old man’s skull. As Weylin staggered back, Phaedra caught him, but she could not support his weight. He crashed to his knees, his wig askew, blood flowing down his face.
Phaedra saw Gilly’s fist smash into the sailor’s jaw, but after that the scene descended into a whirl of violence. As Phaedra tried to stem the blood gushing from Weylin’s head, the rest of the crowd surged forward. Gilly was swallowed up in a press of struggling bodies and a flurry of fists.
It was all Phaedra could do to keep her grandfather from pitching forward onto his face when rough hands seized her.
A grizzled male face distorted by an ugly sneer, pressed close, the reek of his fetid breath sickening. “Eh-this must be one of those Irish whores I’ve heard tell of.”
Phaedra struck out blindly, leveling her fist at the man’s eyes.
A bellow of rage followed, and a hand smacked hard against her cheek, making her dizzy with fear and pain. She struggled against the hands she felt trying to thrust her downward, tearing at the bodice of her gown.
She was released so suddenly, she fell back upon the pavement. She had little time to comprehend what had happened when a whisper of steel flashed past her line of vision. The man who had assaulted her reeled back, clutching his bloodied shoulder and yelping with pain.
She gazed upward to see James providing a barrier between her and the madness erupting on all sides. His eyes narrowed to deadly slits, he swept his sword in a protective arc, ready to cut down the next man who approached.
He spared her not so much as a glance, barking a command over his shoulder. “Get her out of here.”
She did not know to whom he had spoken until she felt Jonathan trying to help her up. But she pulled away, staring wildly about her. She could not find Gilly. Her grandfather lay sprawled on the street near the curb, his coarse features ashen beneath the smearing of blood.
Phaedra crept to Weylin’s side just as Ridley drew up with the carriage. In the midst of such mayhem, Phaedra didn’t know how they managed it, but somehow she, Jonathan, and the footmen hefted her grandfather’s inert bulk onto the floor of the coach. She looked frantically about for some sign of James and Gilly, and she saw them by the rear of the carriage, providing a protective shield for her grandfather’s escape, the dark-haired Irishman with fists upraised, and the silk-clad James, the glint of his sword as lethal as his expression.
Before Phaedra could protest, Jonathan thrust her into the carriage after her grandfather. “No!” she cried out. “We can’t leave—” But her words were lost as Jonathan vaulted in after her.
Gilly and James vanished from view as Jonathan slammed the door and the coach lurched forward into the night.
As her unconscious grandfather was carried into Jonathan’s house, Phaedra refused to follow. “Damn it, Jonathan. We’ve got to go back.”
“Please, Phaedra.” He caught her by the wrist, pulling her toward the door of his town house. “Didn’t I tell you that I saw the marquis and Mr. Fitzhurst escaping just as we drove away? Your cousin grabbed up a horse and pulled Varnais up after him. Don’t you believe me?”
“Aye, but...” Phaedra turned to peer down the street, praying to see Gilly and James materialize out of the darkness. How she wished she had seen them ride off herself. She would not breathe easy until she was sure they were safe.
Feeling helpless, she followed Jonathan into the house. While the doctor was summoned to attend Sawyer. Phaedra was ushered into one of the spare bedchambers. She washed away the blood that spattered her hands and changed into a drab gown provided for her by Jonathan’s housekeeper. She was overcome with guilt. In the next room lay her grandfather, unconscious- perhaps dying-and yet she could think only of Gilly and James.
She had all but decided she had to go back to Covent Garden to search for them, even if she had to steal one of Jonathan’s horses to do it, when she heard a commotion down below. The banging at the front door heralded someone’s arrival.
Her heart constricted with both fear and hope. She raced to the front door, thrusting aside Jonathan’s elderly servant. Phaedra choked back a cry of relief as Gilly staggered acrossthe threshold, but her relief quickly turned to alarm when she realized he was supporting James.
“Don’t be so damned stubborn, man,” Gilly said, gritting his teeth with the strain of his efforts. “Lean on me before I am obliged to carry you.”
“James.” She spoke his name softly, her voice constricting. But it was her cousin who glanced up at her, his face caked with dirt and blood. They might have been two old friends, staggering home after a drunken spree, if James’s face had not been so deathly pale.
“Gilly. What ...” she faltered.
“Now don’t start to fret, Fae. We did just grand until his lairdship broke his sword. Quite a dab with his fists, he is. If it hadn’t been for that blasted sailor pulling a knife?—”
“Knife!” she cried out as James’s legs threatened to buckle beneath him. She strove to support him on the other side, but he managed to regain his balance and thrust her aside. The sting of his rejection was lost in fear as she saw the blood soaking his shoulder.
Tersely she summoned Jonathan’s manservant, and they managed to get James up to the spare bedchamber. The room was austere, as sparsely furnished as all the other rooms in Jonathan’s house.
As James was eased onto the bed, his head sagged against the pillow. He appeared to have lost consciousness, and his face was so drained of color that Phaedra was paralyzed with dread.
She forced herself into action, her fingers working the buttons of his shirt. As she eased the fabric away from his shoulder, his eyes fluttered open. He regarded her through an agony-filled haze, then mumbled to Gilly, “Get her out of here.”
He tried to sit up, but Gilly forced him back to the pillows. “Steady, man. You’re better off with her care than that of some doctors I’ve known.”
James ground his teeth as she finished peeling the shirt away from the wound, exposing an ugly jagged gash.
Gilly pursed his lips. “He’ll be needing a bit of stitching, I’m thinking.”
