Page 4 of The Marquess Wins a Wife
“No one knows we took him,” Willie argued. “Let him bleed out, I say. He’ll be gone and buried afore anyone comes looking for him.”
“No,” Lizzie said again, aware of the way the marquess had stiffened between them.
“He’ll hangyou, Miss Lizzie,” Willie growled. “He said it hisself.”
Yes, he probably would. The courts would certainly not care that it had been an accident. She’d shot apeer. “Then we shall simply have to hope he recovers without incident and his better nature prevails.”
A grunt from the marquess, which Lizzie presumed was meant to convey something like,unlikely.
Willie gave a rough laugh. “Seen his sort before, I have. He hasn’t gota better nature, Miss Lizzie, and that’s God’s honest truth.” He wrenched the marquess upwards, hefting the man up the stairs a step at a time. “Up you climb, m’lord, and if you think you’ll be hanging our Lizzie, you can damn well think again.”
But the marquess’ eyes had closed, and Lizzie didn’t think he was aware of anything more than being practically dragged toward their destination. She could hear Imogen fluttering about, cupboards opening, linens rustling, and the pound of harried footsteps in the hall.
God’s blood, but the man was heavy now that he’d given over most of his weight. The door at the end of the hall seemed an insurmountable space to cover, stretching into the distance even as they strained toward it in an odd, clumsy manner. Lizzie knocked her shoulder against the wall of the hallway, then gritted her teeth as she readjusted her clammy grip upon the marquess, who breathed in fierce little pants that terrified her with their quickness, their alarming force.
Through the door at last. Her shoulders ached with exertion. The whole of her body ached with exhaustion. Probably not quite as much as the marquess’, though.
“Laudanum,” she wheezed to Willie, as they hefted him onto the bed, newly appointed with fresh linens and a counterpane that wasn’t musty with age and dust, thank God. “And fresh water. Bandages, salve, tweezers—”
“Brandy.” It was a strange, painful groan as the marquess fell onto his good side.
Lizzie wasn’t sure they had any such thing in the house, but— “Spirits,” she said. “If we have got any. Whatever you can find, Willie, please, in a hurry.” Or as much of a hurry as Willie could manage.
Willie ambled toward the door, his steely gaze fixed upon the man lying in the bed. “Could’ve let him die,” he sniffed. “And now he’ll take your fine linens with him as he goes, Miss Lizzie.”
∞∞∞
Luke was going to die. InHatfield, of all places. Probably the little murderess would have her manservant feed his body to the bloody pigs once he’d nipped off into the hereafter. The pain was excruciating; a ball of fire centered over his arm that radiated agony throughout his body.
He was aware, distantly, that he had been taken to a bed. That knowledge offered no comfort, no surcease from the pain that wracked him. But the small, nimble fingers that worked the buttons of his coat provided a welcome distraction.
The anger, too, blunted the razor-sharp edges of the pain. “Don’t bother playing the ministering angel,” he sneered. “It won’t save you.” Not when shehadplacedhim here—dying by inches in a bed that felt as if the mattress had not had its filling replaced in ages.
A soft inhale, followed by a determined, “Nevertheless.” Still those fingers spread the wool of his coat, ever so gently pulling the blood-soaked fabric from the gaping hole of the wound in his arm. Softly, delicately—as if she made every effort not to pain him further. “Can you help me, my lord? I shall have to pull your arm from your sleeve.”
“The coat is ruined.” And so was he. “You can damn well cut it off if you must.”
Her hovering presence disappeared for a moment; he heard the protesting shriek of a long-disused drawer being pulled open, and the shuffling of objects within. And then she was back again. “Don’t move, if you please. I shouldn’t like to nick you. The scissors are sharp.”
“What’s the difference? You’ve already shot me.” There was a momentary tightness as she slipped the blade beneath his cuff and snipped through the fabric. Her fingers were warm; he could feel them even through the linen of his shirt, and he concentrated onthemrather than on the searing ache of his wound. “The shirt, too,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
He didn’t care about the blasted shirt. “Youwillbe.”
“I already am.” His shirt, waistcoat, and coat all met a swift end at the point of her shears, falling to tatters, which she pulled from around and beneath him. He hissed at the sensation of the fabric being tugged away from his wound, and it sent a fresh burst of anguish racing through his veins. His vision descended into a red haze; there was a faint buzzing in his ears that grew to a crescendo—and by the time the pain receded enough for conscious thought once again, there was a slender arm slipped beneath his neck and the astringent scent of alcohol before his nose.
A glass hovered there before him, though he could see only the blurry outline of it with the way his vision had fogged. The juniper and pine taste of gin hit his tongue.
“Damn you,” he said, though he drank it down anyway. “I saidbrandy. What the hell isthis?”
“All we’ve got.” There was a soothing stroke of wetness along his back, blotting away the blood that was turning sticky upon his skin. “I’m terribly sorry, my lord, but I’m going to have to stitch you up.”
To her credit, she sound no more enthused about the idea of it than hewas.
“I’lldo it.” The old man this time, with a thread of ire humming in his voice.
Luke managed to crack one eye open to glare at the woman sitting at his bedside. “You let that malevolent old goat get within a stone’s throw of me, and I’ll hang you myself.”
A flicker of fear there, in those dark eyes, so heavily lashed they looked faintly slumberous. “That won’t be necessary, Willie,” she said. “God knows you’ve never managed more than a button.”
