Page 50 of What a Courtesan Wants
“Thomas! Lucius!” Benedict bellowed, while snatching off his coat. “Step away. Let me help him.”
Everything within her rebelled at the thought of leaving Aubrey, but she understood the sense in allowing Benedict to take over. The man looked strong enough to bear Aubrey’s weight, while Lucinda wouldn’t have been able to budge him more than few inches.
“Careful of his head,” she said, easing herself from beneath him as Benedict thrust the coat at the approaching footman and driver.
“Help me get him up,” he ordered one, while the other carried his coat back to the carriage.
Together, Benedict and the servant hoisted Aubrey from the ground, Ben holding his shoulders and the other man grasping his legs.
Lucinda trembled as she watched them carefully ease him into the carriage. Swallowing past the tears and sobs threatening to overwhelm her at any moment, she fought not to stare at the crimson stains on her hands and the front of her skirts.
Once Aubrey was laid on the squabs of the carriage, his legs sprawled out before him, Benedict turned to her, the rain plastering his clothes to his body and his hair to his face and neck.
“I’ll get him to my—”
“No,” she interjected. “We’ll take him to my townhouse … I live closer than you do, and I know a doctor who will come the moment I send for him.”
She didn’t add that this same doctor had been the one to care for Magnus every time he’d fallen ill. Lucinda wouldn’t trust Aubrey with anyone else.
Ben’s jaw tightened as he gave her an obstinate look—one that told her he wanted to argue. But there wasn’t time, and he seemed to realize that. Aubrey was losing blood and needed the attention of a physician, immediately.
“Fine,” he said with a heavy sigh. “Get in.”
She rushed past him without hesitation, lifting her sodden skirts and vaulting into the carriage. Benedict followed while bellowing her address to the driver. After a moment of awkward maneuvering to make them both fit around Aubrey’s sprawling limbs, they settled opposite one another. Lucinda took the seat beside Aubrey, easing him to lay on his side with his head in her lap. Fumbling about in the dark, she pressed her skirts to the back of his head to staunch the flow of blood.
Lucinda felt Benedict’s assessing stare on her from across the carriage and knew the man must be trying to puzzle her out. He and Aubrey were the best of friends, so it stood to reason he was aware of all that had passed between them. She wouldn’t blame him if he outright disliked her for what she’d put Aubrey through, but just now none of that mattered. Ensuring that Aubrey would be all right took precedence. Everything else could wait.
Lowering her head over him, she kissed his cheek, then his unresponsive lips. Tears sprang to her eyes as the poignant moments of their first real kiss came rushing back to her. What a difference the span of a few minutes could make. How easily things could change in the blink of an eye. It didn’t matter if the person she loved died slowly over time or was snatched away from her in an instant … life would always be such a fragile thing, easily lost. It only made her feel more guilty for how long she’d held Aubrey at a distance, and she lamented the time that had already been wasted with him trying to love her, and her resisting.
“No more,” she whispered to his prone form. “Do you hear? I’ll never run from you again. I’m yours, Aubrey … always.”
A few hours later,Lucinda sat at the side of her own bed, swathed in a warm, dry dressing gown with her damp hair coiled into a knot at the nape of her neck. A tea service sat on the bedside table, but she ignored it, choosing instead to cling to Aubrey’s hand and will him to awaken. The physician had come and gone, declaring Aubrey’s injuries to be minor. She’d found that difficult to believe, but the man had assured her that the blood had only seemed so copious because of the rain. His head wound had needed stitching, and a length of clean white bandages had been wrapped around his head to protect it. As Lucinda had suspected, his ribs had been injured, though they weren’t broken. He’d awakened during the examination, cursing and bellowing from the pain of being poked and prodded, then stitched back together, but a draught of laudanum had put him back under and offered him relief.
Lucinda and Benedict had hovered in the corridor, both refusing to leave or change out of their sodden clothing until making certain Aubrey would be all right. Servants had seen Benedict to a guestroom, where he had been offered some of Magnus’s clothing—they were of similar height and build—while his were laid out to dry. Lucinda had also instructed a hot meal and tea be delivered to him, but a knock at the door preceded the man’s appearance.
She found him before her dressed in shirt and trousers, hair still damp and curling about his ears. Like her, he probably didn’t have any interest in eating, not while his best friend lay nursing a concussed head and bruised ribs.
“Has he roused yet?”
“No, but you are welcome to wait with me if you wish.”
She’d grown too anxious to sit alone with the silence of the room putting her even more on edge.
Benedict crossed to her sitting area and dragged a chair to the other side of the bed. His brow furrowed with concern as he stared at the man lying between them, a heavy sigh racing through his nose.
“He’ll be all right,” he said, and it seemed he spoke more to himself than Lucinda. “He’s the strongest man I know.”
Thinking over what she knew of his past, and the way he’d shouldered so much responsibility from such a young age and made his own way in the world, Lucinda could not help but murmur, “I agree.”
Those intense blue eyes snapped up to fix on her and he leaned forward in his chair. “He saved my life, you know.”
She raised her eyebrows, shocked at this revelation. Benedict’s hand came up to his face, the pad of his first finger moving over a small white scar on his temple.
“What happened?”
He blinked as if coming out of a trance and gave his head a shake. “Perhaps I will tell you the story someday. But for now, it isn’t pertinent. What matters is that when I needed someone he was there and has been ever since. I love him like a brother … and I’m sure knowing that you can understand why I was not very fond of you at first. At least, not as a companion for him.”
Indignation flared within her before dying way. Could she truly blame the man? Of course, he wouldn’t have liked her after the way she’d treated Aubrey in the beginning.
