Page 74 of A Duke Under Her Spell
It was opportunity that Felix had been waiting for. He raised his pistol and fired. The Earl’s stunned expression would have been comical had it not been so horrific. Felix rushed forward taking the opportunity to get the upper hand over his enemy. “You shot me,” the Earl accused as he slumped down against the wall. Blood bloomed across his white shirt stemming from his shoulder.
“Yes, I did.”
“Why didn’t you kill me?”
“Because I am not you, Bredon. I do not kill people if I have any other choice. You will face the magistrate for what you have done, and you will hang for your crimes.”
“I am a peer of the realm. They would not dare to hang a man such as I,” the Earl protested. “Not over a mere witch.”
“You should never have tried to kill the favorite cousin of the King,” Felix retorted shaking his head as if he pitied the poor man for his stupidity. “You will hang as surely as I am standing here.” Turning to Alexander he nodded his approval and the young lord stepped forward and pulled the Earl to his feet.
“We are going to have little chat, you and I, concerning the whereabouts of my father,” Alexander growled. He shoved the barrel of his pistol into the bullet wound in the Earl’s shoulder as if to offer a preview of what was to come.
“You may use the library if you wish,” Felix offered. “Hot pokers might offer an irresistible method of persuasion.”
“Indeed,” Alexander agreed and left the room, hauling the Earl along in front of him at gunpoint.
Felix sat down on the edge of the bed and took his mother in his arms. Mrs. Taylor, the head housekeeper, appeared in the doorway taking in the situation. “Mrs. Snow!” she exclaimed in shock moving forward to kneel beside the deceased lady’s maid. “I heard gunfire, Your Grace, and came running. What has happened?”
“I do not have time to explain, Mrs. Taylor. The Dowager Duchess has ingested poison and is in great need of our help.”
“What of Miss Wright? Should I not go and fetch her?”
“Miss Wright has been shot and is in no fit state to be caring for anyone. There is a doctor on the way, but he will not arrive here in time to save my mother if we do not act fast. Felix began issuing orders attempting to remember everything that Marybeth had taught him about medicine. “Charcoal! I need crushed charcoal! Oh, what did she say was good for poisons?” He racked his brain attempting to remember the plants she had said would aid in a time such this.
“I am no healer, Your Grace, but I do know a fair bit about poisons and such from my mother,” Mrs. Taylor offered sweeping coals from the fireplace and grinding them up into a pan. “What you need is some neem, burdock, red clover, and ground ivy. I believe Cook has some of those things in the kitchen.” She handed him the ground charcoal and a glass of water. “I will go and get them.”
Felix poured the charcoal and water mixture down his mother’s throat and moments later she was vomiting profusely. He performed this over and over until nothing remained to expel but the charcoal itself. Mrs. Taylor returned with a tea made of the plants she had spoken of and they forced copious amounts of the tea into the Dowager Duchess’s stomach. Eventually, his mother lost consciousness, her body unable to take the strain.
The sound of horses’ hooves pounding the earth heralded Marybeth’s arrival. “Stay with Mother,” he ordered Mrs. Taylor. “I expect her to be alive when I return,” he warned, then he ran from the room and out of the front door. The horse pulled up with Mr. Wheatly on its back, Oliver on the top seat, and Marybeth unconscious in the chair below. Marybeth’s brother, Ewan, leapt from the back of his horse and helped Felix to lift Marybeth out of the contraption and into the house.
They carried Marybeth into the first room they came to, which happened to be the library where Alexander was questioning the wounded Earl who he had tied to a chair. Felix and Ewan laid Marybeth down upon the chaise lounge. Mr. Wheatly immediately went below stairs to gather the supplies they would need to cleanse her wound and stop the bleeding. Seeing the state of his sister, Alexander hit the Earl on the back of the head with the butt of his pistol, rendering him unconscious.
“Did you ascertain your father’s whereabouts?” Felix asked as he continued to apply pressure to Marybeth’s wound.
“I have an idea. We will find him, and he will pay for what he has done,” Alexander answered, coming to sit beside his sister. “The Earl is the magistrate’s problem now.”
Oliver stepped forward and took Marybeth’s hand, rubbing it. “Wake up,” he beckoned her. “Please wake up.”
“It might be best if she does not awaken until we get the bullet out, lad. It is going to be immeasurably painful,” Alexander warned as he removed Marybeth’s shoes and stockings. “I will try to make her as comfortable as I can, but it is going to hurt no matter what precautions we take.” Turning to Felix he added, “We are going to need to cut this dress off of her. I will understand if you wish to leave the room.”
“No, I am staying,” Felix argued shaking his head.
“Good man,” Alexander answered clapping Felix on the shoulder. With a nod from Alexander, Ewan moved around to the other side of her body. They each pulled a knife from their boot and began cutting away her dress, one man on each end. It was clear that Marybeth’s brothers had done all of this before, or at the very least something similar in nature to it. Felix continued to apply pressure to the wound, refusing to move.
The brothers pulled back the rent portions of her dress, they revealed thin linen undergarments soaked through with her blood. The crimson stain blocked any indecent view they might have had to her person. When Mr. Wheatly returned with the necessary supplies, Felix removed his jacket and lifted the stained underclothing from the wound. The bullet had lodged in her lower torso near her hip.
Alexander surveyed the tray of hot water and clean bandages, shaking his head. “This is not enough,” he informed the butler, and grabbed a bottle of brandy from the desk. Returning to Marybeth’s side he poured it into the wound. Marybeth moaned and stirred from the pain of it. Alexander poured more brandy over the wound and then cleaned his knife with the same.
He looked up at Felix and Ewan. “Hold her down,” he instructed, then turning his gaze to Oliver, he told him to go and sit down before he passed out onto the library floor.
Each man did as he was asked. Felix slid in behind Marybeth on the chaise lounge and wrapped his arms around her chest, holding her hands in his. Ewan laid his body across her legs. Nodding, Alexander took a deep breath then slid the knife into the bullet wound. Marybeth’s eyes flew open and she screamed a terrible blood curdling scream of sheer and utter agony. She bucked against the pain trying to get free, but Felix refused to let her go.
Alexander continued to dig around for the bullet until he found it. The metal fragment popped out of her body with a sickening sucking sound that turned the stomach and yet in the same measure was received with great relief. Alexander washed the wound with more brandy, then used the hot water and bandages to clean and dress the wound. “That should help until the doctor arrives,” he announced, cleaning the blood from his hands. Marybeth had passed out once more from the pain.
“You have done this before,” Felix noted aloud as he studied Alexander’s face.
“Yes, we have. We are not our father, Your Grace, but we are not naïve to the rougher ways of the world,” Alexander answered, meeting Felix’s eye.
