Page 71 of The Scoundrel of Drury Lane
There was only one way off the vessel.Down.
He held her tight and jumped into the dark water far below. The impact hit his body like stone. He and Suzannah plunged deep beneath the surface. In those inky depths, he struggled to hold on to his wife, one arm around her waist while he kicked desperately toward the surface. The fire’s glow illuminated the air above the water, giving him a direction to swim toward until he broke through.
Kit began to swim on his back, keeping Suzannah’s head above the water as he swam toward the distant docks nearly two hundred yards away. The tempest within him was still raging, the force of his love giving him the strength to keep going when he should have nothing left.
Every moment under the lash of a whip, every time he’d faced danger and death in Australia, those moments of pain and hardship had prepared him for this day when Suzannah would need him not to give up.
With every stroke he took, his heart beat hard and strong, each pulse saying one name.Suzannah—Suzannah. His heart was hers, had always been hers. Everything in the universe now spiraled into this single moment. He could not afford to fail her.
“Kit!” Warren shouted as he dove off the docks and swam toward them. When he reached them in the water, Kit felt his body give out.
“Take her. She’s hurt—” Kit gasped. He sank briefly below the water as she was taken from him before kicking his way up again. Felix climbed down a ladder into the water and helped carry Suzannah up onto the dock.
“You must get the water out of her lungs!” Kit’s words came out a husky, smoke-filled croak. When he finally reached the ladder, he no longer had the strength to pull himself up, so he clung to the bottom rung and floated below the dock. His body was shaking hard, and he had to focus on catching his breath.
Warren grasped Kit by the arm and pushed him up the ladder while supporting him from below. “Come on. Up you go, old boy.”
Others grasped Kit’s waist as he reached the top of the ladder. He nearly collapsed twice, but they stayed with him until he’d reached Suzannah. Felix had Suzannah on her back and was breathing into her mouth while pinching her nose closed. Then he pressed on her chest with his palms in a rhythmic pattern. Her body seized and water flooded from her mouth. She coughed, then lay still, breathing steadily.
“She’s bleeding,” Felix said. “What happened?”
“Balfour shot her.” Kit sank to his knees beside his wife, the weight of the world crushing down on him as he wished he could take her pain, her suffering, and carry it alone for her.
“It looks as though the bullet passed through her shoulder. She’s lost a fair amount of blood,” Felix said. “We need to get her to a doctor at once.”
Kit watched the men around them running to help the other ships move away from the sinkingWind Sprite, and his eyes fell on Lionel who stood a short distance away. He had a pistol trained on Walsh and Balfour, who were trapped against the edge of the docks on their knees, hands slightly raised in the air.
“We’ve summoned the authorities,” Felix said to Kit. “They should be here any minute.”
Kit nodded and lifted Suzannah in his arms, and she stirred, her lashes fluttering open.
“Kit...,” she breathed, and her lips trembled upon a smile.
“Hold on, my darling,” he whispered. “Just hold on.”
Warren stayed close, taking a pistol from Felix as they left the docks.
Balfour suddenly screamed at Kit’s back like a madman. “Why won’t you die?!”
“Kit, look out!” Lionel shouted, and Kit spun. He had only an instant to shield his wife with his body before he heard the crack of a pistol. He flinched, expecting the bite of a bullet, but felt nothing.
Balfour was kneeling on the dock, a pistol in his hand as he stared at Kit. Blood blossomed on his chest as he fell face down on the deck.
“What...?” Kit then realized that someone had shot Balfour before he could fire.
“That... was for our fathers,” Suzannah said in a breathless voice. She held a spent pistol in her hand, which she had taken from Warren, who stood staring at her in shock.
Suzannah’s fingers loosened and she slipped back into unconsciousness, and Warren took the gun from her. “I’ll call for a hackney, Kit.”
Kit held Suzannah the entire ride to Dr. Jordan’s residence. Only then did he allow Warren to take her from him. A middle-aged woman acting as a nurse helped him into the medical room, and Kit collapsed into a chair beside the bed where his wife now lay.
“Do not fear, my lord, she will most likely live.” The doctor’s words were the last thing he remembered before he sank into a long-delayed oblivion.
* * *
Suzannah wasbeneath the surface of the sea, light shimmering above her. She struggled toward it, moving sluggishly, her limbs encumbered by the water all around her. At last, she broke the surface and sucked in a deep breath. Her lashes fluttered as she realized there was no water, no vast ocean, only sunlight and a comfortable bed.
Kit lay beside her, one arm loosely wrapped around her waist. It took her a moment to realize they were in Kit’s bedchamber back in London. But how?
