Page 10 of When the Marquess Was Mine
Georgiana obeyed, but kept her eyes fixed on the road. There was shouting, and now more than one horse was whinnying. “Go look,” she told Adam. “Please. If someone is harmed while we sat here, I could never live with myself.”
He frowned. “My duty is to look over you, m’lady. Sir Charles will turn me off without a reference if I leave you defenseless.”
“I shall explain to Sir Charles.”
Stubbornly the groom stayed where he was. “No, ma’am. ’Tain’t safe.”
She hesitated, but then a horse burst over the embankment and took off across the field, riderless and clearly spooked. A shout came from the road, and then a man appeared running after the horse. He caught sight of Georgiana and the groom and stopped, then disappeared back into the road.
“Ah, saints, we’re in it now,” said Adam in despair. “Go catch that horse!” He spurred his own horse into a gallop, pistol in hand.
Georgiana suspected he’d told her to follow the horse because that would lead her away from the trouble in the road, but she obediently touched her crop to Ajax’s flank and took off after the runaway. There came the sound of a single gunshot, hopefully Adam’s, and then no more.
She caught the horse easily—he was spooked but tired—and spent a few minutes calming him before taking hold of his reins like a lead rope and heading back toward the spot of the robbery.
She approached hesitantly, but found only Adam in the road. “They run off when I took chase,” he told her. He still held a pistol. “We should get home.”
Beyond him a man lay facedown in the dirt. Georgiana muffled a gasp behind one hand. “Is he—? Did they—?”
Adam’s eyes continued to swivel around, taking in the area. He spoke without looking toward the figure in the road. “They could come back. I’ll send for a constable once we’re safely back at Osbourne.”
“Is he dead?” she finally managed to ask. The man in the road hadn’t moved a muscle. Georgiana’s stomach churned. He was dead, she knew it, and Adam wasn’t looking because he knew it, too.
Then the man’s hand twitched. A slight movement, but enough to indicate life. With a gasp of relief she flung herself off Ajax. “We have to take him with us,” she said to Adam. “Help me get him across his horse.” The runaway must be his; there were plump saddlebags over the horse’s back, and the villains had let him go.
“We ought not to get involved,” Adam insisted. “Those thieves might come back! He might even be one of them. I only startled them, ma’am, we must make haste—”
“And we will,” she said firmly, “with him.” She thrust the reins of the runaway at the groom, who took them with a ferocious scowl. “I cannot let a man bleed to death in the dirt.”
There was quite a bit of blood, and she took a deep breath to keep her hands from shaking. The victim lay facedown, his hat gone and his coat torn. Blood ran over the side of his head, matting his long dark hair. Gingerly she touched his back, and felt the rise of his chest as he breathed. “Help me!” she ordered the groom, who still stood at a distance.
Grumbling, he came and took a hard look at the fellow. “This is a bad business, Lady Georgiana.”
“It will be worse if we leave him.” She seized the reins of the runaway horse and tied him to a sagging hawthorn branch. “We’ve got to take him back to Osbourne House.” Town was over two miles away, while Osbourne House was less than one.
“I don’t like this,” muttered the groom. But he bent down and rolled the prone man over.
There was more blood down his front, running from his face to stain his collar and cravat, onto his waistcoat, which had been torn open. He’d been pummeled about the head, and his hair was plastered over his face in dark scarlet ropes. It was enough to make her stomach heave.
She tried not to look at the poor man as they heaved him to a sitting position, then Adam hauled him up facedown over the horse’s back. He was a large man, tall and well built, and he weighed a ton. Georgiana pushed and shoved, helping as best she could.What a lark, she thought in dark humor; the first time she touched a man’s thighs, he was beaten almost to death.
“Let’s be off,” said Adam, glancing up and down the road as if armed murderers might come racing toward them at any moment. He gave Georgiana a leg up onto Ajax’s back before leaping into his own saddle and pulling the runaway horse, with its battered, bleeding burden, behind him.
Georgiana watched that inert figure all the way back to Osbourne House. One arm dangled limply toward the ground; the other must be caught beneath him. The rocking of the horse set the loose arm swaying plaintively, as if he were trying to summon help. Which of course he was not doing; he might in fact be slipping the rest of the way into death.Please don’t die, she silently begged. Georgiana had seen her father die, and she did not want to repeat the experience ever again. By the time they reached the graceful curved drive of Osbourne House, she felt almost personally responsible for this poor man, clinging to life and helplessly dependent on her.
Williams, the butler, met them with an expression of incredulity. “What is this, Adam?”
“We came upon a terrifying scene.” Georgiana flung herself out of the saddle and ran to the unconscious figure. A light touch on his back reassured her he was still breathing. “We must get him into bed and send for a doctor at once.”
“My lady.” The butler gazed at her in shock.
“He was attacked by villains in the road! He needs help!”
“Of course, but...” The butler’s face broke in relief as Kitty came out of the house. “Lady Winston.”
“What’s happened?” Kitty demanded, rushing forward.
“We were riding and saw an altercation from a distance. Adam gallantly rode in to break it up, but not before they’d beaten this poor man half to death.” To Georgiana’s eyes, it seemed like his breathing had slowed. She shuddered; she did not want him to die right here on the front steps of Kitty’s home.
