A Wicked Pursuit (6 page)

Julia clutched tightly to Gus’s arm, her eyes wide with dread. “I heard what that servant was telling you, about how Sir Randolph and Dr. Leslie want to cut off his leg. Is that true, Gus? Will they do that to him?”

“Only if they must, to save his life,” Gus said gently, gazing down at the man before them. The flickering light of the single candlestick cast dancing shadows over his face, suggesting an animation to his handsome features that wasn’t there.

“Oh, Gus, this is so, so unfair!” Julia cried softly. “I was so close to having everything I’d wished, everything I dreamed!”

Gus put her arm around her sister’s shoulder. “His lordship is a young man, Julia, and in good health, too. All is being done for him that can be.”

“But what if he survives with only one leg?” Julia said, tears beginning to trickle down her cheeks. “I’m not strong like you, Gus. I fear I wouldn’t be a good wife to a—a crippled gentleman.”

“He’s not crippled yet,” Gus said, defensive on his behalf. “Mama said that love, true love, would always find a way past all adversities. If you and his lordship love each other, then—”

“I cannot speak of this any longer,” Julia said, a catch in her voice. “It is too—too tragic.”

Gus shook her head. “It’s not as tragic for you as it is for him,” she said firmly. “Unless you accidentally did something foolish to make him fall from the horse. Is that the truth, Julia? Is it guilt that makes you shy from him now?”

Julia gasped. “How dare you speak such a thing to me, Gus? How can you be so—so
cruel
to me?”

Abruptly she pulled free of Gus’s arm and bolted for the door, her skirts flying.

“Wait, Julia, please,” Gus called after her in as loud a whisper as she dared. “Don’t leave now, I beg you!”

“Don’t leave,” Hargreave said, his voice a rusty croak from disuse.

Stunned, Gus looked at him. His eyes were heavy-lidded with the drug-induced sleep, but he was awake, and he was watching her.

How had she forgotten the startling blue of his eyes?

“My lord,” she said, more flustered than she’d any right to be. Clearly Julia’s voice had roused him, and it must be her that he wanted to stay. Gus only hoped he hadn’t understood all that they’d said. “Pray excuse me, and I’ll go after—”

“Don’t,” he said. “You’re here now. Don’t leave.”

Gus hesitated, unsure of why he’d wish for her, not Julia.

“Don’t leave,” he repeated. “Stay. Sit.”

“I’m not your dog, my lord,” she said, pulling the chair beside the bed. “I don’t need orders. I won’t leave you.”

“Good.” His eyes fluttered closed again, as if the effort to speak even that small amount had taxed him. “Thank you.”

She grinned foolishly, from surprise and relief, and was thankful that he hadn’t seen it. “Is there anything you require, my lord?”

“Your hand,” he said. “You gave it to me once. I trust you will share it again.”

At once she slipped her fingers into his as his hand lay on the counterpane, pressing against his gold ring with the onyx intaglio. She squeezed gently, so he’d know she’d done what he asked.

He did. He smiled wearily, and she smiled, too.

“What’s been done to me, eh?” His voice was thick with the effects of the draft, but he was still coherent. “Can you tell me that, sweetheart?”

She blushed at the casual endearment, reminding herself that he’d still no notion of who she was. “You fell from your horse—”

“I was thrown,” he corrected, “thrown by a four-legged devil straight from the jaws of Hell.”

“You were thrown, then,” she said. “When you landed, you struck your head, and you broke your lower leg in two places.”

“Ahh,” he said, and fell silent, perhaps connecting what she’d told him with how he felt.

“Do you remember being thrown?” she asked cautiously, not wanting to pressure him, but fearing that a loss of memory could signal a more grievous wound to the head.

“I remember that, yes,” he said. “And the devil-horse. But how or why he threw me—no. No.”

She didn’t press, not wanting to tax him further. “Would you like me to send for the surgeon to explain your injuries more completely? As you requested, your physician, Sir Randolph Peterson, has come up from London to assume your case, and he will be a guest of this house until he deems you out of danger.”

“Oh, old Peterson,” he said, smiling faintly once again. “A gaming acquaintance of my father’s, and much esteemed because he tends the scrapes and bruises of the royal princesses.”

“You have apparently proved more of a challenge,” she replied. She carefully said nothing of having also sent for his father, the Duke of Breconridge; to Gus’s surprise, there had been not a word from His Grace regarding his eldest son’s condition. It shocked her that no one in his lordship’s own family had come to him when he was in such peril, and she feared that by now he must have noticed their absence as well.

“Do you wish to speak with Sir Randolph now?” she asked. “He will talk to you of your injuries, and his treatment.”

“All I wish is to have you here with me, sweetheart,” he said. He shifted restlessly and grimaced, squeezing her hand hard as he did.

“You’re in pain,” she said softly. “Are you certain you don’t want me to fetch Sir Randolph?”

“No.” With a clearly conscious effort he opened his eyes and tried to smile. “Just . . . stay.”

“I will, my lord.” She should excuse herself to make arrangements for dinner and Sir Randolph’s rooms, but all of that could wait a little longer. The earl needed her more.

“Silk,” he said suddenly, surprising her again. “Your skirts.”

She nodded, wondering at the significance.

“I noticed,” he said, almost proudly. “Wetherby must pay his serving maids well.”

“His serving maids?” she repeated. It was, she realized, an obvious mistake to make. From habit she dressed for comfort and practicality, not for style, and she’d none of Julia’s inborn elegance to betray her rank. “Oh, my lord, I’m not a serving maid.”

“The viscount’s housekeeper, then,” he said. “You’re young for the role, but I’ve no doubt you’re very accomplished at it. I’ve seen what you’ve done for me. You’re a prize.”

“Oh, my lord,” she murmured with a mixture of pleasure and dismay.

“No, not merely a prize,” he said, smiling as saw her discomfiture. “An angel. A
lucky
angel. Where’s Tewkes?”

“Here, my lord,” Tewkes said, instantly appearing beside her.

“Tewkes, I wish to reward this young woman,” he said. “She has saved my life. Give her five guineas directly.”

Tewkes’s eyes widened with astonishment. “To
her
, my lord?”

“Yes, you rascal,” he said. “Five guineas, and don’t let old Wetherby interfere and say she doesn’t deserve it.”

Gus caught her breath with dismay. “Five guineas! Oh, my lord, you cannot—”

“I can, and I will,” he said, clearly pleased by her reaction, even though he’d misunderstood it entirely. “You deserve it. You’re worth ten of Sir Randolph and his leeches and mumbo jumbo.”

“No, my lord,” she said firmly. She could overlook being mistaken for a servant, but having him offer her five guineas for doing what amounted to her duty was unforgivable. Five guineas was more than any female servant earned in a year, and for him to toss gold about to the house’s servants like this could send the entire staff into an uproar of envy, jealousy, and general unhappiness. “You cannot, and I cannot—”

“My lord!” Mrs. Patton bustled into the room, carrying a tray with a decanter and a spouted invalid’s cup. “It is a welcome sign that you are feeling sufficiently improved to speak, but pray do not exhaust yourself with unnecessary conversation.”

“It was hardly unnecessary, Mrs. Patton,” Gus said, self-consciously slipping her hand free of the earl’s. “His lordship and I were discussing important matters.”

“Indeed we were,” he said, his gaze never leaving Gus’s face. “Most important.”

Gus would not have thought it possible for a man who was as grievously injured as the earl to look as if he was trying very hard not to laugh. But so it was: and swiftly she forced herself to look away from him, and back at Mrs. Patton.

“Forgive me, my lord,” Mrs. Patton said briskly. “But no conversation with a lady can be as important as his lordship’s health.”

“‘A lady’?” he repeated. “A lady who?”

“Why, Miss Augusta, of course,” Mrs. Patton said, pouring the wine from the decanter into the cup. “There is no other lady here at present. Now, here, my lord, you must drink this, on Sir Randolph’s orders. To be taken as soon as you awakened.”

She came around to the other side of the bed, tucking another pillow beneath his head to help him sit to drink. He, in turn, ignored Mrs. Patton completely, his gaze intent on Gus, who felt her cheeks grow hot for what seemed like the hundredth time this afternoon in his company.

“You’re Miss Wetherby’s sister,” he said, incredulous. “You’re not a servant at all.”

“I never pretended I was,” she said defensively. “Not once.”

“I must insist, my lord,” Mrs. Patton said, holding the cup before him.

He didn’t let her put the spout to his lips to sip, but instead grabbed the cup from her hand and emptied it from the side, in a single long gulp.

“Oh, my lord,” Mrs. Patton said, shocked, as she took back the glass. “That was rash. That was canary, with twenty drops of laudanum. For you to ingest it in such haste—”

“I am often rash,” he said, even as he sank back against the pillows, breathing hard from that small exertion. “Did you enjoy your little ruse, Miss Augusta? Did it please you to make a fool of me?”

“I never made a fool of you,” Gus said, striving to remain calm even as she defended herself. No matter how irrational he was being, he remained a very unwell man, one who should not be unnecessarily excited. “There was no harm intended, my lord, nor any done. If you are feeling foolish, then it was of your own doing, not mine.”

He was already fighting against the laudanum, his eyes closing and his words slowing and slurring. “You should have told me, Miss Augusta. Told me who—who you are.”

“I’m sorry, my lord,” she said, “but I do not see how it would have mattered under the circumstances.”

“Miss Augusta, please,” Mrs. Patton said sternly. “It is much better for his lordship that we let the draft take its course.”

To Gus, he looked as if the laudanum had already taken effect. His eyes had closed and his features had relaxed, his head sinking more deeply into the pillows. She doubted he’d even heard what she’d last said.

But he had.

“It—it matters,” he said, no more than a rough whisper. “Because it—it was you.”

Harry didn’t need
the high-flown advice of Sir Randolph or even the more modest Dr. Leslie to know when the fever they’d feared finally began to take hold later that night. Not even the laudanum could spare him from the fire that consumed his body, or the sweating and restlessness and confusion that followed. Worst of all were the dreams, dreams that plagued him with a relentless fury each time he closed his eyes.

They all began the same way. He was once again riding in the misty woods looking for Julia, following her teasing laughter. That was the best part of the dream, and unfortunately the part that passed the fastest.

Because before he could stop it, he was being thrown from his horse again, unable to save himself as he flew through the air. Sometimes he fell on the hard, leaf-covered ground. More often he landed in an unexpected place, like the patterned carpet of the dining room at White’s, with all his fellow club members clustered to stare down at him, or the floor in the center of the House of Lords. In one of the dreams—or the nightmares, really, for that was what they were—he was hurled into the muddy track at Epsom, with a score of horses and jockeys thundering down upon him, and in another he was tossed into the lion cage at the Tower of London, a place he hadn’t visited since he was a boy.

In every dream, he was trapped, doomed, unable to move or save himself because of his broken leg. Yet in every dream, too, there was another constant, and that was Miss Augusta, the gray-eyed sister her family called Gus. Each time when he’d despaired of rescue and the pain had become almost unbearable, she appeared to join him exactly as she had in reality. She came, and she took his hand. She murmured ordinary things to him in an extraordinary voice, and promised she would not leave him alone.

But in his nightmares, she did not stay. She vanished like the mist itself, leaving his hand to close, empty, over where hers had been. Each time as he struggled to reclaim her, he woke, covered in sweat and gasping as he fought against the tangled sheets and pillows and the leather splint bound around his leg.

“Be easy, my lord, be easy,” murmured Sir Randolph as he pressed him back down onto the bed. He was wearing a blue apron over his waistcoat, an apron marked with fresh blood.

“Damn you, what have you done?” Harry demanded hoarsely, trying to shove the other man’s hands aside. He’d overheard them speak cavalierly of amputation when they’d thought he was asleep. Surgeons were always ready with the knife, ready to cut a man in the name of healing. He’d an old acquaintance from school, an officer, who’d lost his leg fighting in the American colonies, and he’d seemed half a man ever since, hobbled like a graybeard. “If you’ve maimed me—”