Awakening His Duchess (29 page)

Yvette’s gasp signaled she’d seen him too.

He jerked the horse to a halt just beyond the farthest
branches.

Yvette leaped down carrying her case and ran toward the
child. Her haste surprised him, but he didn’t have time to think about her. He
needed to figure out how to move the thousands of pounds of tree off one small
child. What was worse was the lane sloped toward the boy and the scarred part
of the tree was facing him. If they shifted the weight the most likely
direction the trunk would roll would be toward the child.

“Get the tools out of the cart,” Beau shouted. “I want as
many pieces of wood wedged against the trunk on this side as we have.”

The men working to saw the trunk in two turned toward him.

Mazi approached and they went around to the back and slid
the heavy mounting block out.

“Do you think there is the best spot?” Mazi gestured with
his shoulder.

For the thousandth time Beau wished he’d paid more attention
in his geometry lessons, trying to remember formulas about fulcrums and lifting
power. “We’ll try it.”

They were only a few feet from the whimpering boy. Yvette
was composed and smiling at the child, reassuring him while her hands moved
over the boy’s body, checking, reaching under the trunk.

Even though he knew it wasn’t Etienne, the lad was of such a
similar size with hair near the same color, and Yvette was being loving, and he
kept conflating the two boys in his mind.

“Yvette, don’t get so close to the tree.” It could roll on
her. God help him if it rolled farther onto the child. His stomach knotted.

She cast a quick frown in his direction and then was back to
talking soothingly to the boy and his mother while she wiped away blood from
little scratches. He could see her examine and assess each wound before moving
on to the next.

Beau didn’t know the names of all the men although some of
them looked familiar.

“What can I do?” asked one man, rolling his hat while his
face looked on the verge of cracking.

Beau recognized him. “Donald Fowler. Your boy?”

He nodded jerkily. “I told the boys not to swing on the tree
no more. When they heard the tree crack they ran, but T-Thomas fell down.”

“We’ll get him out,” Beau said. Yvette’s warning about
possibly not being able to save the boy turned Beau’s stomach. “Just be ready
to take care of your wife and boy.”

Beau turned and started issuing instructions. “We’re going
to lever up the trunk and brace it with whatever we can.” He segregated the men
based on their appearance of strength and assigned tasks while positioning the
poles.

At one point he caught Yvette’s eye when she opened her
case. She gave the tiniest shake of her head and a quick frown before turning
back to the child with a serene expression. If she truly thought the boy was
likely to die as she’d conveyed on the way over, she was damn good at
presenting a false façade to the family. But there was no point in upsetting
the family further. They could see with their own eyes how dire the situation
was.

“You and you get on the other side and tie ropes to the
branches to anchor the tree.” Only there wasn’t anything to tie the tree to
other than the men themselves.

“Mrs. Fowler, I need you to make a bed ready for him,” said
Yvette.

The woman jerked to her feet. “No, I’ll go...” But she
dropped back to her knees beside the child. “I can’t leave him.”

Yvette’s mouth tightened, but her tone was patient as she
wrapped her arms around the woman and pulled her up. “I’m not going to want to
move him much when we get him out. You need to prepare a cot or bed for him. I
won’t leave his side.”

Was she so afraid of what they’d see? Icy claws gripped at
the back of his neck. He couldn’t fail to do this right. He had to get the boy
out with at least no more damage. Beau signaled to a woman standing near to
take Mrs. Fowler away.

“Hurry,” whispered Yvette as they rolled a blanket out
behind the boy’s head.

If they could pull him out, they could carry him on the
blanket. She moved her case out of the way while Beau positioned men to push on
the poles.

“Everyone get back.” Beau waved any onlookers away. He
jerked his head to a man to pull the other Fowler boy back. “I’m sorry, we’ll
need you to move away.”

Two nimble men took their positions near the boys’ shoulders,
ready to yank him away.

“On the count of three,” he told the men. “One—”

Yvette rushed to the boy and dropped to her knees, gripping
his hand in hers.

“Yvette.” He looked toward her. “Get back.”

“Non.”
She shook her head. She slipped into French and
explained that if Thomas had a chance at all, she had to be close to stop any
excessive bleeding before his life drained away. And if he wasn’t going to make
it, she didn’t want him to be alone.

“Your wife is very brave,” said Mazi.

“She is foolish.” He didn’t have time to argue with her,
although for a second he thought about yanking her away.

Instead he stared at her. He had no idea who this woman was.
Shaking his head to return to the task at hand, he counted, “Two. Three. Push!”

The ropes tightened and Beau, Mazi, and a half dozen men
threw their weight on the pole. The trunk shifted up a little and the men near
the trunk shoved wood into the opening.

Thomas groaned and Yvette squeezed his hand, whispering,
“You’ll be out soon.”

The trunk shifted and Thomas yelped. His face scrunched.

The boy’s knuckles whitened as he gripped Yvette’s hand, but
she was murmuring, “You are doing well. Only a minute more.”

She, too, was straining to help get the boy free.

Beau had to look away from them. His muscles strained and
Mazi’s expression grew intense with the effort. Had he miscalculated the point
of the fulcrum? Damn.

“He’s still stuck, my lord,” said one of the men.

“Harder,” gritted out Beau. They leaned more into the poles,
pushing with everything they were worth. The trunk shifted more and the men
gripped under the boy’s arms and yanked.

Thomas screamed as he was dragged back on the blanket.
Yvette tried to support a leg that was horribly malformed.

She reached for the arm of one of the men pulling Thomas away.
“Stop.”

The pole they were using to raise the trunk cracked.

“Is he clear?” shouted Beau.

Her “yes” was drowned out as the pole shattered with a loud
thwack. The tree thumped back down. The men dragging Thomas clear ignored her
command and jerked up the blanket hauling the boy away from the tree.

She started to scramble away, but her skirt caught on the
sawed off branch. The trunk teetered on the blocks put there to brace it. Then
as if it were bent on blood the elm rolled toward her. Dear God, she was about
to be crushed.

“Damn it,” Beau muttered as he dove for her.

Chapter Sixteen

All around them men shouted. But it sounded far away as the
only thing Beau could hear was the pounding of his heart, the harsh cadence of
his breathing, and the loud rasp of Yvette’s clothing ripping as he yanked her
free and rolled with her against him. The rumble of the tree shifting followed
them and the ground shook. They sprawled in the dirt of the lane, Yvette’s
skirts tangled with his legs. Beside them the leaves bounced wildly as the
massive tree settled.

Beau tensed, fearing another injury to someone, but Yvette
had been the closest to the tree and she felt fine. Her abdomen moved under his
forearm clamped against it. Men ran to them.

“Jesus Christ,” Beau muttered. The tree settled, the
branches stopping their mad bouncing and only swaying slightly up and down.

“Let go,” she muttered as she thrashed her way free of his
hold.

Stunned, he stared as she darted toward the crying boy who seemed
far away but was only a dozen feet or so from them.

“Don’t think it shall move more,” Mazi’s voice rumbled while
his eyes danced as he extended a hand to Beau.

The elm had settled with the dead side to the ground. The
pole they had used to lever the tree had cracked clean through, the splintered
end sticking up in the air while the broken piece was under the trunk. Thank
God they’d managed to get the boy free before it split.

He jerked his head toward Thomas. Yvette was at the boy’s
feet, pulling on his misshapen leg and issuing instructions to the men around
her. Amazed he watched as she aligned the limb in a more normal position.
Working quickly she wrapped long bits of cloth and the straightest branches the
workers brought at her command.

Her hands moved up the boy’s other leg, probing and prodding
while she questioned the moaning child. Thomas shuddered.

The boy’s parents crowded toward her. Beau stepped forward
and put his arm around the crying man. “Give her room to work.”

Yvette rubbed the back of her arm against her forehead,
pushing back hair that had come unpinned and dangled in her face. Blood
streaked her hands. It didn’t seem like a great deal, but what did he know?

The boy shivered continuously and his breathing sounded
thick. Off. Yvette continued to probe at the boy’s hips. She murmured soft
apologies when Thomas groaned at her examination. But then his eyes rolled back
and the tension seemed to drain from him. The beginning of the end?

Beau’s throat clogged and he tried to clear it.

Yvette turned a calm face toward the boy’s mother. “Let us
carry him inside.”

Several men gingerly lifted the makeshift stretcher. Yvette
held Thomas’ splinted leg herself as if she didn’t trust anyone else to use the
same exquisite care. “We shall go slowly and try not to jostle him too much.”

Beau felt as though his chest had been cleaved open. That
poor family. Would they just take their child inside to die? He hated that his
and Yvette’s efforts might have been in vain. If he could will strength to the
boy he would.

“Go get my lady’s case,” he barked at one of the men nearest
him.

Her dark gaze darted back to him and appeared flat. He
reached toward her, but then she quickly turned back and focused on the boy.

He knew how to work hard and organize labor to get a tree
off a pinned boy, but he didn’t know how to make the boy survive the injuries.
He only hoped Yvette had some magic potion she could concoct from the herbs in
her bag. His part was done. There was nothing more he could do to help, just be
there to offer comfort when the boy passed.

He hated the inadequate feeling. He had to do something,
hack at cane as he had back in Saint-Domingue when overwhelmed by frustration,
work until he had no thoughts in his head. It wasn’t as though he could leave
until it was over. Yvette might need him, even if only to reassure her, comfort
her, hold her—if she’d let him.

Needing a task to occupy him, Beau turned and looked at the
huge tree lying on the ground. It blocked the roadway used for all supplies for
the estate and for the farmers to get their grain to market. The fallen tree
would be a problem until it was removed. The trunk itself was larger than he
could reach around. But as he looked about he saw threshing tools and farm
implements. It was harvest time, and delay could mean lost crops. He had to get
the men back to the fields.

“If you have work to return to by all means go on.”

“Shouldn’t we try to move it off the road?” asked someone.

“No, we might as well cut it here,” said Beau.

Farmers, grooms, and footmen stared at him.

It felt odd being the one they looked to for direction, but
not wrong. “If you were working in the field, go back.”

Several of the men picked up scythes and trudged back to the
fields with an uneasy silence.

The footmen with their powdered queues, lace edged cuffs and
neckcloths of a bygone era were hardly likely to provide adequate labor, and
the grooms had horses to care for. “Let’s just get the limbs cut off and the
rest of you can go back to your duties.”

After a couple of hours in which no one had emerged from the
house, they had hacked away and piled most of the larger limbs, but the denuded
trunk remained across the road. The trunk was too big to cut through with the
handsaws and chopping through it was likely to take hours.

Mazi leaned on the handle of an ax. “We could split the
trunk, then a few men might be able to drag the halves from the road.”

Mazi wasn’t even winded. Beau was, of course, not from
straining to work, but because his lungs protested when he exerted himself.

Beau looked toward the house where Yvette remained inside.
He couldn’t leave while she was still in there. That Yvette hadn’t come out
surely meant the boy yet lived.

“Load the mounting block back in the cart and the rest of you
can head home. Mazi and I will take it from here.”

He and Mazi both took axes and worked from opposite ends of
the thickest part of the trunk. Beau swung the ax, the blade landing in the
wood with a thunk that jarred his arms. He swung again and his thoughts went to
Yvette as they always had when he was cutting cane. As if the physical strike
conjured her, only this time his feelings were jumbled.

She was a woman who cared deeply about people, about their
wellbeing. Perhaps she had even cared for him.

His heart beat unsteadily as he remembered the moment he’d
thought the massive trunk would roll over her and crush her. The fear of
watching her killed in front of him, the drag of responsibility for not
thinking to have the tree cut down earlier, the way he’d tried to hurt her the
other night even as his heart and body were trying to tell him she was a
wonderful, loving woman all served to tilt him off balance.

Beau had no idea how long they worked, but the labor took on
the rhythm of chopping sugar cane. Perspiration beaded on his forehead and made
his shirt cling. His muscles took on the familiar burn of hard labor, and his
breathing grew harsh. Still his thoughts kept circling around Yvette. All those
years of thinking she was a selfish bitch who craved more than he could offer
as a third son were shattered. He’d been wrong, so wrong.