Silk and Shadows (51 page)

Sara only did needlework when she wanted to think. As she chose a new hank of green silk thread, she realized ruefully that she had done quite a lot of embroidery in the last two days. After they came back to Sulgrave, she had hoped that Mikahl would reveal the critical pieces of his missing past, but he had not raised the subject, and she was reluctant to do so herself.

There was tension in the air, like a ribbon of molten glass being drawn thinner and thinner until it must reach the snapping point. Absently Sara leaned over to scratch the head of Furface, who was curled up on the hem of her gown. Something was on the verge of happening; she had the frustrated feeling that there were things she should know, but didn't.

Her abstraction was broken when the butler entered to bring her afternoon tea. She glanced up to thank him, then stopped, her attention caught by the gray misery in his face. Guiltily remembering that she was not the only person with problems, she lowered her embroidery hoop. "Is something wrong, Gates?"

He hesitated, on the verge of denial, then said reluctantly, "You were right in your investment advice, my lady. I should have sold the L & S Railway stock when the price was high."

"It has gone down?" she said, concerned.

"Badly. In fact, the newspapers say the company is on the verge of bankruptcy." After another hesitation, he said hopefully, "Has Prince Peregrine said anything to indicate that this is just temporary, that the company will recover?"

His brief animation faded when Sara shook her head.

"I'm sorry, he never talks business with me." Disturbed by the bleakness in the butler's eyes, she said, "That doesn't mean that the company's situation won't get better—just that I don't know. Perhaps you should ask him yourself."

He shook his head, scandalized. "I couldn't possibly."

Sara understood. Gates had grown up at Haddonfield, and he could speak to her as he could not to an outsider. "I will ask my husband myself this evening," she offered.

"I would appreciate that, my lady." He used a linen towel to flick a speck of dust from a gleaming table. With sudden bitterness, he said, "I should have known that stocks and companies are a rich man's game. Someone like me is a fool to think he has a chance to better himself that way."

Sara watched him unhappily, knowing that the fact that Gates spoke at all was a measure of his distress. At the same time, she doubted that Mikahl was equally disturbed; since the railway was Weldon's pet project, her husband might applaud if the company was failing.

Their conversation was interrupted by a sudden commotion in the front hall. Curious, Sara set her embroidery down and hastened out to investigate.

To her horror, she found Mikahl and the head groom carrying the limp body of her cousin into the hall. Both her husband and Ross were soaked in blood. Sara clutched the door frame, dizzy with shock. "Good God, what has happened?"

Mikahl glanced up at her, his green eyes glittering with furious emotion. "Some damned fool hunter shot Ross."

She pressed her knuckles into her mouth, on the verge of fainting. "Is he—is he alive?"

"For the moment," was the grim answer. "Send for a doctor while we get him upstairs to a bed."

Sara nodded, grateful to have something to do. Turning to Gates, who had followed her into the hall, she said, "Send one of the grooms into Reigate. Have him promise the surgeon any amount of money if he will come immediately."

Gates nodded and hastened off. Sara stood for a moment, hands pressed to her temples as she tried to think what to do. Dear God, Ross couldn't die. All her life, he had always been there, laughing in the good times, helping in the bad, always caring. And now his life hung in the balance.

Realizing that her breath was becoming rapid and shallow, she forcibly clamped down on her rising emotions. Hysteria would not help her cousin, but coolness might.

After a moment her mind began to work again. Other servants had been drawn to the disturbance, so she ordered a maid to bring hot water to the patient. Then Sara herself went upstairs to the linen closet for clean sheets.

The groom had left after Ross had been put to bed. When Sara entered the sickroom, Mikahl was scowling over the blood-soaked bandage. "He's bleeding again. Can you bear to help me put a dressing on? If not, leave and send one of the servants in. I can't afford to be worried about you, too."

"I can bear it," Sara said tersely. She had remembered to bring her sewing scissors and now used them to rip a sheet into strips. When her husband lifted Ross to turn him over, she put another folded sheet beneath her cousin to absorb the blood during the messy job of changing the bandage.

"We were riding on the trail that runs across the top of the Downs," Mikahl explained as he removed the crude, earlier binding. "There was just one shot—the hunter must have run away when he realized his mistake."

"It must have been a poacher," Sara said, averting her eyes as her husband uncovered the oozing wound in Ross's shoulder.

"Very likely." He covered the bullet hole with a thickly folded pad of linen, then tied it in place with one of the long strips Sara provided. "Both horses bolted, but I was able to catch Ross's again. The head groom met us partway back. He realized something was wrong when my horse came home with a graze wound on its neck."

"Dear God," she whispered. "If the bullet had struck you rather than Siva, you and Ross might both have died there."

"But we didn't." Having covered the entry wound in Ross's back, Mikahl began winding linen strips around chest and shoulder to hold both pads securely in place. "Though I hate to think of what might have happened if I couldn't have caught Ross's horse."

The maid had delivered a basin and pitcher of hot water, and when Mikahl was done, Sara began gently sponging the blood from her cousin's bare chest and arm. Beneath his golden hair, his face was like grayed marble. It was agonizing to see a man so vital lying as still as death.

Her husband put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry, Sara," he said, his voice full of helpless frustration. "I wish I had been the one hit."

"I couldn't bear that, either,'' she said unsteadily."Accidents happen. Don't blame yourself."

For a moment his fingers tightened on her shoulder. Then his hand fell away. "If I'm not careful, you'll be as bloodstained as I am. I have to go out and take care of something now. I'll be back as soon as I can."

Disregarding his words and his stained clothing, Sara stood and turned into his arms, needing his strength. "Please," she said softly, "hold me for a moment before you go."

He complied, embracing her with fierce protective-ness. "Will you be all right?"

Sara felt the tautness in his body. It must have been dreadful for Mikahl to have seen Ross struck down right in front of his eyes. "I'll manage," she said. "There isn't really much to do now but wait for the doctor."

Then her husband left, presumably to change his clothing and perhaps see to his horse. Sara sat down beside Ross and resumed the task of cleaning him. It wasn't much or even necessary, but it was the only way she knew to express her anguished love.

The surgeon arrived just before dinnertime. After tending Ross's wound, he told Sara that her cousin was very fortunate to have someone available to stop the bleeding so quickly, or he would have died. As it was, Lord Ross had a broken shoulder, but no major internal injuries, and should recover if serious inflammation didn't set in. He gave her some laudanum for the pain, then left, promising to return the next day.

"Thank God," Mikahl said, his voice intense. Back from his errands, he had been sitting with Sara in the sickroom.

"Amen," Sara added, weak with relief.

"Are you going to inform his parents?"

Sara thought a moment, then shook her head. "I don't think so. Ross won't like it if I upset them unnecessarily. Unless you think I should?''

Mikahl shook his head. "They are your family, and you know them best. Now come." He pulled her to her feet. "Ring for someone else to stay with him. You are going to change into a gown that isn't bloodstained. Then I'm going to take you downstairs and stand over you while you eat. I don't want you becoming ill, too."

"That won't be necessary. Now that the doctor has seen Ross, I can tear myself away for half an hour. But I'll be back to stay with him for the rest of the night." Her glance at her husband held a hint of challenge.

"I'd be surprised if you didn't." Mikahl's face tightened as he looked at Ross's still unconscious form. "But Sara, I don't think I can bear to stay all night with you."

"I don't expect you to, my dear, nor would Ross expect it. He's no better at sitting still than you are."

Her husband pulled her into a hug, his large hands kneading the tense knots out of her neck and shoulders. "You are a very understanding woman."

Jenny came to sit with Ross while Sara and her husband ate a simple supper. Than Sara returned to her quiet vigil.

Earlier in the day, Peregrine had ridden into the Downs with a spare horse, wrapped Kane's body in a blanket, then brought it back to Sulgrave and stored it in a little used outbuilding. After darkness fell, he transferred the corpse to a nondescript cart that was used for rough work around the estate.

Dressed as unmemorably as the cart, Peregrine took his time driving into London, not wanting to reach Mayfair until after midnight. His mission to dispose of Kane's body went without complication. Another move had been made in the lethal game between him and Weldon. And during the hours of driving, he planned what to do next.

Sara was glad when Ross began tossing and turning restlessly. He did not seem feverish, and his increased activity was less alarming than his death-like unconsciousness had been. She managed to get some beef broth down him, laced with a little laudanum to reduce the pain.

She dozed off herself for a time, then awoke with a start when she heard a faint voice saying, "Sally?"

Ross had sometimes called her that when they were children. Glad that he was conscious, she leaned over the bed. "How are you feeling?"

He blinked to bring her into focus. "Like hell, if you'll excuse the language." His voice was barely audible.

"You're excused."

He raised his right hand uncertainly toward his bandaged left shoulder. "My mind seems to have been dipped in molasses."

"Better leave the bandage alone." Sara caught his wandering hand. "You've had some laudanum, which is why you feel fuzzy. Do you remember what happened?"

"I was riding with Mikahl in the Downs." Ross frowned. "Was he hurt?"

"He's fine," she assured him. "The same bullet that hit you grazed his horse, but Mikahl wasn't touched. He bandaged you up and brought you back to Sulgrave."

"Glad he's all right." Ross's fingers moved restlessly in Sara's grasp. "If Weldon had sent two assassins instead of one, I suppose we'd both be dead."

"Weldon?" Sara said, startled. She was about to say that Ross had been accidentally shot by a poacher when her cousin's rambling voice cut her off.

"Ironic. Just before I was shot, Peregrine said it was dangerous to be riding in such an exposed place. But he thought Weldon wouldn't try to kill him yet." Ross pulled his hand free and rubbed at his forehead, trying to clear his mind. "I think the sniper was aiming at Mikahl, not me. I saw the rifle and tried to push Mikahl out of the way and got in front of the bullet myself. Bloody stupid thing to do."

Sara felt as if her heart had stopped. Carefully she said, "You and Mikahl are sure that Charles Weldon is behind this?"

"Of course. Weldon wanted to strike before Mikahl could kill him first." Then Ross's gaze sharpened. "Damnation. You don't know any of that, do you?"

"No, but you are going to tell me everything, Ross," Sara said grimly. "What has been going on?"

"Mikahl hasn't wanted to tell you," her cousin said uncertainly. "He didn't want to worry you."

"My husband has made an error in judgment," she said, her voice clipped with anger, "and you are about to rectify it."

Perhaps if Ross had not been feeling the effects of laudanum, he would have resisted. Instead, he ran his fingers through his hair. "I've thought he should tell you. How much do you know now?"

Sara thought a moment. There had been much fire and brimstone, but what had her husband actually said? "I know that Charles and Mikahl hate each other. Mikahl said that Charles is evil, and that he may have killed his first wife by pushing her down the stairs. Once you told me that Charles might be involved in illicit activities, but it seemed so improbable that I didn't really believe it. Is all that really true?"

Ross sighed, and his eyes closed briefly. Then he began a flat litany that turned Sara's blood cold: that Charles Weldon did indeed own gaming hells and whorehouses, including the one that Jenny Miller had been in; that he was part owner of illegal slave ships; that he casually gave orders that ruined lives. And that Sara's husband was determined to destroy him.

Her cousin's words painted a picture that made horrible sense, though there were still huge holes; why Mikahl hated Charles so much, for example, and just what he was doing to bring his enemy low. Sara felt like a child who had been living in a prettily decorated tent, only to have the canvas walls suddenly drop to reveal monsters in every direction. She thought that she and her husband had been building a marriage and a life together; instead she found herself on the sidelines of an impending tragedy that she didn't understand.