Dangerous Loves Romantic Suspense Collection (20 page)

“Not fair? What do you mean?” He paled—frighteningly—several shades.

“Please, sir, I beg you hear me out.”

“Nothing you can say will convince me to withdraw my proposal. And do not forget, your reputation—”

“Please, my lord,” she said sharply. Her cheeks flamed. Admitting the truth aloud was proving harder than she initially imagined.

“Nothing you can tell me will change my—”

“I was married for nearly six years,” she said more loudly than she intended. Edgeware was startled into silence. “Six long years, I was married to the Earl of Mercer.” She swallowed hard. “There were no children, my lord. In six years, there were no children born.”

“I don’t see—”

“He wasn’t a monk—”

A sharp pop ricocheted through the dark woods. Edgeware leapt toward her.

“My God. Someone is shooting at us.”
He took her hand in his and tugged her arm. “We aren’t safe. Not even here.”

Elsbeth, too shocked to move, held her place. She could barely think. She looked down to where she’d instinctively covered the harsh stinging in her side and peeled her hand away.

Blood. Bright, warm blood stained her palm.

Chapter Sixteen

“Jenkins!” Nigel called for his butler, quite surprised he had any air left in his lungs. Every breath strained from the exertion it had taken to run with Elsbeth cradled in his arms all the way back to Purbeck Manor.

Damn it, he should have never taken her to such a secluded place. He should have never led her so far away from the main house, not when someone was plotting to kill him.

She was going to die
.

“Jenkins!” he shouted again.

She’d fainted in his arms when he began the mad dash across the fields and through the flowered gardens, taking the most direct path and not minding the delicate blooms crushed under his boot as he charged back to the house. She still hadn’t stirred. Her delicate features were drawn and ashen…almost lifeless.

Taking the stairs two at a time, he continued to call for his mysteriously absent butler.

“What is the matter, Edgeware?” Severin dashed up the stairs from out of nowhere and easily matched Nigel’s stride.

“Shot,” he managed.

“Zounds! Many of the men are out hunting. Must have been a stray bullet. Poor Lady Mercer. Has a doctor been fetched?”

“No.” Nigel kicked open the door to Elsbeth’s bedchamber. “Jenkins!” he shouted again. “My damned butler has gone missing.”

Elsbeth moaned when he lowered her onto the bed. The pained sound twisted inside him, tightening like a vise around his throbbing heart.

“Go down to the stable and find Joshua. Tell him what has happened. Have him ride into town and fetch Doctor Pryor…and the vicar.”

Severin muttered a curse and was gone.

Nigel, too concerned after Elsbeth’s health to give a whit about proprietary, slipped a knife from his boot and sliced open her sturdy gown. That gray color was not good for her anyhow. Which was a silly thought, seeing how there was a chance she might not live to scold him for ruining her dress.

She would live. She would
have
to live. He simply couldn’t lose her now.

He peeled back the last layer of clothing, a thin chemise that had been white at one time but was now stained red. Blood oozed slowly from an ugly hole in her side. It was blood she couldn’t afford to lose.

He quickly searched the room and found a clean cloth neatly folded in the washbasin. He grabbed it and firmly pressed the cloth against the wound.

“Milord!” a woman screeched from the doorway. A short, stocky dark-haired maid stood frozen at the entrance to the bedchamber. Her face was as pale as Elsbeth’s.

“Come help me,” he ordered. “She is your mistress?”

The maid nodded but remained at the threshold like a terrified rabbit. Her behavior was beyond strange. He would have to instruct Elsbeth to scold her maid.

If she lived.

No, he mustn’t think like that. She would survive this. She would soon become his wife.

The cloth pressed against the bullet wound was quickly becoming saturated with Elsbeth’s blood. “Bring me some fresh linens,” he ordered.

“What have you done to her?” the maid shouted. She charged fully into the room when she saw the fresh blood. She wrapped her hands around Nigel’s neck and tried to pull him away from the bed. “What have you done to my ladyship?”

“Stop this foolishness,” he ordered, prying her sturdy fingers from his flesh. The tiny maid was much stronger than she looked. “Do as I say, woman, and find me some clean linens.”

“Lord Ames told me Elly’s been hurt,” Lady Olivia cried as she rushed through the doorway. She pushed the maid out of her way and made a hasty path to the bed.

“What has happened?” Lady Lauretta demanded as she followed in her sister’s path. “What did Lord Ames say?” She took one look at Elsbeth and stopped in the middle of the room. Her hands flew to her lips.

“Catch Lady Lauretta,” Nigel ordered of the maid.

The maid, thankfully, had regained enough of her wits to grab Lauretta’s arms just as Lauretta began to sink. Using brute strength, she heaved Lauretta into a small chair near the door.

“The linens,” he reminded the maid. Even he recognized the panic in his voice. “I’ll need a stack of them. And then fetch a kettle of hot water from the kitchen.”

“Yes, of course, milord,” she murmured. Lifting her skirts, she ran from the room.

“What has happened?” Lady Olivia whispered as she sat carefully on the edge of the bed and cradled Elsbeth’s hand in her own.

In the fewest number of words possible, Nigel explained the situation.

“Struck by a stray bullet just like my husband,” Elsbeth whispered. Her voice sounded rusty as she choked on a laugh. “Fitting.”

Nigel squeezed her hand. Her eyes had barely opened. “Elsbeth?”

She didn’t answer him.

Some time later, the maid returned and took a position beside Nigel. “She’s in pain,” she said quietly and pressed a small vial of laudanum into his palm.

He gave a nod and carefully measured a few drops of the drug into the glass of water the maid held in her other hand, took the glass, and guided it to Elsbeth’s lips.

“Am I to die?” Elsbeth asked after greedily drinking a goodly portion of the water. There was no emotion in the question. Am I to die?—she had asked as if inquiring whether the cook intended to serve peas or carrots for supper that evening.

He held her hand even more tightly. “No darling, I will not allow it. You are forbidden to do anything of the sort.”

Elsbeth chuckled, sounding weaker with each passing moment. “I don’t believe you can bully death into submission…Nigel. You are not so very terrifying.”

“Where is that damned doctor? Jenkins!” he shouted. Everyone in the room jumped.

Still, no butler appeared.

“I’m not afraid to die, mind you,” she said, scaring the very breath from his chest. “But my side hurts like the devil, and I’m afraid that it may never stop hurting.”

Damn and blast that Jenkins! The lazy sot will be out on his ear before the day’s end, he vowed. And Joshua, what in bloody hell was taking him so long to fetch Doctor Pryor? Were all his servants unfaithful sots?

He was about to go out of his head with worry when Doctor Pryor, an elderly gentleman with a pear-shaped figure, finally ambled into the room.

“Heard there’s been an accident,” he said and then hummed a tuneless note. “Let me have a look. Can’t be as bad as you think, my lord.” He unceremoniously pushed both the maid and Nigel out of his way and then started humming again.

“Lord Ames,” Lady Lauretta cried as Severin came rushing into the room. She rose from her swoon in the chair and was quickly at Severin’s side, petting the side of his face. “What happened to your eye? It’s nearly swollen shut.” She frowned in Nigel’s direction.

There was a purple shadow rimming the underside of Severin’s left eye, true. But considering her cousin suffered a much greater mishap than coming in contact with Nigel’s fist, her concern seemed woefully overdone.

Severin did nothing to discourage Lady Lauretta. He let the poor girl make a fool of herself as she caressed his face and ran her hands up and down his chest in a most inappropriate manner. Nigel was about to step in and separate the two—Elsbeth would want him to act on her behalf and protect her young cousin from disreputable rakes like Severin—but he was diverted by the arrival of George’s brother, Sirius.

Doctor Pryor glanced up from Elsbeth for only a moment. “Ah, Reverend Waver, I enjoyed Sunday’s sermon as always. The thought of taking one loaf and making many in our own lives really gave me something to contemplate. You must come by and join my wife and I for dinner some time this week. She’s been after me to invite you.”

“Vicar.” Nigel took Sirius’s hand in greeting. “Thank you for coming.”

“We’re not in need of his services today, my lord,” Doctor Pryor said. “This young lady has suffered only a flesh wound. The bullet has passed through her side without much damage. As long as we can stave off infection, she’ll be traipsing through the countryside in no time.”

“I am glad to hear I’m not needed after all. Lord Edgeware,” Sirius said with a bow and started toward the door.

Nigel caught his arm. “Wait, Vicar. But you are needed.”

Sirius smiled in that ethereal way of his. “Yes?”

“I insist you perform the marriage ceremony for Lady Mercer and myself. Now. You must marry us right now.”

His words shocked the room into silence.

Only Sirius seemed to take the demand in good stride. “I understand you’re upset over this accident. The lady—” he gave a nod in the direction of the bed “—she is your intended?”

“Yes.” He supposed he would have to submit to answering a few of the vicar’s questions before he could reasonably expect to proceed with the business of marriage.

“I sympathize with your concern, Edgeware, but I don’t see the need for such haste. Have the banns even been read?”

“No, but—”

“Doctor Pryor, is the young woman in any danger of succumbing to her injuries?”

“No, Reverend. We’ll have to keep an eye out for fever and infection. But that won’t happen for a day or two.”

Sirius’s smile deepened. “Now there, see. You have no need to rush.”

“But the danger of infection—” Nigel became suddenly very aware of the other people in the room. He led the vicar out into the hallway. His heart began pounding as he realized no one was going to turn his course. “Something might happen. Even Doctor Pryor admits he cannot be assured of her recovery.” He swallowed hard. “If something were to happen, if she were to…were to…I would want her to have my name.”

Sirius patted him on the shoulder. “Very well. I suppose I could petition the bishop for a special license after the ceremony. Perhaps he will agree with the urgency of the situation.”

Several minutes later Doctor Pryor banned everyone from the room, even Nigel, whom he claimed was hovering far too close. Elsbeth’s cousins left with Severin, saying they would wait in the drawing room. Nigel hesitated at the door. He knew he should follow the ladies to make sure they were properly chaperoned and to make sure the rest of the guests were being properly looked after. But the neatly stacked boxes just outside the door stopped him.

Damnation. Elsbeth had been planning to leave him? She hadn’t been willing to give him the chance to prove to her how much he wanted this marriage? She hadn’t been willing to listen to what he might say?

He suddenly needed to be alone.

He made it halfway down the hall when a small voice called out, “Milord?”

He turned. The stout maid who’d hovered with him at Elsbeth’s bedside marched toward him. “Yes?” he asked.

“You plan to marry my ladyship?”

“Yes, I do.”

The maid wrinkled her nose with displeasure. “My ladyship didn’t seem at all pleased by your suit. She was most upset this morning, she was, fidgeting with everything in sight.”

“She has yet to become accustomed to the idea.” He turned to continue down the hall, but the maid would not let him leave just yet.

“She doesn’t need another blooming man,” she hissed. “She is ’appier now. She is ’appier without a bloomin’ husband. An’ I am ’appier without ’aving to nurse my ladyship back to ’ealth.”

He peeled her hand from his sleeve. “The gunshot wound was an accident.”

“You ’aven’t taken my meaning, milord.” She hesitated. “Lord Mercer—” she lowered her voice “—’e was a monster, ’e was. My lady doesn’t need another man like ’im.”

Nigel’s heart stopped beating. “Another man like him?” he asked slowly.

“He liked to hurt her somethin’ fierce, milord, and far too often. And ’e’d not let me call a surgeon. ’E’d sooner let ’er die than ’elp ’er, ’e’d said.”

Mercer had better be in hell.

“Go back to your lady.” His voice trembled with rage. Damn the false mask of Dionysus. Damn his own failings. He should join Lord Mercer in hell. He should suffer for her marriage to that bastard and the pain he’d unwittingly led
his
beautiful little dove into.

“Milord?” The maid’s eyes nearly popped out of her head.

“Go!” he ordered, his sanity threatening to crumble. “Help the doctor make her comfortable. I will return to the bedchamber in an hour with the vicar. Do not doubt this. I will marry your lady today.”

* * * *

Elsbeth’s vision swam in and out of focus. She blinked; her eyelids felt as thick as a wool blanket. Her body didn’t feel at all steady. One arm seemed too long, the other too short.

Edgeware was there, caressing her hand.

She furrowed her brows—at least she thought that was what she had done. Edgeware was dressed in a highly ornate light blue coat. She couldn’t fathom why he would be dressed in such finery. His cravat cascaded in a multitude of starched waves. And he looked very, very serious.

Too serious.

Oh…dear. Was she drooling?

They had plied her with laudanum. That was a certainty. As a child she’d once fallen ill with a terrible fever. The doctor had kept pouring the opium concoction down her gullet while bleeding her dry.

She was lucky she had not died.