Once Upon a Wager (6 page)

Then something went catastrophically wrong. The back of his carriage gave a groan, and there was a deafening snap. He spun his head around to see what had happened, and less than a moment later, the world lurched wildly. His back left wheel had sprung free, but somehow the horses and the carriage cleared the road before tumbling over violently. He fell from the driver's box, landing with a bone-jarring crack on the roadside. For several long moments, he was disoriented, his vision blurry. Shaking his head to clear it, he felt a stab of excruciating pain. Jaw clenched, he had to squint to focus his eyes.

Suddenly, though, he saw everything with hideous clarity.

His back wheel had spun into the air, and then landed hard, bouncing directly into the path of Gareth's carriage. Digby was far behind. His horses must have rebelled at his mistreatment, taking him out of the path of danger, but Alec watched helplessly as Gareth panicked and overcompensated to avoid the wheel, jerking his reins hard right toward one of the road's namesake rocks. His horses, already spooked, were sprinting at full speed, and only at the last minute did they take note of their direction. Trying to avoid a collision, they veered wildly and sent the carriage careening out of control. Gareth was flung from his seat, and there was an earsplitting crash as the horses fell, and shards and spikes of lacquered wood spun up into the sky.

Alec sprinted through his pain to the scene of the destruction. The horses were screaming. One was already back up, and rearing in terror, but the other had broken a leg and would have to be put down. Shocked by the scene, he didn't immediately see Gareth. But then his heart stilled, and bile rose in his throat. His friend lay in the grass, blood trickling from his lips, his head bent at such an unnatural angle that Alec knew, without a doubt, he was dead.

He heard a soft moan. He wondered, at first, if it had come from him—the first spilling of grief—but then it sounded again, coming from the wreckage itself. He turned to find little that might resemble a carriage. It was nothing but a pile of cracked boards at odd angles and broken wheels. He flung himself at the remains, fueled by panic, and tossed aside splintered wood, a crushed copper lantern, a section of the carriage roof, a small door split in half. Had he imagined the sound? In the bright morning light, though, something shimmered. He tore away another layer of the wreckage. And felt a pain so stunning that surely his gut had been ripped in two.

Because there, newly revealed and utterly still, was the ghostly pale face of Annabelle Layton, eyes open, her honey blond hair matted with blood.

He tore at the last of the debris that covered her, until Annabelle was free of it, her body lying awkwardly against the remnants of an upholstered bench seat. Hands shaking, Alec tore off his gloves and felt for her pulse at the base of her neck. It was weak but alarmingly rapid. Her breathing was shallow, her skin cool and clammy.

Someone drew in a sharp breath behind him. “Is she … is she dead, too?” Digby gasped, his face drained of color.

“No, but she's in shock.” He could hear the fear in his voice. “Take one of your horses, and get to the castle as fast as you can for help.” Alec turned to the groom who was running toward them. “Ride to Hinckley, and beg Dr. Chessher to come right away. Meet us here. I'm too worried to move her.” The other groom was looking down at Gareth's broken body, silent and still. He'd just cut free the one unharmed horse. Alec called out to him. “We will need clean linens for bandages and a board to hold Miss Layton. You'll need to pad it as best you can. And send two carts, one for her, and the other one … we'll need it for Gareth. Hurry!”

His heart was pounding, as if he'd sprinted for miles. Trying to keep his hands steady, he gently examined Annabelle's head to assess the extent of the injury there. She had a gash the length of his thumb on the left side of her head, above her ear. He could feel bone beneath his fingers. He felt along her shoulders, tracking her blood with his hands along the jacket she wore—a man's jacket, inexplicably. When he carefully pulled it open, and pressed along her left side, she flinched, though she was still unconscious. She had two, perhaps three broken ribs. He continued probing with his hands over the curve of her hips, clad in an old pair of boy's riding breeches. His hands stilled. There was more blood. Lots of it. The breeches on the left side were soaked through. The scent of it hung in the air.

He leapt to his feet and sprinted back toward his carriage. He would need the knife in his coachman's travel box. There was also a blanket he could cut into strips. In the distance, he could hear the cries of the injured horse, softer now.

His own horses were unscathed. One of the Layton grooms must have unhitched the team from his carriage, which lay on its side in the grass. After grabbing the items he needed, he ran back to Annabelle. Kneeling down beside her, he took a deep breath, and gingerly sliced open the breeches with his knife.

What he saw nearly turned his stomach. Her leg had been snapped in two, her thigh bone stabbing through the skin, blood oozing from the wound. Alec ripped the linen cravat from his neck and tied it tightly around her thigh above the break to fashion a tourniquet.
God, please let it work!
Moving quickly, he shredded his carriage blanket, draping strips of it over the wound. They were immediately soaked, but as he pulled them away and applied new ones, over and over again, the bleeding seemed to slow. He was desperate to believe it.

He took more of the strips and pressed them as gently as he could against the gash above her ear. Head wounds bled profusely, but how could Annabelle lose so much blood and live? His hands were covered with it, faintly chilled and sticky. And she was so terribly still, her eyes yet open, as blue as the spring sky above him, the pupils dilated and round as the full moon.

Alec heard the heavy thunder of approaching horses. They were coming in from every side. He could see Digby with Sir Layton and several men. One of the grooms and an accompanying footman were speeding toward him, riding in carts that were piled with supplies. From the other direction came Dr. Chessher, racing in at a full gallop, his horse laden with medical bags. He could also see Mrs. Chessher close behind, a formidable woman who helped her husband in emergencies.

Alec could hardly take in the unreality of it all. It was a beautiful morning, bright and still cool, yet here at the junction of the King's Highway and Two Boulders Road, the world as he knew it was flying apart, splintering in different directions like shattered glass. His oldest friend lay no more than a dozen feet away, dead in the grass. And there was every chance that Annabelle would not survive.

People were swarming about him. Dr. Chessher moved with efficiency and purpose, but he was obviously alarmed. He barked out orders for supplies from the cart: ice; water; fresh bandages; straight, clean boards; threaded silk; the smallest of needles; scalpels; clamps; an ample dose of laudanum. Annabelle was finally stirring, moaning faintly, but Alec knew that a few more minutes of unconsciousness would have been preferable. It would be desperately painful when Dr. Chessher reset her leg. If it could be reset.

Mrs. Chessher rushed over with the laudanum, as well as the doctor's bag, which the surgeon tore open, hurriedly setting out tools on a fresh linen cloth. Alec could feel her hand on his shoulders as she gently drew him away from Annabelle. He could see Digby aimlessly walking along the road, picking up pieces of the wreckage. The grooms were padding a flat board; it would be used to ease Annabelle's move to the horse cart that would bear her home. The men who had come with Digby were standing around Gareth's body, ready to carry it to the litter that would transport him back to the castle. Sir Layton was standing beside the body of his only son, his chest heaving, tears rolling down his face and onto his jacket.

A woman's scream split the air, and they all turned. Annabelle was writhing in anguish as Mrs. Chessher held her down, aided by the footman who'd brought the cart. The doctor stood above her, struggling to pull her leg straight so that he could align the bones. He swore at Alec to stand back when he came running forward, hoping to somehow assist them. So instead, Alec watched, helpless as Annabelle suffered. She was staring straight at him, covered with her own blood, her eyes wild with fear. He could imagine soldiers like this, terrified men torn apart, caught between the last few moments of life and death, but dear God, this was Annabelle. His beautiful, irrepressible girl. He would give anything, promise anything to save her.

She fainted then, and he whispered a prayer of thanks. With the break set at last, Dr. Chessher tied a splint crafted with boards and cotton batting to her leg. He then threaded his needles and sewed shut the skin about her thigh wound and head. Mrs. Chessher, her face glistening with perspiration, declared that every wound needed a good drink—-an old superstition, it seemed—as she swabbed the sutured flesh with alcohol from a bottle, and then took a restorative swig herself. Alec hardly cared, so long as it had a chance of working.

The footman and Dr. Chessher lifted Annabelle onto the padded board, and then into the cart that would take her home. The one bearing Gareth's body soon followed behind, and then Sir Frederick, and Alec, and the rest fell in line to follow.

Once at a carnival as a small child, Alec had been fascinated by an artist who'd rendered dozens of palm-sized drawings, each of them minutely different. They'd been gathered in book form, and as the artist flicked through them, his thumb quickly separating every page, the drawings had come alive. The subject had been a little dog who'd sprinted across a precisely rendered street, narrowly avoiding an out-of-control carriage, a meaty bone the prize for a journey fraught with danger.

If only Alec could play the pages of this day in reverse, so time moved backward, and accidents were undone, and foolish words were unspoken.

If only shattered bodies could be made whole again.

As he draped another cold, wet cloth across Annabelle's brow, Alec was certain he could see steam rising. She was burning up. “Mary, I think we must call the doctor back,” he said in a low, harried voice. “There must be a way to bring her fever down.”

The young maid, face tense with worry, shook her head gently. Little older than Annabelle, she had served the Laytons for most of her life. “Dr. Chessher said to expect this, my lord. Cold cloths and water, he said, and laudanum. The fever has to burn itself out.”

Of course, Mary was right, but Alec wasn't accustomed to this desperate sense of helplessness and regret. He'd lost all track of time. Had he eaten today? It didn't matter. He had no appetite. Not when she lay there, looking impossibly young and fragile, her head wrapped in linen cloths, her leg bruised and swollen so badly he feared it would break through the splint Dr. Chessher had fashioned. A double incline plane, he'd called it. Rather than a single flat board keeping her leg stiff, it was made from two boards, allowing her knee to be elevated and bent slightly. Supposedly, it was better suited to her type of injury and would help her retain mobility. If the leg could be saved. If Annabelle lived.

The biggest threat was infection, and little could be done to prevent it. Willing to try anything, Alec and Mary were following Mrs. Chessher's superstitious habit. They'd applied so much alcohol to Annabelle's wounds, the room smelled like a distillery. Whether he was dizzy from the fumes or exhaustion, he could not say. Since the accident, he'd stayed by her side, returning to Arbury Hall only to bathe and change. It was flagrantly improper. Father, above all else, would be furious, but Annabelle's parents were beside themselves and unable to care for their daughter. They'd crumbled in the face of disaster, a telling sign, his father would say, of instability.

Sir Layton was overwhelmed by Annabelle's severe injuries. He'd come several times to her chamber, face ashen, eyes tormented, hardly noticing Alec in the room. If only Annabelle were one of the butterflies in his collection, he kept murmuring, he could make her better. He had the glues and the supplies to keep her preserved under plate glass. His confusion was alarming.

As for Lady Layton, she hadn't been in to see Annabelle. Not once. She hadn't even met them at the doors of the castle that terrible morning. Upon hearing of the accident that had claimed her son, she'd taken to her bed, immobilized by her loss. According to Mary, she barely spoke a word to anyone. It was not healthy. As if the fear and grief he felt were healthy. Or the anger.

What had possessed her? When she was young, Annabelle had made a habit of sneaking into the carts he and Gareth raced through the countryside, but she should have been past such foolishness by now. Yet she'd dressed in boys' clothing to disguise herself. Doubtless, Gareth hadn't even known she was there, or he'd never have allowed the race to get under way. Again, Annabelle had done as she pleased, but never had the consequences been more tragic. The proof lay there, broken and bleeding, on the bed.

He dropped his head into his hands with a long, shuddering breath. If only he'd controlled his temper. Or stopped the race. The thought that she might not recover was more than he could bear.

• • •

It was almost midnight. Annabelle was sleeping peacefully, her lips slightly parted, her breathing soft and steady. Her cheek, so smooth beneath his hand, was cooler to the touch, and Alec was dizzy with relief. Her fever had broken.

He stood slowly, every muscle protesting the movement, and stepped away from her bedside chair. Mrs. Fritchens, the Laytons' formidable housekeeper, had insisted that he and Mary get some rest. She would look after Annabelle tonight. Yet Alec found it difficult to give up his watch. He needed to somehow show he cared—that he always had. Even in ways he should not.

He slipped from the room, walking through the darkened halls, one hand on the Tudor-era wainscoting to help guide him through the old home. It was almost empty now. Following the accident, the houseguests had departed in a panic, nearly tripping over each other's belongings in their haste. Digby, of course, had fled before Gareth's body was cold. Many of their friends from university, though, had taken rooms in town for the funeral. The doors and windows of the castle were hung with black crepe, the mirrors covered. Alec felt a fresh rush of grief. It seemed impossible that Gareth was dead.