Priceless (25 page)

He shook off her blows as if they were the bites of a mosquito. “Everyone knows—”

She dug her fingers into his hair and jerked his head back until he looked into her face. “Everyone’s wrong. Now you take me to him.”

“Now, ye listen ’ere, little lady—”

“That’s right, I am a lady.” She kicked him in the ribs. “I can pay you for your assistance.”

“I don’t ’ave t’ put up wi’ this.” He tried to dislodge her from his shoulder, but she pulled his hair until his eyes slanted.

“I can pay you, and Lord Rawson can pay you.”

Shoving people aside, he moved purposefully toward a wall, intent on scraping her off.

Adam now stood on the box, knees locked, eyes fixed
grimly ahead. He ignored the noose. He ignored the men who shook their fists, the women who demanded their money or his life. He ignored Judson, muddy and sniveling. He could see only Bronwyn, held aloft on someone’s shoulder.

How bitter this tasted. She’d given him the illusion of normality. He’d become one of those individuals he despised, a dreamer. He’d believed for a few short, sweet weeks that his family history could be dismissed. Yet Judson had so easily convinced London of his guilt because of that same family history, and that was something he should have never overlooked.

What had he brought Bronwyn to? He’d destroyed her virtue, ruined her so thoroughly that she could never be married. If she were with child, she’d be shunted aside to raise his babe alone. Because of him, she’d been kidnapped and brutalized. And now she was in the midst of a London mob, watching as they hanged him.

Bronwyn’s gaze cruised the crowd and bumped against a large man, the largest man she’d ever seen. She tensed, strained to see, took a gamble. “Do you know a man named Oakes?”

Her bearer froze. “Oakes?”

“Oakes.”

“Must be a lotta Oakes in Lunnon.”

“Only one could be this big, and work in a warehouse near the docks. See him plowing his way through the crowd toward Lord Rawson?” She pointed at the man—could it really be Oakes?

“Oakes?” her bearer repeated. “Does Oakes know Lord Rawson?”

“He’s our friend,” she confided, promoting her acquaintance into a relationship. In Oakes’s wake she could see a series of gray-cloaked figures moving with him, and she wondered—

A harangue from the impromptu hanging tree brought her gaze back to the front—back to her love. She wasn’t
so far from Adam. In fact, she was close enough to see him, blotched with bruising. Close enough to have him staring at her as they looped the noose around his neck. His eyes, so gray, so intense, spoke to her, but in her privation she couldn’t comprehend. Her chest clutched in a great pain. Her heart should be located within, but her whole system shook with such anguish that she knew no such organ could reside there. There was only thorns, and needles, and a great gaping horror that festered.

The minister bellowed, “This is Adam Keane, viscount of Rawson. He brought this disaster on us all. I say hang him!”

A roar of assent answered him.

Beside Bronwyn’s bearer, the whore shook her head. “’E’s not th’ man what sold me th’ fake stock. ’Tis th’ other.”

“What?” Bronwyn’s bearer turned so quickly, he almost dislodged her.

The whore repeated, “’E’s not th’ one—”

“Damn it.” The bearer inspected Oakes and his progress. Looked up at Bronwyn’s still, set face. Remembered the kind impulse that made him pick her up. And separated the people in front of him with the swath of his beefy arms. “Get outta th’ way, we’re hangin’ th’ wrong man.”

The mob rumbled as they turned on the man beneath her, prepared to kill him for interfering. From the other direction, a now menacing Oakes waded toward the ringleader. The gray-cloaked shadows fanned out around the box, closing in a tight-knit snare.

The helpful assistants of the mob tightened the noose around Adam’s neck. The minister called, “So must all swindlers perish!” He failed to notice the danger until Oakes stepped up on the box in one oversize step. As Oakes straightened, the ringleader craned his neck back, and back, and back. He retreated several steps and in a painfully comedic move fell backward off the box.

The fickle crowd guffawed.

Oakes turned on the other men who had so eagerly vol
unteered for the hanging, and they abandoned the box like fleas off a drowning dog.

“It’s Oakes!” someone called. “’Ey, Oakes,
you
wanna ’ang ’im?”

Oakes faced the crowd and seemed to swell. His face contorted, his arms swung back and forth, back and forth, and that same someone asked, “’Ey, Oakes, don’t you want us t’ ’ang ’im?”

Oakes glared.

Willing to abandon one victim for another, the someone yelled, “Then we’ll ’ang th’ other one.”

But the other one had disappeared, mysteriously whisked away by gray-cloaked figures.

“Oakes!” Bronwyn shrieked. “Catch me.”

The man beneath her helped her launch herself into Oakes’s arms, and from Oakes she flung herself toward Adam. With one bleak glance he collapsed into her arms. “Help me get this noose off him,” she commanded.

They laid the unconscious Adam down. His leg now gaped where the bullet had entered, and Bronwyn tugged her scarf tight to slow the bleeding. She looked up; the crowd had melted away, except for a few who remained in ghoulish curiosity. Coldly Bronwyn made use of them, ordering them to lift her love and carry him to Judson’s carriage. This she would commandeer. Wherever he was now, he owed her that much.

Oakes loped along beside them, keeping the bearers in line by his mere presence. “Where will we go, m’lady?”

“To Madame Rachelle’s.”

“Good.” Oakes nodded. “That’s one cunnin’ woman, even fer a frog.”

Gaping at the massive fellow, she asked, “You know her? Be careful with him.” She caught Adam’s lax hand before it bumped the frame of the carriage door and frowned at the men. “He’s not a sack of potatoes. Let me get in first, and I’ll hold his head in my lap.”

They smoothly maneuvered him onto the seat. Bronwyn flinched as they tucked his legs up, but she demanded, “Can any of you drive?”

They backed away, but Oakes plucked one of them up by the neck. “He can drive us.”

“Us?” Bronwyn asked.

“I’ll go wi’ you t’ see you get there wi’ no trouble.” Oakes glared at the designated coachman, and the driver scrambled onto the seat as if his breeches were on fire. Oakes gave him directions, then entered and sat opposite Bronwyn. As if she’d just asked, he answered her previous question.

“Madame Rachelle brought me ’ere. She ’as Judson in ’er ’ands, an’ that froggie will know just ’ow t’ treat a scum like ’im.”

Bronwyn bit her fingernails as Oakes laid the unconscious Adam across Rachelle’s bed.

“Do ye want me t’ call a doctor?” Oakes asked.

“Do you wish to kill him?” Daphne snapped. “He has lost enough blood, and all your English physicians would do is bleed him again.” She rolled up her sleeves. “Leave him to me. I will pull him through.”

In a pig’s eye, Bronwyn wanted to snap back. But here in the sickroom, the reckless French girl demanded respect.

It seemed Oakes thought so, too, for he said, “I’ll just be goin’, then.”

“Where?” Bronwyn demanded.

“Home.”

Bronwyn prodded, “Where’s home? I wish to reward you for your help.”

“Naw.” He shook his head and kept on shaking it. “I ’elp folks so’s they’ll treat me good.”

“And do they?” Daphne asked.

“Aye.” He shambled toward the door. “No one ever
tries t’ beat me or nothin’. Take care of ’is Ludship.” His last words echoed down the hall, and the women turned back to their gruesome task.

Bronwyn glanced around. “Should I light the candles?”

“As many as you can find,
s’il vous plait
. I need the light.”

Bronwyn watched as Daphne brought shiny instruments out of a black bag and laid them on the table beside the bed. She trembled as Daphne inserted the scissors to cut away Adam’s breeches and she saw the shredded skin and muscle.

“Oh, stop whimpering.” Daphne rinsed her hands in the basin by the bed. “This is what I trained for, practiced for. If you cannot help me without fainting, I will ask one of the others.”

“No!” Bronwyn leaped forward. “I’ll assist you.”

Daphne smiled with grim appreciation. “I rather thought you would. The bullet struck only the fleshy part of his leg, and left the necessary parts intact.” She glared at Bronwyn. “You must be happy to hear that, mademoiselle.”

Without a blush, Bronwyn glared back.

Satisfied with her composure, Daphne pointed at the wound. “The bullet entered the leg in the front, exited through the back. That’s good.”

“It went out the back?” Bronwyn asked, dumbfounded. “He has a wound at the back, too?”

“You had not noticed?” Daphne snorted. “Have you no practical function in this world?” Without waiting for an answer to that hypothetical query, she continued, “I could sew him up immediately—”

“You’re going to sew him?”

“How else would I put this together?” Daphne waved an encompassing hand.

Bronwyn cleared her throat. “I don’t know.”

“I could sew him up immediately, but he has bits of cloth from his breeches contained in the wound. They
must be removed, or they will fester.
Monsieur le Vicomte
may struggle when I probe and clean.”

“He’s unconscious,” Bronwyn objected.

With brisk efficiency, Daphne wrung out a cloth and laid it on Adam’s forehead. “Pain has a way of bringing the patient to life, and I want to do a good job on him.”

“Because he’s your first gunshot patient?”

“Because he is going to take you away from here and you will never come back,” Daphne declared with a fervency that almost frightened Bronwyn. “You think you can sweep in here and capture my mother’s heart, but I tell you, when you are gone Rachelle will remember me once more.”

“Rachelle isn’t your mother,” Bronwyn retorted.

“No, but she cares for me as if she were.” She lifted her head and glared. “She’s all I have in the world.”

Silence reigned, then Bronwyn asked, “Where is Rachelle?”

“She and the others are stowing your Carroll Judson in the pantry below.”

“Bless them.” Bronwyn imitated a smile through lips so tight they were bloodless and grasped Adam’s wrists firmly.

Mixing water with brandy, Daphne bathed the wound and picked away bits of thread and cloth. With her forceps she began to probe into the muscle. Adam twitched and moaned, and Bronwyn leaned her weight against him.

Daphne took his leg between hers to keep it still. Her fingers flew, her brow puckered. Her breath sounded loud in the room, and she muttered as if she were puzzled.

“What’s wrong?”

“There is something in here.”

Dreading the reply, Bronwyn asked, “Did the bullet hit the bone?”

“
Non
. It is not a bone fragment, but it is loose.”

“There are chips of a ship deck in there.”

That caught Daphne’s attention.

“That’s why he limps. A cannonball struck near him, and—”

“I see.” Daphne slipped a finger in beside the forceps. “When
Monsieur le Vicomte
recovers, he will thank me for this.”

Her glib guarantee reassured Bronwyn even as the slow torture dragged Adam back to consciousness.

“There.” Daphne held up a red fragment. “I will go back for more.”

Sickened, Bronwyn looked away, but she saw the leg that looked so like a display in a butcher’s window. She took a breath, but the odors of blood and muck fogged her mind. Light-headed, she wavered, but a mutter from the bed made her look down.

Adam was awake.

Delight filled her with a manic energy, sweeping her faint away. She wanted to hug him, kiss him, assure herself—and him—of his health. Instead she whispered, “Adam, you’re going to be well soon.”

He didn’t answer, only stared. Stared so fixedly that alarm touched her. He looked at her as if she were a stranger. His complexion was bloodless. Beneath his shirt his chest rose and fell, endlessly seeking oxygen.

“Adam?”

“Is he awake?” Daphne asked.

“He is, but he doesn’t speak.”

Daphne abandoned the leg that so fascinated her and came to his head. She groped through his thick hair. “There isn’t a bump.” With her thumbs she lifted his lids and peered into his eyes. “Do you know who you are?”

“Yes, and what’s worse, I know who you are. Can’t I afford a real doctor?”

Bronwyn’s relief found voice in laughter, and it escaped in a
whoosh
.

Unamused, Daphne stepped away. “You are ungrateful, monsieur.”

Reminded of Daphne’s dedication, Bronwyn sobered. “Yes, you are, Adam. Daphne has done all a doctor could do, and more, I suspect.”

“She’s hurting me at least as badly as any damned doctor who’s worked on me before,” Adam allowed. He hesitated for the beat of a heart, then asked, “Will I lose my leg this time?”

“No,” Bronwyn cried, but he paid her no attention.

“No,” Daphne answered firmly. “I don’t even believe there will be infection. The powder ignited so close to your leg, it purified the wound as it inflicted it.”

He searched her face, then nodded, satisfied with her competence and her truthfulness. “You may continue.”

Daphne returned to the leg while Bronwyn poured a large glass of brandy. Sliding her arm under his shoulders, she supported him while he drank; then he sank back.

Doggedly Bronwyn ignored Daphne’s work, but she couldn’t ignore Adam’s groans as Daphne delved deeper and deeper, or the way he jerked and clenched the sheets.

At last he burst out, “Woman, must you maul me?”

Daphne lifted her face in triumph. “I got it!”

“Got what?”

Bronwyn wiped his forehead with a wet rag as Daphne exulted, “I found the splinter that caused you such pain. Look!” She thrust the forceps before his face, and clamped between their steel jaws was a dripping piece of wood, encased in slime. “You will have no limp now!”

Gripping Daphne’s wrist, Adam brought it closer to inspect the chip. “You’ve done something no other doctor could do. I thank you. Bronwyn, look—”