Hello Stranger

Garrett let out a muffled cry as she saw that Ethan was in his bed, facing away from the doorway. He lay on his side, making quiet sounds as if he were in pain, or lost in a nightmare. What was wrong with him? Was he ill? Was he pretending to be incapacitated?

Gamble steered her into the room with his hand at the back of her neck.

She felt a hard pressure against her skull, and heard the ratcheting click of a pistol hammer.

“Beacom,” Gamble said quietly. He moved to glance back at the hallway, while keeping the gun to Garrett’s head. “Beacom?”

No answer.

Gamble switched his attention to the man on the bed. “How many times do I have to keep killing you, Ransom?” he asked dryly.

Ethan made an incoherent sound.

“I have Dr. Gibson with me,” Gamble taunted. “Jenkyn wants me to bring her to him. Too bad. His interrogations never end well for women, do they?”

On the periphery of Garrett’s vision, a shadow lengthened slowly on the floor, like a spill of warm tar. Someone was approaching from behind. She resisted the temptation to look directly at the shadow, instead keeping her attention on Ethan’s still form.

“Should I put a bullet in her head instead?” Gamble asked. “As a kindness to an old friend? I’m sure you’d rather have her shot than tortured.” The muzzle of the revolver lifted from Garrett’s head. “Should I start with you, Ransom? If I do, you’ll never know what happens to her. Maybe you should beg me to shoot her first.” He pointed the gun at the figure on the bed. “Go on,” he said. “Let me hear it.”

As soon as Gamble took aim at Ethan, Garrett burst into action, using her right elbow to deliver a sharp blow to his throat.

The explosive jab took Gamble by surprise. Although she hadn’t managed to hit him squarely, it caught enough of his goiter to make him wheeze and clutch his neck with his free hand. He staggered back, barely managing to retain the revolver.

Although Garrett’s wrists were bound, she leapt toward his gun arm, grabbing desperately for his wrist. But before she could reach him, she slammed against a big, dark shape that had come between them. It was like hitting a stone wall.

Shaken and stunned, she stumbled backward and tried to make sense of what was happening. The room was filled with violent motion, as if a storm had found its way inside. Two men were fighting in front of her, using fists, elbows, knees, feet.

Reaching up to the tightly cinched gag, Garrett managed to tug it from her mouth. She spat out the sodden cloth and worked her dry, rough tongue against the sides of her cheeks. Without warning, the pistol came skidding across the floor, its trajectory so close that she was able to stop it with her foot. She fumbled to snatch up the weapon and hurried to Ethan’s bedside.

Croaking out his name, she tugged back the covers . . . and froze.

The man in the bed was Beacom. He was battered and only semiconscious, his body immobilized with a collection of trouser braces and surgical bandages.

Utterly bewildered, Garrett turned back to the brawling figures near the doorway. One of them had collapsed to the floor. The other had straddled him and was pummeling him unmercifully, intent on murder. He was dressed only in trousers, his upper half bare. She recognized the shape of his head, the breadth of his shoulders.

“Ethan,” she cried, running forward. Every movement he made strained arterial ligations and threatened to tear newly healed tissue. Every blow he delivered could start a fatal hemorrhage. “Stop! That’s enough.” Ethan didn’t respond, lost in blind, brutal rage. “Please stop—” Her voice broke with an anguished sob.

Someone rushed into the room. It was West, followed closely by two male servants in nightshirts and breeches. One of them carried a lamp that threw a steady yellow glow into the room.

Taking in the situation with one glance, West dove for Ethan and hauled him off Gamble. “Ransom,” he said, restraining him with considerable difficulty. Ethan resisted, snorting like a maddened bull. “Ransom, he’s down. It’s done. Easy, now. Calm yourself. We have enough homicidal madmen in the house as it is.” He felt Ethan begin to relax. “There, that’s it. Good fellow.” He glanced at the servants accumulating in the hallway. “It’s dark as Hades in here. Someone light the damned hall sconces and bring more lamps. And find something to tie up that bastard on the floor.”

The servants hastened to obey.

“Garrett,” Ethan muttered, shoving free of West’s grasp. “Garrett—”

“Over there,” West said. “She’s in shock, and she’s holding a cocked pistol, which is making me nervous.”

“I’m not in shock,” Garrett said tartly, although she was shaking with full-body tremors. “Furthermore, my finger’s not on the trigger.”

Ethan came to her swiftly. After easing the gun from her hand and pushing the hammer spur back to a resting position, he set it on the nearby hearth mantel. He reached for a pair of wick trimming scissors and cut the cord around her wrists. He made a low animal sound as he saw the pressure marks left on her skin.

“I’m all right,” she said hastily. “They’ll fade in a few minutes.”

Hunting over her as if the past few minutes had been transcribed on her body, Ethan found the sore, throbbing abrasion on her temple and upper cheek. He grew very, very calm, his eyes darkening in a way that chilled her blood. Gently he angled her face for a better view. “Which one of them did this?” he asked in a mild tone that didn’t deceive her in the least.

She gave him a wobbly smile. “You don’t really expect me to tell you.”

Scowling, Ethan looked over her head at West. “We need to search the house.”

“The footmen are going through it room by room as we speak.” West stood over the prone form of William Gamble. “Ransom, I’m afraid your friends won’t be allowed to visit if they can’t learn to play nicely. We caught a third intruder, by the way.”

“Where is he?”

“In my room, trussed like a pigeon for roasting.”

Ethan blinked in surprise. “You fought him?”

“I did.”

“Single-handedly?”

West gave him a sardonic glance. “Yes, Ransom. He may be a trained assassin, but he made the mistake of waking a Ravenel from a sound sleep.” He gestured to the doorway. “Why don’t you take Dr. Gibson to her room while I see to this mess? I’ll have our guests lodged in the icehouse until you decide what’s to be done with them.”

 

Although Garrett had always prided herself on her steady nerves during an emergency, she couldn’t control the tremors that ran through her. If she weren’t so worried about Ethan’s condition, she might have been amused by the way they walked to her room like a crotchety old couple, both of them stiff and wincing.

She went directly to her doctor’s bag on the table and rummaged for her stethoscope. “I need to examine you,” she said through chattering teeth, fumbling with her supplies. Her fingers weren’t working properly. “Secondary hemorrhage occurs most commonly between the second and fourth weeks after a gunshot injury, although that’s usually in cases when the wound hasn’t closed properly, and yours is—”