Chapter Twenty-One
Rafe struggled to keep his weight off the shoulders of the women who held him upright, but balancing on one leg when dizzy from blood loss made him nauseous. He was cold, exhausted, and wanted nothing more than to lie down and rest by a leaping fire.
It was a difficult discovery that he was not unbreakable, and he cursed his body’s weakness, praying for a swift recovery. Regardless of Charlotte’s family history, he would not risk bringing the wrath of Culverdale and his cronies upon her. She’d saved his life tonight, for which he was eternally grateful.
Mrs. Allston and her sister responded quickly to the women’s frantic knocking.
“My dear!” exclaimed Mrs. Allston as Charlotte and Jenny struggled to get him through the door. “What’s befallen you all? Great heavens, it’s Lord Beckport! I thought I’d made my opinions about your—”
“Mr. Seabourne,” Charlotte corrected.
Before her mother could finish her tirade, Charlotte’s aunt said, “You’re all soaked to the skin. Come in quickly, out of the rain.”
Charlotte gestured to her mother to close and bolt the door. “We’re in very great trouble. Mr. Seabourne is injured. But no one must know that he’s here. It’s a matter of life and death.”
“Heavens. Why didn’t you say so at once? Jenny, stop panting and light the fire in the parlor. No, wait, you’re soaked to the skin. Run up and change. Flora will light it. Have you been in an accident?”
Rafe lifted his head to speak, but Charlotte cut in, saying, “No, Mama, we’re unharmed. But the gentleman has been shot in the thigh by Lord Culverdale.”
He screwed up his eyes with a silent groan. Had Charlotte learned nothing, after all his warnings? What further secrets of his was she going to expose?
Mrs. Allston flung up her hands. “What in the name of mercy has been going on? I’ll send Adam for a surgeon straight away.”
He finally found his voice. “No surgeon, I beg you, Mrs. Allston,” he rasped. “The fewer people who know of my presence here, the better. Please, send your daughter to get out of her wet clothes. I don’t want anyone else to suffer from this night’s misadventures.”
She looked him directly in the eye and pressed her lips together. “I know very well what you’ve been up to.”
He sincerely hoped not. He scowled at Charlotte.
She gave a quick shake of the head and put a finger to her lips.
Her mother said, “I know all about dueling, even though you gentlemen pretend it no longer goes on. Was Lord Culverdale injured, as well?”
Perfect. He’d far rather Mrs. Allston believed her own version of the truth.
Catching Charlotte’s eye again, he said, “He was, but not so gravely as I. No doubt he’ll put about some concocted story to explain his embarrassing injury.”
Mrs. Allston huffed. “You aristocrats with your honorable code of silence. Did you not even have a physician on hand? For you appear greatly in need of one.”
Rafe tilted his head toward the parlor sofa. Instantly understanding, Charlotte helped him to it, and he sank gratefully onto the cushions, stretching his bad leg out before him. It was starting to lose feeling. The tourniquet must come off as soon as possible.
Charlotte’s aunt stepped forward. “Sister, allow me,” she said. “I’ve heard Dr. Campaign’s lectures and have read a little in his book of remedies. I’ll soon know if the earl needs more help than we can give. Pray, get Adam to undress him—with your permission, my lord—and put him in my bed. As soon as he’s comfortable, Adam can light the fire up there, and I’ll come up to examine the wound.”
A look of astonishment passed between mother and daughter. Evidently, they were not used to Flora taking charge.
Rafe set his teeth against the pain as an elderly manservant was called to help him upstairs. Blast it all. He wished he’d been permitted to remain on the sofa.
After a grim struggle up the seemingly endless steps, he was helped into a bed, undressed, and engulfed in a clean but rough night shirt, rolled up to expose his bad leg. The wound felt hot and raw, but little blood had escaped from under the makeshift bandages, which must be a good thing.
As he lay staring up at the pitted plaster ceiling, he thanked Fortune for preserving him and questioned his folly in attempting to take down Culverdale alone. He dreaded to think what would have happened, had Charlotte and her maid not been there.
Charlotte was his guardian angel, no matter what her father might have done. If she’d deliberately changed her identity, she must want to distance herself from her past. After tonight, he was in her debt. He owed her the benefit of the doubt, at the very least.
After far too long a wait, she came in, dressed in her nightgown and bundled up in a thick woolen shawl. As she stood by the bed, he crept his hand out from under the covers and grasped hers. He held on tight, concerned at her pallor. Now that the shock of their adventure was over, she must be feeling faint.
The maid bustled in with hot water and towels, while the bewildered manservant fetched and lit as many lamps as would fit in the modest room.
Aunt Flora came in when all was prepared, with Charlotte’s mama hovering in her wake. After a cursory glance at his leg, Flora ordered everyone to stand aside and be quiet while she worked.
Rafe bore the probing and cleansing of his wound with as much fortitude as he could muster against the pain. His physician proclaimed, in a very professional way, that the limb must be elevated and the tourniquet gradually removed, lest gangrene or infection set in. Mrs. Allston was sent off for cushions, while Flora clinked about under the bed, emerging triumphantly with a bottle labeled Dr. L. E. Campaign’s Famous Nostrum for Bloody Wounds.
He rolled his eyes. Another quack remedy? He’d already had a taste of the stuff Charlotte gave him to reduce his reaction to horses. Admittedly, the potion had worked—his reaction to the hired horse earlier had been confined to that one short spell in Charlotte’s garden—but it had tasted vile, and he dreaded to think what it would do to his insides if forced to drink a large amount.
After a close examination of his cleaned wound, Flora said, “I believe the ball’s passed right through the flesh. There’s nothing lodged in the hole. I’ll dab the wound with Ephraim’s nostrum and seal the edges with cobweb, if someone doesn’t mind fetching some.”
Jenny curtsied and hurried out of the room.
“Oh dear,” Flora said sympathetically. “You must be in considerable pain. No, don’t deny it, your lips are quite white with the strain. I must warn you, this medication will sting. You’re not teetotal, I take it?”
He shook his head.
“Good. Lucinda, the brandy, if you please. Bring two glasses—I think Charlotte has need of some, too.”
Having given her orders, she dived under the bed again, and after a deal of clinking and muttering, another bottle was retrieved, which she claimed to be a painkiller.
“How many bottles have you got under there?” Charlotte’s mother asked with a frown. “Are you planning to start a pharmacy?”
Not too many more, he hoped. It would be ironic if he survived a shooting, only to be poisoned by a plethora of quack remedies.
Flora colored, and replied, “You’ll thank me for them one day. The doctor has written an excellent treatise on domestic and emergency medicine.” She turned back to him. “Sir, I’m going to apply the physick to your leg. As I said, it will hurt. Do you want something to bite on?”
And look like a coward in front of Charlotte? He’d rather die.
The noxious-smelling liquor was applied, and he struggled not to crush Charlotte’s hand with his, but soon mastered himself and fell back against his pillows, closing his eyes.
Gradually, his mind began to drift as the brandy—of which he’d been given a plentiful dose—took effect and the pain eased. He was aware that activity in the room had lessened, although he could still hear movement going on downstairs.
Flora disappeared, then returned to his side. As he wafted in and out of consciousness, he heard her telling Charlotte, “We’re drying out the earl’s clothes, and Jenny will sew up the rent in his breeches. We’ve hidden his weapons, lest anyone demand access to the house to search. If anyone inquires, anyone in authority, that is, we’re going to tell them Beckport—”
“Mr. Seabourne, please, Aunt,” Charlotte reminded her. “Even in private, we must use his alias.”
He squeezed Charlotte’s fingers appreciatively. She was learning, bless the girl.
“I’m sorry. We’ll say Mr. Seabourne is a distant relation, taken ill on a visit. Or perhaps we could say he slipped and tore a ligament.”
Charlotte smiled. “You’re getting too good at dissembling, Aunt. I never knew you had it in you.”
“Needs must,” was Flora’s muffled reply, and Rafe wondered sleepily if Charlotte had touched a nerve.
He murmured, “Charlotte? You must be battered and bruised after your struggles to get me here. Miss Hartington—”
“Call me Flora, please. After all, I’ve seen more of you than a lady should.”
Charlotte chuckled—a delightful sound. “Aunt, I’m shocked at you!” she exclaimed.
“Thank you, Flora,” he said. “I’d be much obliged if you’d tend to Charlotte’s needs now. And please, I’ll be fast asleep soon, so no one need sit up with me. I don’t wish to keep any of you from your beds.”
There was further movement, followed by the extinguishing of most of the lamps. A hush fell over the room, broken only by the occasional crackle of wood in the hearth.
He closed his eyes and felt Charlotte’s hand in his again. He smiled dreamily.
She said softly, “I’m so sorry, Rafe. If I hadn’t tried to interfere, that shot might never have hit you.”
“On the contrary,” he murmured. “It could have hit me in a far more vital place. You did exactly the right thing. I will forever be in debt to you and your family.”
“I’ve been a bit surprised, myself, by them. I’d no idea Aunt Flora had acquired such a raft of medical knowledge. And wasn’t Jenny splendid? Even though Culverdale was quite legitimately about to fire at a highwayman, she saw me desperately trying to prevent it and acted to help without hesitation.”
“No, the honors should go to you,” he insisted. “I’d no idea you had such a strong stomach. Most young ladies would just have fainted and let someone else deal with the crisis.”
He tried not to think about what she might have seen, or done, in her former life as a smuggler’s daughter, which had inured her to blood and gunplay. When he was better, he’d make it his business to find out the truth. His suspicions were threatening to tear him apart.
How he wished he was free to love her! It was doubtless the brandy fogging his mind, but it would be so easy to just offer himself to her right now. He tipped his head back on the pillow and fell silent, struggling to make sense of his unfamiliar feelings.
She must have assumed he’d fallen asleep, for the next time he looked in her direction, she was sitting in the chair opposite, her nightgown pulled up to her thighs so that she could anoint the scratches on her legs.
He feasted for a moment on the splendid sight, though he knew the gentlemanly thing to do would be to look away. After a brief battle with himself, the roguish side of his character won out. He drawled, “If I saw a vision like that every time I opened my eyes, I would be a very happy man.”