A Dangerous Man (28 page)

He was in bed with a she-devil, but his drink-clouded mind
didn't care. He wanted release. He plunged between her
parted thighs. The demon beneath him moaned his name.

Please ... no ... please ... no ... please ... no ...

The door creaked. Boot heels clanked.

A brother's voice, now long dead, howled his name.

A hand reached up, malevolent eyes gleaming red in the
darkness. "Rachel."

Drenched in sweat, heart pounding, Richard bolted upright
on the bed. Cool night air hitting his damp skin shuddered
down his back. Through the sluggishness of his lingering
dream, he heard Leah's voice. He swung his gaze around until
he found her, standing beside the bed, a candlestick clutched
in one hand. The other hand, she held wrapped around the
base of her throat.

14 tried to wake you," she said. Her eyes were wide, her
hair spilling wildly about her face, shadowed in the dim light.
"But I couldn't. You were thrashing about and calling for-"

"It was a nightmare," he said bleakly. He ran his hands
through his hair and over his face. "Nothing for you to worry
about. Come back to bed"

She nodded, but looked unconvinced. Then she grabbed
his hands and tugged. "Geoffrey's home and he is so foxed.
You should have heard the wild things he was saying. .

Her words struck home like a volley of well-aimed arrows,
hitting Richard's deepest fears. His heartbeat skidded to a
painful halt, but he willed himself to remain calm as he rose
and shrugged into his shirt and breeches. "What exactly did
he say?"

She waved her hand through the air. "Nothing specific. In coherent words, mostly, then he started weeping and spoke of
things I did not understand. About how angry you would be
when you learned the truth. I sat with him until he fell asleep,
but I am truly worried. He said something about being ten in
the hundred. What does that mean?"

Usurers charging ten percent interest. Outrageous!

If Geoffrey were that desperate-

Richard shoved Leah aside and bolted from the room. She
called after him, but he couldn't answer for the panic swelling
in his throat. His legs were too heavy, his steps too slow as he
raced down the passage. Please, don't let me be too late.

He flung open his brother's door just in time to see Geoffrey raise a pistol to his temple.

A moment of terrible silence passed, the seconds punctuated by the thunderous beat of Richard's heart. He recognized
the gun as one of a matched set of dueling pistols. It belonged
in a case locked in the gun room, not in Geoffrey's hand,
poised to blow his brains against the wall.

Richard's thoughts grew sluggish, his skin cold, yet dripping with sweat as panic tried to overwhelm him, as guilt and
recrimination choked him, as he stared at Geoffrey, so far
gone on drink he could scarce stand upright without swaying as if tossed about by hurricane winds. A loaded pistol in
his hand.

Muscles clenching, legs trembling, Richard shuffled forward. There would be time for recriminations later.

Now, he needed his wits clear and his senses sharp.

"Put the gun down," he said in a tightly controlled voice
that betrayed not a hint of the icy fear shredding his guts.

The image of his brother's beautiful face, tears streaming
down his cheeks, his eyes hollowed by despair, burned itself
into Richard's brain. He took another slow, measured step.

"Do not move!" Geoffrey said, his voice shrill, desperate.

Richard held up his hands. "Let us talk, Geoffrey."

"It is too late. Do you not understand?"

Richard inched one foot forward. "I understand you are
hurt. And I want to help you. But you must put down the gun."

"I've done it up right this time, Richard. But I won't let you
pay the price. Not like before" A spasm twisted Geoffrey's
lips, compressed his swollen lids until his features resembled
a gruesome death mask. "I did not mean to tell, you know. He
tricked it from me °"

"I know," Richard said, sliding another step closer, his skin
tingling in the suddenly frigid air. "It does not matter. It never
mattered. All I care about is you"

Geoffrey waved his hand, the pistol teetering wildly
beside his head. "I cause you nothing but grief. How you
must hate me"

"No! I love you. I need you. You are my brother."

"Go away. I do not want you to see this."

"Will you shoot yourself in front of me?" Leah said from
the doorway, her voice soothingly low and soft as a lullaby.
She took two steps into the room. "I thought you were my
friend, my brother. You told me tonight that you love me. But
I have to wonder if you spoke the truth. Do you love me so
little you would make me watch while you kill yourself?"

Geoffrey dragged his tortured gaze to Leah. "You do not
understand. I won't hurt Richard anymore!"

"You must be jesting. You are hurting him now. Or do you
truly believe he will be happier when you are dead? Will you
make him bury yet another brother? And what of Alison?
Do you truly think she will be happier without her uncle? Do
you think. .

Richard didn't attend to her words. He prayed Leah would
keep Geoffrey's attention fixed on her while he shuffled forward on legs that felt as if they were fashioned from a blacksmith's anvil. His breath burned like acid in his throat. He was
almost close enough. Ten more paces and all would be well.

Geoffrey's gaze swung back to him. "I never meant to hurt
you, Richard." His finger tightened on the trigger.

"No," Richard screamed as he hurtled through the air, as
he heard the gun explode, as the din deafened his hearing and
the smell of blood made him gag. He landed on his hands and
knees.

He crawled across the floor. Somewhere in the distance, he
heard an anguished scream. An ever-widening puddle of
blood seeped through Geoffrey's shirt, but Richard could
not see the wound, his vision blurred by smoke and tears and
grief so great, he thought it would consume him. Yet again he
had failed.

"Get a doctor," he screamed, but Leah had already run
from the room. He could hear her shouting orders as her
voice receded down the hall. He dragged the counterpane off
the bed, jammed it against his brother's chest. Geoffrey's
lashes fluttered open.

"Why, damn you?" Richard demanded, hot tears burning
his eyes. "Don't you know how much I love you?"

"Not worth your love-"

"Shut up, you stupid, bloody fool. I will not let you die. Do
you hear me? Goddamn your everlasting hide. You will live.
And then I will thrash you for putting me through this."

The choking rasp of his voice belied his angry words. How
much anguish was one family to suffer? How much pain to
atone for one man's sins? A child's future shrouded by secrets
and lies was not enough? Eric's death was not enough? Now
this?

Geoffrey gave a watery laugh, wheezing as he sucked in a
breath. "Can't do nothing right. Not even this."

Two footmen rushed in with Leah close behind them. Her
cheeks were pale, but she issued orders as clearly and calmly
as Wellington wading through a smoke-covered battlefield.
"Help the duke get him on the bed. Be careful of his head.
Bring the doctor the moment he arrives, and bring clean linens
for bandages"

A chamber maid carried in a basin of fresh water.

Leah soaked a cloth in it, stroked it across Geoffrey's forehead and cheeks, but he had succumbed to the pain and the
alcohol and was unaware of her presence.

"He will be all right," she said, gripping Richard's arm.

The warmth of her skin seemed to flow through her fingertips and diffuse through his body. Her reassuring presence
was the only calm in the whirlpool of pain and fear swirling
around him.

He felt oddly detached from the moment, as if he were
watching the events from a very great distance, through a spy
glass or a telescope, his vision blurred by darkness and fog.

His skin was cold, his mind numb. He had no awareness of
the passage of time. It seemed like hours, but it could have
been minutes before the doctor who had treated Leah following her injury rushed into the room. His periwig sat crooked
on his head. His waistcoat was mis-buttoned, as if he'd
dressed hurriedly and in the dark, but he hustled across the
floor with an air of barely suppressed energy that belied his
bulky frame.

He set to work removing Geoffrey's shirt. "You might wish
to leave," he said to Leah. "This is likely to be distressing."

She shook her head. "No, I will stay and assist you"

Richard would have been shocked had she answered otherwise. If there was one thing he had learned about his wife,
she had a core of steel hidden inside her soft, feminine body.

The doctor gave a curt nod. He peeled Geoffrey's shirt
from the wound. "The ball ripped through the fleshy part of
his left shoulder," he said, probing the gaping hole with an instrument that looked as if it were designed for torturing innocent souls during the Spanish Inquisition. "Tore away a chunk
of skin, a bite of muscle, but doesn't seem to have hit any
bone ""

Richard's stomach rolled, but Leah didn't appear disturbed.
She took the bloody probe when the doctor held it out to her,
then handed him the next instrument he called for.

The doctor squinted, his spectacles slipping down his nose
as he picked out bits of cloth from the mangled flesh. "Provided the infection doesn't settle in, he should be right as rain
when he heals, though he will have a great deal of pain, and
perhaps a decreased range of motion. All and all, a very lucky
young man"

After washing the wound, the doctor stitched it closed,
then spread a poultice over the battered skin and bandaged the
whole in strips of linen. "The secret is keeping the wound
clean and properly bandaged. Give him laudanum for the pain
and contact me at the first sign of distress."

"Thank you so much for coming," Leah said as she guided
the doctor to the door. "Let me see you out"

Richard pulled a chair close to the bed. He clutched his
brother's hand in his fist. Geoffrey lay as still as death, his
face the same bleached white as the pillow covers beneath his
head. If it weren't for the rhythmic motion of his chest, Richard would believe him already dead.

The door creaked open. Richard knew it was Leah, knew it
without her saying a word. He listened to her soft footsteps
pad across the floor, felt her arm encircle his shoulders as she
came up beside him. He pulled her close, seeking her warmth,
seeking her strength and her sanity in a world gone suddenly
insane.

She took his hand in hers, and together they sat in silent
vigil through the night.

Eight hours later, Geoffrey lay unconscious still, his body
trembling from top to toe as if he had an ague. His breathing
was shallow, his arms and legs restlessly twitching.

Richard peeled back the linen to examine the wound. It
showed no signs of putrefaction, no increasing redness or
heat. Nothing to explain the moisture on his flushed cheeks.

"He is not feverish," Leah said, smoothing her palm over
Geoffrey's brow. "Do you think he has taken an infection?"

"No," Richard said. He closed his eyes, rubbed his fingertips over his temples. "It is the drink. Not only is he fighting
the infection, he is fighting his addiction to the drink."

"Have you seen this before?"

"Several times, my love. In the army."

Self-disgust clawed his gut, but he closed his mind to what
should have been. He needed his thoughts centered on the
here and now. He drew her into his arms. Her eyes were clear
and bright as she gazed at him, though shadows darkened the
skin beneath her lashes and lines of fatigue framed her lips,
another spike of guilt to shred his already decimated soul.

Still he did not release her.

His only comfort through this nightmare came from her
quiet strength, her unwavering support, and the certain knowledge that Alison was safely tucked away in her rooms.

"Water," Geoffrey croaked.

Richard lifted his brother's shoulders while Leah held a
glass to his mouth. His lips and tongue trembled so fiercely,
the liquid dribbled down his chin. Leah grabbed a spoon from
the bedside table and trickled the water into Geoffrey's mouth.

With painstaking patience, she waited for him to swallow,
then repeated the process until he pinched his lips together.

Richard ran his hands over his face. His night growth of
beard scratched his palms. Hours passed. Day melted into
night.

Then day again. Time blended and blurred as Geoffrey
drifted in and out of awareness. At times he seemed almost
lucid, then frantic and incoherent. He ranted and raved.

He demanded a drink, then he begged and he pleaded.

They dosed him with laudanum to ease his distress.

"If he doesn't stop thrashing about like that," Richard finally said on what he thought was the third day, "he will
damage his injured shoulder. We have to tie him down."

Leah shredded a cotton bed sheet into strips, then handed
them to Richard to lash Geoffrey's arms and legs to the bedposts.

She slipped her arms around Richard's waist, leaned her
forehead into his shoulder. Legs trembling nearly as violently
as Geoffrey's, Richard pulled her so firmly against his chest,
he could feel her heart beating through her skin, warm and
strong and alive. He buried his lips against her neck, his eyes
burning with what he suspected were tears, but he blamed on
fatigue.

"Let me go," Geoffrey screamed. "Untie me, you filthy
savages, or my brother will kill you"

"Where does he think he is?"

Richard rubbed his fingers over his aching eyes. "As a young
man, my grandfather traveled extensively in the colonies. On
the rare occasions that he bothered with us at all, he used to fill
our heads with stories of bloodthirsty savages. As a child, Geoffrey's favorite game was to playact those stories."