A Hint of Scandal (4 page)

“Heavens, Mrs. Ash, he is not an exhibit in a museum,” Bella said with a little laugh. But she understood what Mrs. Ash meant. Not a lot went on in the tiny village of Mabry Green.

Despite her exhaustion, Bella helped Mrs. Ash clean the sitting room floor before going off to take her bath, leaving Mrs. Ash to keep an eye on the patient.

A little while later, as she coiled her hair into a neat bun at the back of her head, Bella fretted over why it was taking Tommy so long to bring the doctor. He’d been gone for hours; she frowned as she put the last pin in her hair.

After making sure her appearance was tidy, Bella returned to her room to join Mrs. Ash.

“Now, you just sit yourself in this comfortable rocking chair while I set up some lunch. I’m sure you’ve eaten nothing all day.”

Bella accepted the kind woman’s offer and sank gratefully into the rocking chair. Leaning her head back, she watched the stranger for some moments. Was his breathing less shallow? She fervently hoped so.

Mrs. Ash bustled in at that moment, with a tray bearing a bowl of savory winter stew.

“You just tuck into that and you’ll feel much better. ‘Tis a good thing I started the stew yesterday, Miss Bella. Less work today,” she said, setting the tray on Bella’s lap. “I’ll be attending to the mess in the front room if you need me.”

Bella thanked Mrs. Ash while hiding a yawn behind her hand.

The appetizing aroma of the stew made Bella suddenly realize how hungry she was. She ate slowly while she continued to watch her patient for any sign of improvement.

After finishing her lunch, Bella placed the tray on the floor next to her chair. Leaning her head back, she closed her eyes to rest for a few moments.

How long she slept she wasn’t sure. It wasn’t until she was awakened by a gentle touch upon her shoulder that she realized she had been asleep.

“Miss Bella, Lord Penninghurst’s coach is turning up the drive.”

Blinking sleep away, Bella thanked Mrs. Ash for giving her the news. Her uncle must have sent her papa home in his coach because of the inclement weather.

Bella left her room and went to stand on the front doorstep as the coach trundled to a stop on the muddy drive. The coachman jumped down and placed wooden steps in front of the coach doors. Bella smiled as her father stepped from the coach and waved at her, his balding head quite bare to the winter chill.
He’s probably left his best hat at the Park
, she thought with fond impatience over father’s chronic forgetfulness.

To her surprise, Dr. Pearce followed her papa out of the coach.

“I thought you said you sent Tommy for the doctor,” Mrs. Ash declared as she came to stand next to Bella in the open doorway.

“I did,” Bella replied, a confused frown settling on her brow.

To Bella’s further surprise, her cousin, Lady Beatrice Tichley, also exited the carriage, followed by the young lady’s parents, the Earl and Countess of Penninghurst. Finally Tommy jumped out of the conveyance, disregarding the steps.

“Heavens, my entire family has descended upon us, Mrs. Ash,” Bella said to the good woman with some chagrin.

“Humph.” Mrs. Ash snorted with the familiarity of long acquaintance. “Beggin’ your pardon, miss, I don’t envy you having to manage this lot a bit. They are too high-strung and difficult if you ask me—always making a Cheltenham tragedy out of every little thing. This mystery man will probably give them all the vapors.”

Though fiercely loyal and protective of her family, Bella had to choke back laughter at Mrs. Ash’s accurate assessment of them. Stepping down from the stoop, she moved to the gravel drive to greet her guests.

“I’ll show the doctor to your room, miss, and then put a pot of tea on the stove,” Mrs. Ash offered.

Bella looked back at Mrs. Ash and nodded gratefully, then turned to Dr. Pearce, who barely addressed her as he handed her his hat and overcoat before he went off with Mrs. Ash.

Bella put the doctor’s things on the entryway chair just as Tommy came running past the rest of them up to the front steps. Before he could enter, Bella put up a censorious hand to halt his progress.

“Take those muddy shoes off before you come in this house, young man. And never say you wasted all this time going all the way to Penninghurst Park when you should have been fetching the doctor posthaste.”

“Don’t be a clunch, Bella.” Her brother scowled at her with dark blue eyes the color of hers before bending over to remove his boots. “I ran the whole way to the doctor’s house, only to have Mrs. Pearce tell me that he was all the way over in Hareton, tending a sick old man. So I went
on to the Park and told Papa what had happened. Uncle summoned the coach and we all went over to Hareton, located the doctor, then came straight here.”

Lady Beatrice came up the steps at that moment. “This is terribly exciting, Bella!” she called. “We all want to see your injured gentleman.”

Bella turned to her petite blond cousin. “He is not
my
gentleman, Triss. And I do not think it is at all the thing to be so excited. After all, he could die at any moment,” she finished with some asperity.

“Oh, there you go, being the correct Miss Tichley,” Triss said, using the label that some of the villagers teasingly used to describe Bella. Lady Beatrice made a face at her cousin, her ebullient mood now deflated. “I still want to have a look at him,” she stated as she went past Bella into the sitting room.

Rolling her eyes, Bella then turned her attention to her aunt and uncle. Giving them a quick curtsy as they entered the house, Bella could not help but notice how beautiful her aunt looked in a wool coat of sapphire blue with a matching muff lined in ermine.

Aunt Elizabeth kissed Bella’s cheek before commenting on how tired the girl looked.

Uncle David, a larger, gruffer version of Papa, also stepped forward to kiss his niece. “Thought we had better see what all the fuss-up is about. When Tommy said he’d found a man with a slug in him, wasn’t sure if he wasn’t bamming us at first,” the earl said in his gruff voice.

“We have another carriage coming, Bella,” put in Lady Penninghurst as she removed her bonnet. “It has a hamper of food, extra blankets, bandages, and such.”

Bella thanked her aunt as she set about making her unexpected guests comfortable.

“Triss, would you please see how the tea is coming while I see if the doctor needs any assistance?” Bella said to her cousin, who instead was heading toward the staircase.

The younger girl stopped and turned with a flounce. “Oh, this is not any fun.”

“Triss!” Bella’s laughter was more shocked than amused at her cousin’s incorrigibility. “A man has been shot.”

“I know. Isn’t it bloodcurdling?” Beatrice said with an impish grin. “Do you think he’s a highwayman?”

“Enough, you goose! Go help Mrs. Ash with the tea.” Bella gave Triss a little shove toward the kitchen.

With a feeling of dread, Bella left her relatives and returned to her room. She hoped the doctor would not fault her for anything she had done to the man.

Standing in the doorway, Bella watched the doctor as he cut away the bandages she had so carefully made and began to probe the torn flesh she had sewn together.

“Did you do this?” the doctor questioned without looking up from the man’s shoulder. Bella could not tell by his tone whether he approved or not.

“If you are referring to the needlework, yes, I did that,” she said quietly.

The white-haired man did not immediately respond, but continued to examine the unconscious man. Gently he lifted the stranger’s closed lids and looked at his eyes for some moments.

“His pulse is weak, but there seem to be no other injuries beyond the hole in his shoulder. If he survives the loss of blood, he may have a chance.” Finally the doctor turned to look at Bella and saw the look of relief enter her eyes.

“Do you believe you removed the entire slug?” he questioned sharply.

Bella moved swiftly to the nightstand and picked up the old chipped cup. “I kept it. It seems intact. I… I tried to be very careful.” Exhaustion and fear were evident in her voice.

The doctor sat back and watched her keenly for a moment. “You look as tired as I feel,” he told her, his gruff tone softening. “I was called away late last night to attend a dying man in Hareton. Then Lord Penninghurst and the rest of the lot descended upon me and brought me here.” He continued as he began to put his medical tools back in his black bag, “You have done a good job of it. If he can avoid fever and infection, he may survive. Help me rebandage him.”

The task was much easier with the doctor’s help.

“He’s a big bloke, isn’t he?” The doctor grunted as he lifted the man so that Bella could slip the bandages underneath him and around his shoulder.

“There,” Bella said with relief as she tied the last strip of bandage around the patient’s shoulder.

Rising from the edge of the bed, the doctor gave her a stern look. “If he awakens, give him water, a little broth. No food. I will leave you some laudanum. Give him a few drops if he becomes too restless. Tearing that wound open again could be fatal. He mustn’t be moved.”

Bella nodded her understanding of his instructions.

The doctor moved to the doorway, then turned back to give her a look of sympathy. “After spending more than an hour in the coach with your family, it is clear to me that you will not have much help nursing this man. Do you have any idea who he is?”

Bella glanced down at the stranger. How odd that his long lashes now seemed so familiar.

“No, I have no idea,” she said as she followed the doctor down to the sitting room, where the rest of the family, save for Tommy, was having tea and biscuits.

Bella offered the gruff doctor a cup of tea. He drank it quickly, and as soon as he was finished, he stood up, saying that it was time he returned home.

Papa and the earl escorted the doctor out to the waiting carriage. Bella heard Uncle David’s rather booming voice instruct the coachman to return to the house after taking the doctor home.

Bella groaned inwardly. As much as she loved her family, she was not looking forward to spending the rest of the afternoon with them.

Setting her cup down on the tray, Beatrice looked over to Bella eagerly. “May we look at him now?” she asked.

With another inward groan Bella acknowledged defeat. For she knew full well when Triss decided to do something there was little, except the rarely expressed wrath of her cousin’s father that would stop her from doing what she desired.

Despite her tiredness and worry, Bella could not help finding her cousin’s avid curiosity about the stranger amusing.

Beatrice was a year and a half younger than Bella, and very pretty. Golden-haired and slender, she had an ethereal
quality that belied a hoydenish streak that caught those who did not know her well off guard.

At three and twenty, the biggest disappointment in Lady Beatrice’s life was that she had not yet made her curtsy at court. Every year since she’d reached the age of eighteen, something had occurred to prevent her from having her London Season.

The first year had been the sad death of Bella’s mama. Beatrice would not have considered leaving her cousin in mourning to run off to London.

The next year had been the death of their grandfather, the third Earl of Penninghurst. Though again disappointed that she would miss the Season, Beatrice had been mollified by the notion that it would be much better to be presented as “Lady Beatrice” instead of just “Honorable.”

The year after that had been the death of her mother’s father, Lord Marlowe. Beatrice had been bitterly disappointed to miss yet another Season, and had made her pique clear to the entire family, but Lady Penninghurst had been adamant about observing the proper duration of mourning. “After all, Triss, dear,” she had told her daughter at the time, “it would not be at all the thing to go gallivanting off to London, considering how much money your grandpapa left us.”

Her luck had not improved since. And so another Season was missed. Even though Triss lamented that she would be well on the shelf before she ever made her come-out, in truth, she had only grown prettier.

Lady Beatrice had had another scare when it had been announced in church last fall that young Princess Charlotte had died. Beatrice had been practically overcome with the vapors lest the regent do something as improbable as cancel the upcoming Season. To her immense relief, no such announcement had been made. Soon the fashion magazines directed that half-mourning would be the appropriate mode for the Season. Beatrice was vastly relieved and even more excited, if that were possible, for she felt the particular shades of half-mourning suited her well.

Now, though it was only February, Beatrice was in an ecstasy of planning every detail of her impending come-out in the spring. She spent a fortune on magazines, and she
and Bella spent hours poring over the latest fashions, agonizing over what styles and colors would show her to the best advantage.

The only thing that dampened her rhapsody over her upcoming London Season was the fact that Bella would not be joining her. Bella’s papa could not afford the expense involved. In Triss’s opinion, her uncle Alfred’s pride was a ridiculous reason not to let his older brother pay for Bella’s Season. Beatrice had told Bella repeatedly, and with great vehemence, of her annoyance with Uncle Alfred’s stubbornness.

“After all, Father would be perfectly happy to pay for your come-out. Father actually thinks you are a good influence on me, so you would be doing him a favor by coming to London with us. I cannot see why your papa is being so odious. And I can’t understand why Father won’t just override Uncle Alfred’s silly notion of pride,” she had said to Bella with a note of petulance.

“Give over, Triss,” Bella had responded with characteristic pragmatism. “You are giving everyone, including me, a headache. You know as well as I that Papa will not entertain the notion.”

“Well, it’s not fair,” Beatrice had pouted. Suddenly her face had cleared and a sly look entered her sparkling blue eyes. “Bella, I have just had a capital idea! This will solve everything! I shall marry a duke or maybe even a prince. Then I shall give you the best ball London has ever seen, and there will be nothing Uncle Alfred can do about it.”