Joan Wolf (24 page)

“Giles is fine, Annabelle,” Jack said. “Come into the salon and I will tell you about it.”

He strode across the passageway and into the salon, with Nell and me hard on his heels. Once we were inside the privacy of the room, Jack closed the door, turned to us, and said, “Stephen has been shot.”

I could feel all the blood congeal in my veins.

“He is all right, Annabelle,” Jack said quickly. “The doctor is with him now. He even managed to walk part of the way home.”

“Shot?” I said in disbelief.

“I am afraid so.”

Beside me Nell made a little mewing sound, but neither Jack nor I looked at her.

My hands had closed into fists. “Where was he shot?”

“The bullet grazed his temple.”

“Oh, my God!”
I stared at Jack, appalled.

“Grazed it,” Jack repeated. “It did not enter into his skull. Stephen was very, very lucky.”

“Where was he when this happened?” I demanded.

“On the Ridge. He had gone for a walk with Giles.”

My heart literally stopped beating. “You are certain that Giles is all right?”

“Giles is perfectly fine,” Jack said. “As a matter of fact, it was Giles who ran to fetch help.”

I thought: Stephen is going to be all right. Giles is safe.

My first rush of terror subsided, to be replaced by a surge of absolute rage.

“What bloody fool was shooting in those woods?”

I almost shouted the words I was so furious.

Jack said, “Whoever it was disappeared quickly once he realized that his shot had gone astray and hit someone.”

Beside me, a thin, breathy voice said, “I believe I need to sit down.”

Belatedly Jack and I turned our attention to Nell. She was pale as a sheet and looked as if she were about to faint dead away.

I reached out to grab her, but Jack was before me. He scooped her up in his arms as easily as if she had been a child, carried her over to one of the salon’s sofas, and gently laid her down. I went to the door and sent a footman flying to fetch some smelling salts.

“I f-feel so foolish,” Nell said weakly from her supine position on the sofa.

“Nonsense.” Jack was sitting on his heels at her side, and now he stroked her head reassuringly, in much the same way that I stroked my spaniels. “It was quite a shock.”

“Is Giles in the nursery?” I asked Jack.

He turned his head to look at me. “Yes. Bug ... er, Miss Stedham, has him safe and sound, Annabelle.”

“Where is Aunt Fanny?” I asked next. “She should be here with Nell.”

Jack bestowed one last pat upon Nell’s head and rose effortlessly to his feet. “Aunt Fanny is upstairs with Stephen and the doctor.”

“And Mama?” I asked.

“The ducals, thank God, have gone into Brighton for the day.”

I shut my eyes for a moment, the relief was so intense. Then I said, “I’ll go upstairs and send Aunt Fanny down to the salon, Jack. Will you stay with Nell?”

“Of course,” he said.

As I whirled out of the room I heard Nell asking feebly, “Jack, are you certain that Stephen is all right?”

* * * *

The door to Stephen’s room was open, and I stood for one unobserved moment upon the threshold, looking in. Stephen was sitting in a straight-backed chair, with the blue silk seat covered by a towel, presumably to protect the delicate material from blood. Dr. Montrose was winding a strip of white linen like a headband around Stephen’s temples, and Aunt Fanny was standing next to the door, holding a tray. They both were completely concentrated upon the doctor’s handiwork, and it was Stephen who saw me first.

“Come in, Annabelle,” he said calmly. “We’re almost finished here.”

At the sound of his voice the muscles in the back of my neck, which had tightened the moment I first saw Jack, began to relax.

I walked over to stand beside Dr. Montrose and regarded the bandage, which looked very white against the darkness of Stephen’s skin and hair.

I shuddered to think what two more inches would have meant.

“I have just been telling Stephen how lucky he is that this bullet did not go any deeper,” Dr. Montrose said, echoing my own thoughts. He was an old man who quite literally had known Stephen since he was born, having been the doctor who delivered him.

“I don’t feel very lucky,” Stephen said wryly. “I have the world’s worst headache.” He was indeed looking very haggard under his bandage.

I said fiercely, “I want to know what idiot was shooting in those woods.”

Dr. Montrose replied, “That is something we all would like to know, Annabelle.”

“Adam and Jasper are out in the woods now, looking for some sign of the culprit,” Aunt Fanny said.

Her voice reminded me of my errand. “Nell needs you in the salon, Aunt Fanny. She became quite faint when Jack told us about the shooting.”

“Goodness me,” Aunt Fanny said with a worried frown. “What can have happened? Nell is not the fainting kind.”

“I don’t know, but she went as white as snow. If Jack hadn’t caught her in time, she would have fallen.”

“I shall go down to her immediately,” Aunt Fanny said.

Dr. Montrose asked, “Do you want me to have a look at her before I leave, Fanny? “

“Please, Martin, if you would.”

Aunt Fanny departed.

Dr. Montrose said to me, “See that this young fellow gets enough sleep in the next few days, Annabelle. He looks to me as if he were up all night.”

The acuteness of this observation caused Stephen’s eyes and mine to meet in guilty alarm.

“Yes, Dr. Montrose,” I said.

The shrewd hazel eyes looked me over. “I am glad to see that you are looking better, my dear. You’ve regained some of that sparkle you used to have when you were a girl.”

“Thank you, Dr. Montrose,” I said.

While Dr. Montrose had not delivered me, he had delivered Giles, and he knew me very well. I lowered my eyes, fearful of what he might discover in them.

“Well then,” he said briskly. “I had better go and attend to Nell.”

“Good-bye, Dr. Montrose,” Stephen and I chorused. “Thank you, Dr. Montrose.”

The elderly doctor went out, leaving the bedroom door open. After a moment I went to peek out into the passageway. When I saw no one, I closed the door quietly and turned once more to look at Stephen.

“Something is wrong here,” he said. “You sparkle and I look tired.”

His words were so very far from what I had on my mind that it took me a moment to understand what he meant. When his comment finally registered, I put my hands on my hips and retorted, “It seems to me that you should be complimented and I should be insulted.”

He grinned.

A lightning flash lit up the lawn outside the window, and a moment later the thunder boomed.

“Frightened, Annabelle?” Stephen said softly. “Want to get into bed with me?”

What frightened me was the intensity of the desire that shot like a bolt of lightning through all my entrails. I said a little shakily, “No, I do not. I want you to tell me all about what happened out there on the Ridge today.”

He sighed. “You were more fun when you were younger.”

“You and Giles had gone for a walk ...,” I prompted.

More lightning and another boom of thunder punctuated my words. I sat down on the arm of the comfortable chair that stood in front of the fireplace and regarded Stephen expectantly.

“Oh, very well,” he said. “We were on the path to the cove because I had promised to show Giles the place where Jasper and I had built that tree house when we were children.” He moved his head cautiously, as if trying to find a more comfortable way to hold it. “We were having such a good time together, Annabelle, telling each other silly jokes and laughing our heads off. We had reached the track that led to the tree house, and I was just turning my head to point out the marker we had always used, when we heard the sound of a gun going off. I felt a burning sensation on my forehead, but I didn’t realize I’d been hit until the blood began to stream into my eyes.”

“Dear God,” I said softly.

“I grabbed Giles and hit the ground as fast as I could. Then I shouted, ‘Don’t shoot. There are people here.’ “

“Did anyone answer?”

“No. I thought I heard the sound of someone moving through the trees, but then it became silent. Whoever it was must have been frightened off when he realized he had shot at a person and not a deer.”

“Deer don’t talk and laugh and tell jokes,” I said grimly.

Stephen sighed and picked at his bandage.

“Leave it alone,” I said. “What happened then?”

He let his hand drop to the mahogany chair arm. “When I felt it was safe, I got up. When no shots erupted I let Giles get up, too. We began to walk back toward Weston, but I’m afraid I became rather light-headed. I didn’t want Giles to go off on his own, but he wouldn’t listen. He ran on ahead of me and came back very shortly with Jack in tow.”

Another flash of lightning. Another boom of thunder.

“How did Giles find Jack so quickly?” I asked.

Stephen’s hand moved restlessly. He said, “Giles ran into him as soon as he reached the garden.”

We stared at each other.

“Where in the garden?” I asked.

Stephen was beginning to look rather gray. “On the west side, where the track to the Ridge comes in,” he said.

The stable path, where one might expect to find Jack, was to the east of the garden.

“Jack wouldn’t shoot at you, Stephen,” I said. But I could hear the uncertainty in my own voice.

His blue eyes were steady on mine. “Annabelle, I really do not think he would.”

“It was probably just a poacher. He saw movement and thought that you and Giles were deer or grouse or something.”

“That is the most likely explanation.”

I got up and went to stare out the window. The rain was pouring down outside; the flowers in the garden were bent with the force of it.

I turned back to Stephen and asked the question that frightened me the most. “What would have happened if you had not turned your head to look for the marker? “

His silence gave me my answer.

I said desperately. “If... someone .. . truly meant you harm, then he would have followed up on his advantage. You had no weapon. You were a sitting duck.”

“ That is my thought precisely,” Stephen said.

We stared at each other again, each of us reluctant to give reality to our suspicions by admitting them out loud.

The next flash of lightning was not so bright, and the thunder sounded farther away. “ The storm is passing,” I said.

Stephen grunted.

I remembered something. “Good God, Adam and Jasper must have been caught in this storm!”

“One way or another, the Ridge has not been a very safe place today, has it? “ Stephen said in a tired voice.

I walked briskly over to his bed, turned down the covers, and plumped the pillows. “Doctor’s orders are for you to go to bed,” I said.

His eyes glinted.

I added firmly, “Alone.”

He made a wry face. “Oh, all right.”

I looked at the tray Aunt Fanny had put down on the bedside table. “Did Dr. Montrose leave anything to help with the headache pain?”

“Not that I am aware of.”

I sighed. “I adore Dr. Montrose, but he always expects one to be such a Spartan.”

“I’ll survive,” Stephen said nobly.

“Hmm.” I regarded him critically. “I have some laudanum you can have if you want.”

He gave me a suspicious look. “Why do you have laudanum?”

“I have been known to get a headache myself.”

He frowned. “You never used to get headaches.”

“Well, I do now.”

His frown deepened. “And you take laudanum for them?”

“Well... not anymore. I got some from a London doctor a few years ago, and when I innocently asked Dr. Montrose to give me some more, he ranted and raved for ten uninterrupted minutes about the evils of laudanum. He frightened me so much that I haven’t taken any since.”

“Well, I don’t want any either,” Stephen said.

“It is perfectly safe to use it once,” I said.

His whole expression said
No.

I sighed and walked to the door. “I will send Matthews to you directly.” Matthews was the valet Stephen had engaged when he was in London.

He said softly, “Can’t I at least have a kiss?”

I wavered.

“Annabelle ....” he said coaxingly.

I went over to his chair and took his face between my hands. I bent and very gently laid my lips against the linen that covered the wound in his temple. Then I moved down to his mouth.

He looked so terrible that the hunger of his kiss startled me. His hand came up to cup my breast. Desire stabbed through me once more, and it took all the willpower I possessed to straighten up and step away from him.

“You are incorrigible,” I said, trying to look stern.

“Five years is a long time, Annabelle,” he said.

I backed farther away. “You and I have some talking to do, Stephen. Don’t think you can just walk back into my life and pick up where you left off, because you can’t.”

His eyes were narrow slits of midnight blue under the startling white of the bandage. “Then let’s start over again,” he said.

My heart was racing and my pulses were pounding. “I must go to Giles,” I said.

“I won’t take very long,” he said.

I wanted to give in to him so badly that it frightened me. I shook my head. “You need to get some rest, and I need to see my son.”

He let out his breath in an exasperated sigh. “Oh, all right. Send Matthews to me and I will go to bed. But I probably won’t sleep.”

“Blackmail is an ugly thing,” I said.

His whole face lit with his sudden, radiant smile. “It is, and I apologize. Tell Giles I said he is a very brave little boy.”

“He takes after his father,” I said softly. And closed the door firmly behind me as I left.

Chapter Seventeen

I found Giles in the nursery, having tea and cakes with Miss Stedham. My first impulse was to put my arms around him and hold him as tightly as I could, but that would be certain to alarm him. So instead I kissed the top of his head and said lightly, “I hear you have had another adventure, Giles.”