Lisbon: Richard and Rose, Book 8 (29 page)

Richard opened his eyes. His gaze went straight to me. I stared in amazement when he smiled. “I knew you’d come.”

I tried to smile back, and again amazed myself by succeeding. “Of course you knew. Why would you doubt that?”

He was alive, I was alive. In the middle of terrible devastation, we were happy. Later I’d feel regret and horror for the almost total destruction of a city and many of its inhabitants, but now all I could feel was blessed relief and a desperate need to thank someone for sparing the person who made my life real.

I looked up, my eyes blurred by the tears I’d refused to let fall. And then, at a short distance, I saw John, his blond hair glinting in the light of the sun, his grey eyes steady as he took aim.

I didn’t hesitate. I dragged a pistol from my belt and shot. John fell forwards like a stone. I knew he was dead, I felt it. And I couldn’t be sorry.

“My lady?” a man close to me asked.

I tossed my discharged weapon to the ground. “Just another rat. Ensure that’s reloaded, would you?”

Numbness enclosed me. All I felt was a slight relief that another threat had left us. Perhaps the shock had rendered me unable to feel anything more, or maybe the natural disaster had put the machinations of one youth back where it belonged—into obscurity. I wouldn’t make myself care. I had more things to concern myself with now.

“My lady, we have to see to the marquês.” Carier’s gentle words reminded me that there were more people to care for, and I had the skills to assist. By his lack of reaction I knew he cared as little about John’s last act as I did. Hardly worth discussing when we had more important matters at stake.

I squeezed Richard’s hand, very gently, because bruises and scrapes marred the knuckles and flesh. Richard returned the pressure and turned his head to one side so he could watch me. He wouldn’t willingly take his attention away from me now.

Paul lay a little way away. A man knelt by his side. Unlike Richard, Paul was unconscious. The man had stripped and cut his clothing off, so he lay naked, under our scrutiny. No place for modesty here. When I scanned his body, my horrified gaze remained on his foot, which was sickeningly twisted to one side and limp.

It was swollen, dark with bad blood, and when Carier touched the sole of the foot, nothing happened. He should have responded to the touch, even unconscious. Even though Paul’s skin was of an olive tone, the foot was darker, with streaks of red marring it. I swallowed. Both Carier and I knew what we had to do if we were to save Paul’s life. Those streaks contained poison that would infect the rest of his body and kill him if we didn’t act quickly and decisively. I had helped in a similar situation years before, when a man had fallen on a scythe, sustained a relatively minor injury and bound the wound lightly. Days later, he came to us, too late to save the limb, but in time to save his life. Not that it helped him later, when employers refused his services.

Now Paul was in the same physical condition. And the same solution rode us. I glanced over to where Richard had rolled on to his side so he could watch me. He nodded, very slightly but I saw it, and it gave me the courage to say what I had to. “It has to come off.”

“Can you assist, ma’am? I’m sure I can find someone to help if you feel you cannot,” Carier asked.

“Yes, I can help. Let’s do it now, before he has a chance to wake. If we do this while he is conscious, he’ll perish from the shock.”

Carier set his mouth to a firm line. “Likely as not. Yes.” He nodded to someone behind me. One of the Thompson’s men, who handed him a roll of canvas, which I knew from past experience held his medical supplies. Carier handed the man an iron, which the footman took away to put in the fire. We’d have to cauterise the wounds, or Paul would bleed to death. But it would take hours to get back to the house, and by then the infection could have spread, and he’d lose more than a foot.

I will not go into the details of the operation. Suffice it to say that we had the foot removed and the stump cauterised, the blood vessels tied off and the wound bound in clean linen as quickly as we could. Carier and I had worked together before, and one-word comments sufficed. We trusted each other’s abilities, and we did the job as cleanly as possible, given the circumstances.

Paul lost some blood, but not enough to endanger his life if we were careful. All through the procedure I felt Richard’s gaze on me, steady and stronger than he should have been. I knew it was for me. Someone had brought fresh water to him, and some bread. They must have starved these past four days. He drank and ate, all the while watching me.

To our relief, Paul didn’t regain consciousness while we were operating. But we had to get him back to the house and awake to assure ourselves that he was, apart from his injury, ready to recover. We had sent word back to Lizzie for carriages and more help, and the welcome news that we’d recovered them, alive. No more.

We rested. I lay next to Richard, and we curved blankets around us and fell into a light doze, too tired to do more than clasp hands. Nevertheless, it was enough.

Hours later, I don’t know how many, I was shocked to see the vision of my sister. She climbed over the rubble, a servant in attendance, holding her skirts high to prevent herself from stumbling on them. She looked fresh and clean, an angel visiting the poor rabble in the streets. Of which I was one. Dirt streaked my hands, together with the blood from her husband. We had saved the fresh water for the people who needed it most, and I wasn’t a priority.

As she sank to her knees beside Paul, I turned my attention back to Richard. He fought his hand free of the blankets that covered him and reached for mine once more. Grasping it, I felt the stress and sleeplessness of the past few days sweep over me like the great wave that had devastated Lisbon. The rare hours of snatched repose were nowhere near enough. I wept, and he watched, too weak to hold me. But he understood. He murmured words I could hardly hear, but his musical tones were enough.

Nichols touched my shoulder. “Come, ma’am. We’ve found a door to lift their lordships. The men will carry them to the place where the carriages wait.”

I swiped my sleeve over my eyes and then blew my nose, again on my sleeve, since I wore no petticoat and handkerchiefs were an unheard of luxury in this place. Like the urchins in the street, suddenly I understood that their ill manners weren’t necessarily because they didn’t know any better. It was because they didn’t have the means to follow them. Etiquette could only work if one was rich enough to follow the edicts. An odd thing to realise now.

Little revelations as well as big ones. While I couldn’t stop my tears overflowing, I could feel the burdens leaving me. If Richard fell ill over the next few days, I had it in me to care for him. I wouldn’t have to worry about him alone, needing what I could bring him. I didn’t have to worry about a future life without him.

I stood and only then saw the two bodies laid out on the ground. The unknown man, who must have been the cook Carier had spoken of, had obviously been dead for days. I didn’t approach his corpse. I could do nothing there.

The other hadn’t been dead as long. I stared down at the body of my husband’s firstborn son.

His hair gleamed gold, an echo of his father’s, and the face, now in repose, appeared its true age. Young. So young my heart went out to him. He’d never see twenty. A pale, flawless complexion, with the clever, clear-cut features I saw in his father every day when I woke. He was lithe of limb and beautiful, even in death. I knelt by his side and prayed. They were the only prayers his body was likely to get, and I hoped they’d help to speed his soul to heaven. So full of promise, he’d destroyed it all by his vicious, driving ambition, that ambition that had urged him to commit acts a boy of his age shouldn’t even know, much less take part in.

I recalled what Richard’s life had been at that age. He’d lost his brother, Gervase, to exile. He was abroad with Carier, meeting Gervase in secret before his twin left for India, doing the Grand Tour, teaching himself to be the immaculate, heartless man who the world saw when he returned home, the brilliant leader of society and inventor of vice, determined to make society pay for the destruction it had helped wreak on Gervase.

Freed of its constraints, the rigid ruts I’d forced it into in the last few days, my thoughts ran riot, and too tired to stop the process, I let them go. I returned to my husband, stumbling in my fatigue.

The men loaded Richard onto a door and carried him the mile to where the carriage drivers had found a place to wait and guard the vehicles. Already people were converging on them, but the men Lizzie had hired to accompany us rode around the vehicles with loaded weapons, prohibiting access.

It was a tragedy that we couldn’t offer more help, but the carriages would hold us and our patients, and the footmen who were returning with us. We left two to clear up and follow in short order. They would bury the bodies as well as they could. Then we’d leave the site to its sad fate.

Chapter Nineteen

“Rose.”

The sound, soft as it was, woke me from exhausted slumber. I lay on a truckle bed in the bedroom, unable to leave Richard now that I had him back.

Immediately I sprang to my feet. It was dark, the curtains drawn, but a glimmer of light showed through the cracks.

Oh God, he must be frantic, waking up to find that. My husband had always hated being closed in, and after the experience he’d just gone through, must hate it even more.

“I’m sorry.”

I crossed the room, but before I reached the windows, he spoke again. “It doesn’t matter. Come here. I need you, not the light.”

Obediently I went and stood on the side of the bed. The floor was chilly under my feet, but I repressed my shivers. The morning was cold too.

He threw back the covers. “Get in.”

“I shouldn’t.”

“I want to hold you. Get in.”

Unable to resist the temptation, I climbed in next to him and snuggled close, letting him slide his arm around my waist. “I’ll get up today,” he said.

“You’re not well.”

“I’m perfectly well. I’ve lain here for three days now, and if I don’t rise and see to business, I’ll go mad. My foot is nearly healed, and I can bear my weight on it.” He held me more firmly when I started. “I visited the necessary while you were asleep, using the cane Carier thoughtfully placed within reach. I’m sure it was to strike the wall or the floor if I needed help, but it supported me well enough. I’ve eaten, drunk, rested, even greeted our children yesterday, and now it’s time to start living again.”

He touched his lips to my forehead. It felt like heaven. By instinct, I lifted my chin, and he dropped a kiss on my mouth. It turned into something neither of us expected, and we shared a long, leisurely kiss of love and welcome. I had come home, truly come home.

“Sweetheart, I want to make love to you. I want to prove that I’m alive, that you’re here with me and it’s not another fevered dream. My love,
mi adorata
, I can’t go another minute without it.”

I was worried about him, but the entreaty in his eyes let loose the restraint I’d been holding back for so long. I wanted him so badly. I wouldn’t let myself think, not about anything.

I reached up and sealed our mouths together with the kind of kiss I wanted to give and receive.

He touched my lips with his tongue, traced their shape. My frantic urgency seemed lost on him because he took his time, easing into my mouth with a luscious richness that melted my concerns away and forced me to concentrate on the moment. He could do this for weeks, months, years and I’d never tire of it, always want more.

He devoured me, as if we’d been apart for months, and in a way, we had been. This time we wouldn’t stop.

We both wore nightwear, but not for long. His bruises had faded to greenish yellow, but he wouldn’t let me soothe them. He tossed our nightwear aside and leaned up to look at me. “So beautiful, and all mine.” He glanced at the light bandage that covered the gunshot wound Jerry had given me.

When he lifted his gaze to my face, I smiled and shook my head. “An inconvenience, no more.”

He touched his lips to my mouth, then down to the hollow at the base of my throat, a place he knew drove my senses to high alert, and down farther. He covered my breasts with his hands and took a nipple between thumb and forefinger. “I love the way they peak for me. It tells me you want me, that you can’t resist me. As I can’t resist you. I don’t intend to try.” He bent then and sucked a nipple deeply into his mouth, releasing it to move to the other and give it the same treatment. Short, intense, like a steel needle to my nerves, he roused me to almost unbearable levels. But he wasn’t done yet. Sliding his hand down my side, from my breast to my hip and my thigh, he did it again. “A delicious curve, made for a man’s hand.”

I reciprocated. “And this. Masculine and mine.” His muscles swelled under their covering of satiny skin. Despite the bruises, it still felt the same. His touch was addictive, as always, and I would never get enough of holding him. If I lost him—

He must have seen my sudden fear because he stopped his caresses. “Look at me, Rose. Look at me.” I lifted my gaze to his. “We are here,” he said. “This is now, and that is all we have. We only have this moment, this time, and we should live it. That’s what I got back in those days in the cellar. The immediacy of
now
. Think of nothing else but us, you and me, here in this bed, loving each other. Can you do that?”