My Unfair Lady (21 page)

   Summer's heart leaped with relief and then settled into annoyance. He was lucky to be alive, the stubborn man, after not listening to her to get down, thinking that he was impervious to harm. "Shh. I'm not sure if they're gone yet."

   "Who?" He sat up, then lay back with a groan, clutching at his shoulder.

   "Whoever shot you," she whispered. Summer continued to listen to the world around them and tried not to flinch when he groaned. A little pain would serve him right, after scaring her to death.

   "No one would dare… Is that what's wrong with my bloody shoulder?"

   "Tarnation, I think they're gone. What did you say to those beaters, anyway?"

   He rolled off her and groaned again. "They wouldn't dare!"

   "I'm only joking," said Summer. "I'm sure the same person who tried to murder you before is just trying to again."

   She said it with such conviction that Byron half believed her. He pulled his hand away from his shoulder, stared at the blood covering his palm, and quickly put it back. "This is an odd time to make a joke, madam. Shouldn't you be administering to my shoulder instead?"

   Summer sighed. "I'm just not sure if it's safe. But you're right, you're losing a lot of blood. I figure the only way to find out if they're gone is to show myself." And she began to stand up, but before she could rise above the level of the grass, the duke cursed and with his good shoulder pushed her sideways and down.

   His face lay inches from her own, his breath puffing across her mouth. "Enough of your brave theatrics, my girl. You will stay down until I say so, understand?"

   His eyes glittered, and the force of his personality made Summer nod in agreement. Whatever annoyance she still felt faded away, and she shivered from the terror that filled her at the thought of him dying. It would've been easier if she'd continued to stay mad at him.

   With a grimace the duke rose, swayed for a moment, and began to whistle for his horse. He cursed and sat back down with a thud. "Beast's probably halfway to the stables by now. But if the gunman were still here, he just missed a good target. So do you think it's bloody safe enough to see to my shoulder?"

   Summer nodded, sat up, and pulled out her knife.

   "Bloody… You're not thinking of digging out the bullet, are you?"

   She blinked at him in astonishment. "You've got some funny notions about me."

   "As if they're not warranted."

   Summer slid her knife through her petticoats. "Never thought I'd be grateful to have these," she muttered.

   "Never thought I'd be grateful for your knife."

   "Oh, it comes in handy more often than you'd think," she replied with grave seriousness.

   Byron smothered a smile. "Indeed."

   "Mmm hmm." She leaned over. "Let me see now."

   He reluctantly pulled his hand away from his wound. She slid the knife again through his coat and shirt, and he tried not to groan at the thought of having them replaced, while she continued to saw off the sleeves. "Save the pieces," he muttered.

   Summer bared his entire shoulder, used the torn petticoats to sop up the blood, and estimated the damage. She'd only had experience with a gun wound once in her life, and since she'd been the victim, she'd hardly been in a position to examine it.

   "Well," she declared. "It looks like the bullet went all the way through."

   Byron swallowed. "How do you know?"

   "There's a hole in the back of you."

   "Aah. Shouldn't you do something about the blood?"

   Summer frowned. "If we let it flow, it'll clean the wound."

   "If it gets any cleaner, madam, I won't have any blood left."

   She nodded, wadded up pieces of petticoat, and pushed them against his shoulder. "Hold this here." Summer leaned behind him and pushed against the torn skin on the other side. She wrapped strips of cloth around his arm and up over his shoulder, hoping it wasn't too tight. "You're very calm about this. Sarcastic, but calm."

   The duke grinned, his teeth clenching with every tug of the bandage. "Do you think I'm some sort of dandy? I'll have you know I gave myself in service to my country, like any other hot-blooded, idiotic youth. I've seen my share of wounds."

   "Am I doing all right, then?"

   He eyed the bandage, watched her tie it off, and nodded. "Very well done, madam."

   Summer ignored the feeling of satisfaction that his praise gave her, and gathered up the pieces of his coat and shirt and stuffed them into his pocket. She retrieved his boot and helped him pull it on. "Can you walk?"

   "Do you see the horses?"

   She sat up and scanned the field. "No."

   "Then I suppose I can." He rose with a groan, his face turned white for a moment, and then he took a few steps. Summer picked up his good arm, wrapped it around her shoulder, and tried to take some of his weight.

   "I don't need you to carry me," he snapped. "Just steady me a bit."

   "Sorry."

   He stopped for a moment, breathing heavily. "I beg your pardon. You've done nothing but help me and don't deserve to be snapped at."

   Summer grinned. "Hurts, don't it?"

   "Like hell."

   It seemed like ages before they finally staggered into the courtyard just as an elegant barouche pulled away, and Byron groaned when he saw his half brother and sister-in-law turn from the entrance to the prince's house to stare at them.

   Lord and Lady Karlton exchanged a swift look, and then the lady screamed for a physician, while the lord rushed over to support Byron, who by this time had been leaning heavily on Summer.

   "What happened?" asked Lord Karlton, spittle flying in his excitement.

   "Hunting accident," gasped the duke.

   He gave Summer a sharp look, and she nodded.
Excellent girl,
he thought. Best to wait and find out who'
s
trying to kill me before we raise any suspicions. He though
t she might be capable of reading his mind and wondered at the thought. Despite their obvious differences in breeding and manners, they shared a surprising degree of common sensibility. In bed, and out.

   The thought of lying in bed was the only thing that managed to get him up the staircases and into it. Lord and Lady Karlton hovered, while the prince's own physician checked him over. "Fine job of wrapping you up," he declared. "Your companion may have saved your life."

   "Wouldn't be the first time," mumbled Byron.

   Lady Karlton hissed something about "that American" to her husband.

   "Your Grace," continued Dr. Terris, "I've given you a sleeping potion for the pain and will leave a small bottle of it by your bedside, but I suggest you not depend too heavily upon it."

   Byron nodded his head dreamily, his eyes straying to the open door. Where was Summer anyway? She'd left the room as soon as the physician had arrived, and as the drug took effect, his impatience for her return rose in proportion to the befuddling of his mind.

   Then she appeared, in a white filmy gown covered with tiny red roses, her eyes dark with concern. He sighed with contentment. She looked worried. He tried to open his mouth to reassure her, but a string of nonsense poured out, as if he'd lost all control of his tongue. Lord Karlton escorted the physician out of the room, hustling Summer out as well, and when Byron opened his mouth again to protest, his half brother poured another dose of the vile medicine down his throat.

   He looked up into the hard, glittering eyes of Lady Karlton. "Looks like we came just in time," she said, wiping his lips with a silk handkerchief. "Goodness knows what that woman would have managed to do to you given another day."

   Byron lifted a brow at her. Or tried to, but his facial muscles weren't working at all well. The blessed numbness of the pain in his shoulder had spread to the rest of his body. He tried to glare instead. "Wha' shoo mean?"

   "Ahh, good. You can still speak." The lady pulled up a chair and thrust her face into his own. "Don't you think it's interesting that all these accidents started happening to you after you met this Summer Lee?"

   Byron tried to wrap his brain around her words, to consider the impact of them and the motive behind them, and failed at both.

   His silence was all that the lady needed to continue. "Isn't it true that until she entered your life you'd never considered marriage? That you would have been perfectly content to live out your life as a bachelor?"

   His eyes must've said what he could not, for with a nod of superior understanding at her own correct interpretation of his feelings, she rushed on. "Just what I thought. But consider this. The quickest way for a social climber to get to the top of the ladder is through marriage and a title. But when one is already in love with another… Well, wouldn't it be interesting if the duke she married was known for his… proclivity for accidents, and suffered another shortly after the marriage. Thereby obtaining the title, and then the freedom to pursue another?"

   Byron closed his eyes. What an absolutely prepos terous notion.

   "Ahh, Byron," Jane whispered. "You should have married me, you know." He felt the cold touch of her hand smoothing back his hair and tried to swat the unwelcome touch away, but only managed to flop his good arm once or twice. He felt a rush of air as the door to his room opened, felt her move away from his bedside. "Just consider what I've said," she continued. "I'm still your sister, after all, and you know how much your family cares about you."

   "What's that?" asked Lord Karlton. "Oh yes. Quite right, Lady Karlton, to remind him of that fact. He seemed to have forgotten it, when he didn't include us in the prince's invitation for this lovely weekend party. But we found out in the nick of time, yes? One day is better than none at all!"

   "Lord Karlton," replied his wife. "Surely, you don't think our dear brother will be fit to travel anytime soon? It seems that our visit may be much longer than we had thought."

   Silence followed as Byron fell into a well of ever increasing darkness. The sound of laughter smothered by sloppy kisses made him feel relieved as the blackness became complete and absolute.

A few weeks later, Summer and Meg sat in the shade of enormous rosebushes in the gardens at Sandringham, laughing at the antics of the baby fox, and the nudges that Chi-chi kept giving the little critter every time it tried to stray a bit too far from her. The chill of approaching fall had Summer wrapped in her warmest shawl and Meg staring at her chattering teeth with wonder.

   "If you think this is cold, Miss, just wait till the winter."

   "I'm sure I'll get used to it," replied Summer. "But after living in the desert for so long, the blood tends to get a bit thin."

   Meg nodded wisely, and Summer sighed, certain that the girl had no idea what she was talking about. Every time she mentioned her past, the girl frowned as if she were being told a whopper but didn't have the gumption to call her a liar. Yet they'd become close these last few weeks, what with Byron shut up in his room, guarded beyond all reason by the Lord and Lady Karlton, and with most of the guests already departed. But Meg insisted on keeping her status as a servant around Summer, and even though she could be good company, and had agreed to accept the position as her lady's maid, she'd never be a substitute for her dear friend. If it weren't for the weekly letters from Maria, Summer would've fetched her from the old man's estates by now. But Maria sounded inordinately happy, and she didn't have the heart to call her back.

   A shadow fell over them, and Meg gasped. Summer grinned. It was about time he came out of that room.

   Byron's heart squeezed when that elfin face looked up at him. How he'd missed her! If he didn't feel so angry about her not coming to see him, he might've softened under that melting smile.

   "The prince has announced his intention to leave," he said without preamble. "Therefore, Lord and Lady Karlton now deem it fit for me to travel as well. I assume you're prepared to return to London?"

   Summer frowned. He had that nasty tone in his voice and that wall of disdain built solidly around him again. Where had the man she'd bantered with gone to? She couldn't figure out why he'd put up his guard again.

   "How's your shoulder?" she asked, while Meg stared back and forth between the two of them with something akin to horror.

   "If you had come to visit me, madam, you'd likely know." He broke eye contact and stared at the spent blossoms of the rosebush, both brows raised and his nose in the air.

   
So that was it
, thought Summer. "I tried to see you, Your Grace, but they wouldn't let me in your room. They said it wasn't proper." She choked back a laugh and stood, making him meet her eyes again, and grinned with impish charm. But he still continued to scowl at her.

   "If you had done the intelligent thing and agreed to marry me, you could have seen me at any time."

   Summer sighed. He wasn't going to budge, the stubborn Englishman! "Well, now. I'm glad to see you're all right, anyways. But do you really feel well enough to travel back to London?"