Outrageously Yours (45 page)

She heard the question in his voice and fell back to a crouch. Her heart clogging her throat, she gingerly brought trembling fingertips down on his upper sleeve. The lines of his shoulder filled his coat, and the flesh beneath felt solid enough, but what of the muscle? “Not gone . . . but . . . can you move your arm?”

The strain of doing so robbed the last of the color from his face and broke a sweat across his brow, but he managed to drag his arm an inch or two across the floor.

“Ivy!” Aidan shouted. He stood in front of the generator, ready to spring into action at a word from her. “We can’t wait much longer!”

She forced herself to focus. Under normal circumstances, cutting off the steam and tossing the insulated canvas over the equipment would bring the generator to a halt. These were not normal circumstances.

“The stone,” she yelled to him. “The only way to stop the current is to dislodge the stone. But don’t try touching it with your bare hands.”

Aidan’s gaze darted about the room. Behind him, shafts, rods, and bolts worked loose from the generator and clanked to the floor. The power didn’t lessen, but became more unstable. The surging current continued to crumble plaster from the ceiling and shake the room’s ornate decorations loose from the walls. Once again Ivy peered down the room, searching for signs of Alistair’s imminent reappearance. Again, nothing.

Aidan sprinted to the closest hearth. He seized an elaborate brass and iron poker from its stand and raced back to the generator. Once there he wedged it beneath the stone and thrust his weight against the improvised lever.

Ivy had the fleeting thought that Victoria would not be pleased by the return of a shattered stone, but then Simon lifted his head from the floor. “Ivy, my love,” he said, in a soundless whisper that resonated inside her.

Amid raining plaster and the rupturing of the generator, she gently cradled his head and shoulders in her lap. His eyes fell closed and she thought he’d fainted, but then his lips parted and a corner of his mouth tilted in something approaching a smile. “My beautiful, brilliant Ivy.”

This time she heard his ragged voice with her ears and not just her heart. The generator whirred down, small parts continuing to clatter as the energy dispersed and each component slowed to a stop. She tried to speak but couldn’t push the words past the constriction in her throat. His image blurred behind tears.

“Neckcloth,” he murmured with a gasp. Quickly she untied the knot and slipped the starched linen from around his neck. She smoothed the hair from his brow and used her sleeve to blot the perspiration on his forehead. His right hand closed over hers and weakly he whispered, “Help me sit up.”

“You shouldn’t.”

He replied with an emphatic squeeze. Heedful of his injured shoulder, she slipped an arm behind his back and helped lift him off the ground. She winced at his grunts of pain and wished he’d lie back down, but she knew better than to insist. When he finally sat upright, he gave his head a hard shake, blinked several times, and dragged in a rasping breath.

Then, his left arm hanging limp at his side, he thrust his good arm around her and crushed his lips to hers.

“C
areful, now. Move her gently to the bed.”

Ivy issued orders to the footmen who had improvised a stretcher and were presently carrying Lady Gwendolyn into Simon’s bedchamber. Still weakened by the effects of the electromagnetic current, Simon shuffled alongside them, holding his sister’s hand and watching intently over her as if to gauge by the set of her features whether she was experiencing any discomfort.

It was difficult to tell what Lady Gwendolyn might be feeling through the effects of the laudanum. Simon’s pain was much more apparent, visible in every involuntary grimace, indrawn breath, and clenching of his teeth. It was a wonder he was up and walking at all, and so Ivy became his voice and did everything she could to spare him undue exertion.

In all the confusion in the ballroom, no one had seemed to notice their impetuous kiss, but now that everyone had calmed down, it became necessary to maintain a respectable, manly distance between them. She ached to hold him, to sit with him at his sister’s bedside and stroke his hair, kiss his forehead, and whisper that everything would be all right.

Instead she stood sentrylike at the foot of the bed and watched as he drew the covers up over Lady Gwendolyn.

“Gwennie, I’m so sorry . . . for everything.”

Ivy’s startled surprise mirrored Simon’s when the girl opened her eyes. “He . . . hurt me,” she said with a raw simplicity that stabbed at Ivy’s heart.

“I know, Gwennie.” Simon leaned over her and kissed her brow. “But he’ll never hurt you again.”

Her hand came up, her fingers groping weakly at Simon’s coat sleeve. “I thought . . . he loved me.”

Simon questioned Ivy with a despondent glance, one she answered with a slight shake of her head. He nodded his comprehension and patted his sister’s cheek. “He did love you,” he lied. “It’s just that . . . Alistair wasn’t himself. He’d become ill . . . in his mind, Gwennie. His view of the world became distorted. Twisted. I’m sure he didn’t understand how terribly he’d wronged you....”

Ivy saw the distaste in the downward tug of Simon’s lips, in the dangerous narrowing of his eyes. If the generator hadn’t killed Sir Alistair, Ivy feared Simon would have. She rejoiced that such a decision had been taken out of his hands.

The physician from the village arrived and examined both Simon and Gwendolyn. For the latter, he prescribed rest, a diet rich in cream and eggs, and, much to Simon’s dismay, more laudanum, but in diminishing quantities each day until her body no longer craved the drug.

The man fretted much more over Simon’s condition,
tsk
ing over the state of his shoulder and pronouncing his pulse and heart rate “of concern.” He again prescribed rest, adding that Simon should seek an environment free of distressing influences. Simon smirked at the suggestion and thanked the man.

Afterward, Gwendolyn slept while Simon kept watch over her and Ivy watched over him from the wing chair near the hearth. She herself dozed on and off, rising occasionally to coax Simon to drink some tea and eat some of the bread and cold meat brought up from the kitchen. His sister awoke shortly before midnight. A bit of color restored to her cheeks, she appeared more lucid than they had yet seen her.

Propped against the pillows, she ate a few bites and sipped cool water. When Simon tried to persuade her to lie back down and sleep, she refused with surprising vigor and with a mulishness Ivy found touchingly familiar.

“I’ve lost enough time in slumber,” Gwendolyn declared in a voice still hoarse from disuse. Then her stubborn frown faded and remorse peeked from behind pale blue eyes much like Simon’s own. “I took it for you, you know. The stone, I mean. I thought it would help you in your research.”

“I know.”

“But then I realized how foolish that was. Good heavens, I stole from the queen!”

“Don’t worry.” He smiled gratefully at Ivy. “I happen to know someone who is a rather good friend of Her Majesty and is willing to intervene.”

“Really?” Before he could elaborate, Gwendolyn shook the thought away. “I went to Alistair believing he could help. You didn’t know the truth about last winter, and you and he were still such close friends. I tried to write to you, but Alistair said he would arrange a meeting between us, and that he would make everything all right. I foolishly believed we could all begin anew, with Alistair openly declaring for me, and you being glad about it and forgiving me, and ...” She dissolved into sobs, and her brave face fell away to reveal the distraught and frightened young girl she was.

“He was always so charming,” she said as the tears fell. “So solicitous of my needs. He was handsome and clever and so much more sophisticated than the men my own age. He made me feel . . . elegant and special. Oh, Simon, can you ever forgive me?”

“Gwennie, don’t be silly. Of course I forgive you.” He slipped his good arm around her, pressed his cheek to her hair, and held her while she cried. Ivy saw a tear or two glistening in his eye, and her throat clogged with sorrow and joy and relief. Soon afterward, Gwendolyn drifted off to sleep, her even breathing signifying what was probably the first tranquil slumber she had experienced since she’d fled Buckingham Palace.

Simon continued to watch her, his head bent, his back bowed, his shoulders hunched. Exhaustion dragged at his limbs and his features. Even his clothing hung limp and crumpled from his frame.

Ivy pushed out of her chair. “And now you must rest as well,” she told him. He started to shake his head, so she fisted her hands at her waist and mustered her sternest expression. “No arguments. Sleep in my bed.” She gestured toward the dressing room.

“Where will you sleep?”

“Don’t worry about me.”

“Ivy ...” He stood up and reached out a hand to her.

Ivy took it and raised it to her cheek, letting the warmth of his palm imbue her skin. They had both almost died tonight. That they hadn’t constituted nothing short of a miracle, one she dared not question or analyze too deeply. They were alive, and for now, that was enough.

She shook her head at the longing that entered his eyes. “Sleep,” she said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

 

Simon awakened the next morning unable to decide if the pain in his shoulder had lessened, or if he had simply grown used to it, like a constant but irritating companion.

Gwennie lay deep in slumber, and he gave silent thanks for that. Much of yesterday remained a blur, and even her pleas for forgiveness were cloaked in a haze of pain and lingering shock. Had Alistair raped her, as he had so callously implied? Simon wasn’t sure, but he damned well wasn’t going to press the matter until she had fully recovered. He knew he had months and perhaps years of tender work ahead of him, to see her restored to her former spirited and, yes, often exasperating self. It would be a labor of love to which he was more than willing to dedicate the better part of his time.

He opened the chamber door to discover his fellow Galileans gathered outside.

“Is she all right?” Errol whispered.

“Are
you
all right?” Ben added. “Your shoulder ...”

“Good God, son, the things Alistair did.” Errol pressed a frail hand to Simon’s good shoulder and gave a tremulous squeeze, imparting a silent promise of support to help him through the horror of his friend and mentor’s betrayal.

Were those tears in dear old Errol’s eyes? A tremor in Ben’s smile? And Colin . . .

He stood slightly apart, leaning against the wall opposite the chamber door. Simon stepped away from the other two men and offered Colin his hand. “I’m sorry, Colin. I . . . I don’t know what to say. I believed the worst and . . . damn, but I was wrong. Horribly wrong. Don’t know how I could have—”

“No. You were right to be furious with me.” Colin gripped Simon’s hand and shook it once, twice, hard and firm. “I let you believe the worst.”

He went on to explain that he had run into Gwen outside the bank in town early that winter morning. It was odd enough, her being abroad so early, but she’d also seemed skittish and in a great hurry, and when Colin had inquired if anything was wrong, her nervous laughter and hasty excuses had raised his suspicions.

At the time he’d been chagrined to find himself skulking in shadows and trailing her, but when she’d boarded a northbound coach, he’d wagered that his instincts hadn’t played him false. Again he’d set out after her, this time on horseback, stopping at two inns before finding the right one. He’d had to bribe the innkeeper to gain access to her room, and upon bursting in, he’d found her alone and in a state of fevered agitation, a condition that instantly gave way to crushing dismay when she realized her plans would not reach fruition.

“She refused to tell me whom she’d gone there to meet,” Colin concluded. “So I took the blame when you arrived because, the disaster having been averted, I thought it better you should direct your outrage toward me than toward your own sister. Now I realize it was the worst thing I could have done. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

Much more needed to be said, but Simon felt assured their friendship would mend, eventually.

But first . . . Ivy. He wanted to thank her for everything she had done for Gwennie yesterday, and for him. One sensation from last night he recalled with true clarity was the warmth of Ivy’s small hands enveloping his own, and the soft caress of her voice. He didn’t know when she had slipped back into his room to be with him, or how long she’d sat at his bedside. He knew only that each time he’d emerged from an exhausted, dreamless slumber, she had been there.

But now that he was fully awake, he couldn’t seem to find her anywhere. He’d looked in the library, the ballroom, the morning room. With a rising sense of panic, he doubled back and skidded into the dining hall doorway.

A single person occupied the room; Barensforth regarded him quizzically from his seat at the head of Alistair’s long, satinwood dining table. “Good God, Harrow, Frankenstein’s monster has nothing on you.”

Simon had to admit, the earl’s assessment was nothing if not scathingly honest. But he took comfort from Barensforth’s presence, for he realized it meant that Ivy was still here as well, somewhere. In the central hall behind him, a steady stream of scientists, assistants, and footmen raised a nonstop scuffle as they carried equipment and luggage out of Windgate Priory to the carriages lining the drive.

“Thank you, Barensforth.” He showed the man a sardonic half grin, then wished he hadn’t when the gesture renewed the infernal throbbing of the bruise left by Alistair’s boot on the side of his head. He reached up and fingered the tender spot. “Nothing like a compliment to lift a chap’s spirits.”

Dizziness made him sway. He leaned against the lintel—on his good shoulder—for support.