Yankee Earl (20 page)

      
In moments Garnet had devised ice bags and had directed servants to press them against Jason's body. “Be especially sure to keep that large one over his heart. Cooler blood pumps less swiftly,” she explained in her sensible tone of voice as she took the sharp knife from the footman who had brought it and tested its razor-keen edge.

      
Garnet looked at Rachel appraisingly. “You seem to have a level head, dearie. I'll need your help with this. Here, you hold the bowls in place as I open his veins, and mind you don't faint, else we'll ruin the duchess's fine Turkey carpet.”

      
“Never approved of the damned leeches bleeding a man. Makes him weaker,” Cargrave said, stepping forward.

      
Rachel placed her hand on his arm. “I think Mistress Dalbert knows what she's doing, m'lord.” Turning to Garnet, she added, “I shall not faint.”

      
“Good. Hold that bowl while I let blood. You see,” she explained as she worked, “his heart is beating over-swiftly, pounding blood through his body. If 'tis not slowed, he will perhaps die, or at the least lapse into a coma as happened to m' father. We lower the pressure by lessening the amount of blood the heart must pump.”

      
Rachel held the first bowl, positioning it beneath the incision. Bright red blood spurted into it—Jason's life's blood.
Would he die?
She could not bring herself to think of it. Swallowing the acid burn of terror climbing up her throat, she set the bowl so it could catch the precious fluid, then picked up the second one as Garnet moved to Jason's other arm.

      
As they worked, Cargrave stood back. He had served with His Majesty's forces in the colonies fighting the French and their Indian allies and had seen a great deal of blood shed on both sides. But that was war, and the people were all strangers. This was his own son's son, his last remaining close family member, and never had he realized how very much he loved the boy.

      
He watched Rachel work at Garnet's side, as brave and cool-headed as any man could wish. What a perfect match they made. That was why he had chosen her for Jason, all lands and titles be damned! She was cut of the same cloth as Mathilda.
Ah, my dear one, how proud you would be if only you could see them together…

      
“Don't you dare die on me, Jason Beaumont. I shall never forgive you, you inconsiderate Yankee lout,” Rachel whispered low in his ear as she bathed his flushed face with icy cold cloths. Did she imagine it, or did his eyelids flutter open for a second? Rachel held her breath and reapplied the cloth to his face once more, dabbing it around his eyes, which suddenly opened.

      
“J-Jason?” she croaked, only then realizing that she had been holding back tears all the while she worked.

      
He stared up at her blurred face. The world was still spinning but not quite so fast as it had earlier. He shook his head and blinked. “Rachel? Where…what…holy God Almighty!” he rasped, looking down at what appeared to be buckets of blood—
his
blood, still seeping in a steady stream from both arms!

      
“Lie back, m'lord, calm yourself,” Garnet said soothingly. “I shall have these bound up in no time, and you'll be just the thing again.”

      
Rachel and the marquess held him back in the chair while the servants struggled with the ice bags he had dislodged from his neck, chest and thighs. “No further need for those, I warrant,” Garnet said, flicking one stubby hand to the ice. “Remove them.”

      
“You've been poisoned, Jason,” Rachel said.

      
He stared at her dumbly for a moment, then collected his thoughts as his head gradually began to clear. He was sweat-soaked, but no longer burning up, and his heart had stopped its frenetic pounding. “Poison? I've eaten nothing since early afternoon. It must have been in my drink—the one good old Roger spilled, bless him.”

      
“Apparently 'twas a massive dose of foxglove. If it had not been for Mistress Dalbert, you might have died,” Rachel said, blinking back tears of joy.

      
“Is that a touch of concern I detect in your voice? And what are these, hmmm?” he asked, wincing as he raised a bandaged arm to trace the silvery trickle down her cheek.

      
“It would quite spoil everything if you were to go and do something as untoward as dying. That would leave me at the mercy of every greedy fop in London,” she said, taking his hand in hers and holding it tightly.

      
“I think it would be best if his lordship were to have a bit of bed rest now,” Garnet said to the marquess, who beamed at the young couple with a trace of tears glittering in his own eyes.

      
Cargrave responded, issuing commands for a bed to be prepared and servants summoned to carry Jason to it.

      
As for Jason and Rachel, she knelt in front of him holding his hand. Neither said a word, oblivious to the commotion surrounding them.

* * * *

      
"Take this, please. I've eaten until I'm fair bursting," Jason said, pushing away the remains of a huge bowl of porridge.

      
He lay in a large bed in one of the Mountjoys' guest rooms, propped up with pillows. In the early-morning light streaming in from an open window, his sun-darkened skin appeared bleached nearly as pale as the sheets. Rachel took the tray as the physician rubbed his hands nervously, saying, “I insist you take more nourishment to fight off the bad humors in your blood.”

      
Jason scoffed. “Bugger my blood—my bad humor comes from nearly being poisoned.”

      
“You were poisoned. Garnet was right. 'Twas foxglove,” Rachel said sharply.

      
The leech nodded his bald head in agreement. “I fear she is correct, your lordship. Very fortunate Mistress Dalbert knew to bleed you…although I am not at all certain about the ice,” he added, stroking his receding chin in perplexity.

      
Ignoring him, Jason considered what had transpired the preceding evening. “Yes, I most probably owe her my life.” The old doctor had not arrived until the middle of the night, summoned from the bedside of a merchant in a distant village. After observing the old fool, Jason was grateful he had been unavailable earlier.

      
When the physician excused himself, saying he would return to check on his patient that evening, Cargrave asked, “What thrice-damned blackguard has done this?” He paced across the carpet like a caged wolf, too furious and frightened about Jason to give in to fatigue. He and Rachel had spent the night at his grandson's bedside. “Must be the same bastard who took those shots at you in the woods.”

      
Jason looked about the room, making sure no servants remained, then said, “I’m certain the poison was put in the rum punch I drank. The footman who brought it was not the same fellow I sent to fetch it.”

      
“I recall it being a different man,” Rachel said. “I shall make discreet inquiries with the majordomo to see if we can locate him.”

      
“No, I shall do that. I'm betting we'll find young Mountjoy had a hand in it. You remain here with this headstrong pup and keep him abed,” the marquess instructed Rachel.

      
With that, he was off, leaving Jason and Rachel alone. She placed a linen cloth over the tray and reached for the bellpull to summon a servant to take it; but Jason stopped her, wrapping his hand around her wrist. “Roger's wife is not the only one to whom I must be grateful, Countess,” he said softly. “You assisted her most ably.”

      
“I'm not the vaporing sort, Jason,” she said, pulling away from his grasp. She needed distance between them to think straight. “I've delivered foals and overseen the butchering of cattle and hogs at Harleigh.”

      
“Always so calm and practical, Countess…but was I hallucinating last night or were those tears on your cheeks when I awakened?”

      
She snorted, pulling the bellrope. “You were daft with foxglove fever. Now get some rest. You're still quite ill.”

      
“You look to be the one who needs rest,” he said, studying the dark circles beneath her eyes. She was still wearing the green gown, now blood-spattered and badly wrinkled, and she looked ready to fall asleep on her feet.

      
“We cannot leave you at the mercy of the servants here after what's happened. I shall wait until the marquess returns,” she replied.

      
He pulled a small pocket pistol from beneath his pillow and said, “Grandfather thinks of everything. I shall be able to protect myself adequately in your absence. Now go get some rest.”

      
She was about to refuse when a rapping sounded on the door and Roger Dalbert poked his head inside. “I say, old fellow, you look all the crack compared to last time I saw you. Garnet said you were out of the woods. Had to come make certain for m'self.”

      
“I'm most grateful to your wife, Roger—and to you. Had you not spilled that rum punch, I would most likely be laid out at Falconridge awaiting burial.”

      
Roger harrumphed, “Well, for once, seems my cow-handedness worked for the better, eh, what?”

      
“So it did, coz, so it did,” Jason agreed with a grin.

Chapter Eleven

      
The marquess' inquiry revealed that the servant who had brought Jason's rum punch was missing. He had been newly hired only days before the ball; but when they went to the nearby village where his references indicated he had been previously employed, they found the fellow had used another man's name. That man professed to know nothing about the matter. Fuming, the marquess conceded that it was probably true. Two days later, the recalcitrant patient got up and dressed himself over the dithering protests of the Mountjoy bodyservant assigned to him. Jason ordered his coach brought around, and he and his grandfather returned to Falconridge, where Fox waited, eager to see for himself that his brother was all right.

      
Immediately Cargrave posted a letter to the Hon. Mr. Drummond in London, requesting that he take on some additional duties. From here on, until they determined who was behind the attempts to kill Jason, Drum was to be his bodyguard.

      
Rachel had slept for most of the first day after Jason's brush with death, too exhausted to brood over her undeniable reaction to it. This morning after his departure, she sat alone in the study, staring blankly at a huge stack of bills and tenant records that required her immediate attention. She sighed and plunked her pen back in its holder, unable to concentrate. The skies outside were leaden with impending rain, matching her mood. She stood up and began pacing back and forth across the carpet, then gazed out the window, thinking about the earl.

      
“Tis all his fault,” she sighed, blaming Jason for her inability to work. Just then fat raindrops began splattering against the panes, as if the very heavens were echoing her malaise.

      
He had noted her tears and teased her about them, the clodpole; but when he had taken hold of her wrist, she had felt such a surge of tenderness that it had left her shaken to the core of her soul. Over the past weeks she had become resigned to the unsettling physical attraction she felt for him, assuring herself repeatedly that it was perfectly natural and would pass with time. After all, she was a healthy young woman who understood country matters, even though she had never felt the slightest stirring of interest in a male before.

      
Ah, but Jason Beaumont was not just any male, she conceded disconsolately. He was so intensely virile that all other men of her acquaintance were virtual eunuchs by comparison. From the first moment she had watched him striding up to her in the mud of the creek, she had been undone. And just when she had convinced herself that she could withstand the delicious onslaught of his sexual appeal, he had turned the tables on her once again. How inconsiderate of him to nearly die that way!

      
Rachel was terrified that she was falling in love with the earl. The lout. How dare he come crashing into her carefully ordered life and destroy the plans she had made since she was a fifteen-year-old girl?
And he does not want to wed you
. She pressed her face against the cold glass and closed her eyes, willing away the horrifying thought. “Well, I do not wish to wed him either!” she whispered against the steady patter of raindrops.

      
But she feared that it was no longer true.

      
“You are certainly Friday faced,” Harry said, entering the study carrying a tray laden with tea and scones. “I thought you might be brooding all by yourself. At least you had the decency to remain indoors and not hide in the stables as you did when we were children. I declare, Rachel, if I had to muddy the Belgian lace on the hem of this gown to reach you, I warrant I'd be in quite a taking.”