“Brave man,” one of them laughed at her cousin. “What do you think was goin’ on, Billy? We was just talkin’ to the lady.”
“G-go on, you! Sheriff Nelson!” Billy hung back until they had cleared off the loading dock, then his eyes widened. “Lizzy!” he gulped. “You’re bleeding!”
Elizabeth rolled to a sitting position, numbly staring at the angry gashes crossing her palms and forearms. Blood poured from everywhere—mostly superficial scratches, but in two or three places, a shard stuck deep into her skin.
“Lizzy! Good heavens!” Jane was at her side now, gasping and pale. Her sister’s hands fluttered uselessly, searching for something to do. “We need Aunt!” she cried. “Can you stand?”
Elizabeth instinctively tried to put out her hands to push her quaking body to her feet, then stopped herself. “I don’t know,” she confessed.
Dimly, she heard masculine voices exchanging heat and rancour—Uncle Gardiner was outside now, and from across the street marched the sheriff. At last, they ran off her tormentors, with threats of arrests if they did not disperse immediately. Elizabeth could only stare at her hands, at that bit of glass jutting out from the heel of her palm.
Jane and Billy were both at her sides now, dragging her up by her arms as Mrs Gardiner came to her. Elizabeth could hardly meet her aunt’s broken gaze.
“Take her inside,” Mrs Gardiner told the others. “I feared something like this.”
Chapter 42
Matlock
April 1901
Hazydreamsfoggedredand furious in his mind. Shouts, exploding earth, and the smell of gunpowder ripped through every nerve ending. He cried out to his men to rally, to crawl forward, to survive.
Giles, his batman, fell dead at his feet, and something in his expression was scorchingly familiar. This had happened a hundred times before, and to his horror, each time was the same. All around him, khaki uniforms dropped with cries of terror and death. He turned around, already dreading what was to come. He tried to lift his hand, to shield his face, but it anchored uselessly at his side.
And then, the fatal sting, the explosion in his head that turned the world black. He screamed—was that his voice?He clawed at the empty agony and tried to run, to see, and when that did not work, he struck out before him in a blind panic.
Something touched his shoulder—a voice called, made some demand of him, and his only instinct was to thrash and yell and try to make himself such a nuisance to kill that either his attacker would seek an easier target or would fall with him in the attempt.
He remembered leaping—that much, he was sure of. His right eye was clear once more, but if he knew anything, it was that he could not trust in it. He lunged, and his attacker fell soft and helpless beneath him. And he heard her scream.
...Her?
His body went stiff, and he hesitated. A moment later, someone tackled him, hauling him to his feet and throwing him back before he could defend himself.
Richard sat up, rubbing the back of his head and spitting curses. He was in a bed—his own bed, in his own room, and that wrathful presence looming over him...thatwas Darcy, with his left fist knotted in Richard’s nightshirt and his right cocked back, ready to strike.
“Darcy? What in blazes are you doing?” he sputtered.
His cousin’s fist lowered. “Are you in your right mind?”
Richard pushed Darcy’s hand from his throat. “Whatever are you talking about?”
Darcy did not answer. He merely pulled back, his expression bleached white with a sickly fury, and bent to help someone from the floor. A woman—the same woman from before, with the snapping eyes and achingly familiar look about her.
“Are you unhurt?” he heard Darcy ask.
She nodded, allowing Darcy to curl her hand into his, but never taking her gaze from Richard. “Y-yes. Just... just startled.”
Richard fought to steady his pulse, slowly realising what he had done. Again. “I’m dreadfully sorry about that, ma’am,” he muttered weakly. “I hope I’ve done no harm.”
Darcy shot him a look cold as a glacier. “No harm done,” he retorted between clenched teeth. “And I mean to see it will not happen again.”
To the woman, Darcy turned next, in a manner so gentle and full of care, Richard might have thought it to be Georgiana. “Come, Elizabeth. Please.”
She hesitated, then permitted Darcy to lead her away, even leaning on him as she went. Darcy looked back once, something darkly broken in that countenance he knew so well. Then he closed the door.
Richard dropped back on the blankets. He was sweating. The cursed fever was not yet gone, the spotty delirium of his sickness still flitting about, as if waiting for a moment of vulnerability to render him mad once more.
