Page 73 of Along Came a Rogue

But Emily was too close. The wheel snagged her skirt as the rig flew past, tangling her dress around the axle and yanking her off her feet. She spun in a circle, pulled back toward the crushing wheel. She heard the scream tear from her throat as she fell away, saw the ground rush toward her, felt the sharp pain as she hit the cobblestones—

Then everything went instantly still.

Her eyes closed. Muffled screams and shouts reverberated through the fuzzy whirling inside her head, and pain radiating from her bruised body. Then she felt hands gently stroking her face, strong arms lifting her…Through the darkness, she heard her name.

Her eyes fluttered open for a moment, just long enough to see Grey’s terrified face.

Then she fainted away.

Chapter Thirteen

Less than an hour later, Grey bounded up the front steps of Chatham House and into the foyer.

“Where’s Lady Emily?” he asked Jensen, glancing beyond the butler and down the hall.

Jensen’s eyes flickered up the stairs. “If you’ll wait in the drawing room, Major, I shall inquire if she is—”

“The hell I will,” he snarled, and Jensen’s face drained to white.

Emily was here, he knew it. He’d put her into the Strathmore carriage himself and barked out orders for the driver to bring her and the duchess directly here, then sent the tiger to fetch Dr. Brandon. He had no intention of being forced to wait in the drawing room for an hour, only to be turned away. Not this afternoon.

No—Emily was here, so was Thomas. And he wasn’t leaving until he’d spoken to both of them.

“Grey.” Thomas sauntered down the stairs, then dryly arched an eyebrow at the commotion he was making. “Please don’t frighten the butler to death.”

“Where’s Emily?” Grey demanded, his chest tight with worry. “How is she?”

Thomas dismissed Jensen with a nod, and the butler scurried away gratefully. “She’s upstairs with Kate Westover and Dr. Brandon right now.” When Grey turned toward the stairs, Thomas grabbed his arm and stopped him. “She’s fine. Join me for a drink.”

“I don’t want a damned drink,” he bit out, yanking his arm free. What he wanted was to see Emily and find out for himself if she was truly all right, if she needed him. Christ! His heart pounded so hard with worry that each beat was like a sledgehammer to his chest.

“Good.” Imperturbably, Thomas pushed him toward the drawing room off the foyer. “More for me, then.”

Despite the desperate need in his gut to see Emily, Grey went grudgingly, knowing both that he wouldn’t be let upstairs until her brother gave him permission and that Thomas was just well enough now to be able to stop him if he tried to force his way upstairs anyway.

Thomas poured two glasses of whiskey and handed one over, then flopped down onto the settee and kicked his boots onto the tea table. Grey sank onto the chair opposite him.

“Emily’s fine. Just shaken up a bit and bruised,” Thomas assured him, a sympathetic timbre underlying his voice. “She needs to rest, but I’ll tell her you stopped by.”

Grey took a swallow of whiskey. He was glad he hadn’t refused the drink after all, especially now that it was clear Thomas had no intention of letting him anywhere near his sister this afternoon. “She told you what happened?”

“The duchess said there was an accident while they were shopping. A runaway phaeton. That Emily fell and fainted.” He pinned Grey’s gaze over the rim of the glass. “It wasn’t an accident, though, was it?”

“No,” he answered gravely, his throat tightening. “Someone tried to kill her.”

Thomas’s expression never changed, but Grey sensed him freeze. He had lived—and nearly died—with this man, and he knew him better than anyone else in the world, save Emily, well enough to know what emotions he felt even as he worked to hide them. And what he felt was a heartbeat of incredulousness, followed by a flash of white-hot anger. Grey knew that because he’d felt the same thing himself. The sight of the phaeton bearing down on her, that heart-stopping moment when the wheel struck her and sent her reeling to the ground, the sound of her scream slicing through him—and all he could do was look on helplessly. He’d never felt so powerless in his life.

He stared down at his hands. They shook so badly even now that the whiskey bounced in his glass.

“You were right about Andrew Crenshaw,” Grey told him reluctantly. Emily should have been the one to tell Thomas this, but the time for keeping secrets was over. “The man was a bastard who left her a month after their wedding, to gamble and whore away her dowry. She lied to you—to everyone—putting up the appearance that her marriage was just fine.”

Thomas’s eyes flicked to Grey, landing hard on him. His face darkened as he tried to absorb all that Grey was telling him, all the secrets Emily had kept from him. Even Thomas’s careful control wasn’t enough to stop an expression of betrayal and hurt from flashing across his face, or prevent him from rubbing at his wrists in that nervous habit he’d developed since the shooting.

“And you think that perhaps Crenshaw got in over his head, owed too much money or cheated someone at cards?” Thomas asked quietly, his jaw clenched. He didn’t mention Emily’s lack of trust in him, and Grey knew he wouldn’t. Not until he spoke to Emily. “That whoever is doing this wants retribution?”

Grey shook his head. “Why attack Emily?” He looked down into his whiskey. “She believes that whoever killed Crenshaw is coming after her baby.”

“She told me about the fire, all the incidents surrounding Andrew’s death…” Thomas let loose a harsh curse of self-recrimination. “I thought it was someone within her household at Snowden Hall. I thought she’d be safe in London.”