Page 56 of Tempting the Marquess

“While the men were still shooting?”

Lord Robert nodded. “Yes. I don’t think they were trained marksmen. They were good, but not quite accurate. A little slow to reload. Standish made it to shore without beinghit—”

“And then what happened? He managed to escape? Oh, so that is why he isn’t here! He saved your life right under the noses of the French, got away, but had to wait for the next ship. How very, very brave. Surely His Majesty will commend William for such courage.”

Again, her words were met with the dreadful, heavy silence, and her heart began to thump so fast it threatened to leap from her chest.

“He...he did getaway?”

“No,” said Lord Robert, agony flashing across his face. “A man ran down onto the beach...with a pistol. He shot Standish. I saw him fall...just before we rounded the headland.”

Black spots danced in front of her eyes. Samantha swayed, the solid anchor of the chair in front of her the only thing keeping her upright. But her mind balked at allowing the two words to be put together. It was impossible. William couldn’t have been shot. That wasn’t supposed to happen. He was supposed to come home, hale and hearty, and hold her in hisarms.

“Is he...is he...dead?” she choked out, almost physically unable to form the words, even though she needed to know the answer more than she needed to breathe.

Lord Robert closed his eyes briefly. “We don’tknow.”

“You don’t know? Oh! Oh yes! I remember. You were tucked in the rowboat he put you into, far, far away from danger. My William saved your life and you abandoned him to the French!”

“No! It wasn’t likethat.”

“Liar!” she shrieked, agony stabbing her with the force of a thousand knives. “It happened exactly like that! Everyone thinks you are such a brave hero, but you’re a coward. You could have turned back, but you lefthim…”

Lord Robert’s face lost all color and became even more haggard, a moment of bittersweet triumph. Yet his remorse wasn’t enough, not against the icy chill creeping through her body, suffocating her heart and soul. The room went blurry and gray, but before she hit the floor a strong arm hooked around her waist.

“We’re all hurting badly right now,” Stephen muttered unevenly as he pulled her against his side. “I didn’t know matters had progressed so far between you and William...but don’t say anything you may later regret.”

“Regret?” she croaked, sagging against her cousin. “How can you say such a thing...weren’t you listening? He left my William!”

All at once a terrible sound filled the room, a chilling, keening wail, as if a body was being torn in two. Samantha put her hands over her ears to block it out, wishing someone would make it stop, but it carried on for an eternity. And her throathurt.

People moved and voices flew back and forth across the room, some loud and angry, others anxious and one soothing. But she couldn’t make out what they were saying, it was like watching a play from behind a thick glass wall. Exhausted, she slipped free from Stephen’s hold and slumped to her knees on the thick rug. Soft feminine arms tried to gather her into a gentle embrace, but she shrugged them away, her skin too tight and sensitive for touch.

William had beenshot.

Images of him ran in her head like a series of paintings. Riding in Hyde Park. Dancing at Almack’s. Laughing as they ate cream cakes in Lady Havenhurst’s awful drawing room. Him knocking out Sir Francis. But most painful of all, one of her curled up naked against him, her head on his chest while he twisted a blonde curl around his finger. Smiling as he kissed her. Scowling as he warned her against any other man in his absence.

William had been shot. And might bedead.

The suffocating darkness closed in again, and she knew nomore.

* * *

He was burning.

Hell was an agony of pain and fire, and the devil himself was stabbing him viciously with a pitchfork. Groaning, William tried to roll away to protect himself, but not only did his limbs refuse to work, his skull was repeatedly bashed with a club in punishment.

“No more,” he rasped, almost ready to do or say anything for a quick, merciful death instead of this prolonged torture.

“Try not to move,” said a brisk voice with a strong burr of the Highlands. “I’m nearly done, laddie.”

Interesting. Lucifer was a Scot, and spoke in a low, even tone. While his nationality wasn’t overly surprising—it seemed every man from north of the border had a streak of diabolical a mile wide—the lack of thunder in his voice was. Then the pitchfork stabbed again, immediately followed by the fire, and he wondered why he was even thinking about the devil’s bark when his bite was a million times worse.

“...there. My apologies, I ken removing bullets is nasty, but you’ll want to keep your arm, I expect.”

Confusion at the kind words was enough to force William’s eyes open. Shockingly, he wasn’t trussed up over a rocky pit of flames, but lying on a narrow bed in a semi-darkened chamber with a cool sheet tucked around him. A short, balding man attired in brown buckskins and coarse linen shirt covered by a blood-splattered apron was peering at him from behind silver-rimmed eyeglasses. And there wasn’t a pitchfork in sight, just several sharp knives, some long tweezers with curved ends, a metal bowl with blood-soaked cloths, and a bottle of dark, strongly scented alcohol.

He coughed. “You are not who I was expecting.”