Page 197 of Courting the Wrong Duke

His eyes remained closed.

Her father was beside her almost immediately, crouching to press careful fingers against William before examining the blood soaking his coat.

“He is breathing.”

“Then why will he not wake?” The question came out thin and desperate, and Rosalind hated how frightened she sounded.

“He has lost a great deal of blood.”

Rosalind stared at her father, and Edmund seemed to understand immediately where her thoughts had gone.

“That does not mean we are losing him.”

“You do not know that.”

“No,” he admitted quietly. “But neither do you.”

Gabriel crouched on William’s other side. “We need to get him upstairs.”

Rosalind tightened her hold instinctively. The idea of anyone moving him when she could not even tell how badly he had been hurt filled her with fresh panic.

“We cannot move him.”

“We cannot leave him on a cellar floor either.”

She knew that. Knowing it did nothing to make the thought of releasing him easier.

Edmund rested a hand on her shoulder. “Let us carry him. You stay beside him.”

Rosalind reluctantly eased William from her lap, keeping one hand beneath his head until Gabriel was ready to take his weight. Between Gabriel and Edmund, they lifted him as carefully as they could, but even that small movement drew a faint sound from William that made her stomach twist.

She stayed beside him all the way upstairs, climbing close enough to touch him whenever the narrow staircase allowed it, while Isabella went ahead with the candle to light their way.

The house seemed darker than Rosalind remembered. They passed the rooms she had stumbled through earlier, where pages covered in repeated words and broken sentences still lay scattered across tables and floors. She kept her eyes fixed on William and refused to look inside.

Not now.

Isabella found a bedchamber on the first floor that appeared to have been used recently, and the men carried William inside. The sheets looked clean enough, and there was a basin on the washstand.

They lowered him carefully onto the bed, but his face tightened even in unconsciousness, and Rosalind gripped the edge of the mattress until the pain in her fingers gave her something else to concentrate upon.

“We need cloth,” Edmund said as he bent over William. “As clean as you can find. And water.”

“I’ll find them,” Isabella said.

Gabriel had not moved. He stood at the foot of the bed staring at William, his gaze fixed upon the blood darkening his coat.

Then he seemed to reach a decision. “I am going for a physician.”

Rosalind turned toward him. “Pembry has gone already.”

“I am faster.”

Gabriel was already heading for the door when Rosalind followed him into the corridor.

“Gabriel.”

He stopped and looked back at her. The fury she had seen in the cellar was gone now, leaving behind something far more familiar to her own heart.