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Chapter Forty-Nine
Evelina stared at Thomas’ still form, her hands bloody and shaking. Had she lost him? Had they truly been through so much together, only to have it end like this?
No. I will not allow it.
Evelina pressed to her feet. Without wasting any time to overthink her actions, she stumbled into the bedroom and ripped the sheet from the bed. The fabric was rich material, but that mattered little to her as she tore it into thin strips, then hurried back to Thomas’ side.
She collapsed on her knees next to him, bruising herself in the process, but scarcely feeling the pain. She tore open his vest, and the shirt beneath it, exposing the horrifying, bloody bullet wound in his side.
“Oh, I hope I can do this right…” Evelina said under her breath, as she began to pack the wound with the bedsheets.
She had read about this, once, in a novel several years ago. Pack a wound, and put pressure on it, to stop the bleeding. She did not know the details of the task, and was certain she had to be getting something wrong, but she couldn’t afford not to try.
In this moment, Thomas’ life depended on her, and her alone.
“Goodness!” said a voice from the doorway, followed by rushed footsteps into the flat. “Oh, wow, there’s three of them—call for reinforcements! Quickly!”
Someone answered, then scampered off. Evelina could hear them stomping back down the stairs, but she didn’t dare look back over her shoulders to see who exactly had entered the apartment. She was too busy pressing against the packed wound in Thomas’ side with all her strength.
“My Lady,” said the voice of the person who had entered the apartment. “My Lady, please, let me look at him.”
Evelina at last glanced up to see a Constable standing over her shoulder, worry stretched across his face. It took a moment for Evelina to realize that she was no longer alone here. That help had arrived.
Still, she could not bring herself to move away from Thomas’ side.
The Constable seemed to have been able to read this on her face, for he knelt down next to her, and added his hands to the pressure she was applying. “A physician has been sent for. He shall arrive any moment. It is going to be all right.”
“How can you know that?” Evelina demanded, only now realizing she’d been crying. “When they…when he—”
She looked around wildly at the blood staining the floor, destroying the beautiful Moroccan rug stretched practically from wall to wall.
The Constable’s face turned grave, and his knuckles went white as he pressed even harder against Thomas’ side. “We will do everything we can, I promise you that much.”
That much, as it turned out, was true. The backup the Constable who had stayed called for earlier came pouring in minutes later, a whole team of them, along with a flustered and sleepy-looking physician. At the sight of the bodies strewn across the floor, however—Jerome had passed out at some point from the pain—he jumped to attention.
“Here, help him,” Evelina said, nodding toward Thomas, but not releasing the pressure.
The physician came to her side and knelt down, replacing the Constable, who stepped back to give him space. Upon seeing the way Evelina had packed Thomas’ injury, he turned to her, surprised. “Where did you learn to do this?”
“I…I read about it once.”
“Well, this is decent work. Because of you, he may just survive.” The physician went about examining the injury more closely. Without looking at her directly, he told Evelina, “Can you do the same to the gentleman over there? The other one with the gunshot wound to the side?”
Evelina looked to Gerard’s unconscious form, his stomach rising and falling rapidly, and felt sick at the prospect of assisting such an odious man. Yet he was Thomas’ brother. She would not be so arrogant as to allow him to perish like this; rather, she would let the courts decide his fate.
“Yes, of course,” Evelina said, before leaving Thomas to go to Gerard’s side and pack his wound as well.
Things progressed quickly after that. The Constable sent for more medical help, and once Thomas and Gerard were stable enough to be moved, a carriage was brought around to take them back to Elvington Manor, where they were to be properly cared for.
“The bullets will have to come out,” the physician announced to the room, as he instructed the help on how to move the bodies without causing further damage. “But that is a surgery that will take some time, and will need a more stable and sanitary environment. It cannot be accomplished properly here.”
The medical help that had arrived nodded in acknowledgement and began moving Thomas, Gerard, and Jerome out of the flat.
Evelina stood in the middle of the floor, wringing her hands, desperately wishing there was more she could do to help.
The Constable who had first found her came to her side. “My Lady. Can a ride be sent for on your behalf as well?”
Evelina, in her distress, almost blurted out the address for Alderleaf Manor. But with a daunting rush, the events of the night came back to her: the abandoned engagement ball, and fleeing across London to Thomas’ side. She couldn’t go home and face her parents, not yet, not until she knew Thomas was absolutely safe and secure.
“I will accompany them to Elvington Manor as well,” Evelina announced, hoping her voice was not shaking too much.
