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Chapter Fifty-One
Thomas passed in and out of fitful sleep. His body was drenched in sweat, his muscles shivering and convulsing against his will. His side screamed, sending hot agony through his stomach and out to the very edges of his extremities.
What had happened?
Had he fallen ill?
Such thoughts barely landed, instead behaving like inconsequential bits of driftwood, swept away by a strong current.
He remembered feeling similarly only twice before. Once, as a small child, with a vicious influenza. Next, merely a month after his arrival in the Far East, when he had been laid up with dysentery, his stomach not yet familiar with the nuances of the food and water of the area.
This…wasn’t quite like that.
He wasn’t used to such sharp pain accompanying his dizzy thoughts, for one. It was the pain in his side, that awful, searing sensation that left him feeling as though he were being ripped up from the inside out. But it went deeper than that. Deeper than his muscles, his organs, his bones. This pain had taken root, rotten and toxic, in the depths of his very soul.
Gerard, Thomas thought, trying to cling to something familiar.
But the name of his brother did not ground him. Rather, it unleased a flurry of hideous, nightmarish memories. Memories? Surely not. Surely, they had been nightmares in actuality, rather than comparison.
“Your Grace?” came a voice above him. “Your Grace, can you hear me?”
Thomas tried to blink. His vision blurred and clouded. He tried to speak. All that came out was a ghastly moan. If he was not dead yet, he felt as though he certainly would be within minutes, such was the extreme extent of his agony.
“If you can hear me, I’ve managed to remove the bullet at long last, and the bleeding appears not to be as severe as I originally thought.” He paused, then added with confidence, “You will survive this.”
Thomas’ immediate thought was,No, I won’t.
He had no idea why such a ridiculous notion came to him. He trusted physicians, generally speaking. And he had always believed himself capable of weathering through a fair deal of physical discomfort—though, admittedly, he often pushed himself too hard, as had been the case during his recovery from the attack on his carriage.
The attack…
A swirl of thoughts came rushing back to him, clearer now, more tangible. The ledger. The attacks.Gerard.
Evelina.
Lady Evelina,thatwas the person he needed to cling to. The face he needed to conjure up and make the direct and sole focus of his tumultuous thoughts. She would never hurt him. She had saved him. Without her, he would have been left alone in Gerard’s apartment, the two of them bleeding out across the floor from each other.
This time, the memory stuck. Thomas choked back a sob and turned the side of his face into his pillow.
When he came to again, who knew how many hours later, the light was different in his room. No longer was it the faded dimness of candlelight, but morning sun was streaming through his windows.
He was more coherent this time too. He was able to take proper stock of his body: his spent, exhausted limbs, and the bandages wrapped tightly around his waist, putting pressure on the wound in his side.
Thomas had expected, upon fully waking, to be immediately confronted by the physician, or perhaps his mother, or even Lady Evelina. It was none of those parties—rather, he was met by the Constable.
“Your Grace,” the Constable said. “I know you have been through a great ordeal. But it is imperative that I get your side of what transpired across town this past evening.”
“Where is Gerard?” Thomas croaked.
“Do you remember much of what happened?”
“Gerard. My Brother. What has become of him?”
The Constable hesitated, but apparently decided to move forward with his words. “He is in a similar state as you. Injured, but he will survive.” The Constable’s face grew grim. “Though, from Lady Evelina’s statement, it seems he may be in quite a bit of trouble in the eyes of the law.”
For a long, insane moment, Thomas considered lying to the Constable.
He could tell him that the fight had been nothing more than a miniscule, misplaced confrontation, best kept within the family. That Gerard was innocent, and no one was really to blame. There would still be the issue of the Marquess of Newhey, of course, who had been shot in the knee if Thomas remembered correctly. As well as Lady Evelina, who would certainly have her own pertinent thoughts about the situation.
