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Luke agreed with a nod of his head. “Having just experienced that myself, my dear, I share your sentiments.” And then he refocused his attention on Caroline. “I meant to return you to London, but in yourcondition…”
“I simply fainted,” Carolinebegan.
“That’s not the condition I mean, sweetheart.” Luke looked at her with a mix of condescension and love, a look that only an older brother can bestow upon his younger sister when he knows all hersecrets.
But how could he possibly know her secrets? And how could he possibly make any sort of reference to her expectant condition?There was only one person in the world she’d told that truth to. “Did Marctellyou?”
Luke’s gaze flickered to Rachel, still on the bed beside Caroline. So she turned her attention on her daughteraswell.
“I’m not an idiot,” Rachel said, suddenly unable to meet Caroline’s eyes. “And I remember what you were like when you wereexpectingEmma.”
Blast it! Caroline’s face stung from embarrassment. What must her daughter think of her? “He was to return with a Special License,” she muttered softly as though that excused her actions since becoming involvedwithMarc.
Luke snorted. “If he lives, I can promise you he’llhaveone.”
If he lives. “Luke, what happened to him? Whereishe?”
Her brother frowned in response, but then he finally said, “He’s been stabbed, Caroline. In the middle of the night, right in the middle of UpperGrosvenor.”
Stabbed? Like David had been? Caroline’s fingers fluttered to her lips once more. “Oh, dear God.” How could that possibly happen again? Who would do such athing?
Luke nodded in apparent agreement with that sentiment. “Luckily, Blackaby was there. Shot the fellow as he was abouttoflee.”
So if Blackaby was there, he had to have seen to Marc’s carerightaway.
“He hasn’t woken up,” Luke continued. “At least not before I left. I thought you’d want to be by his sideincase…”
In case he didn’t make it? A sob lodged in Caroline’s throat. But he had to make it. He had to. She loved him so much. She couldn’t lose him too. And she had to see him, sit by his bedside, will him to live. “Yes,” Caroline said and pushed up on her elbows, ready to run all the way to London on her own two feet if that was the only way. “I’m sure Robson knows the mail coach schedule from Driffield.We’ll—”
Luke scoffed. “I am not taking you, in your present condition, in amailcoach. So just take that thought out ofyourmind.”
“But it’s faster,” she said. And time was of theessence.
“If he lives, I won’t have it be so he can killme, Caroline. We will travel like civilized people in a proper coach. And we’ll stop as often as you require. And that is the endofit.”
As often as she required? Then they wouldn’t stop at all. She had to get to Marc just as quickly as possible. Whatifhe—
No, she wouldn’t even entertain that thought, and she shook her head as though to shake the awful images that were beginning to seep in around the corners ofhermind.
Caroline tipped her head toward Rachel’s and said, “Will you find Callie for me?” Marc’s daughter did have a right to know what had happened to her father. “And ask someone to pack a few things for each of yougirls?”
“Callie too?” Rachel asked insurprise.
“He’s herfather.”
Rachel slid from the bed. “She’s afraid of her own shadow. She won’t wanttogo.”
Well, that was entirely up to Callie. Caroline wouldn’t make such a decision for the girl. If she wanted to head to London to see her father, Caroline would help her get there. She might be the only other person in the world who loved Marc as much as Caroline did. “Ask her to see me,please?”
“Yes, Mama.” Rachel quickly quittheroom.
As soon as she was gone, Caroline pinned Luke with a look. “He was stabbed? Was it that Covent Guard?” It had to be. Who else went around stabbing people in London? And Marc had beat the man to within an inch ofhislife.
But her brother blinked at her like she was mad. “I don’t think so. Some fellow I’ve never heard of. St. John or George or something like that. I suppose he could be the Covent Guard, but no one referred to himassuch.”
St. George. The fellow from Vauxhall. The one Marc had feared as soon as he’d seen him. He really did have enemies, even these many years later. That was a loweringthought.
“The Home Office, apparently, swooped down and snatched the man up,” Luke continued. “Even Blackaby doesn’t know what they’ve donewithhim.”
