The Scandalous Love of a Duke (35 page)

Bystanders stopped to watch them with avid mistrust.

John slammed a fist on the door. It jolted. But knocking was only warning Wareham they were here. What if he ran?

John stepped back and instead smashed a heel against the wood, over and over until the damn thing gave, crashing inward. When the wood splintered, John shouldered it aside to get through, then raced upstairs to the upper room Wareham was meant to be renting.

Time had suspended. It hung in limbo. John could hardly breathe and his heart could not beat until he had Katherine back. He did not think. He could not. What if he was too late?

The handle of the upper door twisted in his hand and then opened inwards.

What faced him hit him like a fist in the gut.

Katherine was tied and gagged, lying on a bare mattress, and Wareham stood over her with a pistol in his hand. It was aimed at her forehead.

“Stay away.” Wareham’s gaze struck John’s.

John hesitated only two feet within the door as behind him the sound of the other men carried into the room. In a moment a pistol was aimed over John’s shoulder and the man beside John said, “Put the gun down.” Wareham didn’t move.

John looked down at Katherine.

She was extremely pale and her eyes wide, the bright blue looking to him, screaming
help me
, and tears stained her cheeks. Wareham’s pistol quivered.

The man behind John came further into the room, and another entered.

Wareham could not shoot them all with one gun. But if it was Katherine who took the bullet?

Another man came past John with a gun trained on Wareham, while the others moved further around.

John’s gaze lifted to Wareham’s face. This man was his uncle, his mother’s half-brother, and he was about to shoot Katherine, who bore no blame. John’s grandfather held that.
Katherine.
“Katherine is nothing to do with what has occurred between you and I, leave her be.”

“And leave you with everything you have taken from me.”

“His Grace has taken nothing, Wareham.” Harvey stood behind John, now.

John could literally feel Wareham’s desire to turn the gun on him. He willed the man to do it.

The first man into the room was now almost behind Wareham and out of his view. The second was five feet to the side of John, and now a fourth man entered, and a fourth gun was trained on Wareham.

His jaw taut, John held Wareham’s gaze, he’d always thought it like his grandsire’s, now he knew why.

The man behind Wareham lifted a finger in warning, and then he moved. The room broke into bedlam. Wareham instinctively swung his head to look back, but as he did, John saw his finger tighten on the trigger.

John moved, his only thought to save Katherine. His shoulder struck Wareham’s arm just as the gun went off, and then John fell onto her as the room filled with men, who captured Wareham and pinned him down.

Lifting off Katherine, John touched her face, his heart pounding. Her eyes were wide with fear. Behind him there were cries and shouts as Wareham fought for freedom.

There were enough men to handle him. John did not look back.

Someone offered him a knife.

He looked down to free her wrists…
God… Oh God
… There was a hole in her spencer, at her shoulder. The bullet. It had entered beneath her collarbone and …  Suddenly ice cold, he rolled her forward. Her arms were tied behind her and she winced with pain.

There was blood on the mattress, and the red stain on her back was spreading as he watched. The shot had passed through.
Oh God.

His hands shaking, he used the knife to slice through the rope, and once her arms were free, he lay her back and dropped it, then stripped off his coat. The scarlet stain had spread across her shoulder in the front too, and into her blonde hair. She looked at him, her gaze a plea.

“Your Grace.” Harvey was at John’s shoulder.

“She is wounded.” John replied as he set his coat beneath her shoulder, hoping to keep the wound cleaner. Then he began untying his cravat, his fingers still shaking. Harvey bent to pull the gag from her mouth. It was obvious she was wounded, John needn’t have said it; her pelisse bore a huge vivid scarlet stain now, and it was creeping outward all the time.

The bluebells in her eyes gleamed and when the gag was out a sob left her throat and then she was crying as one arm lifted, while the other tried to but could not. She flinched.

“Lay still, Katherine,” he whispered as his stomach turned over. The blood continued to spread, drenching her clothes, his coat and the mattress beneath.
Lord, help me.
He worked his neckcloth free, unwinding it hurriedly. Once it was loose, he used it as best he could to stem the blood, pressing the rolled up pad of cotton on the wound, and looked up at Harvey. “Your neckcloth, too, hurry.”

John felt like ice inside, cold and frozen; he did not even care what was happening with Wareham, though he could hear the man being dragged away.

Someone cut Katherine’s ankles free as Harvey handed John his neckcloth.

John swapped it with his own, looking into Katherine’s eyes. She was a sickly white. “Katherine, stay with me. I’ll get you home.” Her eyes rolled upwards even as he spoke, but her blood still pulsed beneath his hand. She’d fainted. At least she would be free of pain.

John looked over his shoulder. “For God’s sake, Harvey, get me a hackney! I need to get her help!”

“John!” Relief swept in as John saw Edward enter the room. Only now did he remember how every time he’d needed help as a child, Edward had always been there. “Katherine?” Edward’s gaze had turned to her.

“A bullet has gone through her shoulder. The wound will be dirty. There is nothing here to clean it…” John felt despair.

“I have the carriage. You take her. I’ll bring a surgeon.” John thanked God for his father’s logic. Edward had always been profoundly pragmatic no matter what trauma beset them.

“She’ll live, John,” Edward whispered.

God, I hope so! I pray so.
Her body was limp and heavy when he lifted her.
She cannot die!
He would promise anything to God to persuade Him to let her live.

In the carriage, John held her close, cradling her head and shoulder and trying to stop the ruts in the streets from jarring her as he felt the blood now seeping through his shirt.

He willed his driver to hurry, holding the strap so they did not slide about as they rushed. Her breathing fractured and grew shallow as they took a corner too sharply, and his heart pounded. He should have been the one who was struck.

When the carriage drew to a halt, he couldn’t move without hurting her, and his anger and frustration built as he waited probably barely moments for the groom to come. It felt like hours.

As he carried her in, his mother and Mary came into the hall.

Mary cried out when she saw the quantity of blood now over him as well as Katherine.

“A bullet, Mama,” John said, looking to her for help.

“Take her up, I shall have boiled water, liquor and linen brought up and I’ll send for a surgeon.”

“Papa has already gone to find one.”

She nodded as John moved, and then disappeared below stairs. Mary rushed ahead of him opening doors, including the one to Katherine’s chamber, when he reached it.

His feet felt too heavy to move, and his heart like marble in his chest. He’d promised they would always share a bed. Yet now was not the time to protest, her bed was closer. If she died, he’d die too. He couldn’t live without her. He would not.

“John.” His mother was at the door behind them. “Leave her with me, and you can get out of those bloody things.” But it was Katherine’s precious blood, he couldn’t change.

His mother’s hand brushed his arm. “Go, John, change, otherwise you will frighten her when she wakes.”

His eyes turned to Katherine. She lay limp and unconscious.

He’d failed her. He’d left her this morning and let her get hurt. His hand was shaking as it brushed back his fringe.

“I will look after her, John,” his mother urged.

“Where is the patient?” A man’s voice echoed along the landing.

The surgeon.

Mary rushed from the room. “Here!”

His mother gripped John’s arm. “Go, let the doctor clean her wound. I will stay with her. If she wakes I’ll send for you.”

He nodded, then bent and kissed Katherine’s brow before pressing his cheek to hers. Her skin was cold and clammy. Whispering to her ear, he said, “I love you. I won’t be long.”

The doctor entered when John straightened, feeling a shudder reach into his bones. “You must do everything necessary to save her.”

John was numb inside when he left the room, hollow, and yet on the edge of that emptiness was a husk that he knew was about to break.

His father stood on the landing.

“How is she?”

“Living but unconscious.” The words sounded hard, as though he did not care. He did care. “I am going to change.” But he needed a drink first.

Edward briefly gripped John’s arm. “She’ll survive.”

John felt pain leak into his eyes. The numbness had passed and now he was in agony. This was his fault.

Not really knowing where he walked, just walking, John went downstairs to the library.

His stride was long as he crossed the floor, the thread of his sanity slipping further through his fingers as he walked. In the room, he poured a brandy, and as he sipped it he saw a mental image of Katherine, in the chair, looking through his sketches.
I wish to be your friend and your helpmate as much as your wife
.

He hadn’t wholly trusted her… He hadn’t told her about Wareham. He’d shut her out when she’d asked. He didn’t even have a reason why, it was just his habit not to share things.

Clutching the edge of his desk, he let it take his weight, the thin husk of his control cracking and emotion surging in. He wished he could weep, he longed to weep, to cry and have this out, but the ability for tears was beaten out of him.

Instead, anger filled the void of despair. He blamed himself, true, but there was someone else…

His head lifted and his fingers gripped tighter about the glass. He stared at the portrait of the old man and sipped the brandy. Its heat slid into his veins as hatred did to.

That devil had disowned and left his mother for dead because she’d eloped with a man he did not like. That devil had sired a son out of wedlock, a far worse sin, and harboured him at Pembroke Place. Living life as though he was pure of sin, when his heart was dark as jet beneath.

Disgust, revulsion and anger swelled and pulsed. The last vestige of John’s sanity slipped and drawing back his hand John threw the glass at the picture.

The brandy smeared his grandfather’s face.

It did not ease John’s rage. With a growl, he swiped the contents off the desk. Items shattered on the floor. Then he turned to the mantle and saw the hunting statues his grandfather had loved. Striding across the room, he grasped one, and threw that at his grandfather too. It tore the canvas. He threw another, growling as he hurled it.

Then he picked up a vase the old man had had shipped from Florence and thrust it at the floor. It shattered.

“John! What the hell is going on?” His father was at the open door.

John’s chest heaved with heavy breaths when he turned. “If he was alive I would kill him.”

Edward shut the door. “When he was alive I often wished to. But destroying his things is not going to help Katherine.” Edward crossed the room.

John felt ten again, helpless. “I cannot do this.” The desire to weep washed over him once more.

“You can, and you will. She needs you.”

“I let her down. We argued last night and I walked away. She asked me to tell her why I’d dismissed Wareham three times. I did not tell her. I considered it nothing to do with her. We argued because she hates me shutting her out. She wants me to rely on her. She cannot rely on me…” John looked up at the ornate ceiling. “I cannot live without her.”

His father’s footfalls came closer. “This is not your doing. It’s Wareham’s, and if Katherine is to recover, she needs you, and she is not the sort to lay blame, John.”

Edward gripped John’s shoulder. “You will get through this, and your marriage will become what it ought. People take time to learn each other. But Katherine is right. It is not just her you close yourself off from. I know it is from a need to be strong—”

“Because I am not strong… If people saw this, and knew me…”

“They would see a man who loved his wife. There is no harm in that. Look at your Uncle Richard or Robert. Do they hide their affections? Do they hold people distant? Are they seen as weak? It was too late for your grandfather to change when he discovered how much he had hurt your mother. It is not too late for you. Listen to Katherine. She’s good for you … ”

Edward’s grasp firmed. “Now, go and change. The servants will clear this. You will want to be ready when Katherine wakes.”

I wish to be your friend and your helpmate as much as your wife … 

John gripped Edward’s arm.

Edward embraced John briefly, then let him go again. “No one doubts you, John. Look how you have managed. You are respected. Focus on being happy now and making Kate so.”

John met his father’s deep blue-grey gaze. “I will try.”

“As I once told your mother, I do not accept trying. Trying is not good enough.
Change
. You can.”

Their gazes held, as though Edward cast a gauntlet at John’s feet.

John picked it up and nodded agreement before turning away. His birth father could have loved him no more than Edward did.

~

John stripped and washed then returned to Katherine’s bedside; his clean clothes carrying the scent of starch and rosemary.

He wore only a shirt and trousers, he had not had the patience to tie a clean neckcloth and he was in no mood to be fussed over by his valet. He felt raw inside.

He looked at his mother when he entered the room.

Katherine should be in his bed, not here.

“She is not conscious,” his mother said. “But the wound has been stitched and the doctor said her heart seems strong. She just needs time.”