Chapter 28 #2
Diana turned on him at once, fury flaring up through terror so quickly she hardly knew which was which. “You have been shot.”
His mouth moved, as though he meant to answer with something insufferably composed, but before the words could form, his knees gave.
Everything inside her went cold. “Alexander—”
He dropped with such suddenness that even the footmen were not fast enough.
One moment, he was upright beside her, broad and powerful and bleeding, and the next, his body had folded, dragging her down with him to the marble floor.
She caught his shoulders as best she could, but the impact still jarred through her arms. The sharp crack of it echoed through the hall, followed by a collective gasp from somewhere behind her.
He stopped moving.
For one suspended, monstrous instant, Diana could not breathe.
The world narrowed to his face, to the terrible stillness of it, to the fact that his eyes were closed and his mouth, that beautiful, arrogant, infuriating mouth that had once smiled against her skin and spoken her name in the darkness, did not say anything at all.
“No,” she whispered, the word coming out raw and thin. “No. No, you will not do this to me.”
Her hands shook as she reached for him, one going instinctively to his face, the other still pressed uselessly against his shoulder where the blood kept coming, warm and slick beneath her palm. His skin was warm, thank God, but too slack, unresponsive.
“He is breathing, Your Grace,” someone said quickly, though the words sounded far away.
Diana bent over him, her own breath trembling. Yes. There. Faint, but there. A shallow pull of air. Enough to make relief and panic collide so violently inside her that her eyes stung at once.
“Bring blankets,” she said, lifting her head sharply toward the nearest servant, never removing her hands from Alexander. “Pillows. Anything. We are not dragging him up the stairs in this condition.”
The household scattered more quickly after that.
Within moments, the hall, which had seemed so enormous and ceremonial before, had become a place of emergency, muffled footsteps and low frightened voices.
Someone placed cushions beneath Alexander’s head.
Someone else brought a coverlet, which Diana snatched up and spread over him herself, though she could not stop looking at the blood blooming through his coat.
Her throat tightened so fiercely it hurt. He had seen death coming for her and chosen, instantly, to take it into himself.
Her fingers trembled as they brushed damp strands of sandy blond hair back from his forehead. He looked different, unconscious. Younger, almost, though no less powerfully made. The hard discipline had gone out of his face, leaving behind the stark, masculine beauty of him stripped of command.
She loved him.
The truth rose in her so suddenly that she nearly recoiled from it. But there it was, plain and irreversible, as undeniable as the blood beneath her hand.
A tear slipped free before she could stop it and fell onto the dark lapel of his coat.
“You wretched man,” she whispered, bending closer because she could not bear the distance even though there was none at all. “You impossible, reckless, beautiful man.”
Footsteps sounded in the corridor. The physician at last.
Dr. Arbuthnot came in carrying his case with the quick, clipped stride of a man long accustomed to urgency, though even he slowed for half a beat when he saw the Duke of Rosewood on the floor with his duchess kneeling over him, blood soaking through her handkerchief and down over her gloves.
“How long ago?” he asked briskly, already setting down his case and shrugging out of his coat.
“I’m not sure,” Diana replied. “Too long.”
The physician knelt at once, opening his instruments. “Your Grace, I shall need room.”
For one wild second, she wanted to refuse him. Wanted to remain exactly where she was, hand on Alexander, body bent over his, as though proximity alone could keep him tethered. But sense forced itself through the panic at last.
She shifted back to allow the physician access, but remained beside Alexander’s head, one hand now resting lightly against the blanket over his chest as though she needed to feel every faint rise and fall.
Arbuthnot cut through the ruined coat and shirt with efficient hands, exposing the wound. Diana saw the blood, the torn flesh, the ugly violence of it, and had to fight the wave of dizziness that rose at once.
“It passed through cleanly,” the physician muttered, more to himself than anyone else. “Painful, bloody, but not lodged. That is in our favor.”
Diana closed her eyes briefly, then opened them again at once because she could not bear not to watch him.
She stayed there while the physician worked—through the cleaning, the stitching, the bandaging, through every low instruction for more water, cleaner linen, stronger brandy. She stayed as the daylight faded fully and lamps were brought nearer.
“He should wake,” Arbuthnot said, glancing toward her. “The worst of the bleeding is stopped.”
Diana did not answer at once. Her gaze remained fixed on Alexander’s face, on the faint color beginning, mercifully, to return there, on the stubborn strength of him still visible even in unconsciousness.
She only reached for his hand and held it. Because leaving him, even for a moment, felt impossible.