Chapter Sixteen #2
Old Mrs. Bean laughed. “I never said he couldn’t talk, gal. My Edmund just ain’t much for speaking.” She nodded at Drake. “Think you might want to speak with him whilst you still have a chance?”
While she still had a chance? Felicity went to her knees and rested his head in her lap. “Don’t you dare die,” she repeated, meaning it more as a challenge than anything else. He needed to live so she could spurn him as many times as it took to be rid of him, but she didn’t wish him dead.
“I am so sorry,” he whispered, grimacing against the pain. “So very sorry.”
“You should be.”
“I am. More than you will ever know.”
“A lie of omission is still a lie.” She used a corner of her gown to wipe the dirt and sweat from his face. “A lie is a lie.”
“I know.” He sounded weaker. “I will never forgive myself for being such a fool and throwing you away. You—the best thing that ever happened to me in my entire life.”
She wouldn’t say good and agree that she wouldn’t forgive him either. Not now, when he lay knocking at death’s door. She swallowed hard, her throat aching because her heart had lodged in it sideways. Hot tears streamed down her face, making her angrier still.
Chance took hold of her by the shoulders. “Let us get him into the wagon, Felli. We have to get him to the village. With any luck, they have someone there who can help him.”
Drake didn’t make a sound as the men lifted him, even though he had to be in agony.
“Help me up there,” Felicity told her brother. “I need to hold the rag to his wound. The ride will be rough.” It wasn’t that she loved him still. No, that foolishness was over. It was merely her Christian duty to do what she could to help him.
Without argument, Chance lifted her into the wagon.
Once again, she pillowed Drake’s head in her lap while pressing hard against the wound that was not in the center of his back but nearer to his shoulder.
The fact that he had pushed her to the ground and taken the shot meant for her didn’t escape her.
It didn’t matter. She would still be rid of him as soon as he was well.
Because he would be well. She wouldn’t contemplate otherwise.
The wagon lurched into motion, making Drake bare his teeth and dig his fingers into the pallet until the material ripped. But he didn’t make a sound, simply took his punishment as if it were his due.
“I am sorry,” he said again, barely loud enough to be heard over the rattling of the wagon. “So very sorry.”
“So you said earlier.” She wiped his face again, trying to keep him as steady as possible as they thundered across the rough terrain. “Save your strength. I refuse to have your death on my conscience.”
He caught hold of her hand and pressed it to his mouth, tenderly kissing it. “Forgive me so I might die in peace.”
“I do not forgive you. Therefore, you best not die.”
“Felli…please.”
“Do not call me that. We are no longer that familiar.” She frowned at the wad of rags she held pressed to his back. The bleeding was worse. They needed to hurry so they could stop shaking him and stanch the flow. “Now, stop talking and save your strength.”
He became almost peaceful, frightening her even more. “You thought you were a shy wallflower, yet you sound like a fierce general on the battlefield.”
“If I have learned anything since meeting you, it is that I have many strengths of which I was unaware.” Good heavens, would they never get to Grange? “It is time for you to look within yourself now and draw upon your own strengths.”
He didn’t answer, and his lips were barely parted.
Panicking, she pressed her hand to the middle of his chest. A sob escaped her when she felt nothing.
No, it had to be because of the rough ride.
He was not dead. She bent forward and kissed his forehead, willing him to live.
“I told you not to die,” she said through gritted teeth.
Relief filled her when the heat of his breath barely brushed across her fingers as she held them close to his face. Thank the Almighty. Drake was breathing. The pain and loss of blood must have finally rendered him unconscious.
“How much farther?” she called out to Mrs. Bean.
The old woman turned and cast a worried look at Drake. “Soon, gal. I know it feels like forever, but we be there soon enough.”
Felicity held tight to Drake as the wagon swayed and bumped over a particularly rough patch of road. At this rate, soon enough might not suffice.
*
The Grange in Borrowdale Inn wasn’t much, but it was clean, and the nearest place they could find Drake the care he needed. It just so happened that the innkeeper’s husband was also an experienced surgeon who had learned his trade on the battlefield.
Binnocksbourne’s magistrate didn’t stay in Grange with Chance, Felicity, and the Beans. He bade them farewell and returned to deal with the criminals awaiting their punishment in the roundhouse. Rum and Catherty’s moneylending business was now closed. Permanently.
With Mrs. Bean’s help, Felicity kept Drake as comfortable as possible when he wasn’t so wild with fever as to knock them away.
When those demons overtook him, Edmund came forward and kept Drake still so he wouldn’t harm himself and rip open Mr. Warner’s handiwork.
The surgeon had removed the bullet, cleaned and stitched the wound as much as he could, and then offered little hope.
Drake’s recovery depended on the Almighty.
Someone squeezing her shoulder startled Felicity into opening her eyes, which she had risked closing for just a second. She jerked to complete wakefulness. “Yes? What is it?”
“It be all right, gal,” Mrs. Bean said quietly. “I be goin’ downstairs for a while. You need me to fetch anything for you?”
Felicity rolled her shoulders and rubbed her neck, trying to work out the stiffness. “No, thank you, Mrs. Bean. Nothing for me. Get yourself some rest. I am fine here.”
The old woman shook her head. “You be far from fine, gal, but you be doing the best you can. That be all you can do when things come to this.” She cast a concerned glance at Drake. “Leastwise he seems quieter today. A quiet day is a good day.”
Felicity rubbed the weary grittiness from her eyes. “Indeed, it is. We can only hope that is a good sign.”
Mrs. Bean nodded as she ambled over to the door, the tip of her cane softly clicking against the hardwood floors. “I be back soon, gal.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Bean.” Felicity rose and went to the washbowl on the table beside the bed, emptied the old water into the bucket on the floor, and filled it with clean water from one of the pitchers beside a stack of freshly boiled and dried bandages, crocks of balm, and three brown bottles of laudanum.
She sometimes wondered if the vile laudanum made Drake worse.
Mama had always hated the stuff. Said it made her dream of frightening and unbelievable things.
Felicity wet a cloth, then dabbed its coolness across Drake’s forehead, throat, and the part of his chest not covered by the bedsheet or bandages.
His state made her softly snort with a sad laugh.
If she wasn’t ruined before, she was surely ruined now, tending to a man in such a state of undress.
But it no longer mattered. Mrs. Bean was in no condition to handle his care all alone; the innkeeper had her business to run, and Felicity just didn’t feel right about Chance hiring a maid for the job.
No, family took care of their own. Strangers didn’t.
Her hand froze in place as she passed the cloth across Drake’s bare shoulders.
Family. Drake was not family. He was the disgraced man she had intended to marry.
Chance had told her about Drake’s uncle taking his life, making Drake the real Earl of Wakefield and removing that worry from the equation.
She clenched her teeth. The title was not the issue and never had been, as far as she was concerned.
It was Drake’s inability to be honest that was the problem.
She soaked the cloth again, squeezed out the water, and washed his arms and hands, then draped the wet rag on a peg on the table.
Edmund and Mrs. Bean would wash the rest of him.
It was not at all proper for her to do as much as she had already done. She dared not do any more.
“Felicity?”
Uncertain whether he had actually spoken or she had dreamed it, she turned back to him and leaned closer. “I am here.”
“I am sorry.”
He sounded lucid. She girded herself against anything he might say. “Are you going to apologize every time you speak to me?”
Without opening his eyes, he barely nodded. “I will spend the rest of my life apologizing to you, if you see fit to allow it.”
She repressed a sigh and swallowed hard. “How is your pain? Are you in need of more laudanum? Mr. Warner said you may have more if you wish.”
“No more laudanum.” He opened his eyes and barely shifted, quickly halting with a grimace. “I can bear the pain in my shoulder. That is not the agony that troubles me.”
She wasn’t about to question him further. Instead, she filled a cup with fresh water, lifted his head, and held it to his lips. “Drink—Mr. Warner said it is most important that you drink. We added honey to this water. Mrs. Bean said it would help you.”
He sipped the tiniest bit, then slightly turned his head away. “Who is Mrs. Bean? The owner of this place?”
“No, Mrs. Bean and her son, Edmund, were my caretakers for a while.”
He flinched again. “The ones Rum and Catherty hired?”
“Yes.”
“I am sorry.”
“Do not be. They are good and kind people who will soon live at Broadmere Hall. I am a better person for meeting them.”
Closing his eyes, he went quiet for so long that she thought he had once more drifted off to sleep. “Why did you stay?” he asked, his voice weak and raspy. “Why did you stay to care for me?”