Chapter 2
“Utter imbecile. Why is he in the gardens while we’re conducting a musket demonstration?” The general’s sharp voice cut the air as he approached. “And what in damnation is Lady Bolingbroke’s companion doing here?”
Slade eyed her, slumped over the bleeding footman.
There’d been one wild shot, and he was confident it was lodged in the footman’s chest. With care, Slade took hold of the lass’s shoulder and waist and turned her limp body over.
He hooked one arm under her shoulders and another under her knees and lifted her.
The strangest sense of déjà vu slammed into Slade’s chest as the lass’s head fell back.
Slade pushed the feeling aside and carried her over to a nearby long-chair and laid her down gently, wishing it were made of something softer than cast iron.
As Slade returned to kneel beside the bleeding footman, a second footman came sprinting towards them from the manor.
“Send for a sawbones or healer—better yet both—and I need linens for the blood,” Slade said, eying the second footman. The man, with bulging eyes and mouth agape, nodded and darted back towards the manor, almost tripping in his haste.
Slade lifted the blood-soaked lapels of the injured footman to find the bullet hole.
The footman’s breathing was weak, and he was out cold.
Just as well, for the pain would be unbearable if he were awake.
Slade pulled his trident dagger from its sheath at his waist and sliced open the footman’s shirt to get a better look at the wound.
“I say, is all this necessary? Leave him for the healer. Let’s carry on with the demonstration,” the general said with a wave of his hand.
Slade looked up at the general and refrained from curling his lips in disgust. Bolingbroke’s callousness was astounding. Slade took on a placid expression.
“I’ve seen enough battlefield medicine to be of help until the healer arrives.” Slade kept his voice level.
The general eyed him with some distaste. He didn’t appear the least bit interested in getting blood stains on his pristine attire.
“Oh well, if you must,” the general scowled, tapping his feet. “I’ll be in my study. Come and see me when you are finished. I’d like to discuss a possible contract with Hortons. After I’ve taken a look at the American longrifle musket of course.”
“Of course, Sir Henry.” Slade gave the man a crisp nod as Bolingbroke made a swift turn towards his manor.
Satisfaction warmed Slade’s chest. It appeared the general was taking the bait of securing an arms deal despite the proposition coming from a Scotsman.
But then, Peter’s exquisitely crafted muskets were most convincing.
Slade glanced at the steward who stood in a hunched posture, wringing his own wrists. He deserved to be throttled for his incompetence. Regardless of the man’s ineptitude, however, he appeared not only remorseful, but Slade guessed he’d never shot anyone.
“You. Come here,” Slade ordered. “Keep his head and shoulders steady, should he come to. Movement will exacerbate the bleeding.”
The small-boned steward, who carried himself like anything but a military man, nodded and approached, his eyes widening in a frog-like face, to do Slade’s bidding.
Slade inspected the bloodied chest. A sucking chest wound.
He’d seen countless such as this on the front lines.
He placed his gloved hands over the injury and applied the right amount of pressure.
He had to stop the escape of air, and at the same time curtail the bleeding.
There was nothing else he could do for the man except keep his hands in place until the healer arrived.
Slade raised his head to face the direction the general had gone.
What an astonishing lack of responsibility and concern for his own staff.
But then, such lack of concern paled in comparison to the perverse morality he’d demonstrated in the Scottish Highlands during the Jacobite rebellions.
Thousands of innocents murdered as a result of his orders.
A muscle in Slade’s jaw spasmed. Slade was here because of one death in particular. And Slade would have his revenge.
His neck muscles stiffened. It had taken a visit from his former savior and his sometimes tormentor, Bullfinch, for Slade to finally settle on the perfect plan of revenge on Bolingbroke.
Slade was always patient, methodical, and calculating in everything he did.
Well, the truth was the first five years after he’d lost her, and his reason for breathing, Slade hadn’t cared whether he lived or died.
In fact, many times he’d prayed for the latter.
Then there’d been days where he’d danced with the idea of sticking a blade through the general’s heart.
His own father and brother would have loved to follow suit, like Brutus and the senators eliminating the egocentric Julius Caesar.
The simplicity of such a brutal act had seemed poetic at the time.
He’d failed Sylvia, but Bolingbroke was the one who might as well have handed her the hemlock.
Or at least that’s what he’d been telling himself over the years, but now he wasn’t sure.
He’d seen soldiers come back from the war and go on to live prosaic lives as if they hadn’t done horrendous things.
Maybe he was one of those who had to forget the horrendous things to have a normal life, but he didn’t have a normal life, did he?
The heavy weight of guilt and self-loathing had a way of slowing a man down.
He’d pictured Bolingbroke’s death in a hundred different ways over the years.
There’d been countless whisky-filled days and opium-induced stupors when the pain had been so unbearable, he’d almost unhinged into complete madness.
Bolingbroke’s death was the only thing that kept him alive after it had happened.
But a blade to Bolingbroke’s chest was too good an end for the general. Slade had no intention of creating a martyr. No. A slow and methodical decimation of a grand political career sounded much more enticing. And Bullfinch had given him the opportunity to do just that.
A few minutes later, the second footman arrived with a tall stack of white linen.
Slade took a few of the cloths to press against the wound and instructed the footman to hold them in place while he unfolded the remaining linens and draped them over the injured man.
He then took off his coat and draped it over the man’s body as well.
With a hole in his chest and the substantial loss of blood, the footman’s temperature would have dropped.
Slade exhaled a breath of relief, for the bleeding had ceased for the most part.
A low feminine groan sounded, and Slade turned to face the lass on the cast iron long-chair under the willow tree.
“Keep pressure on the wound until the healer gets here,” he said to the second footman. The man’s head bobbed in earnest. Slade strode over to the lass.
Her features intrigued him. They fired a response from every nerve ending in his body.
Despite the groan, she still hadn’t come to.
Her flaming auburn hair was swept up in a bun held by a jeweled comb.
Not a maid, but not an aristocrat either.
Then he recalled the general’s comment about a lady’s companion.
Curled tendrils outside the chignon hung on either side of the lass’s face, framing delicate features and a complexion that was fair except for an enticing sprinkling of freckles.
Slade’s instincts came alive as he took in her evenly spaced eyes, a tad sunken, giving an appearance of vulnerability.
She was in her early twenties, he’d guess.
Why did she look so familiar? Could he have swived her?
In his past life, he’d had a taste for innocence, but now his tastes leaned more towards the wicked and experienced.
Quite a shame, for there was a dangerous hint of voluptuous curves in the way the lass’s prim gown draped her form.
Just the type to spark fire in his blood.
He stood next to her and scanned the length of her still body. He couldn’t decide if her drab gown was gray or had once been black and had been laundered too many times. Her hands were bloodied, as was the front of her clothing. The blood was the footman’s, wasn’t it?
Slade gently lifted the woman’s blood-stained hands and inspected them one after the other for injuries.
Delicate wrists and slender fingers, but no injuries.
He was still holding her right hand when her eyes pushed open.
A captivating shade of hazel. With the combination of hazel eyes and auburn hair, she reminded him of—
God’s Blood!
His stomach clenched even as light-headedness made him let go of her hand. He took a step back.
“Fifi?” Slade said, shocked.