Chapter 5
If ever there was a moment Vincent had been certain he was going to die, slowly and painfully, it was this one.
He dragged himself up the servant’s staircase with one hand braced against the wall, leaving a trail of dark smears across the plaster.
The knife had gone in clean—he could still feel the precise, horrible moment of it, the way pain had detonated through his side like a pistol shot.
He had not made a sound. He was rather proud of that. Foolish pride now, for certain.
His study door. He got it open. Fell into the first chair he could reach.
The muffled roar of the ball drifted up from the floors below. Obscenely cheerful, full of people eating and laughing and reveling. While he sat here bleeding onto good upholstery.
He pressed his hand hard against his side and felt the blood pulse steadily through his fingers, thick and insistent. No major organ, he told himself. He was still conscious. Still thinking. That had to mean something.
The fireplace was three steps away. The poker hung beside it. If he could heat the iron and seal the wound…
He tried to push himself up. His blood-slick hand slipped on the arm of the chair, and he went nowhere.
Splendid…
Black spots peppered his vision as he tried to breathe. If only he could get to that fireplace…
The squeak of a door had him peeking up, and while the light was dim and his eyesight weak, he just about made out the form of a lady as she entered.
“Are you… are you well?” the nervous voice reached his ears. “I saw blood on the door—oh god,” her eyes landed on his wound. Rushing in, she paused two feet away from him, her hands flying to her face and covering her mouth.
“Help…” he forced a breath in, but nothing else came out.
“I—I can’t,” she said, panicked, “You need a physician!”
“No… time,” Vincent croaked. “You… help…”
Her jaw tightened, and a flicker of recognition flared in the back of his mind—but was swiftly pushed away by the pain raking over his nerve endings.
“I will… I will get someone,” she managed, spinning on her heel. “I won’t be lo—”
His hand snapped out to grab her wrist, his grip tight; the blood from his hand smearing her skin. “Please…”
A wet hand grabbed her wrist tight, scaring Emma half to death that she almost jumped a foot in the air. The man forced his smoldering grey eyes open under his curtain of inky hair and ordered, “Help… me.”
Frightened, she stammered, “How can I—w-what happened to you? How—I don’t know if I can.” She pivoted on her heel. “I’ll get someone—”
“No!”
She spun back to meet hauntingly familiar steel eyes, still so fresh in her memory. She was stunned that she had not seen it at first. “It’s… It’s you!”
His hand slipped away, leaving lurid red marks on her arms as his head rolled back. “Help me…”
Sucking in a series of deep breaths and swallowing her fear, she tried to think what to do, if she could do anything at all.
Grabbing a letter opener off the desk behind her, she dropped to her knees and cut the shirt away. Using a part of the cloth, she tried to clean the sight of the wound. Now, with a clearer sight of the knife wound, she grimaced. It was only an inch wide, but blood seeped out uncontrollably.
“Do you have any alcohol in here?” she asked while planning her next move.
He coughed. “Behind… you. C-cupboard.”
She darted to the line of cupboards and frantically opened them, and after two tries, found a bottle of whisky to snatch from a shelf. Balling one handful of cloth, she doused it with the alcohol and said, “This will sting.”
She pressed the cloth to his wound and grimaced when he gasped and sank his fingers into the chair’s handle as his chest heaved with the pain.
Pulling out her trusty small sewing kit from a tie-on pocket, Emma used the glimmers of light to thread a needle and sterilize it with brandy. It was certainly not the thread or needle physicians used to seal wounds, but it would have to do.
Resting her hand on his abdomen, the tight muscles flexed, and heat spiraled under her skin at touching a man this way.
“Please hold still,” her eyes flicked up to him. “I don’t want it to hurt more than it needs to.”
His nostrils flared. “Do as you must.”
After the first push of the needle in, Emma found that sewing torn flesh was nothing like sewing silk or satin. Skin and muscles did not give easily, and Emma feared that the longer she took to close his wound, the worse it would get for him.
“I’m trying my fastest,” she murmured with full focus, “I am so sorry.”
His head sagged back while his chest heaved.
“Father…”
His voice grew ragged, and Emma went still; fearfully, she wondered if he was praying. Was he sensing death? Her blood ran cold.
“Father… You should have been there for him…”
Was he talking to God? Or was he talking to his own father?
What does he mean?
Did pain make men delirious?
Forcing herself back to the critical task, she finished the last suture and sat back, grimacing that the stitches looked as scattered as they felt. At least he was not losing much blood anymore.
Looking down at her hands smeared with blood, she grabbed at the last section of his torn shirt and hastily wiped her hands. The man’s head had fallen into the corner of the wingback, and his eyes were closed.
She finally took a moment to really study him, and good lord, he was handsome.
The strong slant of his cheekbones, aquiline nose, and chiseled jut of his jaw told her he hailed from the Danish blood.
His dark hair was a trifle long; the thick, ink-black waves fell to his shoulders and gave a sensual touch to his hard-edged masculinity.
It was certainly him—the same man who had saved her from that ruffian a sennight ago.
How did you end up here?
Her gaze dropped to his chest, where dark hair was sprinkled over the delineated blocks of his abdomen. A thin trail bisected his lower body and vanished down his waist—when something drew her eyes back to his chest.
A silvery scar was cut over his right pectoral and down over his ribs—what in heavens had happened there? Did he make it a living to be wounded so often?
She knew that she had to find someone to care for him, and after stowing the needle into the packet, she rose. The man had not moved from his position, but the faint rise and fall of his chest was cold comfort for her, knowing he would live.
Heading for the door, Emma cast one last look over the man, grimacing at how pale he appeared. She closed the door behind her and set out to find anyone who might be able to help.
Darting down to the main ballroom, she hunted for a senior staff member and found one speaking to a maid near the refreshment tables. She couldn’t wait for the man to finish his conversation.
“Pardon me, sir,” she interrupted hurriedly. After making sure no one but the two were in earshot, she whispered, “I apologize for the interruption, but this is urgent. There is a man upstairs in what I think is the study who was stabbed and has been losing blood.”
She swallowed thickly. “I—I tried my best, but he might die if he does not get to a physician immediately.”
The butler’s abnormally matter-of-fact reaction stumped her for a second.
To the maid, he simply said, “Send for a bucket of hot water, fresh linen, and basilicum powder. And thank you, miss. I will attend to it at once. Oh, and due to the sensitive nature of this matter, I would implore you not to speak a word of this to anyone until we have better insight into the situation at hand.”
“I… I wouldn’t think of it,” Emma stammered.
Surely it would cause mass panic if the guests knew someone had almost been murdered merely a floor above them.
The fear that made the back of her neck tight began to fade from Emma, and she almost slumped in relief as the man went off. Weak with apprehension and still reeling that she might have saved a man’s life, Emma shakily poured a glass of water and downed half of it.
Who was that man? How had he gotten up there? Who had hurt him? Was it perhaps the same man who had chased me down that alley last week? Oh god, is it… is it my fault?
Just then, a bright head of blond hair crossed the room, and while her heart leaped, she could not summon a shred of excitement at the prospect of another dance. Instead, her heart and mind were fixated on the man upstairs battling for his life.
Had she saved his life, or had she made it abundantly worse?
The questions kept reeling through her mind, but no answer was forthcoming. Her eyes darted to the dancefloor, and she wondered—feared—if the would-be murderer was in the room with them…
“Emma?” Charlotte whispered as she gently pried the glass from her hand. “Are you alright?”
Emma blinked. “Yes. Why do you ask?”
“Your glass was trembling so fiercely I thought you’d drop it. And you are still shaking, you poor thing.”
Taking her hand, Emma squeezed it at her breast as she cast another look at Ashton.
Charlotte followed her gaze, her brows furrowing. “Did something happen with him? I thought your dance went rather splendidly.”
Something did happen—but not with him.
“It did,” she reassured her friend. “But I—I got overwhelmed. You know I am not seasoned in these affairs. My skin is not as galvanized as yours.”
While she still seemed a touch suspicious, her friend sighed in resignation. “The ladies can indeed be vicious.”
“Would you mind taking me home?” Emma asked as she watched Harriet dancing the reel, laughing happily with her partner. “You can return after, but I just need to find some… quiet.”
“Of course! You look as though you’re about to collapse, dear. I’ll go and have the carriage summoned.”
Emma could not argue with that; she did feel her knees about to wither out from under her. She barely felt when Charlotte led her to one of the chairs at the fringes of the dance floor, but she sat gratefully.
Whatever giddy feelings stubbornly remained swimming through her heart and mind dimmed the moment she turned and saw the butler glaring at her from across the room. Instantly, her mind—and eyes—flickered upstairs.
She feared for the worst, and when she looked for the butler again… he was gone.
What have you gotten yourself into this time, Emma…