Chapter 24
Twenty-Four
The trunk was only half full, but she was crying so hard she could barely see what she was putting into it.
Aurelia didn't care. She crumpled her belongings into balls and put them in anyway, stockings on top of her good evening dresses, a book she hadn't been reading shoved into the corner.
She didn't know how she was going to leave.
She didn't know who she would ask to bring the carriage around or what she would say when they asked her where she was going.
She only knew that she could not stay in this house for another hour and that she needed to be moving, needed to be doing something with her hands, even if that meant packing.
One of the dogs was scratching at the door, and she wagered it was Nike. She had been at it for five minutes, persistent and low, the sound of a dog who could not understand why she was being kept outside.
“Stop,” Aurelia said. Her voice came out wrecked. “Nike, stop. Go away.”
Nike stopped scratching. Then she went quiet entirely.
Aurelia stood with a chemise in her hands and listened. There was no sound. Nike did not go quiet like that. Nike went quiet when someone was coming.
Before she could move to lock it, the door opened. Evander came in.
The first thing she noticed was the blood.
There was blood on his shirt and on his hands and a streak of it across his jaw where he must have touched his face without thinking.
He looked… Oh God, he looked like a man who had been running and had not yet stopped in his mind.
He was staring at her, then at the open trunk, the coat she had thrown on without thinking.
“What…” he started and stopped.
“What happened to you?” she said, throwing down the chemise. The trunk, the coat, all of it fell away. “Evander, whose blood is that?”
“Frederick,” he said, looking through her rather than at her. His hands were shaking as he reached one out to her. “He's been in an accident. Come now.”
Downstairs, she heard it before she saw it.
Seraphina's voice, high and breaking in a way Aurelia had never heard from any person, only animals.
There were men's voices too coming from outside.
She and Evander were at the top of the stairs, and she could see the entrance hall below.
Four men were coming through the front door carrying Frederick between them.
His leg was a mess that made her stomach roil.
She clapped a hand over her mouth afraid she would be sick.
She looked away immediately, and then made herself look back for Evander’s sake.
Frederick’s leg was bent at an unnatural angle, and there was blood soaking through the fabric of his trousers, the fabric torn wide open in other places.
His face was the colour of bone, and completely still.
Seraphina was at the bottom of the stairs wailing. She ran toward him, but one of the men pushed her away and told her to be calm.
“Is he…?” Aurelia whispered.
“He is breathing,” Evander said. “Unconscious… Come away from the stairs.”
They brought Frederick through to one of the drawing rooms. Evander went downstairs and Aurelia followed him.
Seraphina grabbed Aurelia’s arm as they went past, asking her questions she didn’t have the answers to.
They followed Evander as he went in with Poole, and Howes, and the men who had carried his brother inside.
When he entered last, he looked back at Aurelia – a glance at her coat – and Seraphina.
And he put his hand flat on the door and closed it.
The door slammed in their faces with a bang.
Seraphina made a sound like something had been cut out of her, and she turned. Aurelia caught her by the arms before she could go anywhere, which was probably down to the floor in a heap.
“He's alive,” Aurelia stressed, mind whirring. “Evander said he's alive.”
“He wasn't moving.” Seraphina's hands were gripping Aurelia's arms hard enough to bruise her. “He wasn't moving, and he wasn't answering. I kept calling his name, but… Oh, he looks dead, Aurelia. He’s dead.”
“He's alive,” Aurelia said again. “The doctor will be coming. And in the meantime Evander is with him.”
“But his leg…” Seraphina closed her eyes. “Did you see his leg?”
Aurelia nodded grimly. “Yes.”
“How did that… How does that happen? How do you…?” She stopped.
Her legs went then and her eyes rolled back.
Aurelia caught the rest of her weight. They ended up on the floor of the corridor together anyway, and she was reminded of the time she had fainted at her wedding, and how different things were now.
Seraphina was not performing this time. Her face pressed into Aurelia’s shoulder, and her hands gripped the collar of her spencer jacket like the fabric was the only thing tethering her to the world.
Whatever had happened in the library between her and Evander, whatever terrible creature Seraphina was or was not, her pain was real.
This was a woman who had sent her husband out for a ride and watched him come back broken and half-dead, and the sound she was making was grief and terror in equal measure.
“I should never have come here,” Seraphina started.
“Don't,” Aurelia said. “Not now.”
“I have to say it. I should never have said any of it to him, I should never have pushed him toward Poole today, if I hadn't… he would have stayed in the house, he would have been fine. And then all of it, running away, I–”
“You didn't cause this,” Aurelia said, though she didn’t quite believe it. She said it firmly, because if she didn't say it firmly Seraphina was going to carry on forever. “Horses fall down. It was just an accident.”
“But if he had stayed–”
“He might have fallen down the stairs instead, for all we know.” She tightened her arm around Seraphina's shoulders. “You did not cause this.”
Seraphina pressed the back of her hand to her mouth and bit into her skin.
Her whole body was shaking. “I regret everything,” she said.
“Everything I said, everything I did. I regret all of it.
I don't know why I’m like this. I have been so unhappy, and I took it out on everything around me and I don't know how to stop.”
“Be quiet now.”
“I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. For everything I said to you, for coming here and making things so hard for everyone. For leaving in the first place. I should have just married him. I should have never left.”
“Stop,” Aurelia said. “He is in that room alive, and you can do all of this later. Right now you just need to breathe.”
She tried. The breath was ragged and wet, but it was something.
They sat on the corridor floor together while the sounds from the drawing room continued, low voices and something Aurelia did not want to identify, and the evening came on slowly through the windows without word from inside.
The physician arrived from Norwich half an hour later. In the time between, Evander, Poole and Howes had done what they could, which was not much beyond keeping Frederick still and warm, talking to him in even tones.
When the physician came he was a compact brisk man named Doctor Moore who did not speak unnecessarily and got to work without wasting time on sentiment. He asked Evander to hold Frederick's shoulders when they cut off his boots and took off the riding trousers.
Evander had been in the country most of his life.
He had seen animals hurt and hunts go wrong, men come off horses badly.
He had thought he knew what a broken leg looked like.
But this was… He could barely stomach the sight.
Tissue and sinew, bone and blood. And it belonged to Frederick.
All of it. Outside when it should have been inside.
He kept his eyes on Frederick's face and his hands on Frederick's shoulders, and he breathed through his nose while Moore worked, not making the mistake of looking down again. The smell of the room… sour, fetid, and metallic.
“Hold him steady,” Moore said.
Frederick made a sound then, low and involuntary, which meant he was somewhere close to the surface even if he wasn't awake. Evander tightened his grip and said, “I've got you. I've got you, Freddy. Stay still, you’ll be all right.” But he brother kept shaking, beads of sweat running down his face.
Frederick's brow creased. His eyes stayed shut. His brother really was beautiful, even then, even when the worst had almost happened. The happier brother. The better brother. What was Evander? What was Evander when Frederick was–
“The leg is shattered,” Moore said, cutting through his thoughts. “I won't know the full extent until the swelling comes down, maybe I am wrong. The bleeding is manageable but the skin…” He paused in a way that Evander did not like. “There may be other damage. I cannot say tonight.”
“What kind of damage?” Evander said, still holding onto Frederick even when Poole and Howes had stepped away, looking pale.
Moore looked at him then. “The kind that takes time to assess, Your Grace. He took considerable weight on him in the fall and must have fallen on something for his leg to end up like this. We will know more when he wakes.” There came another pause.
“I want to be honest with you, Your Grace. The leg concerns me less than what else may have been injured. And the risk of mortification…”
Poole made a sound behind him, a stifled, guilty gasp. “He wants to take the leg.”
“No.” Evander grit his teeth and said, “He has not even awoken yet, and you are telling me this. I do not want to know. Only do what needs to be done. But leave him intact.”
Over the next hour, they managed to stop the bleeding and try to set the leg. It mostly seemed like a lost cause. Frederick cried out once, then went silent. Evander stayed for all of it. He stayed because Frederick had nobody else in the house he could trust.
He had ridden Evander's horse. That was the detail that kept returning.
Poole had told him in the intervening hour: Frederick had taken Matchem because his own horse had thrown a shoe that morning.
Matchem was a strong horse, a good horse, but he was Evander's horse, and he did not know Frederick's hands.
He had gone too hard at a jump in the woods, laughing, and Matchem had unseated him and come down on top of him.
Poole had heard it all, then doubled back and found them there.
Howes said the horse was fine. Spooked and cut, but otherwise sound. Evander did not care about his beloved horse at that moment. Not about the house. Or the women. Not about anything except his brother.
When Moore had finished and Frederick was bandaged and his breathing had steadied into something regular, the doctor left instructions with Poole and said he would return in the morning.
Evander saw him out and came back to the drawing room.
He pulled the chair to the side of the sofa where they had laid Frederick and sat in it indecorously, feeling the weight of his brother’s life on his shoulders.
The room was quiet. Poole had gone to deal with the horse with Howes, and speak to the staff. It was just Evander and his brother's calm but ashen face.
“King of fools,” Evander said quietly. “Taking my horse… What were you thinking?”
Frederick did not respond.
“If you had asked I would have given you another. There are eight horses in that stable, and you took the one that doesn't know you at all and is only loyal to me.” He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “That is so like you. I don't know why I'm surprised.”
He swallowed back the thickness in his throat and let his head hang forward in shame. The sun was setting outside, the room growing dimmer by the minute.
“I'm not cross with you,” he said. “Not about any of it. I was very angry for a long time, yes. But I'm not anymore.” He looked at his brother's face and his eyes smarted. “I just want you to be all right. That's all I want.”
Frederick breathed, shallow but even breaths.
“I should have told you more often that I loved you,” Evander said. “I know I didn't. I know I sorted things and stepped in when you needed it, and I thought that was the same as love, but it isn't.” He reached over and took Frederick’s cold and bandaged hand. “I'm sorry, my brother.”
A log shifted in the grate, and Evander hissed at the sound. He sat up slightly, patting his brother’s hand gently.
“Whatever else is true, you are worth ten of her and twenty of me. Don't let her convince you otherwise.” He wiped his nose on his sleeve and sat up straight.
He did not say anything else for a long time.
At some point he stopped sitting upright and let his head fall back against the chair.
The room was quiet and lonely, and he had been awake since before dawn.
Without meaning to, he slept beside Frederick.
He saw him in his dreams – but he didn’t remember them by the morning.
He woke in the early hours. The fire had been banked, meaning someone had come in to check on Frederick.
It was cold, but Frederick was still breathing, the same steady rhythm.
His colour was marginally better than it had been, or Evander was willing it to be.
Moore had said the night was the most important time, and he had made it through.
Evander stood slowly. His back had rebelled against a night spent in the chair. He stretched slightly, looked at his brother's face for a moment, and went out into the corridor to find water or something close to it - and someone to check on Frederick with him again.
The house was entirely quiet. The kind of quiet that only existed in the hours between two and four, when even the staff were asleep and the dogs had given up for the night and settled wherever they pleased.
He turned the corner without thinking, dizzy and bleary-eyed.
But he saw her. Aurelia. She was sitting on the floor outside the drawing room door, her back against the wall, her knees drawn up, her coat laying across her legs and a tray of uneaten sandwiches beside her.
Both dogs were with her. She had her head back against the wall and her eyes were closed.
She must have just drifted off, because she opened her eyes when he came around the corner and sucked in a breath.
It stopped him dead in his tracks.
He thought about the trunk before he thought about her sitting there – the half-packed trunk, and the coat she was wearing when he came through the door, and then all the things he had not had a chance to say since the library. He didn't know where to start.