Maude sighed. “He was so white and so still. I really feared for a moment—”
Rafe moaned sharply and jerked his head as the ammonia vapor nipped into his senses. Alex hovered over them both, bobbing back and forth in an effort to get a closer look.
“Is he going to be all right?” she asked, truly anxious.
“Don’t worry, he’s a strong lad. He’ll mend as good as new. But I’d recommend you keep him in bed for a few more days.” Fleury glanced at Alex. He’d been the family doctor for as long as she could remember, and there was little about any of them that escaped his notice. What was he seeing now as he looked at her?
Rafe moaned again, his eyelids twitching as he inhaled the pungent spirits. Maude had found him facedown on the floor. Cummings had managed to hoist him back onto the bed, where he lay sprawled, his rangy frame filling the length and breadth of the mattress.
“That’s it,” said Fleury. “Wake up, lad. Let’s hope that fall knocked a little sense into you. You’re in no condition to be strolling about.”
“Oh!” Alex gave a little gasp as Rafe’s eyes opened, staring not at her but at the doctor.
“Who…who the bloody hell are you?” he muttered groggily.
“Mind your tongue. There are ladies here.” Fleury scowled in mock severity. “I set your leg yesterday, and I’ll thank you to stop trying to undo my good work.”
“Yesterday!” Rafe struggled to sit up. “What’s happened? Where’s my aeroplane?”
Fleury braced an arm against Rafe’s chest and used his considerable weight to keep the younger man down. “Not a word,” he said firmly. “Not until you lie back and promise not to move.”
Rafe’s breath eased out as he lay back on the pillow. “All right,” he said, grimacing with the pain in his ribs. “You’ve got me. I’m not going anywhere. Now somebody tell me what’s going on.”
“Simple enough.” The bedsprings creaked as Fleury sat down on a corner of the bed. “Your aeroplane crashed offshore yesterday afternoon. You were pulled out of the wreck, barely conscious. I set the leg and gave you a sedative to make you sleep. If I’d known you’d be rash enough to get up, I’d have strapped you to the bed.”
“My aeroplane—” He lifted his head, straining to sit up again.
“My good man, I’m a doctor, not a mechanic. I only know that you have some cracked ribs and a nasty fracture that won’t heal unless you’ve the patience to rest.”
“Damn the leg! Damn the ribs! How badly damaged is my aeroplane?”
There was a short silence. Maude glanced warningly at her daughter, but Alex spoke anyway.
“They just brought it off the beach. It looks like a kite that’s been stomped on by the town bully,” she said, her eyes watching his face.
Rafe’s breath hissed out as he sank back onto the pillow, looking weary and vulnerable. “Naturally,” he said in a bitter voice. “One doesn’t ram an aircraft down nose first and expect it to bounce back like India rubber. Damn! If only I could have leveled it out in time!”
“You ought to be grateful you got out alive,” said Fleury. “Aeroplanes can be replaced. People can’t.”
Rafe scowled. “People heal. Aeroplanes don’t. This was the only one I had. I designed and built it myself, and there’s not another like it in the world.”
“The wings look all right.” Alex’s tone had gentled. “It’s the front end that’s smashed the worst. The engine’s hanging loose, and the rear parts are out of kilter—”
“I want to see it!” Rafe began to struggle again. “Blast it, somebody help me up!”
“No, you don’t,” said Fleury, using his weight again to press him back onto the pillow. “You’re to stay right here.”
“How long?” Green fire flashed in Rafe’s eyes. He was clearly not a man who liked being given orders.
“Until I say it’s all right for you to get up.” Fleury knew how to be as implacable as his patients. “A couple of days at least, maybe longer.”
Rafe sighed with resignation, but his eyes glared like a tethered hawk’s. Alex pressed close behind the doctor. She was leaning over his shoulder when Fleury suddenly turned toward her mother.
“Maude,” he said, “you’re as pale as a ghost. Come on out of here. We can sit in the parlor, you and I, while Mamie brews some good strong tea. Alexandra here can keep an eye on the young man for a while.” He turned to Alex and hardened his rubbery face into a scowl. “Watch him,” he ordered. “See that he doesn’t move.”
With that, he offered Maude his arm and escorted her out of the room, leaving Alex and Rafe alone.
“What’s your name?”
Rafe Garrick’s bold-eyed gaze made Alex want to squirm like a bashful child, but she forced herself to remain composed. The wretch probably wanted to make her feel uncomfortable. She would not give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d succeeded.
“My name is Alexandra Bromley. This house belongs to my parents,” she answered, posting herself like a sentry at the foot of his bed.
“I’d hardly have taken you for one of the servants.” His eyes glinted sardonically as he looked her up and down, openly taking stock of her face and figure. Rafe Garrick was clearly no gentleman. “Is the rest of the house as exotic as this room?” he asked.
“This is one of the guest rooms. Since most of the guests are friends of my father’s—” Alex cleared her throat. Her gaze swept the room, coming to rest on the mounted tiger head, which had given her the horrors for years. She shrugged. “My father has his own tastes, as you see.”
“I see.” He flashed a sudden, boyish grin that was like the sun coming out. Alex steeled herself against a sudden onrush of warmth. She could not allow herself to like this man. Even the thought of liking him disturbed her.
Rafe looked at the tiger, shaking his head. “Did your father actually shoot that thing?”
“Oh, yes! From the back of an elephant, six years ago!”
“He’s a big-game hunter?”
“No. Just a rich man who uses his money to buy excitement.” In more ways than one, Alex thought, imagining for a moment how the heads of Buck’s female conquests would look in a mounted collection above the fireplace. “He makes firearms. Guns and such,” she said.
“Of course!” Rafe’s eyebrows shot upward as the realization struck him. “Bromley and Burnsides!”
“Burnsides and Bromley—though father is all of it now. Joshua Burnsides, my grandfather, died fifteen years ago, when the company was still a small one.”
Rafe didn’t reply. He was gazing straight at her, his eyes as intense as two burning coals. “Help me get up, Alexandra Bromley,” he said. “I want to see my aeroplane.
