ceased breathing and her heart seemed to stop beating altogether as she apprehensively approached the open door of the carriage, so very afraid of what she was going to find when she looked inside.
In all possibility, the Comte, as dead as his groom appeared to be?
Her heart stuttered and then stopped again as she heard the sound of a groan from inside the depths of the carriage. Indication that at least the Comte was alive, if obviously injured?
‘Christian!’ Lisette called out frantically as she no longer hesitated but hurriedly ascended the steps.
‘Lisette?’ The Comte groaned uncomprehendingly, the lantern inside the carriage showing him lying back against the cushions, his face deathly white, a bloom of red showing, and growing larger by the second, on the left thigh of his pale-coloured pantaloons. ‘You should not be here,’ he protested as he attempted to sit up.
‘Do not move!’ Lisette instructed sternly as she stepped fully into the carriage to fall to her knees beside him and began to inspect the wound to his thigh.
‘They might come back—’
‘I doubt it,’ she snorted disgustedly. ‘Cowards. Half a dozen men against two—’
‘You saw them?’ Christian, grateful that he had the foresight to speak to Lisette in French, had now managed to ease himself back into an upright position, although his thigh hurt like the very devil with every movement.
Lisette nodded distractedly, her face a pale oval in the lamplight. ‘From the window of my bedchamber. At least half a dozen men. Are you hurt very badly?’ She looked at his thigh but did not attempt to touch him.
Christian’s jaw was clenched against the pain. ‘I believe the bullet has gone through the soft tissue and out the other side.’
Lisette’s face seemed to pale even more. ‘We should call for law enforcement, and you need a doctor—’
‘No—no doctor,’ he refused grimly.
‘You are bleeding badly—’
‘No, Lisette,’ he repeated determinedly. ‘My groom?’
Her gaze dropped from meeting his. ‘I fear— He does not appear to be—’
‘Damn it, they have killed him!’ Christian struggled to sit forward, intent on seeing his groom for himself. ‘Please move aside, Lisette, so that I can go to him.’
‘You must not move, Christian—’
‘Indeed I must, Lisette.’ He gritted his teeth as that movement caused his leg to throb and the blood to flow more freely over the fingers he had pressed to his flesh to staunch the wound. He looked at Lisette as she now sat on the other side of the carriage, a bewildered look upon her face. ‘I am afraid I shall need your help to get Pierre into the carriage.’
Her face lost any remaining colour at the mere idea of touching a dead body. Christian nodded approvingly as she nonetheless moved valiantly forward to follow as he stepped awkwardly down from the carriage, before limping over and going down on one knee beside his groom lying unmoving on the cobbles.
‘Not dead, and I think the shot has pierced his shoulder rather than his chest,’ Christian said thankfully after placing his bloody fingers against the other man’s wrist and feeling a pulse. ‘Help me lift him inside the carriage, would you?’
‘I— But— What are you going to do with him then?’
‘Return to my home, of course.’
Lisette felt totally perplexed by the Comte’s behaviour. Surely a doctor, at least, should be called for, even if Christian did not feel inclined to ask for the help of the police enforcement that had been established in Paris just five years ago.
The dissolute rake he had appeared earlier this evening was completely gone, Christian Beaumont’s eyes now sharp with intelligence and determination as the two of them struggled to lift the groom and place him inside the carriage.
Not an easy task when the Comte was injured and Lisette was so slight in stature.
It seemed to take forever as they struggled to get Pierre inside the carriage and lying on one of the bench seats, but was in fact probably only a few minutes. Both of them were smeared with the other man’s blood by that time, and Christian Beaumont’s own wound seemed to be bleeding more profusely too.
Lisette gave a dismayed gasp at how deathly pale his face was as he straightened. ‘I really must insist you are attended by a doctor—’
‘I shall consider it once we are returned to my home and I have been able to inspect Pierre’s wound more thoroughly.’ He nodded grimly even as he placed a hand against the carriage for support.
Lisette frowned her disapproval. ‘And exactly how do you intend doing that, when both your groom and yourself have been shot?’
A touch of humour tilted the Comte’s lips. ‘Did you ever drive a horse and cart on that farm you once lived on, Lisette?’
She gave him a startled look. ‘You are not suggesting that I should drive your carriage...?’
He gave a pointed look about the empty street. ‘I do not see anyone else I can ask, do you?’
‘But— Christian!’ Lisette stepped forward to put her arm about the leanness of his waist and the support of her shoulder beneath his arm as he appeared to sway precariously.
‘And I suggest that you do it soon, Lisette,’ he muttered faintly. ‘Whilst I am still conscious to direct you.’
She had never heard of anything so ridiculous as to expect her to drive the Comte’s carriage; it was nothing like the old cart they’d had on the farm, nor were the four horses pulling this elegant carriage in the least like the elderly and plodding mare owned by the Duprées. Indeed, these high-stepping animals might have been a different breed altogether from the docile Marguerite.
Lisette eyed the four black horses doubtfully as they still snorted and stamped their displeasure. ‘You are asking too much, Christian.’ She gave a shake of her head.
He nodded. ‘I would not ask at all if it were not important.’
Lisette looked up at him searchingly. ‘I do not understand,’ she finally murmured slowly.
‘And I do not have the time, or indeed the strength, to explain the situation to you right now.’ He sighed weakly.
Lisette glanced down to where his thigh was still bleeding freely, front and back. ‘Something needs to be tied about your thigh in order to slow the bleeding...’
‘Lisette...?’ Christian’s eyes widened as she did not hesitate to lift her gown before efficiently ripping a strip from the bottom of her petticoat, and then proceeded to crouch down in front of him to wrap and tie that strip tightly about the top of his thigh.
It was perhaps as well that there was no one on the street to observe them because Lisette, crouched in that position, looked very—risqué, if one did not realise she was merely applying a tourniquet to his thigh.
