rel="nofollow" href="#u42345f56-fade-50d9-944e-10f821772551">Chapter Eighteen
Prologue
Soundlessly Laura crept through the dark hall. Having rehearsed—and used—the route before, she knew every carpet, chair and cupboard in the passageway, each twist of the twenty-nine steps down the servants’ stair to the back door. Even were their old butler Hobbins and his wife not snoring in their room just off the corridor, the winter storm howling through the chimneys and rattling the shutters would cover the slight rustle of her movements.
Just once she halted in her stealthy passage, outside the silent nursery. Leaning toward the door, she could almost catch a whiff of baby skin, feel the softness of flannel bunting, see the bright eyes and small waving hands. A bitter bleakness pierced her heart, beside whose chill the icy needles being hurled against the windows were mild as summer rain, and her step staggered.
She bent over, gripping for support the handle of the room where a baby’s gurgle no longer sounded. Nor ever would again—not flesh of her flesh.
I promise you that, Jennie, she vowed. Making good on that vow could not ease the burden of guilt she carried, but it was the last thing she would do in this house. The only thing, now, she could do.
Marshaling her strength, she straightened and made her way down the stairs, halting once more to catch her breath before attempting to work the heavy lock of the kitchen door. She was stronger now. For the past month she’d practiced walking, at first quietly in her room, more openly this past week since most of the household had departed with its master for London. She could do this.
Cautiously she unlatched the lock, then fastened her heavy cloak and drew on her warmest gloves. At her firm push the door opened noiselessly on well-oiled hinges. Ignoring the sleet that pelted her face and the shrieking wind that tore the hood from her hair, she walked into the night.
Chapter One
The crisp fall breeze, mingling the scents of falling leaves and the sharp tang of herbs, brought to Laura Martin’s ear the faint sound of barking interspersed with the crack of rifle shot. The party which had galloped by her cottage earlier this morning, the squire’s son throwing her a jaunty wave as they passed, must be hunting duck in the marsh nearby, she surmised.
Having cut the supply of tansy she needed for drying, Laura turned to leave the herb bed. Misfit, the squire’s failure of a rabbit hound who’d refused to leave her after she healed the leg he’d caught in a poacher’s trap, bumped his head against her hand, demanding attention.
“Shameless beggar,” she said, smiling as she scratched behind his ears.
The dog flapped his tail and leaned into her stroking fingers. A moment later, however, he stiffened and looked up, uttering a soft whine.
“What is it?” Almost before the words left her lips she heard the rapid staccato of approaching hoofbeats. Seconds later one of the squire’s grooms, mounted on a lathered horse and leading another, flashed into view.
Foreboding tightening her chest, she strode to the garden fence.
“What’s wrong, Peters?” she called to the young man bringing his mount to a plunging halt.
“Your pardon, Mrs. Martin, but I beg you come at once! There were an accident—a gun gone off…” The groom stopped and swallowed hard. “Please, ma’am!”
“How badly was the person injured?”
“I don’t rightly know. The young gentleman took a shot to the shoulder and there be blood everywhere. He done swooned off immediate, and—”
Her foreboding deepened. “You’d best find Dr. Winthrop. I fear gunshots are beyond—”
“I already been by the doctor’s, ma’am, and he—he can’t help.”
“I see.” Their local physician’s unfortunate obsession with strong spirits all too frequently left him incapable of caring for himself or anyone else. ’Twas how she’d gained much of her limited experience, stepping in when the doctor was incapacitated. But gunshot wounds? The stark knowledge of her own inadequacy chilled her.
Truly there was no one else. “I’ll come at once.”
“Young master said as how I was to bring you immediate, but I don’t have no lady’s saddle. ’Twill take half an hour ’n more to fetch the gig.”
“No matter, Peters. I can manage astride. Under the circumstances, I don’t imagine anyone will notice my dispensing with proprieties. Help me fetch my bag.”
She tried to set worry aside and concentrate on gathering any extra supplies she might need to augment the store already in her traveling bag. The groom carried the heavy satchel to the waiting horses and gave her a hand up. Settling her skirts as decorously as possible, she waited for him to vault into the saddle, then turned her restive horse to follow his. Spurring their mounts, they galloped back in the direction of the marsh.
As they rode, she mentally reviewed the remedies she brought. During her year-long recovery from the illness that nearly killed her, she’d observed Aunt Mary treat a variety of agues, fevers and stomach complaints—but never a gunshot. To the assortment of medicaments she always carried she’d added a powder to slow bleeding, brandy to cleanse the wound and basilica powder. Had she thought of everything?
She had no further time to worry, for around the next bend the woods gave way to marsh. A knot of men gathered at the water’s edge. As she slid from the saddle, she saw at their center a still, prone figure, the pallor of his face contrasting sharply with the scarlet of the blood soaking his coat. His clothing was drenched, his boots half submerged in water whose icy bite she could already feel through the thin leather of her half-boots. The squire’s son Tom held a wadded-up cloth pressed against the boy’s upper chest. A cloth whose pristine whiteness was rapidly staining red.
Her nervousness coalesced in firm purpose. She must first stop the bleeding, then get the young man back to Everett Hall.
“Peters, bring more bandages from my bag, please.”
At her quiet command, Tom looked up. “Thank God you’re here!” His face white beneath its sprinkling of freckles, he scooted over to let her kneel beside the victim. “He’s bled so badly—and…and he won’t answer me. Is…is he going to die?”
“Help me,” she evaded. “Lean your full weight against him, hard. Keep that cloth in place while I bind it to his shoulder. Did the shot pass straight through?”
“I don’t know, ma’am. I—I didn’t think to look.” Tom’s eyes were huge in his pale face. “It’s my fault—I wanted to hunt. If he dies—”
“Easy, now—keep the pressure firm.” To steady Tom—and herself—she said, “Tell me what happened.”
“I’m not sure. The dogs raised a covey, and we both fired.
