into sobs. ‘We must find out if your leg is broken. It will have to be straightened before we can move you.’
The butler appeared at the top of the steps and gingerly made his way to where Janet lay.
‘Ah, Crabtree. Thank you.’ Benedict took the glass and held it to Janet’s lips. ‘Drink.’
Janet shook her head. ‘I never touch—’
‘Drink. It will help dull the pain when we straighten your leg. You need to be moved.’
Benedict tipped the glass up, pinching her chin to force her mouth open. This was no time for niceties. The cold had seeped through his clothes, chilling his flesh already. Janet must be in an even worse case, lying on the snow-blanketed stone steps.
‘What are you doing? How is she?’
His head jerked round. Harriet was back, peering over his shoulder at her maid.
‘I thought I told you to stay inside.’
‘Janet is my responsibility. I can help.’
‘If you want to help, go back inside.’
Her stare might have frozen him had he not already been chilled to his core.
‘Don’t leave me, my lady. Pleeeease.’
Harriet crouched by Benedict’s side and gripped Janet’s hands. The length of her thigh pressed briefly against his and he was aware she shifted away at the exact same time he did, so they no longer touched. Another footman appeared, carrying lengths of cloth and a wooden board, with the information that the doctor had been sent for.
Benedict pushed Janet’s cloak aside and raised her skirt, Harriet’s soothing murmur punctuating Janet’s whimpers. A close look at the bent leg raised Benedict’s hopes. The foot looked twisted, making a broken ankle a distinct possibility, but the leg itself appeared intact. A pink stain in the snow, however, suggested it was cut.
Benedict spoke to Cooper and the post boy. ‘If her back is damaged, we must move her carefully.’ He directed the men on how to tip Janet sideways, keeping her back as straight as possible whilst he moved her leg from under her, silently blessing the time he had spent with Josiah Buckley, the ship’s surgeon, on his recent voyage back to England from India. He might not know how to help Janet, but he did know how not to make things worse.
The next few minutes were hellish. Benedict gritted his teeth and forced himself to continue, gently straightening Janet’s leg and then, using a knife proffered by the post boy, cutting off her boot. Another snippet of knowledge gleaned from Buckley—that an injured foot or ankle will swell, making boots hard to remove. Not that the sailors wore footwear aboard the ship, but their discussions had been wide-ranging. Benedict distracted his thoughts from Janet’s screams by thinking of that voyage but then the shrieking wind recalled the storm that had almost foundered the ship, and he found his heart racing and hands shaking with the memory. He hesitated, squeezing his eyes shut as he gulped down his fear—It isn’t real. I’m here at Tenterfield, not on board—then jerked back to full awareness as a gloved hand covered his. He glanced round into familiar violet eyes.
‘You’re doing well,’ she murmured. He focused on her lips: too close...sweetly full...so tempting. ‘Do not lose your nerve now.’
Benedict dragged in a jagged breath and the icy air swept other memories into focus with a vicious stab in his temples. Not life-threatening memories such as that storm, but soul-destroying nonetheless. Memories of Harriet and her betrayal. His hand steadied and he continued to cut Janet’s boot until it fell apart.
They slid the maid onto the board then and, between them, Benedict and the post boy used lengths of linen to bind her to the plank and keep her still whilst they moved her to a bedchamber. Benedict rose stiffly to his feet as the two footmen lifted the board and carried Janet up the steps and back into the house. Benedict clasped Harriet’s elbow, resisting her attempt to tug free, and supported her up the steps and into the hall.
‘Why have you dismissed the chaise?’ she demanded as soon as the front door closed behind them, shutting out the swirling snowstorm. ‘I have accommodation bespoken at the Rose Inn.’
‘You will stay here tonight.’
‘I most certainly will not!’ Her voice rang with outrage. ‘Stay overnight at Tenterfield Court, with no chaperone?’ Harriet marched over to Crabtree, about to mount the stairs in the wake of the footmen carrying Janet. ‘Send a man to the stables, if you please, with a message to bring the chaise back round.’
‘Your maid cannot travel.’
Harriet pivoted on the spot and glared at Benedict. ‘I am well aware Janet must remain here,’ she spat. ‘I, however, am perfectly fit and well, and I will not stay where I am not welcome.’
‘I thought you were concerned for your reputation?’ Benedict drawled, the drive to thwart her overriding his eagerness to see her gone. ‘Yet you would stay in a public inn without even a maid to lend you countenance? My, my, Lady Brierley. I have to wonder if your reluctance to remain here at Tenterfield owes less to concern over your reputation and more to fear of your own lack of self-control.’
‘Oh!’ Harriet’s eyes flashed and her lips thinned. ‘How dare you?’ She spoke again to Crabtree, waiting patiently at the foot of the staircase, staring discreetly into space, the epitome of an experienced butler. ‘Is there a maid who might accompany me to the inn?’
Crabtree’s gaze slid past Harriet to mutely question Benedict, who moved his head in a small negative motion.
‘I am sorry, my lady,’ Crabtree said, ‘but with Sir Malcolm so ill and now your maid to care for, I am unable to spare any of my staff. And I am persuaded it would be unwise to venture on even such a short journey in this weather.’
The satisfaction Benedict experienced at frustrating Harriet’s plans glowed for only a brief few seconds. Her presence could only reopen old wounds. Why had he been so insistent that she stay?
‘Inform me when the doctor arrives,’ he bit out over his shoulder as he took the stairs two at a time, silently cursing himself for a fool.
In his bedchamber, he stripped off his wet clothes and shrugged into his banyan, then paced the vast room, his thoughts filled with Harriet.
The announcement of her arrival had nearly floored him. His heart had drummed against his ribs as his palms grew damp. She could not have known—could she?—that he was here, attending his dying cousin. That leap of hope, swiftly banished, had angered and unsettled him. Whatever her reason for visiting Malcolm, he didn’t want to know. He was only here himself from a sense of duty to his erstwhile guardian. He had no affection for Sir Malcolm but he was indebted to him for supporting him financially ever since the death of Benedict’s parents. Malcolm had ensured Benedict attended the best schools, followed by Cambridge University, and, for that, Benedict owed him some consideration.
He hadn’t needed to meet with Harriet at all—he could have relegated the task to one of the servants. He should have relegated it but, dammit, that would be tantamount to admitting he still cared. Besides—and he might as well be honest with himself—curiosity had got the better of him. He’d wanted to see what she had become, this jade who had so thoughtlessly betrayed him and his heart: who had pledged her love for him and then coldheartedly wed another man for the sake of a title
