Page 50 of The Society Catch
The sound – a crack, then a thud – was so strange that it made no sense to Joanna. Then, with a sound that she realised with horror was a choked-off cry, Giles fell sideways onto the ledge, clutching at his leg.
She got to her feet, scrambling frantically up the slope, clawing at roots and scrubby branches until she reached the ledge. ‘Giles?’
He was lying awkwardly and for a long moment Joanna could not understand what was wrong. Then she saw the cruel iron jaws clamped around his right calf and realised that he had stepped on a mantrap.
She fell on her knees beside him, ineffectually trying to find a point where she could grip the trap to pull it apart, but it bit tight into the leather of his boot, cutting into the flesh beneath and the gap either side of his leg was too close to the hinges for her to be able to exert any leverage.
Joanna stopped her frantic, futile efforts. Her gloves were torn and stained red with blood and rust. She wrenched her gaze from them and forced herself to look at Giles. He was white, his mouth a tight line and his eyes dark. How he was consciousJoanna had no idea. The sight of his leg was enough to make her feel sick and dizzy; she could not begin to imagine the pain.
‘I will go for help,’ she said as steadily as she could manage with tears trickling down the inside of her nose.I will not cry, I will not.‘Moonstone has bolted, but your horse is still here.’
Chapter Twenty Three
Giles focussed his eyes on Joanna with an effort. The first stunning blow as the jagged teeth closed around his leg had been replaced by a burning agony which seemed to fill his consciousness. He could not tell whether any bones were broken, all he was aware of was a sensation as though something was gnawing the flesh from them.
The image of Joanna blurred and then cleared. She was sheet-white, her eyes filled with tears, but there was a fierce determination about her from the set of her jaw to her clenched, stained fists.
‘Black Cat.’ He managed to say. ‘He’s steady, he’ll know his way home.’ He saw her look at his leg and wondered with a strange sense of detachment if he was going to lose it. ‘Is it bleeding much?’
‘Oozing,’ Joanna replied, bending over to look closely. Her hat had come off in her fall and her hair was loose. He half lifted a hand to touch it, then let it fall back again. ‘I think the trap is so tight around it that it is stopping much blood.’
And stopping much blood going to his lower leg and foot, Giles realised grimly. ‘Do not try and hurry,’ he said as she got to her feet. ‘Get there safely. Alex will know what is needed.’
‘I cannot believe he would be so barbarous as to allow these things,’ she said, her voice shaking with anger.
‘Not his land,’ Giles managed to grind out. He was damned if he was going to pass out in front of her.
Joanna turned to clamber up the slope, stopped, turned back suddenly and stooped to drop a kiss on his forehead. ‘Lie still, I will be as quick as I can.’ Then she was gone. He could hear her scrambling progress, then, ‘Here, boy, here, Black Cat.’ Silence. A gasp. ‘Oh…oh…Hell.’
Giles twisted awkwardly in an attempt to see up the slope behind him, failed and fell back sweating. There was the sound of someone slipping and sliding down again and Joanna reappeared in front of him, a saddle over her arm.
‘He is dead lame,’ she said furiously, falling to her knees and turning the saddle over.
Giles felt a flicker of amusement run through him. ‘Your language, Miss Fulgrave,’ he murmured.
‘Do not joke,’ she retorted. ‘I can’t…can’t…just don’t, that’s all.’ She broke off and swallowed. ‘I thought that if I could get the saddle under your thigh and knee it would support it and take some of the strain off the muscles.’
Giles watched her from between eyelids which felt dangerously close to closing. She was so shocked and frightened, yet so determined to cope that her own weaknesses were making her furious.
She got the saddle into position and began to slip it underneath, breaking off to take his thigh between both hands in an attempt to straighten the angle. He bit back a gasp of pain and saw her anguished face as she glanced at him, then she set her lips tight and carried on. The relief as the padded lining of the saddle took the strain from his leg was so immense that it almost undid his resolve to stay quiet and stay conscious.
‘I am sorry I hurt you,’ she said stiffly and he realised with a twist of his heart that tears were running unchecked down her cheeks now. ‘But I think it will help.’
‘So much courage,’ he whispered but she did not react and he realised that his voice was so quiet she had not heard him.
‘Right, now then, I will start.’ Joanna said with brisk determination, ‘It will take longer on foot of course, but I will go as fast as I can.’
She scrambled to her feet again and Giles saw with a pang that she was scrubbing the tears from her face with the back of herhand like a tired child.
‘No.’ His voice sounded oddly remote and he cleared his throat and concentrated on making her attend to him.
‘What did you say?’
‘I said, no. You are not travelling through these woods alone on foot.’
‘Giles, I cannot just sit here and do nothing. It is broad daylight, I am unhurt and it is all my fault that you are…’ Her voice cracked and she stumbled to a halt.
‘You do not win battles by sitting around apportioning blame,’ Giles snapped. He hated speaking to her like that, but her chin came up again and he saw she was listening to him. ‘You lost your temper and I… I realised I hadn’t been looking beyond the end of my nose,’ he finished. Joanna looked mystified, but he knew what he meant and he was not about to explain it now.
