Page 58 of Silence of Deceit
Wild, cackling laughter grated his ears. “Oh, look, the Runner’s about to faint!” Delia stepped closer with her knife. “Now, do I let you bleed to death, or do I—”
Delia stumbled forward, then crashed to the floor. The Duchess of Fournier stood behind her, Starborough’s walking stick in her hand and a look of awe at what she had done painted across her face. She dropped the walking stick as Carrigan ran into the room on her heels. The room tilted and blurred as Audrey rushed forward, gaping at the blood on his sleeve.
“Your arm!”
“I’m fine,” he said, but he wasn’t. Damn it, Delia likelyhadcut an artery. “Carrigan, find something to bind her arms and legs before she wakes, and call out for a street patrol.”
“We heard the gunshot. Greer is already fetching the police,” Audrey said as she shrugged out of her spencer and came to him. “Give me your arm.”
“I told you to stay in the carriage.”
His head swam as she wrapped his bloody arm up into her fine lady’s coat. It would be ruined, and he meant to say as much, but instead, he repeated himself: “I told you to stay in the carriage.”
“Instead of harping on my disobedience, you could thank me for saving your life,” she said as distant police whistles sounded.
A chiming in his ears preceded a swirl of lightheadedness, and Hugh suddenly found himself on his back, with the duchess hovering over him.
“Hugh? Oh, god, Hugh? Wake up! Carrigan, help!”
“I’m awake,” Hugh whispered, and then, a tide of sense smacked into him. “Hell. Audrey, you must go.Now.”
“But you’re hurt—”
“You can’t be here when the street patrol arrives. There is no way to explain your involvement—”
“I’m not leaving you.”
Hugh forced himself up onto his left elbow. “Woman, you are going to be the death of me. Carrigan, get her out of here.”
The driver finished with the blanket he’d ripped from the bed to hastily tie Delia’s wrists and ankles. “Your Grace, he’s right. You must leave.”
Audrey grabbed hold of Hugh’s coat collar with both of her hands and fisted the material. “Don’t you dare bleed to death, Hugh Marsden.”
She pressed the collar down, smoothing it with her palms, fretting over him. Then, with tears sparkling in her eyes, got to her feet.
“I will go to Thornton’s,” he assured her. She nodded and allowed Carrigan to steer her to the door. “Audrey.”
She jerked back toward him.
“Thank you,” he said. “That was quite a swing.”
“Yes, well, I was quite vexed.”
Carrigan urged her again, and the duchess fled.
ChapterTwenty
As soon as she returned to Violet House, Audrey stripped off her dress, with Greer fussing over her in a most-unlike-Greer way. She must have brushed up against Hugh’s wounded arm for she’d ruined the material with his blood. So much of it. But the man was far too stubborn to die. Audrey kept telling herself that for the entire ride home, and Greer had assured her of it as well when Audrey had spoken the mantra out loud.
Nevertheless, she charged their butler Barton to send a footman to Thornton House to inquire if Lord Thornton had yet seen the Bow Street officer, and if so, how he was faring. Worry plagued her as she’d plunged into the hot bath that her maid had drawn for her. Only after she had toweled off, dressed, and allowed her hair to be put into a haphazard braid did Greer announce that Philip had returned home.
“When?” she asked, jumping to her feet.
“While we were out, Your Grace.”
Though she was irked at Greer’s delay in letting her know, she understood the reason for it. To have rushed headlong into Philip’s room or study to confront him while she was wearing a bloodied dress would have been shocking for the duke.
Gathering herself up, she stalked through the boudoir, to the attached sitting room within Philip’s bedchamber. No matter how much she wanted to fling the door open and enter his room like a tempest, she held herself in check and instead moved with what felt like glacial poise.
