Page 63 of The Heart of an Earl

Giggles bubbled through her chest, her wide bosom shaking above him. “Saints be praised.” Her eyes and hand lifted to the roof. “They have looked kindly upon ye. I told him a strong man like ye could survive. That shot went through ye—mostly.”

The shot.

In his back.

Lord Gatlong’s footmen.

And then the river. Cold. Freezing. It’d shocked him awake.

His eyes squeezed shut.

Then nothing. Nothing.

“No, no, no, sir. That won’t do.” Her thick fingers grabbed his cheeks and she shook his head. “Ye stay here with me. Ned won’t believe me, otherwise, that ye awoke.”

Des opened his eyes. “Where—where am I?” His voice not his own, it grated in his own ears like glass crushing under his boot heel.

“Yer at our farm.”

“Where?”

“Here in Gloucestershire.”

Jules. He was still near her.

He tried to move his right arm. Pain. Pain everywhere in his body, thousands of knives sawing at his nerves.

Her hand went to his arm, pushing him down and stopping his movement. “Yer in no shape to be moving yet, sir. We’ll get some stew in ye and then we’ll see if ye can sit up.”

She stepped away from him, going to the hearth.

Des pushed air from his lungs. “Who—who are you?”

She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Jean Plinton. Ned is my husband. He’s the one that plucked ye from the river.”

Des nodded as much as his weak neck could.

If his lack of head control was any indication, he wouldn’t be sitting upright any time soon.

“He tells me not to take in the strays, but every time I show him wrong.” She smiled, chuckling to herself, and then turned back to the cauldron on the fire. “Fix ‘em, I do. Every time.”

~~~

It was another fortnight before he could stand on his own two feet. Before the pus of the infection in the bullet wound of his right shoulder cleared and started to heal properly.

It was enough. He had to get to Jules.

Mrs. Plinton fought him—tried to keep him in bed—said he was still too weak.

Which he was. But it didn’t matter.

He told Jules he’d be back for her, but it had been four weeks. Four weeks since she’d left him in the woods. In the sleet. Left him with no hope.

Four weeks under that roof with her odious father.

By now, she would believe he’d abandoned her.

With a heave, Des, slid off his horse’s saddle, staring through the trees at the weathered, dark tan structure of Gatlong Hall looming over the sea of white snow on the front lawn as he tethered his horse to a low branch.

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