“For heaven’s sakes, spit it out,” Howick insisted. “What’s happened?”
Bourne looked at Sophie and then glanced back at Howick. “Someone took a shot at Captain Bellingham and knocked him off his horse.”
Sophie launched herself forward and grabbed Lieutenant Bourne by his collar. “Tell me, you must tell me. Is he…?”
“No. He’s alive. Dr. MacCloud tended to him and now rides with him back to Clifford Park.”
“But we have to turn around.” Sophie looked to Lord Howick, her eyes pleading.
“No, Miss Brancelli. The men and I are doing what we all agree he would want us to do. Whoever fired that shot meant for us to bring you back to them. That we cannot do. We’ll travel as fast as possible to Howick House in Mayfair where you’ll be safe.”
With that terse explanation, Bourne backed out of the carriage and re-mounted. Within minutes, the carriage was moving a little faster toward safety, but away from the man she loved. Within a matter of hours, Sophie’s heart had moved from disappointment in an imperfect man, to breaking over the same man, and now the fickle thing was at a thumping gallop toward warrior mode. She knew what she had to do. She alone knew who had to pay.
Beside her, Lydia gave her hand a tight squeeze, and Lady Howick leaned across from her seat to pat both of her hands.
Lord Howick cleared his throat. “Sophie, we all know he is in good hands with Dr. MacCloud, and his mother will still be at Clifford Park to help care for him. I know it’s hard, but all we can do is wait and make sure you remain safe until he can come back to you. And he will. He was a hero at the Battle of Algiers. If he survived that, he can survive anything.”
Honore wiped the blood seeping from Arnaud’s head wound and pressed the back of her hand against his forehead for any sign of a fever. Dr. MacCloud had left his patient’s bedside to seek a few hours sleep after telling her the next twenty-four hours would decide her son’s fate.
The shot had grazed Arnaud’s head and the bullet had traveled on, probably into the brush at the side of the road. Cullen said since the wound was so shallow, the fall from the horse may have been what rendered him unconscious.
Honore and Sir Edward, Admiral Thornbrough, were about to leave in her carriage to return to Hanover Square when Cullen had trotted back with Arnaud slung across his saddle. Sir Thomas had insisted she and Admiral Thornbrough should stay as long as necessary to help nurse her son.
Since Arnaud’s forehead was still cool, she sat back in a corner chair and fell asleep. When she awakened a few hours later, Arnaud’s eyelids were fluttering, so she called for a footman to alert Dr. MacCloud.
He appeared soon after in the doorway in his shirtsleeves. He said nothing until he checked his patient’s pulse and the amount of blood on the linens wrapped around his head.
Cullen sat on a footstool at Honore’s feet and put his hand over hers. “I think he’s passed through the worst of his injury, and there’s no fever yet. The bleeding appears to have abated. Even minor head wounds bleed copious amounts of blood. We’ll just have to wait and see how he seems when he wakes up.”
“What would be a good sign when he wakes?” Honore blinked hard, forcing herself to trust in Cullen’s skills. She knew Arnaud would.
“He’ll be as stubborn and cantankerous as he always is.” Cullen patted her hand. “I’ve treated more of these head wounds than I care to remember as a surgeon in His Majesty’s Royal Navy. He’s going to be fine. He just needs some time to rest and heal.”
“You know he’s going to want to leap from that bed and go make sure Sophie is safe.”
“There is that small problem. The rest of the men made the decision to stay with the Howick carriage until they are back in town and then to keep close guard duty over Sophie until the captain is well again. There was not even a second’s indecision. We all decided on the spot that was what he would want everyone to do.”
“How long should he stay here to recover before it is safe for him to move back to town?”
“That depends on how well he listens to my advice. I’d like to see him stay here for at least a week, but knowing him, once he returns to consciousness, we’ll have a tough time keeping him down.”
“Thank you for being his friend, and for saving his life, Dr. MacCloud.”
“Saving his tough hide was easy. Being his friend? Now that is something he makes a constant challenge.”
Honore smiled. “You should try being hismaman.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sophie leaned as farover the stairway railing at Howick House as she dared and was rewarded with the sight of young John, the footman, rounding the corner with a tray laden with a stack of the morning mail. Everyone in the household called him young John to differentiate him from his father who had retired the year before. At that moment, he glanced up at Sophie and gave her a broad grin while lifting the tray.
That was their signal. A letter from Clifford Park.
In her race down the steps, she took the last set from the final landing by tucking her skirts close to her legs and sliding down the baluster. That was a childish whim she and Lydia had indulged when they were about nine and eight years old respectively. She hoped no one had seen her adult self flying past. She slid on around the corner on the polished marble floor following young James to the door of Lord Howick’s study.
At the footman’s soft tap, Howick intoned, “Come.”
When John opened the door, she followed in close behind.
