“What’s happened?”
“It’s Mr. Lewis, sir. He’s been shot.”
“Shot?” Nathaniel’s nerves went into full alarm mode.God, no. Please.
Behind him, Helen gasped, both hands pressed to her mouth.
“Is he alive?” Nathaniel asked. “Where is he?”
“Yes, sir, he breathes. They’ve got him laid out in the stillroom. Mr. Hudson’s sent Clive for the surgeon.”
He hoped the groom had taken their fastest horse.
Nathaniel ran down the stairs, Helen at his heels.
Clusters of agitated servants, talking to one another behind their hands, shrunk into the wall to allow them to pass. Monsieur Fournier crossed himself. Nathaniel found the metallic smell of blood mingling with the scents of cinnamon and pastry nauseating.
Inside the stillroom, Hudson bent over Lewis’s prone form, pressing a handkerchief to his chest. “Another cloth, please, Mrs. Budgeon,” Hudson asked, polite even in his anxiety.
Lewis lay still, limp limbs dangling off the worktable, his face and jaw slack and unnaturally grey.
Hudson glanced up at their entrance. “Sir. Miss Upchurch.”
“What happened?” Nathaniel asked.
“I don’t know. His valet and a local farmer, a Mr. Jones, brought him home in the farmer’s wagon. Something about a duel.”
Nathaniel winced. “How bad is it?”
Hudson glanced up once more, skirting Helen’s face to square on his. “Bad.”
At closer range, Nathaniel could see that someone had ripped open Lewis’s waistcoat and shirt, exposing his chest, though most was covered by Hudson’s large hands and the blood-soaked handkerchief.
Mrs. Budgeon handed Hudson a clean cloth. Hudson hesitated before handing the soiled one to the housekeeper, but she stoically took it from him and set it into a nearby basin.
Hudson said to her, “Make sure someone leads that surgeon here without delay.”
She nodded and briskly strode from the room. Only then did Nathaniel notice the young valet huddled in the corner of the stillroom, white-faced and dazed, his cravat bloodstained. A plump maid held his hand.
“What can I do?” Nathaniel asked.
“And I?” Helen added.
Hudson checked the new cloth, saw it rapidly soaking up blood, before he looked from one to the other. “Pray.”
Three hours later, the surgeon Mr. White had come and gone—bullet removed, wound cleaned, dressing applied, and little hope given.
They carefully moved Lewis, still insensible, up one flight of stairs to the library, which Mrs. Budgeon had quickly outfitted as a sickroom while the surgeon finished bandaging the wound. They dared not jostle him more than necessary nor risk carrying him up additional flights of stairs. The surgeon, bloodstained and weary, said he would send a seasoned chamber nurse to tend Lewis, even though Helen insisted she would sit with her brother all night.
Mr. White promised to return in the morning and told them to send for him if there was any change, though the offer was made with little enthusiasm. Would Lewis even live through the night? Nathaniel’s soul heaved at the thought. He and his brother had not been close in years, but the thought of losing him grieved his heart.
Nathaniel sat next to Helen at Lewis’s bedside in the library-turned-sickroom. He was torn between wanting to remain at his brother’s side, to share his final hours on earth, if final they were, and wanting to discover what had happened and who was to blame. Was Lewis the challenger, or the challenged? Had he chosen the weapons to be used, in this case, apparently pistols? It seemed possible, as Lewis had never been good with a sword. Too much dashed work, he’d always complained.
Who had acted as his second—Saxby? Or perhaps Lewis’s valet. Nathaniel thought back to his brief glimpse of the young man belowstairs. He had looked ashen and shaken from the ordeal. Nathaniel would need to talk with him soon but would first allow the man time to get over the worst of the shock.
Mrs. Budgeon knocked softly on the open door. Nathaniel rose and crossed the room to speak to her.
“Pardon me, sir. But when we were bundling up Mr. Upchurch’s clothes to take to the laundry—those which could be salvaged, that is—we found a few things in his pockets and thought you would want to have them.”
