“Now, don’t you worry. Mr. Lewis may yet recover. You just see if he don’t.”
Clearly, Margaret was not the only person who sought out Hester for comfort.
After prayers that morning, Nathaniel followed Clive back out to the stables to speak with him in private. When he returned several minutes later, he sought out Mr. Saxby. He found him in the guest room, overseeing his valet’s efforts in packing too many articles of clothing into too few valises.
“Give us a moment, will you?” Nathaniel said to the valet.
With a glance at his master, the slight man bowed and departed.
When the door closed, Nathaniel said, “I spoke with our groom just now. He verified the approximate time Lewis left the house yesterday morning, his valet with him. He also mentioned that you called for your horse soon after.”
Saxby shrugged. “So? I was restless and went for a ride.”
“So early? It isn’t like you.”
Saxby smirked. “You have no idea what I’m like. But if you must know, I tried to follow Lewis. He called me a liar when I suggested he was seeing a local girl. I thought I would follow him, catch the two together, and provehimthe liar. But I never caught up with him.”
“Then where were you all day yesterday?”
Saxby’s eyes flashed irritation. “I rode over to Hunton to see my cousin George. I didn’t realize I needed to report my every move to you.”
Nathaniel studied the man’s heated expression. Yes, there was defensiveness there, but guilt? He did not know.
Mr. Saxby took his leave later that morning. He stayed long enough to visit Lewis in the sickroom, emerging pale and stricken. He asked to be kept apprised of Lewis’s condition, then bent over Helen’s hand and gave Nathaniel a somber bow.
“You have my sympathies.”
From the hall windows, Nathaniel and Helen watched the man walk across the drive and step inside his carriage.
Staring out the window, Helen said, “Tell me he is going to live.”
Nathaniel swallowed as he reached over and squeezed his sister’s hand. “He’s going to live.” To himself he added,Lord willing.
———
Dr. Drummond, a longtime family friend, had been away attending at a birth, but he came that afternoon. He examined Lewis, not only the wound itself, but the rest of Lewis as well. Afterward, he redressed the wound and then took Nathaniel and Helen aside and gave his report.
“I see no sign of infection setting in. His internal organs—heart and lungs—seem to be functioning normally, which, considering how near the bullet came to damaging both, is a miracle in my book. If you believe in such things.”
“I do,” Nathaniel replied.
The physician nodded. “He did sustain a knock to the head when the shot felled him—I found a raised lump, nothing alarming, but a concussion might account for his insensibility. That and, of course, the laudanum Mr. White administered when he removed the bullet. I wouldn’t give him any more laudanum unless he displays signs of distress or discomfort. It is important he lie still to allow his wound to heal, so his insensible state has its benefits. It is sometimes a body’s way of coping with shock and trauma.”
Before he took his leave, Dr. Drummond left instructions for Nurse Welch, said he would return on the morrow, and asked to be advised if there was any change in Lewis’s condition.
Nathaniel sat with Helen at Lewis’s bedside that evening, trying to read an agricultural journal but mostly staring at the taper as it burned and guttered. “Did Lewis say anything to you abouta woman?”
“Barbara Lyons, do you mean?”
He shrugged, knew he was grasping at straws. “Saxby suggested a local woman. But according to the valet, Lewis and Saxby argued over Miss Lyons.”
Helen lifted her hands. “Lewis made no secret of admiring her. Why do you mention it?”
He held up the blue ribbon Mrs. Budgeon had found in Lewis’s pocket. “This piece of feminine frippery has me thinking. And Lewis’s valet said he thought the duel was fought over a woman’s honor.”
A maid entered, head bowed as she maneuvered a tray through the door. She glanced up, and he saw it was Margaret.
With no pause in conversation, Helen gestured her forward. “But Mr. Saxby is not even engaged to Miss Lyons.”
