Leona was struggling to her feet, cradling her injured arm, as Deveraux rode bareback into the courtyard. He slid off the horse’s back before the animal came to a complete stop and ranto her. “Leona, what happened? What’s going on?” He grabbed for her, but her cry of pain made him jump back.
“What?!” He glanced down at his hand to see blood on it. His face contorted.
His voice came as if from far away. She swayed dizzily, fighting to keep her balance. She would not disgrace herself by fainting!
“Leona!” Swiftly he picked her up, her uninjured side against his chest, and strode out of the stable yard toward the house.
“No, no, please,” she cried weakly. “It’s just my arm. I can walk.”
He ignored her as he strode grim-faced up the drive.
“Find the bastard!” he bellowed to the soot-streaked clustering of grooms and stable boys. Fitzhugh, coming upon them, took one look at Deveraux and was before him, flinging open the manor house door and shouting for water and bandages. Lucy ran alongside her brother, whimpering apologies for not being swifter in her task.
“Leona!” cried Lady Nevin and Maria as one when they came out of the drawing room to see who was injured.
“Venez ici! Vite! Vite!” demanded Lady Nevin, her English forgotten in her shock. She hurried back into the drawing room to place pillows at the arm of one of the sofas and direct Nigel to lay his precious burden down.
“No! No!” whimpered Leona. “The blood, the dirt?—”
“Chut!Maria, see what is keeping Madame Henry with those bandages and water!”
“How bad is it?” Deveraux asked softly, his hands clenched into white fists at his sides.
“How can I tell until I have cleaned it?” snapped his mother.
Leona looked up at him, her face white and pinched. Dirt streaked across her face and warred with the purple smudgesunder her eyes. “Not broken, I think,” she offered, smiling gamely.
Deveraux, his face implacable against a myriad of emotions that roiled, nodded, then turned on his heel and strode from the room and out the manor house door, shouting to his men.
‘Tain’t no one to be found, sar,” said a young groom running up to Deveraux, huffing and puffing. “But ’appens Nuit’s ol’ right, sar. Farrow found ’im in the paddock munchin' grass as calm as yur please.”
Alan Gerby, the Earl of Nevin’s head groom, walked up to them, frowning heavily. “Found this in the stable courtyard.” He handed Deveraux the carriage whip then scratched the back of his head, knocking his cap forward on his brow. “Can’t figure why she took a carriage whip to get ol’ Nuit out.”
“The carriage whip was for the intruder,1’ Deveraux said frostily, disliking the man’s manner.
Gerby shrugged. “Mayhap, but there ain’t no trace of anyone about save that Miss Leonard.” He turned to walk back toward the stables, calling the men to see that the fire wagon was put away and the horses tended. The young groom followed him.
“Dev, have the men found anything?” Fitzhugh asked, coming up behind Deveraux.
“No,” he said shortly, tapping the carriage whip against the palm of his hand. “And I believe they don’t think there’s anyonetobe found.”
“Egad! They’re not suggesting, are they, that. . . well, that Miss Leonard fabricated the whole?”
Deveraux slammed his fist into his palm. “I don’t know, David. I just don’t know.”
Leona didn’t see Deveraux until the afternoon of the next day and had no opportunity to relay the information about the identity of the last evening’s would-be horse thief. Lady Nevin and Maria clucked and fussed over the gash in her arm. It waslong and cut into the muscle, but it was not serious—though they warned it would hurt for some time. Together they cleaned the wound and bandaged her arm. Over Leona’s protests, they ordered Leona carried to her room. Once washed, her hair brushed, and her nightgown on, Lady Nevin insisted Leona drink laudanum to help her sleep. Laughing weakly, Leona said she now knew where Deveraux inherited his stubbornness. Lady Nevin smiled thinly and calmly agreed before insisting again that she drink the sedative. Leona gave up and did as she requested.
Soon, she was deeply asleep. She slept heavily until noon the next day. She neither heard nor saw the door to her bedchamber open and a tall, broad-shouldered figure glide silently over to the bed to gaze down on her as she slept, an expression of hunger, pain, and worry in his clear blue eyes.
The next day Leona’s arm was sore and stiff, but thankfully free of infection. Satisfied that her guest would not suffer lasting injury, Lady Nevin allowed Leona to get dressed and come downstairs—so long as she promised to keep her arm in a sling to hold it immobile and prevent reopening of the wound.
The maid Betsy, who had been seeing after Leona since she came to Castle Marin, was so mindful of Lady Nevin’s strictures when helping Leona get dressed that Leona was ready to scream with frustration. She kept her temper and suffered Betsy’s slow ministrations in silence. She was tempted to point out to the maid that it was her arm that was injured and not her head, for she’d never had a slower hairstylist in her life, but she refrained. Finally, she was deemed ready to go downstairs, and this time, after quite firmly refusing to be carried anywhere, she joined the family in the parlor.
The gentlemen rose instantly to their feet and were at her side, inquiring after her health. She assured them, struggling against laughter, that she was fine.
“Though I’m beginning to believe that is not the answer anyone wants to hear!”
“Nonsense,ma pauvre,” said Lady Nevin. “But it is thanks once again that has us so attentive.”
