Winfield held his candlestick higher to better view the room. He swore and sucked in a breath. “Your Grace. I did not see you in the shadows. You have been shot.”
“It would seem so,” Robert said, as Winfield and the footman rushed to his side.
“Your Grace.” Devonshire’s expression crumbled into panic as he looked between Robert and Lady Montgomery. The gun rolled from Devonshire’s hand to the carpet as he bowed. “Forgive me, Your Grace. We were told… That is to say… I did not know it was you. The Lady Montgomery and I…” He straightened. “It is not how it looks.
Robert bit back a spasm of pain. “It looked as though you and Lady Montgomery were on the verge of rutting like rabbits.”
Chapter Eight
The woman who had been referred to as Lady Montgomery screamed and crumpled to the floor, while Devonshire raged that he hadn’t recognized the Duke of Conclarton.
Madeline knelt beside the duke to check his wound, shaking her head in disbelief. Was she the only one to notice that the duke had lost consciousness? She was surrounded by chaos, which was the only way to describe it. Lady Montgomery’s scream seemed to have led to a flurry of activity.
Winfield tried to calm Devonshire while instructing the footman to remove the unconscious Lady Montgomery to her quarters. A trio of women servants carrying food trays, ostensibly on their way to the duke’s rooms, ducked in to investigate, then shrieked, dropping their trays. Pottery shattered, metal utensils clattered, and tureens of steaming soup and a pot of tea drenched the carpet.
Ignoring the noise and confusion, Madeline tore a strip off the hem of her dress and pressed the fabric over the duke’s wound. “I have to stop the bleeding,” she said to him in as calm a voice as she could manage. In her peripheral vision, Devonshire left as the women who had brought the trays of food fussed like hens at mealtime to clean up the mess. She wanted to scream at all of them. No one paid any mind to the fact that the duke had been shot. “What is wrong with these people!”
The duke chuckled as he opened his eyes. “I have been asking that myself for as long as I can remember.”
Madeline sighed in relief. He was still conscious. That had to be a good sign. But she couldn’t stop the bleeding. She ripped off more fabric from her hem. “I apologize. I did not mean to say that out loud. You must think me…”
He covered her hand with his. “I think you are my personal angel.”
She blinked to clear her vision, surprised at how his words had touched her. She’d been called many things. Too outspoken for a woman. Rebellious. Opinionated. Never an angel.
“This bullet must be removed if I am to have a chance to stop the bleeding,” she said, trying to keep the rising panic from her voice. She glanced in the direction of the bed. When she first entered the room, the bed hadn’t seemed that far away. Now it looked the distance of a city block. The duke was broad shouldered, and at least a head and a half taller than she was. Although slender, the way he had controlled his horse when he chased down her carriage suggested he was solidly built. Lifting him without help would be impossible.
“Do you think you can walk, Your Grace?”
Winfield joined Madeline at the duke’s side. “It is under control, Your Grace. Devonshire assures me it was an accident, and someone is tending to Lady Montgomery. She looked very upset. Oh, and the servants are cleaning the mess they made and will bring more food. How are you feeling?”
Madeline turned on the passive-faced butler, clenching her hands on the blood-soaked fabric she’d used trying to stop the bleeding. “Are you deranged, blind, or mad? Or all three? The duke is not doing well. Not well at all. He is bleeding to death, and I’m quite sure he doesn’t give a flying fig about food stains on the carpet. Help me lift him to bed. He weighs more than a pack of wet dogs. I need to remove the bullet.”
“Pack of wet dogs?” the duke said under his breath. “Curious comparison.”
Winfield cast an inscrutable look the duke’s way, then gave a quick nod and positioned himself on one side of the duke while Madeline chose the other.
“Please lean on me, and try not to bleed,” she said with a curve of her lips.
“Your attempt at humor suggests I look as bad as I feel. And I feel fagged to death.”
“Save your strength,” Madeline said, using an authoritative tone she’d learned from her mother. She hoped it gave the impression that she meant for him to survive and would not argue the point. “You are not feeling well,” she continued. “I heard you were in the military. Have you seen combat?”
“His Grace has seen more than his fair share of battles and has been decorated with medals for saving lives and advanced to the position of captain.”
“You both are attempting to distract me from the reality of my condition and my likely chance of survival,” the duke said. “You need not bother. I know the odds. Although I have a shoulder wound, and the bullet seems to have missed my heart and lungs, I know that I am not out of danger. I could die from infection.”
“If you weren’t injured already, Your Grace,” Madeline said. “I would shoot you myself for being so annoyingly calm.”
His eyebrows drew together. “Interesting. I would have thought you would appreciate a patient who was in control of his emotions.”
“Emotions are a light into the soul.”
He nodded. “Beautiful sentiment, but I am not sure how it applies in my situation.”
“Winfield, can you bring more linens to dress His Grace’s wounds?” Surprisingly, Winfield left without questioning her. He must be more rattled than he looked to leave her alone with the duke. She counted her blessings.
When Winfield had left, Madeline leaned close to the duke. “Yes, it is true that a hysterical patient is not helpful. But you are behaving too calmly, and I have seen this type of reaction before in men and women who have given up on their will to live.” Unexplained tears gathered in her eyes again, and as before, she blinked them away. “Tell me that you want to live.” She clutched the bedcovers. “Promise me.”
