The breath stopped in his throat. Where were the women? Where was Inez and her maid, the elderly and patient Maria?
Beyond the coach, he stopped on the side of the road, looking down an incline into a grove of olive trees, too shocked to take in the terrible tableau the French had left for him.
The raiding pary had not spared the women, even Maria who must have been touching seventy. The two women lay sprawled on their backs, their clothing rent from their bodies and blood... the blood…
Sebastian started towards them, only to find himself pulled back. He fought the restraining hands of Harry Dempster and Sergeant Pike.
‘She’s dead, Alder. There’s nothing you can do for her,’ Harry was saying.
But the blood roared in Sebastian’s ears, and he could see only a red haze before his eyes. Inez, he had to get to Inez.
He had promised to protect her with the last breath in his body, but he had failed her, failed her in the worst possible way a man—a husband—could. He had not been there when the French had attacked. He had not fought off the ravaging wolves that had used his wife’s body for their own pleasure before bayoneting her. An animal howl of pure despair tore from histhroat and, still in Pike’s grip, he went down on his knees in the dust.
The world faded and turned black, and he was falling, falling, falling into that black morass of despair from which he knew he would never recover.
Isabel awokewith a start at the sound of crashing china. She rose from her bed, lit the night candle, and, pulling a loose robe over her nightdress, stepped out into the corridor. She came across Bennet at the head of the stairs, cleaning up a broken bowl that had, from the liquid that now spilled across the dark, polished wood, contained water.
He looked up at her, dark, sunken circles under his eyes. Even though she had employed a nurse, this man had borne the brunt of the nursing and had not left his captain’s side for the last three days.
She laid her hand on his shoulder.
‘Enough, Bennet. Finish cleaning up the mess and then go and get some sleep. You’re exhausted. I’ll wake the nurse.’
Bennet rose to his feet. ‘She’s useless, beggin’ your pardon, me lady, and the Cap’n can’t be left alone. The fever’s got a right hold of him.’
‘Then I’ll sit with him a little while, and if I need help I will wake you both.’
Exhaustion turned to horror. ‘Oh no, my lady, that would hardly be proper.’
‘Pish to propriety. No one needs to know except you and me. You’ve done a sterling job but you are no good to anyone, let alone your captain, in your current state.’
When Bennet continued to look doubtful, she drew herself up and said in a firm tone, ‘I insist. Good night, Bennet.’
She turned on her heel and walked into the room that had been her husband’s bedchamber. Isabel set the candlestick on atable and approached the bed. She paused, taking a moment to accustom herself not only to the odour of the sickroom but to the fact that it was not Anthony whose long frame occupied the finely carved bed.
Sebastian Alder’s dramatic arrival at Somerton House had been met with remarkable calm by the servants, who seemed to take it for granted that when one Lord Somerton died, another took his place—although they were not generally carried in through the front door on a stretcher.
The doctor had told her that Sebastian had taken a musket ball just beneath his right ribs. The ball had passed through and, while it appeared to have missed anything major, the wound had become infected, and the lack of proper care and attention in the days since the battle had contributed to a nasty mess and a wound fever.
Isabel knew from reports from Bennet and gossip from her own maid, Lucy, that Sebastian had barely been lucid since his arrival, and it had frustrated her that propriety forbade her interference.
‘Pish to propriety,’ she repeated to herself, looking down at the man who lay sprawled in the large bed, one of Anthony’s nightshirts open at the neck and twisted around his chest, a testimony to his restless state.
Even though the nightshirt had been made with plenty of room, it seemed too tight across the shoulders of this man. She attempted to untangle the garment, but Sebastian pulled away from her, muttering incoherently.
She walked over to the shuttered window, throwing it wide. The cool night air rushed into the room, and she paused for a moment, her hands still on the casement, letting the breeze tumble her hair before turning back to the room. The fire flickered in the draught, and she bent over it, scattering the logs with the poker. The room would be cool within a short time.
Returning to the bed, Isabel pulled back the heavy blankets, leaving only a sheet covering the feverish man. The materialclung to his body, revealing a broad chest tapering to narrow hips, with strong horseman’s thighs. She swallowed. The only man with whom she had such an intimate acquaintance had been her husband and those were memories she pushed away.
To distract herself, Isabel looked around and saw a bowl of water with a cloth sitting on the nightstand. She wet the cloth and folded it into a pad, laying it across the man’s burning forehead and then his wrists. She kept this up until he calmed and settled into a fitful sleep.
Isabel pulled up a chair and set herself to watch.
Sebastian Alder’s right hand lay outside the covers, palm up, the fingers curled. Something in the vulnerability of the gesture touched her, and she reached out and laid her hand on his. Even in the candlelight, she could see the calluses and scars of his years of soldiering and the grime of the battlefield still ingrained around his fingernails. She thought of Anthony’s soft, white, immaculately manicured fingers and shivered.
His fingers tightened on hers, and he turned his face to her, his eyes wide and dark in the light of the candlelight. He mumbled something and she leaned in close to hear him.
‘Inez. Você precisa voltar para mim,’ he murmured, his voice hoarse with fever.
