Page 59 of Courting the Country Miss

Leticia looked down at the front of her dirty, muddy pelisse. A large stain smeared across the front. Tristan’s blood.

She looked back at his face, the color of the pillowcase…except the linen developed a stain, spreading outward.

Alarm knifed through her. She stood. “There’s an injury on the back of his head, too.”

They rolled him over. Sure enough, blood matted his hair and spread over the pillow. With Elizabeth holding Tristan by the shoulders to keep him on his side, Leticia cleaned the gash so thoroughly she feared she’d hurt him even in his unconscious state. She wrapped his head with bandages, and sat with her hand pressed over the wound to slow the bleeding. Elizabeth propped pillows around him to keep him on his side.

Footsteps approached. “The doctor is here, milady.”

They turned as a silver-haired man wearing horn-rimmed spectacles entered and ordered them out.

Leticia paced the length of the corridor, her heart thudding for a prognosis as if she awaited a verdict on a life or death trial. At the end of the corridor, she stood by the window and stared out, unseeing. She turned and paced back the other way toward the main staircase.

A servant held out a valise in her line of vision. “This arrived for you, Miss Wentworth.”

“Put it in the lilac room,” Elizabeth said. “Then fill a bath for Miss Wentworth.”

“Yes, milady.”

“Elizabeth!” Richard’s voice boomed from downstairs.

“Up here,” called Elizabeth.

Leticia watched Richard charge up the stairs, taking them two and three at a time. Sheer panic, uncharacteristic for Richard, clouded his expression. “How bad is it?”

“The doctor arrived a moment ago,” Leticia said.

Elizabeth’s breath hitched. “It’s bad.”

Richard enfolded her into his arms. Normally, Leticia would have turned away, unable to watch the sight of them embracing. Now, she averted her eyes to give them a moment of privacy. Strange, it no longer bothered her to see Richard with another woman. With his wife. With Elizabeth. Whom he loved. Leticia felt nothing except a vague relief that Richard had someone to whom he could turn for comfort. Either she no longer loved him at last, or her alarm over Tristan deadened the pain.

“What happened?” Richard asked, his gaze darting between them.

Leticia moistened her lips. “It was a curricle race.”

Richard let out his breath in a long, exasperated exhale.

Leticia continued, “The other driver appeared either to have lost control, or one of his horses misstepped, and they rammed into Tristan’s curricle. He was thrown.” Her voice cracked.

“You saw it?” He released Elizabeth and grabbed Leticia by the arms. Grief and terror and fury in his dark eyes, eyes so like Tristan’s, spilled onto her. “You were there and you didn’t stop it?”

She shrugged off his hands. “I went to stop them but I was too late—they’d already started.”

He released her, dragged both hands through his hair and collapsed onto a settee in the corridor, hunched over. Elizabeth sat next to him, her hand on his back.

The doctor came out, fingered his hat, and looked up, with apology in his expression. Richard leaped to his feet. Leticia held her breath.

The doctor said, “The good news is that there doesn’t appear to be any broken bones, and there’s no swelling in his abdomen to suggest internal injury.”

They waited for the inevitable bad news his tone suggested.

“The head injury is serious. But don’t lose hope. It’s too soon to tell…” The doctor looked down at his hat.

Leticia fisted her hands so tightly that her fingers ached. A low, rushing noise filled her ears.

Richard drew himself erect, as expressionless as a stone, his arms straight, hands fisted, clearly bracing for the worst. “Don’t mince words, doctor. I want the whole truth.”

“I’ve done all I can for now. Time will tell. The longer he is unconscious, the worse it will be. You must prepare yourselves for the possibility that he may not recover.”