Page 82 of The Luckiest Lady in London

* * *

Harris was stuck in a ditch, with a broken rib and a fractured elbow. Weston wasn’t so lucky: He and his horse were both found at the bottom of a ravine.

And Felix, after shooting one of his favorite horses, descended into the ravine with a rope tied around his waist. When he reached the stoutly built Weston, he had to secure the latter—about two stone heavier than himself—on his back and climb up.

It was pitch dark when the rescue party finally arrived back at the house. Louisa came running out of the front door, and it was worth the entire day of blistering cold to see the anxiety in her eyes.

She went right past him. And then, almost comically, she stopped and pivoted on her heels. “There is a bath waiting for you. Go. The surgeon and I will see to Weston.”

He saw his reflection as he crossed the entry hall mirror. No wonder she hadn’t recognized him immediately: He’d lost his hat, his hair was plastered to his head, and his face was dirty, his riding coat and trousers torn, drenched, and coated with mud.

The bath had been drawn in her tub—the best one in the house. He sat down, wincing at the pins-and-needles sensation in his lower extremities, still numb from the cold.

His valet left with his ruined clothes. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back. The water was heavenly, though it did sting the myriad scratches on his person, and the steam called notice to minor lacerations on his face, nicks that he had barely felt earlier, because he’d been so cold.

The door opened.

“I won’t need anything for at least another quarter hour,” he said. “You may see to your other duties.”

“I have already seen to my other duties.”

Louisa.

He opened his eyes. She carried a pot of tea and a plate of fresh buttered buns.

“Would you like anything?” she asked.

Yes, you.

And not even for lovemaking, but just to hold, for safety and comfort.

“Or should I ring the kitchen for something else?”

“No, thank you. I ate plenty on the way back.”

When he’d arrived at the waiting wagonette with Weston, who had turned unconscious from the pain of being maneuvered down a bumpy slope to the designated meeting place, there had been food and drink waiting: mulled ale, whiskey-spiked coffee, and curried pastries, all carefully packed to preserve their heat in the weather.

“The pair of grooms who were with you told me all about your heroics. I hope you didn’t do it just to polish The Ideal Gentleman’s halo. You could’ve killed yourself,” she said, her tone unusually harsh, as she set down the tray on a footstool within his reach.

“I was quite ready to let someone else undertake the heroics, but the two grooms with me were both afraid of heights.”

Ten grooms and stable hands had fanned out in five teams in the search for Weston’s whereabouts. It was sheer chance that the team Felix had joined had stumbled across him.

She lowered herself to one knee and examined his badly scratched right hand. “Why didn’t you have anyone see to it?”

“You said there was a bath, so I came.”

If she’d said he had to go back out and dig a ditch, he would have, too.

“What happened?”

“I had to remove my gloves to climb up. Then the rope slackened and I lost my foothold. So I grabbed the nearest thing, which turned out to be a rather thorny bush.”

Her expression was pinched. He could not tell whether she was actually concerned for him or merely going through the motions.

She tilted his still-cold hand toward the light, looking for any splinters that might be stuck under the skin.

“I removed them all. They put me on the wagonette for the return trip—with a hot-water bottle in my lap, no less. There was a lantern nearby and I had plenty of time to pluck out the thorns.”