Page 150 of A Portrait of Love

“You’re bleeding!”

He smiled weakly and began to push up to his feet.

Honey stood and offered him a hand. He took it and rose with a groan, his weight almost pulling her to the ground.

Once he was standing, Honey peeled back the bloody collar of his shirt, wincing at the wound on his neck. “Simon—we need—”

“Shhhh,” he murmured, taking her hand and squeezing it gently. Doesn’t hurt.” His eyes flickered to her shoulder. “Lord, Honey, you’ve been shot, too.”

Honey turned and saw the shoulder of her coat was torn and bloody. “Oh, goodness,” she said, a wave of nausea rolling through her.

“Here, let me have a look.” He carefully parted the ragged wool. “It’s a flesh wound—like mine—but it will soon begin to smart like the dickens.”

“It already smarts.”

He turned his brilliant blue gaze on her and grabbed her face with both hands, crushing her mouth with a passionate but far too brief, kiss. “We’ll talk later about how you jumped in front of a man with a gun, love. Right now, I’ve got to get Wyndham to a doctor.”

“What about him?” Honey pointed to Raymond. “Shouldn’t we do something?”

Simon glanced down at his cousin, who’d rolled onto his back and was gazing wide-eyed at them.

Raymond was bleeding profusely from where Honey’s bullet had entered his chest. He was gasping for breath and red froth was coming from his mouth.

A sneer contorted Simon’s handsome features. “I think he’s getting exactly what he deserved.”

Some hours later …

Simon closed the door to the room where Wyndham was resting and made his way down the corridor.

For a moment he was tempted to go to the library, where he knew there was a cabinet with brandy or whiskey.

But then he recalled Raymond’s last words and decided that he’d better not drink anything other than water that was pulled straight from the well.

When Simon opened the door to the room he was sharing with Honey, she looked up from a book she’d found in the pillaged library.

“How is he?”

“He’s still sleeping. Doctor Powell says the wound looks good and the bullet did not hit any organs. He’s got a fever, but Powell says it isn’t becoming worse.” Simon sank into the nearest chair, closed his eyes, and rubbed his temples with brutal fingers.

Hands landed on his shoulders, massaging hard on his right side, but caressing more gently on the damaged skin on his left.

Simon remembered that his brother wasn’t the only one who’d been shot.

“What a horrid husband I am,” he said, twisting around to smile up at her. “How is your arm?’

“It hurts, but—to be honest—the time I slammed my little finger in the front door of our London house was far worse.”

Simon knew from personal experience that even a mild gunshot wound hurt a great deal. His wife was made of stern stuff.

“You had Powell look at it?” he asked, ashamed that he’d been so consumed with Wyndham that he’d not paid attention to Honey over the last eight hours.

“The doctor said the wound was shallow and clean. He gave me some laudanum, but it always makes me ill. What about you, Simon? You’re rubbing your head. Are you getting a migraine?”

“No, just feeling like an arse.”

Her hands froze and she came out from behind him. She sat on the arm of his chair and draped an arm around him. “Why?”

Simon sighed, looking up at her. “I can’t believe I thought Wyndham was capable of fathering a child on Bella—or on any woman other than his wife. He’s the most honorable man I know.” He exhaled shakily. “I’m a hot-headed fool. He almost died today—and he’s still not out of the woods. If he had died, the last memories I’d have of him were of back-biting and fighting.”