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Chapter Seventeen

Emily hurried ahead to the excavation site, her peace cut up by Bidenden’s insinuations. She arrived somewhat breathless and agitated, which didn’t help when she learned just how dangerous the next phase of the tree removal was.

The tree had taken root at the base of the sloping ground, and its trunk was twisted and angled in such a way that the main trunk lay more or less parallel with the slope of the mound itself.

The morning’s work had pared the tree back from the mound. For this part of the operation, guy ropes braced the main trunk that would assist them in bringing the rest of the tree down in what was intended to be a controlled fall. Emily, watching from a safe distance with the other women, fervently hoped they would.

Smiggens, being the only one of them with experience in felling trees, was going to make the cuts into the trunk that would bring it down, and the men would manage the guy ropes that should guide its descent.

Smiggens began his chopping on the east side of the tree, the side away from the barrow. He made a wedge-shaped cut in the trunk with his axe. Then he moved to the side and Deo and Kenrick stepped forward with the double ended saw that would cut through to the hinge from the barrow side of the tree, as Deo had explained over lunch. Smiggens’s job was to tell them when to stop. Because of the lean of the trunk and its being butted up against the sloping ground of the mound, they were forced to work in a difficult position, one foot higher than the other and bent to get to the base of the trunk under the curve.

Fortunately, both men were extremely strong. Em watched the sweat bleeding through Deo’s shirt as his massive shoulders worked to pull the axe through the wood of the old tree. It took some time, but eventually Smiggens held up his hand and said, “Stop!”

With visible relief, the two men pulled the saw free of the trunk and stepped back. Now came the most dangerous part of the endeavour. The three men scrambled clear of the tree and took up the guy ropes on one side of the tree. The duke, the viscount, and Bidenden held the ropes on the other side.

“Ready, gentlemen?” called Deo.

“Aye,” came the chorus of replies. “On a count of three, tug firmly,” he said. He paused and then began the count. “One. Two. Three. Heave!”

The tree wavered a bit on its base and the women held their collective breaths, holding each other’s hands for support.

Then it began to fall at a south-easterly angle. This was in the opposite direction from Deo’s position on the north-east side, thank God, but it was heading dangerously in the direction of the other three men. As it was on the other side of the mound from Emily’s position, she couldn’t actually see the men who were standing on that side, but horror built as the hinge cracked through, and the great tree wobbled, slid off its base, and crashed to the ground in a cloud of dirt, leaves and debris, to the accompanying shouts of the men and an agonized cry. Someone has been caught in the fall!

“Oh, God, Rob was on that side!” cried the duchess.

All three women, released from their position, picked up their skirts and raced around the base of the mound. The branches of the tree took up a lot of area, and they had to edge round them to find the spot where the men were clustered.

One of the men standing there was the duke, obviously unharmed.

“Rob!” the duchess hurried toward him with a cry of relief, and he received her with an arm round her waist. “Thank God! I thought it was you!” she said, pressing her face to his chest.

Emily, on her heels, barreled into Deo who was also standing there, grubby and sweaty but unharmed. “Deo! Who—?”

Deo turned to catch her with his arm, sleeves rolled up to the elbow.

“It’s Bidenden. We pulled him out.”

Emily put a hand to her mouth in shock and peered around the bodies of Kenrick and Ashford, who were bent over the prone form of Lord Bidenden. Smiggens was kneeling beside him and checking him over for injuries.

“Possibly bruised or broken ribs, I think,” he said. “If someone can give me something to bind his chest, I’ll wrap it to stop any movement until you can get him to the house and fetch a doctor.”

Emily removed her sash, “Here, will this do as a bandage?”

“Aye, thank you, my lady.”

She edged forward to kneel beside the fallen man. He was ashen pale, and it was obvious he was in a deal of pain, his breathing was labored, and his face was sheened in sweat. And like all of the men, he was generously daubed with dust and dirt. His eyes were closed. Ashford produced a flask and said, “Take a drop of this, old chap.”

Bidenden opened his eyes and Emily leaned forward to hold his head while he took a mouthful of the flask’s contents, even that slight movement caused him to gasp with pain. “Thank you,” he said huskily. His eyes flickered to Emily, and she saw surprise in his eyes as they rested on her. His mouth twitched up in a wry smile. “Damned tree got me; I wasn’t quick enough to get out of its way.”

“Smiggens is going to bind your chest until we can get a doctor to you,” she said, using a handkerchief to wipe his brow.

“Thank you,” he said again, his eyes closing.

Emily got to her feet, moving out of Smiggens’s way as he went to work on Bidenden.

She returned to Deo’s side and said quietly, “I have never been so terrified in my life. I was convinced that tree was going to crush you.”

Deo looked down at her, his expression strangely blank. “I was fine,” he said shortly. He moved away from her to inspect what was left of the tree stump. Emily, left standing there, watched him walk away from her, her heart contracting with pain. What is wrong?