A Marriageable Miss (27 page)

Steadfastly ignoring her husband’s groan, Helena regretfully extracted her fingers from his grasp and turned to greet the waiting Cissie. ‘Well, then,’ she said, as she conjured up a valiant smile, ‘we had best get on with it.’

She had only gone a few steps down the path before she suddenly stopped in her tracks and, turning back, she implored him, ‘Wish me luck, Richard, and say a little prayer for me, if you would.’

At the sight of her troubled expression, as she made her simple request, it took Richard every ounce of his resolve to stop himself from leaping forwards, wrapping her in his arms and carrying her away from this appalling task she had set herself. But, given their present situation, the best he could offer her was a supportive smile and a few words of encouragement.

‘With every beat of my heart, dear one,’ he said, his eyes dark with unsuppressed feeling.

Scarcely daring to believe that she could have heard aright, Helena’s heart leapt into her throat and, unable to tear her eyes away from his burning gaze, she took a hesitant step towards him but then, conscious of Cissie’s insistent tugging at her arm, she offered him a faltering smile, turned reluctantly away and allowed herself to be propelled towards the doorway.

Grappling with the powerful feelings that were threatening to overcome his resolve, Richard watched her disappear then, with a wry grimace, he, too, turned and hurried off in the direction of the stables. At the very least, he intended to make certain that her requests were carried out to the letter.

Wiping a weary hand across her forehead, Helena took a deep breath and, standing back from the table, peered across at the
clock on the kitchen dresser. Ten to one! It had taken her nearly three hours to close up Ben’s wound—although it was true that much of that time had been involved in calming him down. Luckily for him, he had still been in a deep swoon when she had poured the fiery spirit into the gash to wash away the dust and grime that had accumulated as a result of the accident, and she had been able to set the first half dozen or so of the twenty-five stitches without too much difficulty. But then, as soon as his eyes had reopened, he had begun threshing about like a madman, mumbling all sorts of nonsense about saws and stands and ropes and goodness knows what else.

Charles, who had elected to stand behind her and hold up one of the oil lamps, had advised her to ignore the incoherent rambling and concentrate on finishing her task.

‘Poor chap’s delirious,’ he told her, with a pitying shake of his head. ‘Hardly surprising, considering the amount of blood he’s lost. The quicker we get this done and get him to his bed, the better his chances of recovery, if you ask me.’

Having opted to accompany the earl back in the gig, along with the supplies, Mrs Wainwright had proved herself to be an indispensable asset, shooing away all but the few helpers whose assistance was necessary and disposing of the bloodstained cloths without so much as a single murmur of complaint.

Richard had spent much of his time ripping good linen sheets into long bandages and rolling them up for future use, but had had to leave this occupation on several occasions, in order to help hold down the patient to prevent him from getting up from the table, as had seemed to be his constant intent. With neither laudanum nor opiates available, either of which they could have done with in order to render him unconscious, they had been obliged to resort to pouring quantities of brandy down the poor man’s throat in an endeavour to placate him but, in Helena’s opinion, the spirit seemed to be doing more harm than good. On one occasion, Fuller had actually lashed out at Standish, causing the earl’s cousin to back away in vexation, demanding that the two men supposedly holding the patient
down attend to their business and pointing out that such a move could easily have caused him to drop his lamp and set the place alight! At Helena’s frown, he had the grace to mumble an apology, but thereafter kept himself well out of reach of the struggling worker.

But, at last, it was done. The stitches were set, compresses and bandages had been applied and all that was left to do now was to pray that she had stopped the bleeding and that the injured man might be kept free of infection—both of which could prove decidedly tricky, given the primitive circumstances in which the workers were living. Mrs Wainwright was all for moving him across to Westpark right away, where she would be able to keep a managing eye on him, but Standish was quick to point out that jogging the patient about in a carriage so soon after the operation might easily undo Helena’s careful handiwork. And so it was agreed that a truckle bed would be brought over from Westpark and that Fuller would be housed in what had originally been the housekeeper’s room, which lay just beyond the kitchen and, upon inspection, proved to be reasonably acceptable.

A slight argument then ensued as to which of the four of them was going to spend the rest of the night overseeing the patient, but since Helena was quite determined to see the job through, there was little that any of the others could say to dissuade her.

Standish was persuaded to take Mrs Wainwright back to Westpark and then return to his own home, along with Richard’s proviso that they would both return after breakfast and take over the watch.

Rueben, Bet and Cissie and those helpers who had not yet retired were sent off to bed, with the suggestion that they might care to regard the rest of the day as a holiday, in order that they might all recover from the shock of the accident and, at last, Helena and Richard were left to themselves in the makeshift bedroom.

‘I’ll drag in one of those free pallets and we can take turns to rest on it,’ suggested Richard. ‘Sitting up all night in a chair can be dashed uncomfortable.’

‘That sounds as though you are speaking from bitter experi
ence,’ she replied shakily and, as she watched him setting up the makeshift bed, she suddenly began to feel quite shy of him.

He gave a soft laugh and, taking hold of her hand, led her over to the pallet. ‘Military accommodation is not always up to scratch, my dear,’ he said. ‘But I assure you that I usually managed to find somewhere to sleep—and now it’s time for you to do the same.’

At her attempted protest, he lifted up his hand and pressed a finger against her lips. ‘Not another word, I beg you. You have done more than your share for the moment and I insist that you try to get some rest. You may rely upon me to keep a faithful watch and wake you up again in two hours time.’

As exhausted as she was, with scarcely enough strength to keep her eyes open, Helena was still torn between the need to do her duty by her patient and an aching desire to spend some time alone with her husband. Nevertheless, since she could not help but agree with his judgement that an hour or so’s rest now would help to ensure Fuller’s ongoing well-being, she obediently lay down on the straw mattress, revelling in the tenderness the earl displayed, as he carefully tucked a blanket around her and pressed a soft kiss on her brow, before removing himself to the chair by the fireside. One minute her sleepy eyes were smilingly contemplating his shadowy outline, as she drowsily watched him settle himself into a more comfortable position, and the next she was fast asleep.

B
y inching his way along the stable wall and pressing his ear against a narrow gap in the door’s woodwork, Charles Standish was just able to make out the low murmur of his cousin’s voice, uttering what sounded like soothing words of encouragement. And, if the laborious snorts and whinnies that were also issuing forth from within the building were anything to go by, it would seem that Copperlady had finally decided to drop her foal, the likelihood of which came as no great surprise to the silent listener, since it had been he himself who had presented the mare with a cascara-impregnated apple, some two hours earlier, before driving Mrs Wainwright back to Westpark.

With a satisfied nod, he edged himself cautiously away, happy in the knowledge that such a momentous event as ensuring the safe arrival of another thoroughbred foal to his collection was enough to guarantee Markfield’s absence from Fuller’s bedside for some considerable time—time enough for Standish to silence the fellow for good and all, if he could just persuade the sainted Helena out of the room for a few minutes!

Had it not been for that meddling swine of a joiner, who had chanced to look up and spot him whipping back the dangling cord—just as the stack of heavy slates showered to the ground—the 6th earl might well have met his Maker, as had been
Standish’s meticulously organised intention. As it was, the clodhopping fool had gone and spoilt the whole effect by having taken it into his head to leap forwards at the crucial moment and barge Markfield out of harm’s way, thus taking the full brunt of the damage upon himself!

That the interfering swine had managed to survive the onslaught was, in itself, something of a miracle—particularly as Standish had made no attempt whatsoever to contact any of the local doctors—when, in a state of trembling dismay at what had occurred, he had dashed across to the stable to collect his mount and had ridden off, as fast as the horse’s legs were able to carry him. His apprehension as to what might be happening having eventually overcome his initial panic, however, he had crept back to view the ensuing scene from a safe distance and only when conditions seemed to indicate that the man was at his last gasp had he judged it safe to return and attempt to give the impression that he was as deeply concerned as were the rest of the onlookers at their workmate’s plight.

But now, unfortunately, it had become glaringly obvious from his earlier behaviour that, unless something was done to stop his mouth, the Fuller chap was hellbent on divulging what he had witnessed, thereby putting paid to all of Standish’s carefully laid plans. Having spent the past four years in the dedicated pursuit of what had been a long-held aspiration, however, there was no way on earth that he was going to allow a useless down-and-out to scupper his ultimate goal!

The death of his grandfather, followed in quick succession by that of his father and then each of his two uncles, all in the space of five years, had brought home to Standish the realisation that, were it not for the existence of his two older cousins—for whom he had harboured the most bitter resentment ever since he had been in short coats, owing to their constant habit of leaving him out of their games, along with their persistent teasing—the Markfield earldom, along with its entire estate and bordering properties, would devolve upon himself!

Having confidently assumed that Richard’s death might rea
sonably be left to the well-renowned expertise of the French artillery, it had taken him almost three years to accomplish his objective of putting a period to Simon’s life. After a series of ingeniously created ‘accidents’, from which the 5th earl had managed to emerge unscathed, Standish had finally succeeded in eliminating his cousin when, after having plied him with a plentiful supply of strong liquor—to which a hefty dose of laudanum had been secretly added—he had bet the inveterate gambler that his horsemanship was not up to taking him over a nine-foot hedge—a challenge that the devil-may-care Simon had been unable to resist and the one that had, ultimately, led to his death.

That Richard had arrived home from the war both safe and sound had brought his remaining cousin no joy at all and, since the new earl was cut from an entirely different pattern from that of the previous one, every one of Standish’s attempts to bring about his downfall had, thus far, met with a decided lack of success. A moderate drinker, who regarded gambling as a pastime for fools and charlatans, the ex-major had learned to keep his wits about him at all times—especially in the matter of his riding equipment, it seemed—the attempted sabotaging of which had merely led to one of the grooms receiving a rather severe set down, after the sharp-eyed Markfield had spotted the partly severed saddle strap, while tightening his mount’s girth.

Having also failed in his endeavour to nudge his cousin under the wheels of an oncoming beer dray, on a busy city thoroughfare one particularly foggy day less than a month ago, Standish had been close to reaching the end of his tether when, to his utter dismay, the matter of Markfield’s marriage had suddenly reared its ugly head. Although, as it happened, on first being told about the possible arrangement between his cousin and the Wheatley girl, it had seemed to him to be the God-given answer to his prayers, especially since he had been growing increasingly conscious of the earl’s growing mountain of debts. Having no wish to be saddled with such an adverse encumbrance upon his own succession, he had reached the conclusion that it might be just as well to allow the current incumbent a certain amount of leeway
to enable him to sort out the worst of his financial problems before proceeding with any more attempts to further his demise.

The unfortunate incident at Almack’s having precipitated his cousin’s hasty marriage, Standish had then been at his wit’s end to conjure up ways to keep the newly-weds at loggerheads with one another. Spurred on by the thought of the fifty-thousand-pound dowry sitting waiting for him in his cousin’s bank account, he had concentrated his whole attention on ways to keep the pair apart for, after all of his efforts to secure the succession for himself, the very last thing he needed at this stage in the game was another claimant to the earldom!

Having filched one of the wedding invitations from the huge pile on his grandmother’s writing desk, he had sent it to Rachel Cummings, marked with a scribbled
‘Do come, my love’
at the bottom of the card—safe in the belief that no woman on earth would have the power to resist such a pointed request. In addition, he had set about bribing one of Rachel’s maidservants into ‘borrowing’ the pair of earrings that Markfield had bought her mistress, intimating that his lordship was thinking of having their design copied into a matching necklace for her ladyship. Tossing the earring on to Helena’s bed had presented him with very little difficulty, since Mrs Wainwright had been only too keen to show off the newly furbished room to him, taking great pains to point out the immense amount of trouble to which his lordship had gone on behalf of his bride-to-be!

That both of these tricks had served their purpose in setting up what ought to have proved an insurmountable barrier between the pair had become very quickly apparent, although it would have been well nigh impossible for Standish to have missed the simmering undercurrent of emotion that seemed to flow between Helena and his cousin every time he saw them together. This, coupled with Markfield’s recent abnormal drinking habits and unusually brusque manner, was enough to convince him of a pressing need to redouble his previous efforts—particularly after having witnessed the pair involved in so close an embrace that very morning; the kind of embrace that, in Standish’s eyes, bore all the
hallmarks of a soon-to-be fully fledged love affair! To allow any continuance of such closeness could very quickly sound the death knell to his ambitions.

Having remembered his despised cousin Simon catching him out with a very similar trick during his childhood—although a basket of ripe peaches had been the relatively innocent missile on that occasion—Standish had spent much of his afternoon stacking a pile of heavy tiles on to the very tip of the Hall’s upper parapet after wedging the tail-end of a strong cord beneath the first of these tiles. By positioning himself at the window on the first floor, he had managed to lure Richard over to an almost perfect spot beneath the carefully poised stack. He had hardly been able to contain his glee when, with one single quick twitch of the dangling cord, he had brought the whole stack of tiles tumbling from its perch.

But, now it seemed, his entire campaign was in danger of being knocked completely awry. Not only had he failed to put a convenient end to his cousin’s life, he was now in grave danger of losing his own, should Fuller be given any opportunity to describe what he had witnessed!

After tapping gently on the door of the makeshift bedroom, he let himself in and, after greeting the startled Helena with a warm smile, he whispered, ‘How’s the poor fellow doing? Any improvement?’

‘Not really,’ she sighed, with a sorrowful look in the direction of the bed, where the softly moaning Fuller lay tossing restlessly to and fro. ‘But at least there is no sign of fever—for which I am eternally thankful. I only wish that one of those doctors you called on would put in an appearance and administer some form of pain-relieving sedative.’

‘Yes, indeed,’ he replied, giving a sympathetic nod. ‘Dashed bad luck that they both had to be out on difficult cases, but I dare say one or other of them is sure to turn up pretty soon.’

‘Oh, I do hope so!’ she exclaimed fervently. ‘I would hate to think that my crude efforts might cause more harm than good and I will not be really happy until Mr Fuller has been examined and properly dealt with by a professional.’

‘That is perfectly understandable, my dear, and I fully appreciate your concern.’

After eyeing her downcast expression carefully for a minute or so, Standish then had a sudden brainwave.

‘You look as if you could do with a breath of fresh air,’ he ventured. ‘Why don’t you pop outside for a few minutes? You know you can rely on me to stand guard for you—and I can always call you back, should anything untoward occur.’

‘Oh, thank you, Charles—you are very good!’ she said, rising at once to her feet. ‘Richard was obliged to go over to the stables over an hour ago—I understand that one of his mares is about to drop her foal.’

‘Yes, I did see the light as I passed, but judged it better not to interrupt.’

Striving to hide his impatience, Standish took her arm and ushered her towards the door. ‘You take your time, my dear,’ he said, with an encouraging smile. ‘Your patient will be perfectly safe in my hands.’

Slipping out of the door, Helena closed it gently behind her and made her way towards the back door, eager to join her husband and hoping that his ‘patient’ was faring rather better than her own. On reaching the courtyard, however, she was greeted by the sudden chill of the night air and, with a little shiver, turned back to fetch her shawl.

Noiselessly entering the room, she reeled back in disbelief, as her eyes took in the terrifying scene before her. Despite the fact that his back was towards her, there was no mistaking the fact that Standish was doing his utmost to suffocate the groaning and writhing Fuller by pressing a pillow to his face!

‘Stop! Stop!’ shrieked Helena as, diving across the room, she grabbed hold of Standish’s coat sleeve, causing him to stumble backwards and let go of the pillow. ‘What, in God’s name, do you think you are doing?’

As soon as he had regained his balance, however, Standish flung himself around and started towards her, his eyes glittering with unconcealed rage and his face contorted with such a hate-
filled expression that Helena found herself backing away from him in breathless terror.

‘Oh, no, you don’t, my dear,’ he snarled, as he reached out and grasped hold of her wrist and attempted to drag her towards him. ‘You had your chance—you should have trotted over to see your beloved spouse, as I advised—too late now, I fear!’

‘But…I don’t understand,’ she gasped, clutching at the bedpost, in a frantic effort to avoid whatever dreadful punishment he had in mind for her having caught him out in his murderous act. ‘Why are you behaving in this way, Charles?’

‘H-he—m-meant—to—k-kill—his—l-lordship!’ came Fuller’s strangled croak as, weakly thrusting aside the pillow, he struggled to raise himself on to his elbows. ‘I s-saw it all—he—he p-pulled a cord and—’

‘Keep your mouth shut, you!’ snapped Standish abruptly, but then, as his eyes covered the distance between the terror-stricken Helena and the rapidly recovering man in the bed, he very quickly became aware of the rather hazardous position in which he had, inadvertently, placed himself. Too far away from Fuller to prevent him having his say, he was unable to release his hold on the wildly struggling Helena, lest she escaped from the room and sought assistance.

Scarcely stopping to think, he let go of her hand but, before she managed to take even a single step, he had leapt forwards and fastened both of his hands around her neck, causing her to release her hold on the bedpost and try, instead, to wrench his fingers from her throat. Feeling his hold tighten, she found herself in a desperate struggle to take even the smallest of breaths and, as the room started to spin and grow dark about her, she could feel herself drifting away from the world.

‘Let her go, Charles!’

So intent was he upon his task that Standish had failed to take note of Richard’s stealthy entry into the room and it was not until he felt the earl’s fingers flexing around his own throat that he was made aware of his lordship’s presence. Releasing Helena instantly, he flung her away from him as, gasping for breath, he made a vain attempt to free himself from Markfield’s steel-like grip.

Hooking his hand over the back of Standish’s collar, Richard dragged him backwards and then, after swinging him around to face him, raised his fist and dealt his cousin a punishing uppercut, the force of which had the dazed man slumping to the floor, whining in agony.