Authors: Masquerade
The sailor wrenched the cane away from Weylin
and cracked it with bone-shattering force upon the old man's skull.
As Weylin staggered back, Phaedra caught him, but she could not
support his weight. He crashed to his knees, his wig askew, blood
flowing down his face.
Phaedra saw Gilly's fist smash into the
sailor's jaw, but after that the scene descended into a whirl of
violence. As Phaedra tried to stem the blood gushing from Weylin's
head, the rest of the crowd surged forward. Gilly was swallowed up
in a press of struggling bodies and a flurry of fists.
It was all Phaedra could do to keep her
grandfather from pitching forward onto his face when rough hands
seized her.
A grizzled male face distorted by an ugly
sneer, pressed close, the reek of his fetid breath sickening.
"Eh-this must be one of those Irish whores I've heard tell of."
Phaedra struck out blindly, leveling her fist
at the man's eyes.
A bellow of rage followed, and a hand smacked
hard against her cheek, making her dizzy with fear and pain. She
struggled against the hands she felt trying to thrust her downward,
tearing at the bodice of her gown.
She was released so suddenly, she fell back
upon the pavement. She had little time to comprehend what had
happened when a whisper of steel flashed past her line of vision.
The man who had assaulted her reeled back, clutching his bloodied
shoulder and yelping with pain.
She gazed upward to see James providing a
barrier between her and the madness erupting on all sides. His eyes
narrowed to deadly slits, he swept his sword in a protective arc,
ready to cut down the next man who approached.
He spared her not so much as a glance,
barking a command over his shoulder. "Get her out of here."
She did not know to whom he had spoken until
she felt Jonathan trying to help her up. But she pulled away,
staring wildly about her. She could not find Gilly. Her grandfather
lay sprawled on the street near the curb, his coarse features ashen
beneath the smearing of blood.
Phaedra crept to Weylin's side just as Ridley
drew up with the carriage. In the midst of such mayhem, Phaedra
didn’t know how they managed it, but somehow she, Jonathan, and the
footmen hefted her grandfather's inert bulk onto the floor of the
coach. She looked frantically about for some sign of James and
Gilly, and she saw them by the rear of the carriage, providing a
protective shield for her grandfather's escape, the dark-haired
Irishman with fists upraised, and the silk-clad James, the glint of
his sword as lethal as his expression.
Before Phaedra could protest, Jonathan thrust
her into the carriage after her grandfather. "No!" she cried out.
"We can't leave-" But her words were lost as Jonathan vaulted in
after her.
Gilly and James vanished from view as
Jonathan slammed the door and the coach lurched forward into the
night.
As her unconscious grandfather was carried
into Jonathan’s house, Phaedra refused to follow. "Damn it,
Jonathan. We've got to go back."
"Please, Phaedra." He caught her by the
wrist, pulling her toward the door of his town house. "Didn't I
tell you that I saw the marquis and Mr. Fitzhurst escaping just as
we drove away? Your cousin grabbed up a horse and pulled Varnais up
after him. Don't you believe me?"
"Aye, but..." Phaedra turned to peer down the
street, praying to see Gilly and James materialize out of the
darkness. How she wished she had seen them ride off herself. She
would not breathe easy until she was sure they were safe.
Feeling helpless, she followed Jonathan into
the house. While the doctor was summoned to attend Sawyer. Phaedra
was ushered into one of the spare bedchambers. She washed away the
blood that spattered her hands and changed into a drab gown
provided for her by Jonathan's housekeeper. She was overcome with
guilt. In the next room lay her grandfather, unconscious- perhaps
dying-and yet she could think only of Gilly and James.
She had all but decided she had to go back to
Covent Garden to search for them, even if she had to steal one of
Jonathan's horses to do it, when she heard a commotion down below.
The banging at the front door heralded someone's arrival.
Her heart constricted with both fear and
hope. She raced to the front door, thrusting aside Jonathan's
elderly servant. Phaedra choked back a cry of relief as Gilly
staggered across the threshold, but her relief quickly turned to
alarm when she realized he was supporting James.
"Don't be so damned stubborn, man," Gilly
said, gritting his teeth with the strain of his efforts. "Lean on
me before I am obliged to carry you."
"James." She spoke his name softly, her voice
constricting. But it was her cousin who glanced up at her, his face
caked with dirt and blood. They might have been two old friends,
staggering home after a drunken spree, if James's face had not been
so deathly pale.
"Gilly. What ..." she faltered.
"Now don't start to fret, Fae. We did just
grand until his lairdship broke his sword. Quite a dab with his
fists, he is. If it hadn't been for that blasted sailor pulling a
knife-"
"Knife!" she cried out as James's legs
threatened to buckle beneath him. She strove to support him on the
other side, but he managed to regain his balance and thrust her
aside. The sting of his rejection was lost in fear as she saw the
blood soaking his shoulder.
Tersely she summoned Jonathan's manservant,
and they managed to get James up to the spare bedchamber. The room
was austere, as sparsely furnished as all the other rooms in
Jonathan's house.
As James was eased onto the bed, his head
sagged against the pillow. He appeared to have lost consciousness,
and his face was so drained of color that Phaedra was paralyzed
with dread.
She forced herself into action, her fingers
working the buttons of his shirt. As she eased the fabric away from
his shoulder, his eyes fluttered open. He regarded her through an
agony-filled haze, then mumbled to Gilly, "Get her out of
here."
He tried to sit up, but Gilly forced him back
to the pillows. "Steady, man. You're better off with her care than
that of some doctors I've known."
James ground his teeth as she finished
peeling the shirt away from the wound, exposing an ugly jagged
gash.
Gilly pursed his lips. "He'll be needing a
bit of stitching, I'm thinking."
Phaedra nodded, barely able to speak past the
lump in her throat. "See if the doctor has finished with my
grandfather."
As Gilly left the room, Phaedra sought to
apply pressure to the wound to stop the bleeding. Although James no
longer tried to move, she felt his eyes upon her, their clear blue
depths beclouded with pain. When his lips parted in an effort to
speak, she hushed him.
"Don't try to talk. It will be all right."
She wished she could believe so herself. He had lost so much
blood.
"Phaedra." He managed to whisper the one
word, making it sound so sad, so full of regret, she felt as though
a knife had been thrust into her own breast.
It seemed an eternity before Gilly returned
with the harried surgeon. The short, bustling man shoved her aside,
but Phaedra continued to hover over James until she was satisfied
as to the man's skill. The doctor knew his trade, and he stitched
the wound with a brisk efficiency. From time to time, as James
flinched with pain, Phaedra felt the sting herself. His face had
drained as white as the bed sheets.
Phaedra pressed her hand to her lips, unable
even to utter words of prayer. When the doctor had finished, he
stepped away from the bed, rolling down his sleeves and snapping
out commands. "Keep him quiet. Watch for signs of infection, and
he'll do. He's young. He bears a far better chance of recovery than
the old man."
Phaedra tore her eyes from James. "Aye, my
grandfather. How is he?"
"Still unconscious. He suffers from shock as
much as the blow to the head." The doctor shook his head, giving
the impression that he bore not much hope for Weylin's
recovery.
The rest of the night passed with agonizing
slowness for Phaedra, who was torn between her fears for the man
she loved and her guilt over the pass to which her writings had
brought her grandfather. She paced from one bedside to the other,
where both men lay deathly still.
Despite his bulk, her grandfather looked
somehow shrunken upon the pillows, as though he had aged years. But
the timeworn lines of pain and grief upon James's brow appeared
smoothed, making him look younger. Phaedra had heard that it was
often thus with those who hovered on the brink of death.
Morning's light found her with eyes raw from
unshed tears, her senses giddy from exhaustion. When Gilly
discovered her upon her knees, being sick into the chamber pot, he
led her firmly to bed.
"Enough of this, Fae," he said sternly, "or
you will soon be the one needing the doctor. I will watch over
Lethington. And Jonathan has hardly left your grandfather's side.
You've got to sleep."
She tried to protest, but she had no notion
how exhausted she was until Gilly forced her back into the pillows.
She consented to a few moments' rest merely to appease him, never
intending to close her eyes.
But the next she knew, the soft shadows of
evening were drifting into the room. She heard someone moving about
beyond the bed-curtains and sat up with a frightened start. But it
was only Gilly, bringing her a cup of tea.
Gratefully, she gulped down the
honey-sweetened brew, then started to fling aside the covers to
rise. "How could you have let me sleep so long?" she asked
reproachfully.
"Because you needed it," he said, gently
restraining her. "You don't have to dash off in such a fret. Your
grandfather's improving. He's even got a bit of his color back. And
as for Lethington, he's resting easy as a babe in his mother's
arms."
Phaedra murmured a prayer of relief, although
she could not be content until she saw James for herself. Yet Gilly
refused to let her go until she choked down some toast. She ate
without tasting, for the first time noticing how haggard Gilly
looked himself. Deep rings had settled beneath his green eyes, and
a purple bruise swelled his cheek.
She touched his face. "I am so sorry, Gilly.
I hadn't thought. No one has been looking after you."
"No one has to." He gave a soft laugh. "I
came out of this fray far better than usual. See?" He leaned
forward, indicating his eye.
"For once no black eye, although ... " He
grinned widely,revealing a tooth missing in the back. "I think I
swallowed the blasted thing."
"You never really explained how you and James
escaped."
"Well, after your grandda's coach hied away,
I think everyone kind of forgot what the riot had been about. Most
were just fighting for the pure fun of it." Gilly's guilty
expression revealed that he had not been above such feelings
himself. "We were doing just fine until that scurvy sailor stuck
his knife into Lethington. By that time, the constables had
arrived, and the old fools only added to the confusion. I snatched
someone's horse and-"
He broke off with a grimace of disgust, "And
would you believe that damn fool James didn't want to take it? And
himself dripping blood all over the road? These English with their
law-abiding notions are so cursed impractical."
He concluded cheerfully, "Now I expect we'll
both be strung up for horse-" Gilly looked away with an embarrassed
flush. "Um ... sorry, Fae. A poor jest."
"It is all right," she said, giving her
cousin a fierce hug. "I promise I won't be turning the pair of you
rogues in." But when she became serious and tried to thank Gilly
for what he had done for James, he would have none of it.
"I could not let him die in the street.”
Gilly fixed his gaze upon her, his face growing stern. "And now, my
girl, you’ll be telling me what sort of mischief you were about
last night."
Although she could not meet his eyes, Phaedra
made no attempt to lie. "I was going to run away with James."
Gilly sucked in his breath. "You were just
fixing to disappear without one word to me-"
"Please, Gilly." She stopped him, unable to
bear the raw hurt that laced his voice. "I am sorry. Don't be
scolding me or upsetting yourself. I am going nowhere." She added
in accents of despair, "It is truly finished now."
She walked away from him to stare out at the
night settling over the rooftops of the city. "I am more likely to
find myself standing in the dock than on the deck of a ship. When
they come to arrest my grandfather-"
"No!" Gilly came up behind her to grip her
shoulders. "You're not making any foolish confessions, even if I
have to lock you up myself. I know you are feeling guilty. Let that
be your punishment. Jonathan has seen to a temporary stay of the
orders since it seems most unlikely the old man will ever rise from
his bed again."
Phaedra buried her face in her hands. "James
has destroyed my grandfather. And I helped him to do it."
"I don't know as how you think it is your
fault or his. If the old man had slunk quietly away until this was
sorted out, he would yet be unharmed."
Gilly tried to pull her into his arms, but
she shoved away from him. She was beyond any sort of comfort
now.
"My Goodfellow papers," she said. "I believe
that James took them and gave them to Jessym to incriminate my
grandfather."
Haltingly, Phaedra told Gilly all that had
transpired since he had left her at the Heath. She related James's
version of the murder and his suspicions that Sawyer Weylin had
participated in a conspiracy, first to destroy Julianna, then
silence James; and how she had tried to stop James from seeking
vengeance, an effort that had obviously failed.
"I thought to save James," she concluded
miserably. "But I was years too late."