Amelia’s lady’s maid rushed forward, skidding to a halt on the oak floor. Her eyes were wild, her skin gleaming with perspiration, her face flushed with exertion, as if she had run a great distance very quickly.
“It is… Her Ladyship,” the maid wheezed. “You must… come at once. She has… fallen from her horse.”
Lionel was on his feet in an instant. “What do you mean she has fallen from her horse? She does not have a horse.”
“She wanted… to learn how to ride,” Bea replied, fighting for every breath. “Mr. Wallace doesn’t know what happened. She was riding… Barley and… the mare spooked and bolted. Her Ladyship tried to cling on but… oh, she’s not waking up, My Lord. Please, come at once!”
A crushing weight struck Lionel in the chest as visions of his wife lying out in a field, pale and cold, flooded his head. He had seen bodies on the battlefield, he had held the hands of dead and dying men, and he could endure all of that, but if Amelia was lost to him—it would do what the war could not; it would kill him.
He took off, ignoring the pain in his injured leg as he ran for his own horse, praying all the while that she would be all right.I will accept my fate, I will not ask for more time or curse my destiny, as long as she is alive and well.
It was probably a foolish deal to make, but he made it anyway.
The ride back to the main manor of Westyork was relatively short, but it had never felt so long as Lionel urged his horse faster and faster along the woodland path. The sky had darkened overhead with dense clouds, threatening snow or heavy rain, like a terrible omen of what he was about to discover.
“I cannot lose you,” he growled, the wind whipping at his face. “I will not let you be the one who leaves first.”
He charged onward, finally breaking through the trees and onto the open plain of the grassy lawns. His horse did not let him down, stretching long legs into a swift stride, galloping toward the sandstone manor with every ounce of strength it possessed.
At the main entrance, Lionel had barely pulled his horse to a halt before he was leaping down and sprinting up the porch steps. Every step of the way, his leg ached and splintered with pain, but he would crawl to Amelia if he had to.
“Where is she?” he roared, exploding into the entrance hall.
Mrs. Scanlon was waiting for him. “She is in the drawing room, My Lord. The physician has been sent for, but Mrs. Bishop is tending to her in the meanwhile.”
The cook did not merely conjure delicious delicacies, but had a keen knowledge of medicinal herbs and how to brew concoctions and tonics to help with healing.
“Is she awake?” Lionel asked, catching his breath.
Mrs. Scanlon shook her head.
Without another word, Lionel strode toward the drawing room and through the door. He stopped abruptly at the sight before him, the breath abandoning his lungs as if a great hand had come down from the heavens and clenched his chest in its almighty grip.
Amelia lay on the settee, draped in blankets, looking so pale that Lionel feared he was too late—that she had already been taken from him.
There was a nasty bruise on the side of her head, and cuts and scrapes down her left arm, her dress torn in places.
I should have brought her to the Dower House with me.Guilt twisted into a tight knot in his stomach. By deciding to avoid her, he had caused this. And the worst irony was, he had wanted to avoid her because of last night, because of how…rightand good it had felt to fall asleep with her, holding her in his arms; and now, all he wanted to do was hold her to him and kiss her with everything he possessed.
“Who permitted this?” His words were pellets of ice, cutting through the air in the drawing room.
Mrs. Bishop looked up from where she knelt at Amelia’s side, obviously shocked by his tone of voice. “She asked to learn how to ride, My Lord. No one could deny her; she is the Lady of this household.” Her throat bobbed. “Mr. Wallace is beside himself. Barley has never bolted before. It was… a terrible accident, My Lord, but there is no one to blame.”
“I will be the judge of that,” Lionel rasped, fully aware that he was displacing his own guilt with anger.
He walked forward and Mrs. Bishop moved aside so he could take her place next to Amelia.
Ignoring the agony in his leg, he sank down to his knees and took hold of his wife’s cold, limp hand. He held it tightly, as though he could urge some of his warmth and vitality into her, simply by willing it enough. Searching her unmoving, pale face, he brought that delicate hand to his lips and kissed it over and over.
“Wake up, love,” he whispered, kissing her cold skin again. “You have to wake up. If you do, I promise I shall not scold you for wanting to learn to ride without me.”
She remained perfectly still, her plump lips slightly parted, prompting him to lean forward so that he might hear the breath escaping her mouth. The tickle of it caressed his cheek, offering him a modicum of relief.
It does not mean she is safe.He had seen enough head injuries during his years as a soldier to know that they were the most treacherous kind of wound. One moment, a man might seem perfectly well, wandering around, joking and jesting as always, only to be gone a few hours later.
“Amelia,” he urged. “Please, wake up.”
But as that ferocious winter sun burned in through the windows, bathing her in a molten light, she did not move or respond to his pleas.
