“That will only delay our arrival at Dare’s,” Iona said dismissively. “We need to be with Lady Phoebe and Lady Dare, and I’m quite certain they won’t be at the school.”
“You can’t—”
“Oh, dear,” Isobel interrupted their protest with a groan. “Please, never tell my sister she can’t.”
Smiling grimly, Iona shouted at the driver. “Take us back to the viscount’s, please. Lady Dare will need help.” Iona slammed the door on their white knights and hung on so they couldn’t open it.
“You might want to help the police haul off the miscreants,” she called to her disconcerted rescuers as the carriage began to roll.
“Malcolms,” she heard one of the men say in disgust. “You can’t reason with them.”
“Ives is aMalcolm,” was the last grumble she heard as she settled back against the squabs.
The earl had made a rather public display of his unreasonable heritage this evening, Iona acknowledged. Although, as far as she was concerned, the Ives brawling was more unseemly than dodging unseen bullets and fists. Still, if these men had actually paid attention and understood what he’d done, it might affect any diplomatic career he envisioned. She had brought him nothing but scandal.
“What happened to Mortimer?” Isobel whispered, interrupting Iona’s gloomy thoughts. “Will he live?”
Thinking of the still figure abandoned on the street, Iona shook her head. “I don’t know. He tried to shoot Lord Ives, and I became angry. I may have killed him. I almost hope he’s dead if he has harmed Lord Ives and his friends.”
Isobel squeezed her hand. “Don’t. Let us believe they are all fine.”
If the hustle and bustle of the Dare household meant anything, theyweren’tall fine. The marquess’s speedy carriage had evidently arrived before they did.
A towering giant of a footman let them in. In the parlor, Lady Dare, garbed in one of her infamous saris, barked orders at young men twice her size. Dare’s medical students? The men rushed to do the lady’s bidding, joining the servants carrying water basins and bandages.
Lady Phoebe’s voice carried from down the corridor. What appeared to be a squad of urchins jumped and ran out the back door upon her command. There didn’t seem to be anything Iona could do. Wearing the uniform of a groom, with a cap on her short hair, she might pose as a servant. But she couldn’t abandon Isobel, who looked pale enough to faint again.
“Suggest to Lady Dare that you fetch Lord Ives’ Aunt Winifred. She’s a healer of sorts. She can sit with the patients while the others rest.” Iona maneuvered her sister toward the parlor while staying in the shadows.
“And what will you do?”
“Carry water basins and bandages.” Abandoning her twin, Iona scurried to the back stairs and the steady stream of servants hurrying up and down. No house had enough servants at times like this. These appeared to mostly be worried kitchen staff. Iona grabbed a tea tray cooling off on a table and hustled up the stairs with it.
Most of the activity seemed centered at the top of the central stairs, so she balanced the heavy tray down the upper hall in that direction.
She could hear Lord Dare’s voice shouting orders, so he, at least, was alive—and cursing. He was a physician. She wouldn’t worry about him.
Closer up, she could hear men consulting in quieter voices. The marquess? He, too, was a physician and reportedly a Malcolm healer. She eased nearer that conversation.
“Look for an exit wound. If there is none, you’ll have to cut into that hole and remove the bullet. Have they taught you that yet?”
Iona winced. But surely that meant either Phoebe’s husband or Gerard was still alive or they wouldn’t be operating.
A pair of gangly students abruptly emerged from the nearest chamber, off to dig into a bullet hole. Iona took a step back but they scarcely noticed her as they dashed the other way, past the door where Dare was shouting at his minions.
The marquess might recognize her, but she had to know—
Boldly, she carried the tray into the chamber he occupied.
Lord Ives lay half naked on the bed. She almost swallowed her tongue at the sight of broad, muscled shoulders and chest, except the blood everywhere had her swaying as badly as Isobel.
His valet—his own wrist heavily wrapped in bandages—attempted to remove his employer’s boots. A frightened maid dabbed at the blood running from the earl’s shoulder. The marquess alternately sponged blood from his patient’s hair to find the wound while attempting to staunch the bleeding gap revealed.
Iona had seen wounds sutured. She didn’t like watching, but she knew what it involved. She hardened her senses against the roiling odors of pain and fear. At least Gerard was unconscious, and it was only the servants she sensed. The marquess was oddly—odorless.
Setting the tray down, she washed in the basin by the table, picked up a roll of gauze, and made a thick compress.
Barely looking at her, the marquess nodded approval. “If you can press down on that part, I’ll start work on this end.”
