He yanked off his coat and waistcoat and ripped off his neckcloth and shirt. He bared her shoulder, folded his shirt into a thick pad and tied it on with his neckcloth.
He looked around. The groom, Kirk, stood holding the reins of Cal’s and his own horse. Cal waved him closer. “I’m going to take Lady Ashendon up with me.”
“Wouldn’t a carriage—” Rose began.
“No time.” Cal mounted his horse. “Lift her up to me, Kirk. Gently.” He held out his arms.
Kirk bent and carefully scooped Emm up, then placed her in Cal’s arms. She was as pale as paper. Cal’s heart thudded painfully in his chest. She wasn’t dead, and she wasn’t going to be, not if he had any say in the matter. Not until next century. Or longer.
“Rose, George, you two ride ahead and let Burton know what’s happened. Tell him to fetch a doctor—one who understands bullet wounds.”
The girls galloped off.
“Lily, I want you to walk your horse beside me and help me. If she needs anything, if my horse stumbles... my hands are full.”
“I’ll do whatever is needed, Cal, don’t worry.”
“And, Kirk—”
“I’ll stay with this fellow’s body, m’lord,” Kirk said. “Off ye go.”
Lily took his horse’s reins and led them toward the park exit. A part of Cal wished they could rideventre a terreand get to a doctor as soon as possible, but of course they had to walk so as not to jolt Emm’s wound any more than necessary. He cradled her against his bare chest. Her stillness, her pallor frightened him.
He told himself she would recover. A shoulder wound wasn’t so bad. He’d had two himself.
But this wasEmm. His wife. The convenient wife he was now sure he couldn’t live without. Or wouldn’t want to.
I love you, Cal.The first time she’d ever said it.
Why? Because she thought she was dying?
Joe Gimble had asked Cal to tell his wife he loved her. Was that what people said when they thought they were dying?
He gazed down at the face of his pale, frighteningly still wife. Maybe it took death, or the threat of death, to jolt people into the realization that they loved.
Because in that moment when he’d ripped open her coat and saw her awash in her own blood, it had struck him like a thunderbolt: that he loved her, loved this dear, precious woman with every part of his body and soul.
And that he’d never told her.
He bent and put his mouth to her ear. “I love you, Emm,” he said. “Do you hear me? I love you. You’re going to be all right—and I love you.”
Lily looked over and said gently, “She knows you do, Cal.”
“How?” he said, anguished. “How could she know? I’ve never told her, Lil, never once.” He hadn’t even realized he did—let alone how much—until now.
His little sister smiled. “We know you love Emm, Cal. And if we do, she must. And when she wakes up, you can tell her.”
Oh, God, he hoped so.
***
“Did I happen to mention that I love you?”
Emm, propped up against her pillows in bed, smiled. “Only about a dozen times. And that was just this morning. I think it was more like fifty yesterday.”
Cal bent and kissed her gently. “Just so you remember.”
It was three days since she’d been wounded. There was no sign of fever or infection; she was making a good recovery. The doctor who’d attended her was physician and surgeon both—a rare combination—and had attended troops in the war. He’d extracted the bullet skillfully and had given Emm laudanum for the pain and some powders for the fever that usually followed bullet wounds.
