Felton dove left as the gun blasted. He crashed into barrels and crates, then whirled just as Bowles came charging at him. Hands circled his neck and cut off air, but Felton rammed his knee into the man’s stomach and flew to the ground with him.
He smashed a fist into his uncle’s nose, heard the cartilage crack, then seized his neck.God, help me.He was killing. He knew that.
Bowles kicked. Spittle flew from his lips. His blue lips. Veins bulged, and his arms flailed, and his eyes rolled back with guttural wheezes.
“Enough, Northwood.” A voice behind him. Lord Gillingham, but he couldn’t listen. He couldn’t stop. He wouldn’t stop. Not when Bowles had cut Eliza and hurt her and taken her and nearly killed her and—
“Northwood.” Hands grabbed his shoulder, prying him back. “Northwood, it is over. Men, go and tie Mr. Bowles with the rest of them.”
Felton stumbled away from the limp body beneath him. He staggered to Eliza, pulled her down to her knees with him, and grabbed her stoic, colorless face. “Eliza.” Breathing hard. Wiping away the blood. Crying as he pushed back her wet, ragged hair.
Her eyes said a hundred things to him. Things he didn’t understand. Maybe would never understand, so great was the horror of them. “Eliza, you are all right. Hear me?”
Her head lolled forward. “Felton …”
He swallowed her against him, soaked her blood into his clothes, and willed his body to take away the hurt. “Do not say anything. Do not talk.”
Lord Gillingham bent next to them. “Northwood, is she—”
“She is alive.”
“You are bleeding too.”
“A mere flesh wound. Get those blankets.” He stood with her in his arms and carried her to one of the makeshift beds, and Lord Gillingham draped a woolen blanket across her wet figure.Alive.He ran the word through his brain a hundred times, but it didn’t make sense.
Because her eyes were closed. She was motionless.
If she looked anything in the world, it was dead.
“He has been there too long.” Felton stared at the bedchamber door at Monbury Manor, the candlelight and his shadow looming across the oak paneling. Tension stitched across his shoulders. “Why the deuce should it take this long?”
From beside him, Lord Gillingham finally scooted an armorial hall chair to himself and sat. He bent his head and combed a hand through his hair. “You are restless, Northwood. Sit down.”
“I cannot sit.”
“The doctor said she shall live.”
“Then why is he taking so long?”
“Perhaps because there were many—” He cleared his throat and stood again. “I feel as if I should have been able to stop all this somehow. That I should have been able to protect her from such an agony.”
The same guilt thronged Felton.
“But just as when my wife was in danger, I did not.” Tears scratched his voice. “Heaven knows, I have failed them both.”
“That is untrue, my lord.”
“Is it?”
“If anyone should have realized what was happening”—he forced back the wave of sickness and looked away—“it should have been me.” More guilt. “There are things I have not told you. Things about my father and the night your wife was killed.”
“Take off that coat.”
“My lord—”
“Take it off, Northwood. Flesh wound or no, I have the right to stop the bleeding before it drips upon my carpet.”
“You are not listening to me.”
