Till Next We Meet Read online

  Another question demanded an answer. Was Glynneth guilty of trying to harm her?

  As much as she tried, she couldn’t remember a time when Glynneth had been angry with her. Or an occasion when she had been anything but pleasant. Their relationship of companion and employer had altered over the months as they had become friends. At least, she’d thought they’d been friends.

  Had she been as guilty of poor judgment in Glynneth’s case as she had been in Harry’s?

  As the hours wore on, her concern sharpened. She tried to calm herself with the thought that Moncrief was more than capable of protecting himself. Besides, Scotland was no longer a heathenish place. This was not, after all, the border country, and there were no raids for cattle to bother them. Balidonough was too far south of the Highlands to be concerned with any lingering barbarity from that quarter.

  Catherine paced in Moncrief’s library until darkness came, then, too restless to eat or remain in the parlor with Hortensia, headed for the entranceway, uncaring if the servants knew she was concerned. Let them consider her besotted with the man. Perhaps she was.

  Wallace stopped her at the front door of Balidonough.

  “Your Grace,” he said gently.

  She blinked at him before realizing he was holding out her cloak.

  “It is cold outside, Your Grace.”

  She nodded, and allowed him to help her on with the garment.

  “Shall I send a footman with a lantern?”

  “Yes, please,” she said, almost reduced to tears by his kindness.

  Juliana would have said that he was merely doing what any conscientious servant would have done. But she saw the look in Wallace’s eyes and wanted to thank him for it.

  Evidently, she wasn’t the only one who was worried about Moncrief’s absence.

  “Do you think we should send a search party out looking for him, Wallace?”

  He considered it for a moment, and then shook his head. “If he is not back by morning, Your Grace, I would. But perhaps he has only been delayed. His horse might have become lame, or lost a shoe.”

  She nodded in acceptance of his words and his unspoken optimism that Moncrief was all right and had merely been detained. Why, then, did she have a feeling that something was desperately wrong? The answer came swiftly to her. The reason she was expecting the worst was because the worst had already happened to her once.

  Before Harry’s death, she’d never believed that he would die. Now she was well aware that Fate often visited the unwary.

  Dear God, how could she live if something had happened to Moncrief?

  That question caught her unawares. She opened the door and left Balidonough before Wallace could summon a footman. Standing in the darkness in front of the castle, she looked up at the bright pattern of stars in the chilled night.

  Moncrief was unlike Harry the way the sun is unlike a candle. True, they had both been in the Fusiliers, both had served in North America. They were both men. Beyond that, however, there were no similarities.

  A footman finally joined her, clad in a gray coat that reminded her of Moncrief’s. Had he worn it this morning? Surely he had, the weather had been cold and dismal with fog.

  She took a few steps down the gravel drive, then a few more, beginning to pace with lengthening strides through the promenade of trees. The leaves were thick on the gravel, muffling her steps as she repeated her journey over and over and over.

  Activity was what she needed, activity to banish the thought that something had happened. She would exhaust herself with pacing. Or begin to run, perhaps, through the corridors of Balidonough like a madwoman.

  No. She stopped and shook her head.

  Moncrief would come riding in any moment and be amused at her concern. And then, once he realized how terrified she was, he would dismount and hold her close.

  She began to walk down the drive, the footman following at a sedate distance, careful not to interrupt her reverie. She’d grown accustomed, at Balidonough, to the constant presence of servants, and she barely noticed him.

  Moncrief come home. If you do, I promise not to be so worried again. But come now so no one shall know how hysterical I’m becoming. I am very calm on the outside, but I am replaying the moment I opened the letter and read the news of Harry’s death.

  Who will write to tell me you’re gone?

  “Please,” she said, looking up at the stars, uncaring that the footman could hear her prayer. “Please God, please guard, and guide, and protect him, and keep him safe, and free from harm.”

  A faint mist began to fall as if God himself wept.

  She was chilled to the bone, but not from the weather. Her thoughts froze her. She kept walking because she couldn’t keep still.

  A quarter hour later, she heard a sound at the end of the drive.

  She walked through the gravel and told the footman to remain behind. She wanted to greet Moncrief on her own.

  “Where have you been?” she would say in wifely annoyance.

  Or perhaps she wouldn’t say anything all, just be pleased that he had returned home at last.

  But it wasn’t Moncrief after all, but a farm wagon driven by a heavily cloaked stranger.

  The footman stepped in front of her, holding out the lantern.

  “You there! If you’re on your way to Balidonough, deliveries are to the rear. The next road.”

  “I’ve got a delivery, all right,” the man said, his bull-doglike face turning toward the rear of the wagon. “But it’s the Duke of Lymond I’m bringing home, and I hope to God he’s still alive.”

  Catherine raced to the end of the wagon. Before anyone could stop her or comment on the impropriety of the Duchess of Lymond clambering about a farm wagon, she was at Moncrief’s side brushing the hay away from his face. He was covered with a quilt, but it was soaked through with his blood.

  Inside, she was shaking, but she cradled his head on her lap and smoothed back his hair with trembling fingers.

  “Drive slowly to Balidonough,” she told the wagon driver. “Get help,” she said to the footman, and watched the lantern bob as he raced down the drive.

  The journey seemed endless, but finally the wagon pulled into the drive and halted in front of Balidonough’s tall oak doors. A phalanx of footmen stood there, their faces mirroring almost identical expressions of worry. Someone had procured a door, and they held it at the end of the wagon bed for a makeshift stretcher while four footmen climbed up beside her.

  Wallace stood outside the wagon and leaned over the side, pressing his hand to her shoulder. “Your Grace,” he said gently. “Let them take him.”

  She nodded, tenderly placing Moncrief’s head on the hay and moving into the corner out of the way.

  “Be careful with him,” she said, a command that was hardly necessary.

  Once he was lying on the door, looking too much as if he rested on his bier, they carefully carried him up the stairs and to the Duke’s Chamber.

  “Have we someone practiced in healing at Balidonough?” she asked Wallace.

  “One of the house maids has a mother in the village who’s always treated our worst injuries,” he said.

  “Send for her,” Catherine said as she followed the foot men upstairs.

  Moncrief’s blood was on her. She glanced down at herself and felt a frisson of horror at the sight. Someone had injured him, and she would demand the knowledge from the wagon driver.

  And one other person.

  “Send Glynneth to me the moment she returns,” she called over the banister.

  She didn’t stay to see Wallace’s response, intent, instead, on reaching Moncrief’s side.

  The footmen gently settled Moncrief into the bed, and his valet leaned over to remove his boots. Catherine sat on the edge of the bed and peeled back the bloody shirt.

  Someone had shot him.

  She wanted to scream. Instead, she asked for a bandage. A square of folded linen was handed to her, and she pressed it against the still bleeding wound.<
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  “He looks to have lost a bit of blood,” an older woman said, startling her.

  Catherine turned to find a stranger standing there. She smiled, showing several gaps in her teeth.

  “I’m Annie,” she said, “and I’ve come to make him better. Unless, of course, you wish to do the task yourself.”

  Deep wrinkles radiated from the corners of her eyes all the way down to her lips, as if her entire face had been scrunched up and then released by a celestial sculptor. The woman was no taller than the middle of Catherine’s chest, but what she lacked in height she made up in force of personality. She folded her arms and tapped her foot on the wooden floor, her lips arranged in a wry smile that held, in Catherine’s mind, a tint of contempt about it.

  “Well? Are you going to let him bleed to death, which it looks like he’s halfway to doing? Or are you going to move aside so I can treat him?”

  “This is the healer you spoke about?” she asked Wallace, who stood in the doorway.

  “Yes, Your Grace. She was here tending to one of the maids.”

  “The poor girl burned herself yesterday. But I don’t suppose you’d be knowing anything about that?”

  When Catherine shook her head, Annie sighed loudly and nodded. “I didn’t think so. You type of people never seem to notice what’s below your noses. Or your stairs.”

  “Are you going to insult me or assist my husband?”

  “I’ve a mind to do both,” the woman said surprisingly. “But I suppose I should assist your husband first.”

  Catherine stood aside and watched as Annie cut away the shirt and gave instructions that Moncrief be stripped of his other clothing. One of the maids went to fetch some boiling water, another Annie’s bag, left behind in the kitchen. The third obeyed instructions to gather some herbs from the kitchen garden. Even Catherine was put to a task.

  “Sit over there,” Annie said, pointing to the opposite side of the bed. “Hold his hand. He’ll come to soon enough, and I think looking at your pretty face would give him more comfort than seeing mine.”

  Catherine did as she was told, pulling up a chair and placing her elbows on the mattress, gently holding Moncrief’s left hand between hers.

  “What are you going to do?”

  When the woman didn’t answer her, she asked again, more forcefully. She would’ve stood between Annie and Moncrief if the old woman hadn’t spoken, determined to protect him even from those who said they had his interests at heart. She was uncertain of Annie’s skill and didn’t want her practicing on Moncrief.

  “Don’t tell me you’re the weepy type,” Annie said. “I cannot abide weak aristocrats.”

  “I’m not an aristocrat. I’m a farmer’s daughter.”

  “Then you shouldn’t be so squeamish.”

  “What are you going to do?” she asked for the third time. “And don’t change the subject by insulting me again.”

  “I’m going to remove the bullet in his shoulder,” Annie said, retrieving a long and ominous-looking pair of tweezers from the bag the maid had brought to her side. “Since he’s not yet conscious, I can’t give him anything for the pain. It’s going to hurt like the devil. Let’s see how much help you can be, farmer’s daughter.”

  Catherine had nursed her father in his final days, had sat at his bedside as he lay dying. Numerous times she’d been called upon to help others or assist in a birthing, but she had never truly felt as useless as she did now, gently holding Moncrief’s hand and wishing to spare him from the pain that would surely come.

  Annie sprinkled something on his wound, a yellow, foul-smelling powder.

  “What is that?”

  “Are you going to ask me questions or let me do my work?” She ignored Catherine then, and spoke to one of the maids. “Hold the candle closer.” The young girl raised the taper so that Annie had better light for her task.

  Catherine was tempted to close her eyes, but she kept her gaze fixed on Moncrief’s face. At the first exploration of Annie’s tweezers, his eyes flew open.

  “It’s all right, Moncrief,” Catherine said. “I’m here.”

  His hand tightened on hers, and she wondered if he’d comprehended what she’d said. Had her words given him any comfort at all?

  She ran her hand up his arm, from his wrist to the inside of his elbow in a gesture that probably gave her more comfort than it did him. His skin felt so cool, unlike him. He was normally so warm, his skin heated.

  The footmen and the valet finished undressing him, and she swept the blanket up to his waist.

  Annie gave her a crooked grin. “He doesn’t have anything new, farmer’s daughter. I’ve seen it before.”

  Catherine only frowned in response, certain that she’d never met a more obnoxious woman. Even Juliana was more pleasant.

  Annie returned to her task. Moncrief’s eyes remained closed, and Catherine rested her cheek against his knuckles and prayed that it would be over soon. A lesser man might have cried aloud. Moncrief, however, remained silent, the only sign of his pain the tightening of his hand on hers.

  “I was worried about you,” she said, talking to him as if they sat in the parlor. He opened his eyes and looked at her, his gaze clouded.

  He tried to say something, but she touched her finger to his lips.

  “You’re here now, and that’s all that matters.”

  He closed his eyes again, just as Annie stood, clutching a fragment of metal in her long tweezers. “I have it.”

  Moncrief was ashen, and growing colder. She pulled another blanket up to his stomach.

  “Do you want to sew him closed yourself?”

  The idea of inflicting injury on Moncrief was more than she could bear.

  “No. Finish it.”

  “I’m not a seamstress,” Annie said. “He’ll no doubt have a scar.” She retrieved a threaded needle from her pack and began to stitch Moncrief’s injury closed as if he were no more than a shirt to be mended.

  Catherine looked away, and when Annie said something to ridicule her squeamishness, she didn’t deny it. His pain felt as if it were her pain, an empathy she didn’t question. But she never let go of his hand and occasionally stroked his arm with her fingers, feeling it necessary to touch him, to reassure him she was there, and to assure herself that he was safe.

  Peter was suddenly at the door, pushing through the maids and footmen congregated there. He’d been given command of the stables in the last month, and she hadn’t seen him often. When she had, he and Moncrief had been in conversation. Sometimes they had laughed together in the courtyard, and the sound of it had buoyed her spirits. Moncrief had sounded younger, no older than Peter himself.

  Now he thrust a leather case toward Catherine.

  “There’s a powder in there we used on all bullet wounds,” he said. “It worked in Quebec, Your Grace. It would work here.”

  She opened the case and found a selection of small apothecary jars, each one labeled in a bold and distinctive handwriting.

  “It’s the one called bullet powder, Your Grace. The colonel marked it himself.”

  She withdrew the jar and handed it to Annie.

  The healer waved a hand dismissively. “If you’ve a mind to use that, do so. But if you do, you can bandage him yourself.”

  Catherine turned to Wallace. “Escort this woman from Balidonough,” she said. “Is there no other person with medical skill in the whole of Balidonough? No one we can send for, someone a little gentler and more compassionate?”

  Wallace flushed. “I will attempt to find one, Your Grace.”

  Catherine nodded. “See that you do so, Wallace.” She glanced at Annie, who was scowling at her. “I will not have you near my husband.”

  “You’ll call me again, farmer’s daughter. I may not come.”

  Catherine stood and waited until the woman had made it through the room and out the door.

  She turned to the servants who were still congregating at the end of the bed.

  “Thank you for your co
ncern, but it would be better to give Moncrief some privacy now.”

  A young maid turned at the door and curtsied, glancing back at Moncrief. “He’s not just the Duke of Lymond, Your Grace,” she said, dabbing at her eyes with her apron. “He’s our duke.”

  Catherine nodded, understanding.

  “I promise I will keep you informed of his condition.” Finally, they left, until she and Peter were alone with Moncrief.

  She went to the right side of the bed and leaned over Moncrief. The wound was stitched haphazardly, just as Annie had threatened, but it looked clean.

  “I’m to sprinkle it on the wound?” she asked Peter.

  He came and stood beside her. “Yes, Your Grace, liberally. Then bandage the wound.” He withdrew a rolled bandage from the back of the leather case and handed it to her.

  Gently, so as not to cause him any more discomfort, Catherine used the bullet powder and rolled the bandage around his shoulder and upper arm before carefully tying it off.

  “I wish we could give him something for the pain,” she said. “But I have no laudanum.”

  “I doubt he’d take it, Your Grace. He never did the other times he was wounded.”

  “Other times?”

  She’d never seen scars on Moncrief, but then she’d never looked for any, either, being so overwhelmed by the sheer beauty of the man.

  Peter only nodded, no doubt taking pity on her ignorance. “His leg, Your Grace, and he took a musket ball to the chest. We didn’t think he’d live through that one.”

  Catherine pulled the sheet up beneath Moncrief’s neck and covered him with the blanket. He was beginning to tremble, but she had seen other people do that in the aftermath of an injury.

  She sat on the side of the bed and watched him for some time, feeling inadequate and helpless. Finally, she held his hand, brushing her fingers across the top of it.

  “I’ll be leaving you now, Your Grace,” Peter said. “Is there anything I can fetch for you?”

  She wanted a friendly voice, a hug, a tender reassurance that Moncrief was going to be well, that he would survive this wound and that infection would not lessen his chances of doing so. She wanted answers to her questions. Who had shot her husband? Where was Glynneth?