‘But only his afternoon you told me you hadn’t loved Madeleine, that you didn’t know how to love…’
‘No, I did not love her, I did not know how to love her. But I do love you. I cannot explain what this is that I feel in any other way. And you’ve sensed it and that is why you can’t marry me. I understand that. I am damned if I know how to persuade you to risk it again. I could say that we are friends, that we are lovers, that I will not impose my feelings on you or pressure you to feel things, say things, that you do not mean, but I am not good at begging, Sophie. I don’t think I am very convincing and, even if I were, how can I try and force you into this?’
‘Is that all?’ she managed to ask, clenching her fingers around the arms of the chair so she did not throw herself into his arms. He loves me.
‘Yes. Pathetic, isn’t it? I would die for you, Sophie.’
‘I know, because you almost did, just now. And it is not pathetic, it is brave and honest of you and you trusted me to listen to you and understand. Cal, I am sorry, but…’
Of course she was sorry. Sophie was sweet and kind and they were friends. Of course she would be sorry he had got them both into this mess. The pain in his shoulder was almost intolerable and yet focussing on enduring it was the only thing that was stopping him gabbling, making an utter, embarrassing fool of himself.
‘I am sorry, but I have gone back on our agreement too.’
She was smiling at him and for a moment he could make no sense of her words, what they meant. ‘But you… Sophie, are you saying that you are in love with me?’ He was feverish, hallucinating, fantasising what he wanted so badly. ‘And that is why you will not marry me?’
‘Yes. I didn’t think it would be fair to tell you and I could not bear to live with you and not tell you. But, if you love me and I love you, then it all becomes perfectly simple.’ She stood and came to the bedside, perched carefully beside him so as not to dip the bed. ‘If, that is, you can bear to be so utterly unfashionable as to love your wife.’
‘Your parents manage it without getting into the mess that mine did.’ His fingers found hers and twined into them. ‘We will have to be careful and not set a bad example to impressionable young people.’
‘There is that,’ she agreed, solemnly. ‘Cal, does your shoulder hurt very much?’
‘It certainly feels as though someone has propelled a lump of lead through a considerable thickness of flesh and blood, yes. It would take a lot of the pain away of you kissed me.’
‘The doctor would tell me not to get you over-excited.’ She stood up, clearly trying to work out how to kiss a prone man without putting any pressure on his body.
‘The doctor is not here.’
‘True.’ Sophie bent over, put her hands either side of Cal’s head on the headboard and bent to kiss him. It was agony on the back, an equal agony not to be able to touch him, but so sweet, so different, to feel his lips under hers and not above. She tasted blood where he must have bitten his lip and eased back, returning when he grumbled in protest.
When the knock on the door came she jumped so much she almost lost her grip and collapsed on top of him. She managed to get herself upright just as Flynn’s head appeared round the door. ‘Doctor Harknett is here.’
Hunt brought him in, a tall, thin, serious-looking man who inspired confidence with his very lack of bedside manner. ‘Yes, well, we will need to have a thorough look.’
Sophie felt the room begin to close in again.
‘The young lady will be leaving.’ It was not a question.
‘She will,’ Cal said with a look that was a caress. ‘That bloodstained gown is making me feel positively faint.’
Hunt snorted, the doctor raised one eyebrow, Flynn went to open the door into Cal’s sitting room for her.
‘I will go and change,’ Sophie
said with dignity, swept out, closed the door with a firm click of the lock and then eased it open half an inch. She sat down in a chair as close to the door as possible and waited. Cal had taken that bullet for her. She could not take his pain away, but she owed it to him to share it.
There was some conversation, a grunt, silence, a gasp that brought the hairs up on the nape of her neck, several words that she was grateful she did not know the meaning of and then the doctor said, quite clearly, ‘Brace yourself, Your Grace. Mr Hunt, if you can just hold him – ’
Chapter Twenty Four - Where the Duke and Duchess Vanish
The carpet, when she came to herself and sat up, was really quite soft and deep. Sophie climbed shakily back into the chair and listened.
‘Rest now, Your Grace. That is quite clean, there is no danger of any more bleeding once it settles down. There will be some fever in the next twenty four hours, but that will be due to blood loss. You know what to look for in the way of infection, I assume? Excellent. I will call again tomorrow. Drink a lot of water, no alcohol.’
Sophie tiptoed back to her bed chamber and tugged the bell pull. Cal was going to be all right. Cal loved her. Cal loves me.
Mary came in, closely followed by her mother. They exclaimed at the state of her gown, helped her undress and her mother insisted on wrapping her in a blanket while Mary ran a hot bath.
‘You will be in shock. What a dreadful, dreadful thing to happen. Why, dear Cal might have been killed.’