“Please let me see my patient.” The doctor pushed forward and set his bag on the floor.
Leath’s arms firmed around Eleanor. “Help her. I beg of you, help her.”
“She was shot?” The man with a strong Dublin accent leaned down.
“Yes.”
“Please shift out of the way, my lord, to permit an examination.”
Leath didn’t budge. His deepest impulse was never to let her go. Illogically, he remained convinced that his touch could keep her alive.
Sedgemoor’s grip on his shoulder tightened. “Come on, old man. Let Dr. Manion do his work.”
Hazily he glanced at the other men. Anything outside the reality of Eleanor lying unresponsive in his arms held no significance.
“Lord Leath?” The doctor’s voice was calm.
“She can’t die,” Leath said stupidly. “You can’t let her die.”
The doctor maneuvered around Leath to lift Eleanor’s wrist. For a yawning chasm of a moment, he paused. “Her pulse is strong.”
Uncomprehendingly Leath stared at the doctor. Then, gloriously, he felt faint movement in the body pressed to his chest. Against his heart, Eleanor made a muffled protest.
“Eleanor?” he choked out.
“My lord, I must insist you stand aside,” the doctor said. Eleanor’s lashes fluttered almost imperceptibly.
“Sweetheart? Say something, for God’s sake.” When her lips parted on a breath, he felt like an ax struck him. He’d been so convinced that Greengrass had killed her. “Darling?”
Her eyelids moved. He sucked in his first unfettered breath since he’d watched her fall in that nightmare moment outside. He couldn’t doubt that she was alive. But still he needed to hear her speak.
Heavy eyelids hesitantly lifted over dazed amber eyes. “James?”
“Thank God,” Sedgemoor murmured.
A frown crossed her face. “My head hurts.”
“Oh, my love,” Leath said in a cracked voice and kissed her with all the reverence and gratitude in his heart. Gently, softly. Her response was a ghost of her usual ardor, but it barreled through him like a tidal wave. He’d thought that she’d never kiss him again.
“You’re… you’re crying,” she whispered jerkily. She raised an unsteady hand to his cheek. “Why are you crying?”
“I thought I’d lost you,” he confessed.
Unbelievably, amusement quirked her lips. “Don’t be silly. You’ll never lose me. I love you.”
With that declaration of feelings too new for him to accept as his due, she closed her eyes. “No, don’t go. Eleanor!”
He fought as Sedgemoor and Hillbrook dragged him out of the way. “I can’t leave her.”
“Give the man room,” Hillbrook said impatiently, gripping one arm.
“I need hot water,” Dr. Manion said without turning.
“I’ll arrange it,” Sedgemoor said and disappeared out the door.
Panting, Leath kept his attention on Eleanor. Her skin was ashen, but in some imperceptible way, she now seemed unmistakably alive.
“Doctor?” he asked. Hillbrook must have realized that reason prevailed and released him.