A Porcelain Viscountess by Hazel Linwood

Chapter 22

“No…No. Your Grace!” Phoebe scrambled down off Cantante so quickly that she slipped more than once in the damp mud to get her bearings. She ran over to Hayward’s side, dropping down to him and brushing the hair back from his forehead, trying to see his face clearly.

There was dried blood on his temple and his eyes were firmly closed.

“Your Grace, please wake up.” She pleaded with him as she prodded him in the shoulder, desperate to rouse him. He made no noise, none at all. With panic and a trembling hand, she lifted her fingers toward his neck, looking for a pulse. “Please, do not be dead. I do not know what I will do if you are.”

Her prayer was answered though and she found his heartbeat, strong and firm, without a flutter to it.

“Thank god,” she turned her eyes to the sky with the words before looking back down at him. “Your Grace, wake up!” she said insistently, desperately. There was a flicker in his face, something moving around his eyes that suggested he had heard her.

She looped her arm around his, knowing she needed to lift his face off the mud. Using her hold on him, she levered him round, until he was no longer on his side, but on his back, with his face turned up the sky. More muscles were twitching in his face.

Kneeling beside him, she leaned down and cupped his face, trying to brush back more of the hair that had been matted in the dry blood.

“Can you hear me?” she begged him for an answer, feeling how strained her voice was with fear.

“I…can hear you,” he whispered at last, his eyes flickering open. Seeing him awake did something to her. She felt tears of worry and relief prick her eyes.

“Can you move?” she asked as he blinked a few times before turning his eyes on her.

“I don’t know,” he said, then winced, trying to lift a hand to his head. She stopped his hand midair before he could touch the wound.

“Best not touch it,” she said, gently taking his hand and pulling it away. “What happened to you?”

“That is a story,” he said, his voice much weaker than normal.

“What are you doing out here alone?” she said with insistence and fear.

“I’m fine, Phoebe,” he assured her.

“You are not fine!” she said, looking around the trees and trying to think of a way to get him back to the house. She could leave him and ride back for help, but the thought of parting from his side was too much to bear. These woods were also so thick that she might struggle to trace her way back to his exact spot. “We need to get you to a physician.”

“Well, I won’t argue with that.”

“Is this really the time for jests?”

“I have to say something to lighten the mood,” he said softly. She looked down to see a small smile appear in his features before it faltered.

“Oh god,” she said, leaning toward him, unable to keep her hands off him as she took his cheek and tried to wipe some of the wet mud off his skin. “I thought you were…” she trailed off, not able to say the words.

“I know,” he said, holding her gaze. “For a minute last night when I tried to crawl through the mud, I thought I was too.” Those words made the tears begin to fall down her cheeks. One of his hands lifted high, reaching toward her, as he took hold of her cheek and brushed away the tears. She didn’t care he was smearing some of the mud across her face, she still leaned into his touch.

“I won’t let that happen,” she said, slowly changing her position beside him. “You’re going to stand, Your Grace. I’m going to get you back to the house somehow.”

“I can’t walk alone. I tried,” he said as he lowered his hand away.

“Then you will lean on me,” she said with meaning and moved to her feet before leaning down and taking his arm. “Take my arm and move to your feet, Your Grace.”

“It seems rather odd that in a situation like this, you are still calling me Your Grace,” he said, his eyebrows lifted.

“Are you dazed from the blow to your head?” Phoebe asked with a frown.

“You could say that,” he agreed as he took her arm. “Call me Francis, Phoebe.”

“But…I can’t.”

“You can,” he said, his voice still quiet and lacking its usual strength. “Call me Francis, please.”

“Very well,” she said, taking a tighter hold of his arm. “Francis, please try to stand.”

He did as she asked, using her arm to help lever himself up, but the moment he was standing he wobbled, completely unable to stay stable. Her arms went up around him, taking his waist to try and steady him. It was difficult, for he was much taller than her, but she managed to make it work. Until he looked down at her in surprise.

“What?” she asked.

“Any other time I would make a jest about this,” he said with a small smile.

“You really are dazed,” she said, finding she was unable to smile out of fear for him. “This way.” She released him with one arm, keeping the first around him and steering him through the woods, as he leaned across her shoulders. He stumbled a few times, before managing to get some kind of footing and heading with her toward the horse.

As she stopped beside Cantante, she felt Hayward shake his head.

“I can’t get up there.”

“Why not?” she asked. “Please?”

“If I get up there, I’ll just fall off,” he said, turning his gaze through the woods. “I am sorry, Phoebe. Can you support me walking through the woods?”

“Of course, I will,” she said, pulling him forward again. She left the horse where it was, expecting to come back for him later, but Cantante seemed to take the cue and followed behind them anyway, with his nose turned down in their direction.

The two of them made slow progress, both quiet with Phoebe occasionally struggling when Hayward faltered slightly on his feet.

“I thought I wouldn’t be found,” he said after a while. The words made Phoebe’s arm that was around him tighten.

“I have been so worried all morning,” she said, still feeling the tremble in her other hand, though she tried her best to hide it.

“Thank you, Phoebe.”

“What for?” she asked. The two of them came to a pause between the trees, both getting their balance. Hayward reached out and took hold of a tree nearby with his other hand, using that to steady his weight to and take some of the pressure off of Phoebe.

“For this,” he said, “all of it.”

“You can’t stop walking now,” she said, watching as he leaned off her completely and rested against the tree.

“It’s too hard.”

“No! You cannot stop here.” She followed him as he leaned on the tree, resting his back against it. “Your Grace, please –”

“No more Your Grace,” he said again, pleadingly as he turned his eyes on her. She reached up toward him, gently taking his chin and angling it down to her.

“Francis,” her use of his name made him breathe deeply within her grasp. “You have to keep moving.”

He said nothing for a minute though he leaned a little further down toward her.

“You may have saved me,” he said, whispering.

“Not if you don’t keep walking!” she said, yet he kept leaning down toward her anyway. She didn’t realize right away what he was going for, not until she felt his lips against hers in a gentle kiss.

All her objections faltered as she thought only of that kiss. It was different to the kiss the night before, just as soft, yet this one made her heart ache, for now he was in danger, and she stood the risk of not knowing such a kiss again.

“What was that for?” she asked as she parted from him a little, looking up and connecting their gaze.

“Just in case I don’t have the chance to do that another time,” he said with a sad smile. The words made her breath hitch.

“No, you will. You’re going to keep moving, we’ll get you to a physician, you will recover and…”

“And there will be more kisses?” he said with a dazed smile.

“Yes! Now please, move,” she begged of him. He nodded, then gritted his teeth as he moved off the tree, showing how painful it was for him to keep walking.

They retook their old position, with her arm around his waist and one of his across her shoulders, letting her steer him through the trees, with Cantante following on closely behind.

When they eventually got closer to the lawn, Phoebe felt a smile of hope, for she could see people in the distance. In the gardens, the Marquess was walking around, with Mrs Goodman close at his side, both deep in worried conversation.

“Mrs Goodman!” Phoebe shouted. “Lord Dodge!” Their heads whipped around in her direction, trying to see through the last of the trees. “We need a physician!” she called these last words as they stumbled out of the tree line together.

Lord Dodge was the first to move. He ran forward, leaving Mrs Goodman behind him as Hayward came into sight. Phoebe managed to get Hayward through the trees before together they faltered.

“No, Francis,” she pleaded with him to stand straight, but he dropped down at her side, onto his knees.

“God have mercy!” Lord Dodge’s words were spat with a kind of fury as he reached them and dropped down to his own knees in front of Hayward too, using the stance to analyze the wound. “What happened?”

“I was hit,” Hayward said. “I will tell you all later.” He veered a little to the side, clearly exhausted from their walk.

“Mrs Goodman!” Lord Dodge whipped his head round as he took Hayward’s shoulders, keeping him upwards. “Fetch a physician now!”

Mrs Goodman in the distance nodded and ran back toward the house.

“God, they hit you hard,” Lord Dodge said as he stood to his feet again, still with a hand on Hayward’s shoulder. Phoebe placed a hand on Hayward’s other shoulder, unable to stop touching him. He lifted a hand and placed it over hers on his shoulder, apparently needing that touch just as much. “Who was it?”

“I…don’t know. I can’t be sure.” Though Hayward looked up to Phoebe with the words.

“What?” she asked, looking at him.

“It may have been Lord Ridlington.”

* * *

The concussion was prolonged and painful. Francis was watched over by a physician and his assistant for some hours, repeatedly having to lift a chamber pot in order to be sick before the evening came round and his stomach eventually settled. He still had a headache, but the thumping pain had begun to retreat, leaving him to lay in the bed exhausted, with his head back on the pillows as Josiah stood by his bed, accosting the physician with lots of questions.

“How bad was it?” Josiah asked.

“He’ll live.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“It’s the question you wanted to ask,” the physician said knowingly. Francis smiled a little and reset himself on the pillows, lifting himself up a little higher.

“Francis, rest,” Josiah said, leaning toward him.

“I am, but I am not on my deathbed just yet,” he said with feeling, watching as his brother-in-law raised both eyebrows.

“You should see how pale you are before you say that.”

Francis ignored him and turned his eyes on the physician.

“How long until I am recovered?” he asked.

“Well, how are you feeling now, Your Grace?” the physician asked as he proffered a small glass bottle forward with a brown liquid in it. Francis screwed up his nose in rejection at first. “It is a tonic. For the pain.” Hearing that, Francis was only too happy to take the bottle and gulp down the liquid.

“I do not feel sick anymore,” Francis said, “but the headache is still there.”

“You will be dizzy for a day or so more I should think, and you may have a lingering headache for a few days afterwards, along with a swelling to your temple. You were lucky, Your Grace.”

“Lucky?” Francis asked, not feeling remotely lucky in his current situation.

“The blood was more from a cut to your skin than the impact the rock made. It could have been a lot worse,” the physician said uncomfortably, shifting between his feet.

“You mean I could be dead,” Francis said, aware that Josiah breathed in deeply at the words, standing on his other side.

“I am saying…you are lucky,” the physician said again, choosing his original wording. Francis nodded slowly then regretted it from the pain in his skull and held tightly to it. “I shall come back in the morning. Now, it is important that you get some rest tonight, Your Grace.” The physician passed the empty glass bottle into his assistant’s hands, and they packed up for the night, taking their medicine bag with them.

“Thank you,” Josiah said heartily to the two men as they stepped out of the door before closing it behind them. The moment they were gone, Josiah turned his eyes on Francis through the candlelight, with many questions lingering there. “Can you remember what happened to you?”

“Yes,” Francis said, knowing he would have to tell the tale some time. “First, some water.”

Josiah nodded and crossed the room, pulling out a carafe of water and pouring a glass that he dutifully passed to Francis. He sipped slowly, unwilling to push his stomach too far just yet, watching as Josiah moved a chair to his bedside and sat down.

“I am glad to see you are doing better,” Josiah said.

“Worried about me?”

“Yes, and I can give Lady Ridlington the good news,” Josiah said, sitting back in his chair. “She is so worried about you that she will not sit still. Diana has tried distracting her. Cards, music, books, conversation, anything! Nothing will do. She just continues to pace up and down, wringing her hands together, asking after you.”

Francis smiled a little, remembering the feeling that had swelled in his breast when he had opened his eyes to find Phoebe above him in the woods. She had saved him.

He knew how he felt about her now. It had been clear in that moment, so clear that when stumbling through the woods with her, he had been unable to stop himself from kissing her, needing that intimacy.

I am in love with her.

“Put her mind at rest, please,” Francis said, gesturing to the door.

“In a minute,” Josiah said, holding up a hand. “I first want to know why you were in the woods in the middle of the night.”

“Very well,” Francis said, placing the glass of water down on a bedside table and resting back on the pillows. “There was an intruder in the gardens. I went out to see who it was, started chasing them through the forest.”

“You said you thought it might have been Lord Ridlington,” Josiah said, his face stern. “Are you certain? It is one hell of an accusation to make.”

“No, I am not remotely certain,” Francis said, sighing. “I couldn’t see clearly. I could only see a man with his hair tied at the nape of his neck.”

“It is how he wears his hair, but it is not enough.”

“Agreed,” Francis said. “It could have just been a thief chancing his luck. Then he hit me when I got too close.”

Josiah shifted in his seat for a minute, scratching his face in obvious frustration before sitting forward in the seat.

“So, we do not know,” Josiah said in summary. “Without knowing who it was, we can’t really go to the constables either.”

“I know,” Francis agreed, lifting a hand to the bandage over his head the covered the cut. “There is one other thing know.”

“What is that?” Josiah asked.

“I was already down when the intruder raised the rock again. He was going to hit me another time, had it not been for a barn owl flying past that startled him.”

“Wait…hit you again? Then he…”

“Yes,” Francis said, struggling with the words. “I think they intended on killing me.”