be up the steps to the house next and she had very little wherewithal with which to protect the girls.
Could she open the window further and chance shouting out their positions? What if she threw something out to distract the men, to draw their fire this way whilst Lucas ran? The small solid wooden table next to her, for instance. She measured the width of the glass and, surmising it to fit, ordered Hope and Charity behind the sofa on the other side of the room.
Then she threw the piece of furniture with all her might, simply heaving it towards the middle of the glass and letting it go.
The shots came almost instantly, a wide round of them right at the window, pinging off its frame though one veered from the trajectory.
She felt it as a pinch, a tiny niggling ache that blossomed into a larger one, the red circle small at first and then spreading on the white of her dress. Breathing out, she sat down, her legs giving way to a dizzy swirling unbalance.
She heard the girl’s screams through the numbing coldness and tried to take their hands, tried to reassure them, tried to tell them to stay down behind the sofa and out of harm’s way.
But she couldn’t because the dark and deepening blackness was leaching light from her world.
And then she knew nothing.
Luc was running, guns blazing past the hawthorn and around the corner, two men falling as he turned and another backing away.
Daniel Davenport. Today he looked nothing like the man from the drawing rooms of London and certainly nothing like the English lord who had held Elizabeth under his spell. No, today the fear in his eyes was all encompassing as the gun he cocked at Luc clicked empty.
His wife’s lover.
Stuart’s tormentor.
Retribution.
Pull the trigger and that would be the end of it. But he couldn’t. Not in cold blood. Not with a man who looked him straight in the eyes.
‘Kill him.’ Stephen’s words from the ground were said through pain and anger.
Lucas shook his head as Davenport spat at him, egging on a different and easier ending. But Luc merely smiled.
‘Ruination to a man like this can be worse than death. When Society hears of your assault on my family home, you will never be welcomed in it again.’
The redness of Lillian’s cousin’s pallor faded to white, but Luc had more pressing matters to attend to. Giving the gun to Stephen and the gathering Woodruff servants he told them to lock Daniel up in the storeroom before he ran for the house and for Lilly, with every breath he took, praying she had not been hit by a stray bullet, though the girls’ screams suggested otherwise.
‘Lilly?’ Her name called from a distance, a tunnel of blurred colour and a face close.
“Lilly.’ He tried again and this time Lucas stood above her, dressed in the clothes he had been wearing when she…fell asleep? That wasn’t right. It was nighttime, and her curtains were shut, a lamp throwing the room into shadow.
‘Thirsty.’ She could barely croak out the word and when water was brought to her lips she tried to take big sips, but he drew it back.
‘The doctor said just a little water and often.’ Putting the glass on the table, he stepped back.
‘Girls?’
‘Are asleep after I promised them they could come to see you in the morning. Charity is chattering now even more than Hope. She sent you “a thousand kisses.”’
‘And Lord Hawkhurst?’
‘Stephen is in the room next door with a bandaged head and two missing teeth.’
She nodded, the hugeness of all that had happened too great to contemplate right now. Lucas did not touch her, did not take her hand, did not sit on the empty chair beside the bed or fluff up her pillows. He looked angry, distracted and worried all at the same time.
Swallowing, the dryness in her mouth abated slightly from the liquid, but she did not even want to know what had happened to her until she could cope.
Closing her eyes, she slept.
He was still there the next time she awoke. He slumbered on a chair, one leg balanced on a leather stool with a picture of an elephant engraved into it. His hands were crossed over his midriff, his wedding band of gold easily seen, his chin shadowed by the stubble of a day’s growth of beard.
As if he knew that she watched him, his eyes opened. Sleepily at first and then with great alarm.
‘Lilly?’ His word was loud, quick, the sound of desperate horror and then relief when she blinked. ‘I thought you were…’
He did not finish the sentence, but she knew exactly what he meant.
‘I’m that ill?’
‘No.’ He leant forward now, the bulk of his shape shading out the lamp behind him so that she could no longer really see his face.
‘How long have I been asleep?’
He looked at his watch. ‘Twelve hours.’
She wriggled her toes and her fingers and tried to lift her head.
‘I was shot?
‘The bullet passed through the flesh on your side. Another inch and…’ He didn’t finish.
‘I found Daniel’s name beneath that of your wife’s…’ She closed her eyes tight, the tears she wanted to hold back squeezing past and running down her cheeks into her hair. ‘You risked everything for revenge?’
The look on his face was strained and tired, guilt marking gold eyes as plain as day. Turning away as he hesitated, she burrowed into her pillow, not wishing to hear anything else that he might say.
Hope and Charity came with Mrs Wilson in the late morning, the steaming porridge and freshly made bread they brought whetting an appetite that she had thought might never return again.
She could eat, she could smile, she could hold the girls’ hands and pretend to them that all the violence and horror of yesterday was quite an adventure.
She did not ask where her husband was or where her cousin was. She did not dwell on what had happened to the bodies of those who had come to Woodruff with Daniel, or that when Lucas had aimed he had not meant to merely wound. He was a soldier trained for other things!
What else he was she did not know, did not want to know. He had lied and lied and lied and even for the time she had lain with him soft in the daylight with all the hours in the world to tell the truth, still he had not.
A dangerous man, a stranger, a husband who had risked his home for something that she didn’t understand. She would not forgive him this. Ever.
She unclenched her fist as she saw Charity looking at her whitened knuckles and smiled.
She had to leave this place now, even with her side aching and the tiredness pulling her down.
‘Would you both like to come with me today to see my house? My room has many toys that you might enjoy.’
The children’s governess frowned deeply, but kept her counsel and for that at least Lilly was grateful.
The girls’ quick smiles and nodding heads were much easier to deal with.
They reached Fairley Manor by lunchtime and her father was waiting for the coach with her aunt even as it came to a halt.
‘Lillian.’ He folded her in his arms and held her there, his familiar strength and honesty a buffer against all that had transpired.
After a moment she pulled away and introduced the girls, pleased when her father asked one of the servants to take the children to the kitchens and give them a ‘treat’.
In his library he closed the door and helped her to a seat. When Lillian caught her reflection in the mirror, she was astonished by her paleness and could see why her father looked as worried as he did.
Pride stopped her saying anything. Ridiculous pride, if the truth be known, given that the story must be all over the countryside by now, though her father did not seem to have heard the gossip. For that she was glad.
