“Wound? What wound?”
The two women gazed at him in astonishment.
“You didn’t know?” Elvina neared the bedside with a cloth and a bottle of something in her hand.
He shook his head. “What wound?” he asked again.
“Colly, when we came to the Pig and Peacock, you had a very high fever.” Ivy spoke calmly. “We didn’t know why, at first, until we moved you and found a wound just beneath your armpit.”
He shifted. “So that’s why it’s sore there.”
“Indeed,” said Elvina, gently touching it with the cloth. “But I’m happy to say the infection has cleared and it’s showing all the signs of healing up nicely.”
“I still don’t understand,” he frowned. “Was I kicked by a horse or something?”
Ivy took one of his hands. “Colly, there’s no easy way to say this. You were stabbed.”
He knew his mouth had opened, but not a single word came out. For one of the few times in his life, he had been rendered speechless.
*~~*~~*
Ivy looked at her husband, sitting there, staring back at her with an expression on his face that made her want to laugh. She didn’t, of course, because that would have been inappropriate, but she could understand the shock and confusion that made him look as if he’d just been slapped with a dead fish.
“What?” The word was a strangled croak. “Stabbed?” He turned to look at Elvina. “Me?”
“There’s no mistake about it, your Grace. You have a wound here, and I’m sure you’re aware of it, since I’m touching it. It was infected and caused your fever, but luckily I was able to draw most of the infection with a poultice. It’s healing, but will doubtless leave a scar.” She raised her eyes from her task. “You were, I have to confess, blessedly lucky. A couple more inches inward and the damage would have been severe…if not fatal.”
He swallowed, his throat moving as he gulped.
“So our question to you, obviously, is whether you can tell us how this happened.” Ivy squeezed his hand. “Who stabbed you, Colly?”
He stared at her, still shocked to his core. “I haven’t the faintest idea.”
She sighed. “All right. Let’s take a logical step backwards. What is the last thing you recall while you were away?”
Elvina straightened the pillows. “You may lie back a little now, your Grace.” She put her cloths aside and tidied his nightshirt.
He obeyed her with a sigh. “Thank you,” he shot her a quick smile. “I’m in your debt.”
She smiled back. “Let’s find out who did this to you. Can you answer Ivy’s question…what do you recall of your stay at the Pig and Peacock?”
He huffed out a breath. “I liked the name,” he said thoughtfully. “It had a certain charm and it looked clean. And it was only a mile or so from a friend of mine who had let me know he was interested in helping me find out about those rumours. Sir Arthur Brean.” He glanced at Ivy. “Actually, he was a friend of my father’s, but he’d always been a kind chap, and I knew he lived close enough to the troubles that he’d have a better grasp of the situation.”
“And were you able to contact him?” Ivy tilted her head to one side.
“I was,” he replied. “And it was good to see him. He doesn’t get out much, but his man of business was very well informed and gave me some letters of introduction to others who knew even more.” His face clouded. “It’s very worrying.” His eyes darkened. “Many are suffering, families especially are in turmoil, and those who should be solving the situation are doing the opposite. They’re creating it.”
“We’ve heard mutterings to that effect,” nodded Ivy.
“There will have to be parliamentary reform,” he continued. “It’s inevitable, I think. But as with any major change, there are problems and disagreements. And under these particular circumstances, violence isn’t out of the question, although nobody I spoke to advocated it.”
“Troubling times indeed,” she agreed. “Did any of your contacts suggest a source for the whispers about the Maidenbrooke money, Colly?”
“Funny thing about that,” his lips turned down into a grimace. “Nobody had even heard of them up there.”
“What?” Ivy knew she screeched, but she couldn’t hold it back. “Nobody knew? But…damn it…the whispers were loud and clear here in London. Horridly so.”
He nodded, leaning his head back onto the pillows with a sigh. “I know. It is a puzzle. So instead of seeking information about a source that apparently didn’t exist, I thought perhaps there might be someone with a link to me or the Maidenbrooke name living in the north. Someone with a grudge perhaps… He would have to be familiar with my family, and maybe my investments.” He frowned in thought. “But the money end seems to be a very thin and remote possibility.”
“Did you have any success finding such a person?”
“Not immediately,” he answered, glancing at Ivy. “But I received a note from someone Sir Arthur knew. A local landowner. Apparently he’d run into some unpleasant comments recently, not about myself, but about the situation in general in reference to the titled aristocracy allegedly taking their ease in their London luxury, which, I was given to understand was a direct quote.”
“I don’t understand,” said Elvina. “It sounds most confusing.”
“My reaction as well, Mrs Ashrayn,” replied the Duke. “But understand that up north, matters are quite different to here in London. Conversations at the tap can take on lives of their own. A half-heard discussion can become a full-blown fact in no time.”
“Not that different, Colly,” observed Ivy ruefully.
He snorted. “I suppose you’re right. But here it’s all about some salacious scandal. Up there, it’s politics, life, and death.”
She nodded.
