LITMIR.BIZ

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is from Mrs Bassingstoke, my lord, and there is an address in Regent Street. It says, “I have been in an accident. Hurt. I need you.”’

      Taris came up from his seat before the missive was even finished and called out for his butler.

      ‘Morton. Get Berry to bring the carriage around immediately. I need to be in Regent Street.’

      ‘But, my lord…your lunch.’ Bates’s voice petered out as Taris picked up his cane and strode from the room.

      The shop was tiny but warm, and the blanket the wife of the furniture maker had placed over her knees was welcomed. Her hat sat on the table, a for-lornly crushed shape with no hope of resurrection. The wheels had run straight over the feathers, the shopkeeper had said, and Beatrice was acutely aware that her head had only been inches away from being in exactly the same condition.

      Lord, how fragile life was. A second earlier, an inch further, a grander coach or a faster conveyance and the whole outcome could have been so much different. Elspeth was still wailing noisily and she wished she would just stop, for her headache was worse.

      A constable spoke to those who had witnessed her fall and Bea held her arms against her bodice, the throbbing ache easing only when she raised them up.

      She felt dislocated and scared, the memory of the hooves and the horses and the violent push leaving her nervous that someone else might try to hurt her, and her shaking had not abated in the least.

      A louder chatter had her looking up as Lord Wellingham walked into the shop. He came straight over to her, his hand resting on the sofa as he knelt, his cape falling into a ring of fine black wool.

      ‘Are you all right, Beatrice?’

      She could not answer, could not say even yes as a wave of relief washed across her. When his fingers came into contact with hers, she knew he could feel the terrible shaking.

      ‘Where are you hurt?’

      Because sound was such a part of how he viewed his world, she tried her hardest to answer him.

      ‘M…my head hit the g…ground and Elspeth said the c…carriage came very close.’

      He turned at that. ‘Surely a doctor has been summoned?’ Hard. Harsh. Impatient. ‘Why is he not here?’

      Watching the autocratic and imperious way he addressed the room, Bea understood power in a way she had not before. It was in bearing and expectation and in the sheer essence of history.

      ‘He has been called, sir,’ someone answered from behind.

      ‘Then call him again. Bates?’ His man stood next to him. Bea had not seen him when Taris Wellingham had first arrived in the room, but of course someone would be there to help him with the lay of the land. ‘Send Liam for my physician and make sure he knows the gravity of the situation.’

      As the man hurried off with his orders Bea, feared that Taris might go too and she clung to him fervently.

      ‘Don’t worry, I shall stay here with you,’ he returned, and she felt his breath. Warm and real, no longer just her!

      ‘You p…promise?’

      When he placed their joined fingers against his heart and smiled, she lay back against the cushion and closed her eyes.

      He was here! Now she would be safe.

      Taris felt the moment that she relaxed, his fingers measuring the beat of her pulse at her wrist and finding it reassuringly steady and strong. The sticky blood he had felt on her arms was mirrored on her forehead and neck when he ran his touch upwards.

      Where the hell was the doctor and what the hell had happened? A woman he presumed to be Elspeth Hardy was sobbing incessantly at one end of the room and the quiet questioning of a constable at the other told him that this was no simple accident. When Bates returned and relayed the story of Beatrice being pushed on to the road and of how she had narrowly missed being run over by a carriage, he felt a roiling sense of disbelief.

      Who would try to hurt her?

      Who had nearly succeeded in killing her? His anger escalated as he felt the remains of a hat on the small table beside the sofa.

      Ruined like her head could have so easily been!

      MacLaren’s arrival a little time later took his mind from such suppositions. The family doctor had always been the sort who muttered, a trait that Taris had found useful so that he knew exactly where he was in a room.

      ‘My lord,’ he offered, and Taris felt his arm next to his, the quiet click of a doctor’s tools telling him that he was measuring Beatrice’s vital signs before making a judgement on her condition.

      The astringent odour of smelling salts filled the space around them and then Bea’s voice. Confused. Embarrassed. Flustered.

      ‘I…I…should sit up,’ she said, her fingers creeping back into his hand as she held on tight.

      But the doctor wanted her to stay still and through the grey haze Taris could see that he felt around the lump on her head.

      ‘A nasty accident. Do you remember if you lost consciousness at the time it happened?’

      ‘I don’t think so.’

      ‘Good. Good.’

      ‘Lord Wellingham, could you lift her and bring her out to the carriage? I think it may be more beneficial to the lady’s healing to treat her at home.’

      ‘Of course.’ He was certain that the doctor had long since guessed his eyesight to be weakening, but had never in any shape or form alluded to it. Taris was pleased to step forwards and lift Bea in his arms, the presence of Bates making it an easy pathway out to his conveyance.

      Bea barely moved, the heat of her body melding into his, the soft abundance of her breasts against his cloak.

      When they came to the doorway she curled in against him so it was easier to negotiate the portal and once outside he counted his footfalls to the kerb. His carriage stood where he had left it and, mounting the steps, he sat with Bea in his lap.

      The trip home was completed in silence, Beatrice’s friend opposite sharing the seat with the doctor and Bates to his left. The small stern-faced maid named Sarah completed the party.

      An hour later he was finally alone with Beatrice.

      ‘Doctor MacLaren said you were lucky not to have broken anything and that the grazes will feel a lot better by morning.’

      ‘Thank you for asking him to see to my injuries, my lord.’

      He heard the wariness in her tone, but he was in no mood to ignore the larger question. He also wished she might just call him by his Christian name.

      ‘Who pushed you, Bea? Did you see him?’

      He felt her shaking her head. ‘Sarah said he looked like a pauper and that he ran off into the backstreets as soon as I fell.’

      ‘A paid assailant, then?’

      ‘I would guess so.’

      ‘God. Who would hate you enough to do that?’

      ‘The same person who might have sawn through the axle of the carriage, perhaps?’

      Said without any artifice at all and with a great deal of frank openness. Taris stiffened as something began to tug on his mind. A smell. A certain fragrance he had noticed as he had stepped into the town house this evening. Bergamot. Scattered bits and pieces began to fall into place.

      ‘The man James Radcliff? You said he was a lawyer?’

      ‘The junior partner in the firm who looked after my husband’s accounts. Why?’

      ‘Has he been here again today?’

      ‘No. I have not seen him since yesterday afternoon when you were here with the Duchess of Carisbrook.’

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