The Return of Lord Conistone. Lucy Ashford

could not see, could not breathe. The lantern was snatched from her. Hands were grabbing at her roughly, hurting her.

      She remembered in those brief, terrifying moments the sensation of so often being followed, remembered the break-in at Wycherley Hall. Fight as she might, they were pulling her, hustling her towards the trees. Smugglers? But why attack her? And she thought she heard them muttering, ‘C’est elle. C’est la fille’. Her blood froze.

      Then she heard a man’s voice roaring, ‘Verena!’

      She heard the sound of a gun exploding within a few feet of her and realised the restraining hands were gone. Pulling the blanket from her face, gasping for air, she saw the three cloaked men running off, heads low, into the dark woods.

      ‘Verena!’ The same desperate male voice, close now.

      Turning, she saw Lucas, his long coat and hair glistening with the rain, standing there with a gun in his hand. At first she did not understand. At first she thought he was the one who had fired.

      Then she realised that Lucas was sinking very slowly to his knees, and where he clutched his left hand to his arm, bright blood was welling through his fingers.

       Chapter Six

      Lucas was kneeling on the ground. She ran to crouch beside him, her heart hammering.

      ‘Lucas. Oh, we must get your coat off’. Her voice shook with emotion. ‘We must tie something around your injury, I must get help!’

      ‘They told me you’d gone down to the beach—alone!’ he grated out. ‘How could you have been so—so foolish?’

      ‘Foolish?’ she cried. She felt faint with fear. ‘Some militia men were threatening our villagers—was it foolish to try to protect them?’ She was striving, with trembling fingers, to ease his coat from his shoulder, but she could see the perspiration pouring from his forehead, indicating his pain. He is your enemy, she reminded herself, your family’s enemy.

      ‘Who were your attackers?’ he rasped.

      ‘I’ve no idea. Not smugglers, definitely not—’ she was thinking of the danger Billy and his friends might be in ‘—so they must have been robbers, and it was my misfortune to be in their way’.

      ‘I never thought they were smugglers,’ Lucas said bluntly. ‘Smugglers don’t attack innocent girls. And they were not robbers either. Verena, they were trying to drag you away. Did you hear them speak?’

      Swiftly she tore aside the fabric of his shirt and pressed her clean folded handkerchief to the wound, remembering Colonel Harrap’s warning: If I should find proof that some French villains have indeed landed, there’ll be the devil to pay!

      ‘They sounded like Portsmouth men,’ she lied. ‘I heard a few words I wouldn’t care to repeat, I’m afraid—’ Then she realised that his blood was still welling through her handkerchief. Oh, no. ‘Have you got anything else I can bind it with?’ she asked rather faintly.

      ‘There’s my cravat’. He was already loosening it, with his left hand; his face was very pale, though the corner of his mouth lifted in a faint smile. ‘I didn’t realise your numerous skills extended to nursing’.

      She reached for his loosened cravat. So much blood. She struggled to stay calm, to say matter of factly, ‘Oh, my sisters were for ever getting into scrapes—literally—when they were small, and my mother tends to faint at the sight of a scratch, so it’s almost a matter of necessity. Can you hold your arm up, Lucas, just a little? That’s right. Then I can bind it—it will help to stop the bleeding’. Her voice was tight with strain.

      Too close. He was too close. Difficult to concentrate on her bandaging, difficult not to notice the taut, tanned skin, the underlying muscle and sinew of his warm, powerful arm. A young lady should never be nearer than two feet to a gentleman who is not a close relative…..

      Miss Bonamy’s Young Lady’s Guide to Etiquette wasn’t much use here.

      She tied the knot with a snap. ‘There,’ she breathed. ‘Now, if you will stay here and rest, I’ll run to the house and fetch help’.

      His good arm grabbed for her. ‘No. You must not be by yourself!’ He rapped out the warning.

      She shivered and retorted defiantly, because she was afraid, ‘You cannot really think that—those men will be back?’

      ‘Who knows? You’re not going anywhere on your own! I can walk, if you’ll let me lean on you a little! It’s not far to Wycherley’.

      Her eyes jerked up to his. ‘You cannot stay at Wycherley!’ With Deb. Herself. A thousand times, no.

      ‘I see,’ he said quietly. ‘But I could, perhaps, make use of your family carriage to get to Stancliffe’.

      She felt her stomach lurch sickeningly at the thought of Lucas, in pain, being transported along the rough road to Stancliffe Manor, two miles away.

      Wasn’t it what he deserved? He had made her fall in love with him, he had betrayed her.

      But then she saw that he was swaying where he stood, and his face had gone very white. ‘We’ll go to Wycherley, of course, it’s far nearer,’ she muttered. She guessed from the little she knew about bullet wounds that he must be in acute pain, and losing blood fast. ‘Put your arm around my shoulder, quickly. Can you really walk all the way there? Shouldn’t I fetch some men from the house to help you?’

      ‘I said—no!’ He tightened his arm around her. The close contact of his lithe, muscular body set into motion all the long pushed-aside memories that still haunted her every waking moment. ‘And anyway, who would you fetch? Captain Martin Bryant? He’d most likely cheer and put a second bullet through me, for making advances to the woman who’s to be his wife—’

      She gasped. Oh, Lord, her lies. ‘Stop it,’ she breathed, ‘please stop it, Lucas…’.

      ‘Stop what?’

      ‘Talking’.

      ‘About Bryant?’

      ‘About anything,’ she whispered. ‘Anything at all’.

      He was quiet for a few moments as they stumbled along. Somewhere in the woods an owl hooted. She jumped and his arm tightened around her.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered.

      ‘Sorry?’ Somehow they had come to a stop. ‘Maybe I’m the one who should apologise. My blood is ruining your gown and cloak’.

      ‘Do you think I care? Please, keep going…’.

      His arm was heavy and warm on her shoulder. ‘You’ve already had one gown ruined tonight. Do you usually get through them at such a rate?’

      She caught her breath. Those buttons. That scandalous silk chemise. She wanted to laugh, she wanted to cry; she wanted to nestle into the warmth of him and cherish him and never, ever let him go.

      ‘It’s all part of the excitement of country living,’ she said crisply. ‘We run up such a bill at our dressmakers in Chichester, you really cannot imagine. Lucas. Please hurry, it’s not far now…’.

      Trudging and slipping lopsidedly, they’d almost reached the lawns—only a few hundred yards to go.

      ‘I’d like to buy you a new gown,’ he muttered as the night-time fragrance of the rose gardens enveloped them. ‘A new gown, in pink, or jade, or lilac, for my amber-eyed girl. You wore lilac at that harvest dance but your skin was scented with lavender. Oh, God’. He stopped suddenly. ‘I’ve missed you, Verena’.

      He was wandering. He must be. Her heart was thumping. ‘Lucas,’