Isabelle tossed aside the remnants of the jug and dragged Naomi free of Sally’s grasp. She grabbed the gun, then raced across the floor and knelt beside Marshall.
A trickle of blood seeped from beneath his prone body, spreading crimson fingers across the flagstones. “Help me roll him,” Isabelle said. Together, the women and Thomas Gerald turned Marshall onto his back. Thomas then sprinted to assess Sally’s condition.
Marshall’s face was ashen; he groaned weakly.
A wound in his upper thigh bled freely. Isabelle clamped her hand on top of the bullet hole. Marshall’s blood welled up between her fingers, hot and wet, and spilled down to join the rapidly growing puddle on the floor. In desperation, she hastily wadded her skirt and pressed it against the wound. She had to stanch the blood; a leg wound could easily prove fatal. “Get help!” she yelled.
Naomi blanched as she watched in wide-eyed alarm. She nodded quickly, scrambled to her feet, and ran from the greenhouse, screaming at the top of her lungs.
Isabelle pressed down on Marshall’s leg with all her strength. His lips drained of color and it seemed to her that his breathing was becoming shallow.
Her heart felt as though it were ripping in two. She cried out in anguish. “Don’t you die,” she wailed. “You cannot!”
The fabric of her skirt was soon sodden with his lifeblood. Marshall was slipping away beneath her fingers. A primal scream tore from her throat. She redoubled her efforts at compression, willing her own life to pass into Marshall.
He drew a shuddering breath and was still.
Chapter Nineteen
Pain.
He was on fire. Fire all over.
“He’s waking.”
“Keep him still! There’s no room for error. If I slip, we’ll lose him.”
“Drink, Your Grace.”
Something wet touched his lips. He drank deeply and greedily, trying to quench the fire.
A cool touch on his head, like a breath of air.
“Isabe … ”
• • •
Pain.
Sharp and throbbing all at once, radiating from his thigh. His stomach felt weak. His very bones hurt.
“You awake, Marsh?”
He dragged his eyelids over hot, dry eyes.
Sunlight filtered around the heavy curtains covering his windows. He squinted. Grant sat in an armchair that’d been brought near the bed.
He opened his mouth to speak, but coughed. His tongue was dry and swollen. “Water,” he croaked.
Grant poured a glass from the carafe on the bedside table and supported his head while he drank. “Now that you’re awake, I suppose the danger has passed and I’ve missed my chance to become duke.” He smiled wryly.
Marshall exhaled a raspy laugh. “Still could happen. Don’t have a surplus of heirs at the moment.”
He fell heavily against his pillow and stared at the plaster ceiling for several minutes. “How long’ve I been out?” he slurred.
“Almost two days.”
Marshall nodded. His memory of the greenhouse was hazy. He remembered riding like hellfire after encountering Thomas Gerald. He’d gone looking for Isabelle when she wasn’t in the kitchen, and followed her silly, ingenious carrot trail to the greenhouse. It was all murky after that. The raw fear at finding his sister and his beloved held by an armed kidnapper was all that remained.
“What happened?” he asked.
Grant ran a hand through his light brown hair. “Your former wife saved the Monthwaite line from near extinction, is what happened.”
Marshall’s eyes widened.
“Naomi told us how Isabelle cracked Sally Palmer over the head after she shot you. Then she ruined her dress keeping you alive until the surgeon took over.” His eyes widened in frank admiration. “You should have seen her, Marsh. She was like a mother bear, snapping at anyone who came too close. When we carried you back here on a stretcher, she walked right alongside with her skirt hitched up to her hips to keep the pressure on your wound.”
Marshall must have looked scandalized, for Grant waved a hand. “Her petticoat kept us from becoming better acquainted.”
He pictured Isabelle as Grant described her, throwing propriety to the wind to save his life. A surge of overwhelming love and gratitude would have knocked him flat, had he not already been prostrate. How had he ever not known he loved her?
One additional thought tugged at him. “Where’s Gerald? And the woman?”
“The magistrate’s got them,” Grant said. “We were waiting to see what the charges would be.” He suddenly became very interested in his hands.