On Bended Knee, page 6
part #6 of Wicked Worthingtons Series
Thinking of Iris, Lysander was reminded of the true state of affairs at home. Iris was ill. There was no laughter at home, just a tense and worried silence. He'd previously thought the raucous household sometimes more than he could bear, but that had been nothing in comparison to the weight and pressure of his family's worry for their mother.
Pol. He was on his way to find Pollux. A useless mission, following the trail of a months-old missive, but one that Lysander had welcomed for the excuse to leave that twisting tension behind.
He had been riding. Yorkshire. A turn down a side road. It would take longer but Icarus could surely make up the miles.
Icarus. Where was Icarus? He could not remember. Daedalus would not be happy with him, not at all.
Perhaps it was the urge to find out what had become of his brother's fine horse that finally pried open his eyes against the thumping in his skull.
He saw nothing. He blinked, again and again, trying to clear his vision. Then he felt something cold drip onto his ear. He reached a hand to his face. The movement hurt a bit. He ached everywhere, as if covered in bruises from a beating. His hand touched damp cloth.
His eyes were covered but not bandaged. He moved to remove the cloth from the upper half of his face. A gravelly voice halted him.
"Leave it, lad. Let me pull t' curtains first. It's still a bit bright out."
Lysander heard the thumping of boots on a wooden floor and the thick rustle of curtains moving. He sensed the room became dimmer even though masked by the cool cloth.
"Aye then. Go ahead."
Carefully, Lysander lifted the wet fabric from his face and blinked, frowning painfully.
"Can you see, then? Can you see clear?"
Lysander rolled his head to one side, focused on the source of the voice. He blinked and brought into view a man, a wiry older fellow, although not as old as Archie Worthington.
The fellow was smaller than Lysander's father, bent and dressed in rough country clothing. His waistcoat was a lumpy knitted affair and he wore the boots of a farmer. Despite his balding head, there was nothing vague about the man's quick blue eyes beneath his bushy salt-and-pepper brows.
"I see." Lysander cleared his throat. "Horse?"
The fellow's upswept brows lifted and he gave a grunt. "It's nice to see a young lad with his priorities in order." The man stood. "Your silly horse be takin' a lap about the dale. There's nowt can catch him, long-legged racer that he is. Some of the village lads are keeping an eye on him. Got a pocket full of carrots ready for when he calms down."
Lysander swallowed and began to push against the bed, trying to sit up. "I can —" Except, clearly he could not.
He did manage to sit up a bit, leaning against his pillows on the headboard. There didn't seem to be anything wrong with his body other than its bruised condition. Lysander ran a careful hand over his head and discovered the lump on the back of it.
Oh yes, that hurt. It even hurt to touch his hair. The pounding in his head increased for a moment but after he remained still, it eased off somewhat. He returned his gaze to the man. "Icarus. Icky. Call him."
"Icarus." The fellow shook his head in disgust. "The things you posh sorts name your beasts."
You should meet my siblings.
The man moved to the door of the room. "I'll tell the missus you're awake. I expect you be wantin' me to walk all the way into the village, just to tell someone to trudge about the dale, yelling 'Icky' at the top of his lungs. And me with t' war wound!" With a faint noise of derision, the man limped from the room.
Lysander took that moment to absorb his surroundings. It was a large room, albeit quite plain and functional. He could see from the arched casement of the window and the fine marble mantle on the fireplace that this was a larger house and not a simple shepherd's dwelling.
Yet the room was bare of anything but the bed, the small table at his side that held the basin, and the chair the man had been sitting in. Even a servant's room would have more furnishings than this, although it was clearly a spacious bedchamber.
His curiosity lived at some distance and did not inspire any deep interest. He thought it odd, a puzzle, yet it was a puzzle he felt no urge to solve. It was simply information which he had no idea what to do with. Even the country man's obvious scorn had no effect on him. In fact, it was very nearly soothing to know precisely what someone was thinking and not be put to the strenuous effort of solving yet another human riddle.
Icarus wasn't a stupid horse, nor was he exceptionally flighty, but horses were notional creatures sometimes. If Icky had taken a scare, he would simply have to run himself out. He was well trained but he was also something of a family pet, and Lysander had no doubt that when the horse's belly began to rumble he would find his way to those oats.
The missing shoe was a problem. Lysander hoped the thoroughbred didn't crack a hoof.
The dale itself was nothing but a great grassy swath, with the river that had cut it running cheerfully in the deepest crease. Even the stone walls that Lysander had seen would not pose a danger to a high-jumping thoroughbred like Icarus. If the sheep were safe in the pastures, so then should a somewhat foolish horse be.
Lysander stayed very still and with the ease of great practice, emptied his mind. This was a very quiet house, in a simple, unoccupied way. He let that silence seep into him, breathing it in like cool, clean air. It was beautiful, that barrenness. Unpolluted and uncomplicated, like this room.
The thin line of brightness shining between the drawn curtains began to fade. Evening came early in the North. He did a bit of math and realized he'd been out for more than half the day. That certainly explained the pounding in his head. He closed his eyes again, not resisting the pain, not really caring about it either.
He remained that way until he detected sounds outside his door, footsteps on wooden stairs and down the hall, growing louder as they approached. He recognized the stomp of the man's rough boots but there was another lighter step as well, barely audible over the first.
He heard a whispered consultation outside the door. Lysander didn't bother to interpret it. He simply didn't care. He was clearly in the hands of people who had cared for him and meant him no harm. That was all he needed to know.
He opened his eyes at the turn of the latch and looked toward the door, resigned that now there would be conversation and questions and answers and that people would expect things. He only hoped that the ordeal would be quick and they would leave him alone again in the quiet of this room.
He blinked at the glare of a candle and realized how dark the room had become.
Then she stepped through the door, the pretty woman he'd seen in the pavilion. She was even more entrancing at close examination. A cool, quiet beauty dressed sedately in a somber gown that didn't quite manage to hide her lithe figure. Lysander found himself unable to look away from her.
As she walked toward the bed, Lysander realized that his first impression of her youth had been incorrect. She looked to be close to his own age. There was just a faint suggestion of lines in the corners of her eyes, but it was more than that. She did not have the gaze of innocence or the eager, seeking look of youthful questions.
She was all the more intriguing for it. Lysander felt a strange sense of surprise at himself to be supporting such a thought. In his life, he was surrounded by fine-looking women. His sisters were considered beauties all. Even Iris still wore the gently fading blush of her own tremendous appeal. His brother's wife, Miranda, was known to be a stunner, as well. Loveliness was no novelty to him. He would've thought it beyond his notice.
Perhaps it was not the symmetry of her cheekbones or the smoothness of her brow or the way that her hair, twisted sensibly up on her head, caught the gleam of the candle to show all the colors from russet brown to black. As he remembered, her eyes were gray, with startlingly dark lashes. Her skin was not the protected porcelain of a lady of Society, but something rather more lively, kissed by sun and wind.
As she set the pewter candleholder down upon the small side table, she moved with refined grace, the sort taught from infancy to ladies. When she sat in the vacated chair she posed herself upright with her hands on her lap. Lysander had the oddest impression of formality. She's come to tea, he thought.
For that was the way she gazed at him. There was nothing but cool inquiry in her eyes. They held no particular welcome nor any particular aversion. There was no sign at all of avid curiosity.
With the feeling that she expected very little of him, Lysander felt a wash of relief. He waited in silence. She would surely ask questions. Hopefully not too many.
Yet she said nothing. She tilted her head once and her gaze became distant and clinical as she looked him over keenly. It reminded him of the impersonal examination of a physician. Then, apparently satisfied with what she saw, she returned to her cool and expectant poise.
Lysander didn't want to speak first. He never spoke first. He spoke as little and as shortly and as rarely as absolutely necessary. Gathering words exhausted him. Yet he found himself taking a breath and parting his lips.
"Thank you," he said flatly.
The woman nodded. "You are welcome."
No questions. Not even a remark to express hospitality, to ask him from whence he came, or to inquire into his purpose there.
Now he was the one seized by curiosity about her. She was clearly a lady, but not well-off. Her gown was plain and serviceable, a darker gray than her eyes.
The country fellow remained standing by the door and Lysander was caught by the hint of a man on military guard duty. The man was a former soldier.
Lysander's mind fled that notion and fixed his attention once more upon the lady facing him. It occurred to Lysander — and things rarely occurred to Lysander — that he must look very strange to her. He lay in a bed in what was likely her house, wearing a fine linen nightshirt that ran a bit tight across the shoulders. He was fairly certain that the country man was not the source of the nightwear. The fellow was quite slight and this nightshirt was very nearly Lysander's size. Did it belong to a brother? A husband? Her dark dress could be considered the color of mourning, or perhaps it was only a practical color in this rural life.
He found himself looking at her hands. However, they gave no clue, settled neatly in her lap, half covered by the cuffs of her long sleeves.
Something bubbled up from deep within him. If he was not mistaken, it was the urge to speak more to her. He considered that for a moment. Then, choosing his question and calculating the least number of necessary words, he spoke. "What happened?"
"You rode your horse into our village and destroyed our festival. You broke the pavilion and it fell on you. You have been in and out of consciousness for several hours."
How beautifully succinct. How soothing. Not a shred of extraneous information, no expression of emotion, even though she clearly considered that he was responsible for his own state. He remembered riding into some sort of spring fair. He'd seen ranks of trestle benches bowing with the weight of vegetable and flower displays. There had been dogs and children underfoot and temporary pens put up in the square containing piglets and lambs.
Sheep. "A ram."
The man beside the door shuffled his feet and gave a grunt. "A prize ram. He's Shepherd Orren's champion stud, the pride of Swaledale. Ruined the festival, you did. The whole village has a bone to pick with you, lad. The women in partic'lar. Every lass in the dale was intent on dancin'."
The lady did not turn to regard her companion but kept her gaze fixed upon Lysander. "Yes, there was a ram."
Lysander held one palm hard to his temple, counter-pressure against the thumping in his head. "Icky. Took offense."
"The offense appeared to be mutual. And then you made the entire matter worse." The woman regarded him evenly. "I have never seen a man wrestle a ram before. Is this something they do where you are from?"
Finally a question. "No." He could not recall encountering many sheep in London.
"Well, lad, in the kerfuffle ye broke all the prize flower displays, set loose the pigs, and took down the pavilion what Dr. Oakes himself paid to put up." The country man shot Lysander a glare full of indignation. "You could'na made more havoc if you tried. You broke everything."
The man nodded his head toward the woman with accusation in his eyes targeting Lysander. Everything?
Lysander looked again at the woman in the chair. Beneath her polished calm, he finally noted the slight shadows beneath her eyes and a small scrape high on one cheekbone. His eyes traveled down, looking for more damage. Then he realized that her hands were not actually folded in her lap, but that her left hand cradled her right wrist and that the wrist itself was thickened by bandages beneath her long sleeve. Lysander's belly flipped queasily. What had he done to her?
Although his battlefield experiences had left him unsure of many things, of right and wrong, of socially suitable reactions, the one thing that never faltered has been his protective instinct toward his mother and sisters, toward all women.
Clearly he had done a great deal of damage in his extreme response.
You broke everything.
"I'm … sorry." He wished for better words. He wasn't quite certain what had happened, but there was that dark empty place in his memory. That was never a good sign. Eventually, the memory might come back to him. Or it might not.
That shadowed blot was the stain of war, of that frenzied state that left him outside himself as if all other parts of him were evicted for a time so that the house that was Lysander could be taken over by a fiend made of pure battle instinct.
"I hurt you." It was not a question. It was clear in the expression of the man that Lysander alone was responsible for the lady's injuries.
"You threw me. It was the landing that did the injury, in fact. I find I much prefer landing a bit wrong on soft grass than to have the pavilion crush me as it did you."
Lysander studied her, ignoring his throbbing head to focus on her expression and her words. He desperately needed to know. "I helped?"
"You truly have no memory of it? Well, when the pavilion began to fall — "
"When you made the pavilion fall!"
The lady ignored the man by the door. "You dashed into the pavilion, picked me up and tossed me aside, among others. Rather incredibly far, if truth be told. You are very strong for being so thin."
"And the roof fell right on your thick head." The man clearly felt that this was no more than Lysander deserved.
Lysander felt such intense relief that his head began to spin a bit. He had not ever intentionally injured anyone in his life — except in the time of war — but in the past few years the dark battle instinct had taken him over on rare occasions.
As if echoing that thought the woman spoke again. "I suppose you were in the war? You are clearly not entirely recovered from your harrowing experience. Are your relations aware you ride through England on your own?"
Lysander's heart sank. He had thought he'd been doing well enough. He had even dared hope, once in a while, that he was getting better, for the nightmares came much less often now and he recovered from them more quickly when they did.
He now walked about London on without incident, for the most part. If this woman, a total stranger, took one look at him and knew that he was broken, he was clearly far from well.
"My sister asked. Find our brother."
She blinked her storm-sky eyes slowly at him for a long moment. "You have siblings."
"Seven."
Something crossed her expression. Longing? He was watching her very carefully, he realized. Watching her every reaction, when for so long he had avoided even meeting the gaze of anyone not immediately related to him. She riveted his attention to a degree he had not experienced in a very long time.
A fresh spike of pain startled him, driving into his skull like a red-hot nails. He flinched and squeezed his head between his hands, clenching his eyes shut. The spikes of light behind his lids flashed like sparked gunpowder.
"Hmm. I suppose that is enough talk for now. A bit of laudanum, I think, Mr. Bing. He is now out of danger of losing consciousness too deeply. I shouldn't think it will do him any harm."
The gravely voice, full of concern. "I'll not leave this room with you in it."
"Very well." The woman let out a sigh, and Lysander heard the scuff of her slipper and the rustle of her skirts as she stood.
"Don't — want it." He'd been kept under the fog of it in the military hospital, subduing his agitation so deeply that they'd not even been able to learn his name for weeks. His family had thought him dead while he languished there in a spiraling opiate dream.
"Well," she said with a hint of asperity, "I don't want a sprained wrist but we must endure, must we not? Just a very little, for the ache in your head. I do insist upon it."
Lysander tried to sit up. I must go. The words couldn't hack their way past the searing ache in his head.
"If you rest, you may get up in the morning," she told him briskly. "Until then, you will stay right where you are."
Lysander swallowed his protest against that tone of command. Even the man Bing shifted to when so ordered. After escorting the lady out, he was back with a tiny vial in mere moments and watched carefully while Lysander tipped it back with no more protest. The man clearly meant to make his lady's will happen no matter what Lysander's opinion of it might be.
"Listen to the missus, lad. You can't go anywhere until someone manages to catch that nervy horse of yours, anyway."
Lysander lay back upon the pillows, somewhat reassured by the fact that it had indeed been a very small dose. As the throbbing in his brain began to distance itself and his drowsiness grew, he realized he had not been offered the lady's name.
And he really, really wanted to know.
MR. BING FOUND GEMMA in her stillroom, putting away the bottle of laudanum she kept in a locked cabinet. The room smelled of flowers, or perhaps cooking spices, and the sometimes stronger smells of camphor and linseed oil. Bing tended to stay out of that room. He was much too modern a fellow, he assured himself, to believe in talk of witches and such — but when his employer lost herself in her work for days at a time, and he would wander in to find her looking pale and peculiar with her gaze distant and her thoughts elsewhere, he had to wonder.
