Page 44 of An Unusual Wager

Chapter Twenty

The first thing that came back to Jonathan was a sensation of being jolted about most uncomfortably. The second thing that came back was sound: the rumbling of heavy carriage wheels and the noise of trotting hooves. And then the pain arrived. With a vengeance.

He groaned.

“Lie still,” cautioned a voice he thought he ought to recognize.

But of course, lying still wasn’t what he wanted to do at all. He tried turning his head towards the voice, but that only set off a ferocious hammering inside his skull and provoked another groan. What the hell had happened to him?

“Told you to lie still,” said the voice, somewhat reproving in tone.

Walter. The voice belonged to his friend. No wonder he recognized it.

But whatever was Walter doing in what, from all the noise, had to be a carriage? A carriage of some size, at that. Come to that, what was he doing in the carriage himself? And in what appeared to be a lying down position. What carriage could cater for someone to lie down in it? None he knew of.

“Best do as my brother says,” came another voice. “He knows what he’s talking about.”

Robert. Walter had his younger brother with him.

Why?

Jonathan lay still for a long minute, just breathing and trying to work out why every bit of him hurt. Badly. Maybe he’d better try opening his eyes. With a near superhuman effort, he managed to get his right eye open, but nothing would get his left to do the same. It seemed to be unresponsive. And it hurt. A little alarming.

His surroundings came slowly into focus. Even though he was undoubtedly inside a traveling carriage, he appeared to be lying on a bed of some kind. Since when did carriages of any sort have beds? And what had led to him being so incapacitated as to need one? He couldn’t for the life of him remember. In fact, if he strained, which hurt his head abominably, the last thing he could recall was walking into White’s and meeting Walter and Robert.

Which might be why Robert was here with them, of course.

He licked his lips. “Where are we?” It came out as a croak and he realized his mouth was dry and his tongue didn’t wish to obey his commands. There was a bitter taste in his mouth.

“Going to Luxborough,” Walter said, in the no nonsense, inarguable tones of Jonathan’s old nanny. Since when had his friend taken on the persona of Nanny Jarvis and become so bossy?

“What?” His voice now sounded a little stronger, as well as somewhat surprised.

“What he said,” Robert put in. “Don’t worry. We got the doctor. Or rather, the doctor got us. He said you could travel.” A distinct air of someone not quite telling the whole truth clung to Robert’s words. And what doctor? Nothing of that held any familiarity for Jonathan.

He digested the information he’d just been given. Luxborough? Wasn’t there a reason he didn’t want to go there? He groped in his thick and fuzzy head but couldn’t find anything useful so gave up and shut his right eye, thereby reducing the throbbing in his head. What he really wanted to do was sleep, but this jolting was never going to let him do that.

“Just let me give you some more laudanum,” Walter said. “For the pain. The doctor gave me a bottle.”

The bitter taste again as liquid was trickled into his mouth. He wanted to spit it out, but didn’t have the energy.

It must have worked, however, because the next time he opened his eyes the internal carriage light had been dimmed. Either that or he was dying. In which case it would be Walter’s fault for taking him on a journey when plainly he should be home in bed being looked after by a nurse and probably a doctor too. Yes, he would rather die in his own bed.

Someone was talking in a low voice. Robert. “Are you sure we should have done this, brother?”

Walter’s reply came, his voice even lower. The fact that they either didn’t want to disturb him or, more likely, didn’t want him to hear, seemed evident. “Absolutely. It’s the only way to get the two of them together. They’re clearly made for one another but are too pig-headed to realize it. I had no chance of it whilst Jonnie was standing on his own two feet. So I took the opportunity when it presented itself. Got to take a risk that sometimes, to get what one wants.”

“Risk is the right word. He looks an awful shade of gray.”

“So would you do, if you’d been shot and had your arm broken and your head kicked in.”

So that was why every part of him was hurting like hell.

Robert sniffed. “That sounds like an awful lot of wounds. Are you sure that doctor said it was safe to take him all this way? Are you sure he was a proper doctor, even?”

Silence for a moment. “Of course I am. He heard the rumpus outside in the street and came out with his butler and a pair of loaded pistols to help us. Without his pluck, you’d be looking at becoming viscount after father dies, because those footpads would have killed both of us. Luckily the fools attacked us right outside the house of such a brave, public-spirited fellow, who just happened to be a doctor. He took us in off the street and helped us even further.” He huffed a little. “And when I asked him, he said it would be all right to take Jonnie home. So I sent for you and for Mama’s carriage. She won’t even have missed it yet.”

Robert was clearly not to be deflected from his worries. “But that doctor thought home was Cavendish Square, not Oxfordshire.”