Page 10 of How Not to Marry a Duke

"Frederick?"

His stride faltered. She had not called him Frederick since the stable. Not once in nine years.

"Yes." His voice had gone strange. "It's me. You're going to be all right."

"Hurts." The word was barely audible. "Everything hurts."

"I know. I know it does. We're almost there."

They were not almost there. They were perhaps halfway, and his arms were burning, and she was still shaking, and he had never in his life felt so helpless—not on the battlefield, not in the surgeon's tent, not in any of the thousand moments when death had brushed past him and moved on to claim someone else.

Her hand moved against his chest—not exploring but clutching, anchoring herself against the waves of pain. "Don't... don't put me down."

"I won't." His throat had closed around the words. "I won't put you down."

Forty-three reasons to find a servant, a farmer, anyone else to carry her the rest of the way.

None of them sufficient.

She fell silent after that, her face pressed against his shoulder, her breath hot and ragged against his neck. He could not tell if she had lost consciousness again or was merely enduring. He kept walking.

The chimneys of Carthedge Hall appeared above the tree line. The gates. The drive. Gravel crunching beneath his boots, and someone was shouting—a groom, a footman, voices rising in alarm as they spotted their master staggering up the path with an unconscious woman in his arms.

"Surgeon!" Frederick's voice tore from his throat. "Send for the surgeon—now!"

Bodies swarmed around him. Hands reached for her—footmen, housemaids, his butler demanding to know what had happened.

"Don't touch her leg." He was moving toward the house, up the steps, through the door. "The blue guest chamber. Fresh linens. Hot water. And someone catch the horses—hers is on the road near the Ashbourne boundary."

He carried her up the stairs himself, aware of every step, aware of the way she had gone limp in his arms, aware that her shaking had subsided into a stillness that frightened him more than her screams had.

Two thousand eight hundred and forty-seven.

That was the number. He had not meant to count, but some part of his mind had tracked every step from the road to this moment—this room, this bed, this woman whose face had gone the colour of candlewax.

He laid her down as gently as he could manage, arranging pillows beneath her shattered leg whilst the housekeeper directed maids and footmen in a controlled flurry of activity. Florinda did not stir. Her chest rose and fell in shallow breaths, but her eyes remained closed, her face slack.

"Your Grace." Mrs. Pritchard's voice was calm, professional. "We have sent for Mr. Harding. He should arrive within the hour."

"An hour." Frederick heard his own voice as though from a great distance. "She cannot wait an hour."

"It is the best we can do, Your Grace. I have set the bone before, in emergencies. I can splint it properly until he arrives, if you will permit me."

"Do it. Do whatever you must."

"Your Grace." Mrs. Pritchard's tone had shifted, gentle but firm. "You cannot be here for this."

He opened his mouth to argue—and closed it.

She was right. He knew she was right. Whatever had driven him to carry Florinda a mile and a half through the countryside, whatever desperate instinct had refused to let anyone else touch her, he could not remain in her bedchamber whilst she lay unconscious and unprotected. He was not her husband. He was not her family. He was, in fact, engaged to another woman who was sleeping somewhere in this very house.

His honour demanded he leave.

His honour could go to hell.

But Mrs. Pritchard was watching him with a look that suggested she knew exactly what he was thinking and would physically remove him if necessary. Two housemaids had positioned themselves at the bedside, already cutting away the ruined fabric of Florinda's riding habit with efficient hands.

"I will be outside," he said. His voice did not sound like his own. "I will be directly outside this door. If anything changes—if she wakes—if she⁠—"