Page 67 of The Duke and His Jilted Bride

His leg was a mess that made her stomach roil. She clapped a hand over her mouth afraid she would be sick. She looked away immediately, and then made herself look back for Evander’s sake. Frederick’s leg was bent at an unnatural angle, and there was blood soaking through the fabric of his trousers, the fabric torn wide open in other places. His face was the colour of bone, and completely still.

Seraphina was at the bottom of the stairs wailing. She ran toward him, but one of the men pushed her away and told her to be calm.

“Is he…?” Aurelia whispered.

“He is breathing,” Evander said. “Unconscious… Come away from the stairs.”

They brought Frederick through to one of the drawing rooms. Evander went downstairs and Aurelia followed him. Seraphina grabbed Aurelia’s arm as they went past, asking her questions she didn’t have the answers to. They followed Evander as he went in with Poole, and Howes, and the men who had carried his brother inside. When he entered last, he looked back at Aurelia – a glance at her coat – and Seraphina. And he put his hand flat on the door and closed it.

The door slammed in their faces with a bang.

Seraphina made a sound like something had been cut out of her, and she turned. Aurelia caught her by the arms before she could go anywhere, which was probably down to the floor in a heap.

“He's alive,” Aurelia stressed, mind whirring. “Evander said he's alive.”

“He wasn't moving.” Seraphina's hands were gripping Aurelia's arms hard enough to bruise her. “He wasn't moving, and he wasn't answering. I kept calling his name, but… Oh, he looks dead, Aurelia. He’s dead.”

“He's alive,” Aurelia said again. “The doctor will be coming. And in the meantime Evander is with him.”

“But his leg…” Seraphina closed her eyes. “Did you see his leg?”

Aurelia nodded grimly. “Yes.”

“How did that… How does that happen? How do you…?” She stopped. Her legs went then and her eyes rolled back. Aurelia caught the rest of her weight. They ended up on the floor of the corridor together anyway, and she was reminded of the time she had fainted at her wedding, and how different things were now.

Seraphina was not performing this time. Her face pressed into Aurelia’s shoulder, and her hands gripped the collar of her spencer jacket like the fabric was the only thing tethering her to the world. Whatever had happened in the library between her and Evander, whatever terrible creature Seraphina was or was not, her pain was real. This was a woman who had sent her husband out for a ride and watched him come back broken and half-dead, and the sound she was making was grief and terror in equal measure.

“I should never have come here,” Seraphina started.

“Don't,” Aurelia said. “Not now.”

“I have to say it. I should never have said any of it to him, I should never have pushed him toward Poole today, if I hadn't… he would have stayed in the house, he would have been fine. And then all of it, running away, I–”

“You didn't cause this,” Aurelia said, though she didn’t quite believe it. She said it firmly, because if she didn't say it firmly Seraphina was going to carry on forever. “Horses fall down. It was just an accident.”

“But if he had stayed–”

“He might have fallen down the stairs instead, for all we know.” She tightened her arm around Seraphina's shoulders. “You did not cause this.”

Seraphina pressed the back of her hand to her mouth and bit into her skin. Her whole body was shaking. “I regret everything,” she said. “Everything I said, everything I did. I regret all of it. I don't know why I’m like this. I have been so unhappy, and I took it out on everything around me and I don't know how to stop.”

“Be quiet now.”

“I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. For everything I said to you, for coming here and making things so hard for everyone. For leaving in the first place. I should have just married him. I should have never left.”

“Stop,” Aurelia said. “He is in that room alive, and you can do all of this later. Right now you just need to breathe.”

She tried. The breath was ragged and wet, but it was something.

They sat on the corridor floor together while the sounds from the drawing room continued, low voices and something Aurelia did not want to identify, and the evening came on slowly through the windows without word from inside.

The physician arrived from Norwich half an hour later. In the time between, Evander, Poole and Howes had done what they could, which was not much beyond keeping Frederick still and warm, talking to him in even tones.

When the physician came he was a compact brisk man named Doctor Moore who did not speak unnecessarily and got to work without wasting time on sentiment. He asked Evander to hold Frederick's shoulders when they cut off his boots and took off the riding trousers.

Evander had been in the country most of his life. He had seen animals hurt and hunts go wrong, men come off horses badly. He had thought he knew what a broken leg looked like. But this was… He could barely stomach the sight. Tissue and sinew, bone and blood. And it belonged to Frederick. All of it. Outside when it should have been inside.

He kept his eyes on Frederick's face and his hands on Frederick's shoulders, and he breathed through his nose while Moore worked, not making the mistake of looking down again. The smell of the room… sour, fetid, and metallic.