Chapter 26

26

The cacophony of screams rang in Julian’s ears, his focus narrowed to the growing crimson stain spreading across Caroline’s emerald gown. His hand pressed to the wound.

“Linnie.” His voice scraped raw and broken from his throat as he searched her ashen face. “Someone fetch a doctor!”

Around him, chaos reigned. Voices raised in panicked cacophony – useless, all of them. Milling sheep with no capacity to help.

Julian’s focus homed in on the footman slipping away along the perimeter. Livery granting him anonymity amid the tumult as he ducked through the servants’ entrance to escape.

Edgar Kellerman.

Rage ignited in Julian’s gut, white-hot. Kellerman had hidden himself among the staff, posing as a harmless attendant until he had a clear shot.

Me. This is meant for me.

He tracked movement along the perimeter – Wentworth and two men breaking into pursuit of the hidden assassin. But Julian couldn’t stay to witness the hunt, not when Caroline was slipping further away.

Her fading heartbeat fluttered beneath his palm, rapid as hummingbird wings. Each frantic beat pushed more blood through his fingers.

So he gathered her against his chest and began carving a path through the melee. The brocaded silks and embroidered satins blurred around Julian as he moved, the world reduced to the fragile weight in his arms. He cradled her closer.

When one onlooker stretched out a tentative hand as though to touch Caroline’s hair, Julian bared his teeth in a feral warning. He was willing – no, eager – to kill anyone who so much as looked at her right now.

She was his.

“Bring the carriage,” Julian snapped at a waiting footman. “Then find a surgeon. Now. I don’t care what it takes.”

The footman gave a jerky nod. “Right away, Your Grace.”

After an eternity, the carriage arrived in a splash of mud. Julian slid inside, clutching Caroline tight in his lap. He cradled her against his chest, willing her to take just one more laboured breath.

The alternative was a yawning void threatening to swallow him whole.

Unthinkable.

As the carriage jolted forward, Julian grasped her limp hand between his. Her delicate fingers remained slack and cool within his hold. He chafed the chilled skin, trying to rub warmth back into her.

“You’ll be all right, sweetheart,” he rasped. “Just stay with me.”

Only the creak of leather and rattle of wheels answered him. No hitched breath or twitch of her fingers. Caroline remained motionless in his arms, blood dripping onto the carriage floor.

Julian couldn’t tear his eyes from her face – kept tracing the pale curves and elegant lines over and over, searing them into memory. Desperate to catch any faint flutter of her lashes, any hitched breath.

When the coach rolled to a halt before Stafford House, Julian gathered her into his arms and staggered up the front steps through the downpour. The staff stood waiting in the marble hall, features pale and stricken at the sight of their mistress.

Without a word, Julian carried Caroline down the shadowed corridor to her bedchamber – their bedchamber. The one they had only just begun sharing again after so many years apart.

He laid her on the pristine bedding. Arranged the pillows beneath her head as though she were sleeping. As though she might open her eyes at any moment.

Only then, in the quiet stillness of the room, did the stark reality crash down with crushing force.

Caroline was dying.

Julian’s chest constricted, ragged breaths too loud in the quiet room. His vision wavered as he stared down at her, eyes burning.

He’d just held her in his arms an hour ago as they danced. Playful. Vibrant. Whispering things that left him aching with wanting.

Now she was still. Fading by the second.

When footsteps sounded in the hall, Julian’s head jerked up.

The surgeon entered, leather satchel in hand. “Your Grace. Let me see what I can do for her.”

He assessed Caroline briskly, easing her blood-soaked gown aside to study the wound. Julian observed from the corner, tension threading through every rigid line of his frame.

After long minutes, the surgeon stepped back. “The ball passed clean through her side. She’s lost a significant amount of blood.”

Julian dragged a shaking hand over his face. Forced himself to rasp the question that might shatter him. “What are her chances?”

“She wasn’t hit anywhere vital, but she’ll need to fight off infection.” He shook his head. “We must worry about the fever more than the damage the bullet did. I’ll give you what you need to keep her comfortable.”

Julian nodded, incapable of speaking around the jagged shards lodged in his throat. He resumed his vigil at Caroline’s bedside. The surgeon took his leave with murmured condolences. Alone again amid the swelling silence and shadows. Nothing left to do but wait. And pray.

Soft footsteps in the doorway roused him from his grim thoughts. Caroline’s maid bobbed a quick curtsy, face wan.

“Begging your pardon, Your Grace. But Mr Wentworth is asking for you downstairs.”

Leaving Caroline’s side tore something vital from Julian’s chest. But he forced himself to follow the maid to the ground floor drawing room.

Wentworth paced before the fire, features etched with grim lines.

“Tell me you have him,” Julian said as he strode in. “Tell me you caught the bastard.”

Wentworth’s jaw clenched. “He had a bomb waiting outside the palace. My men had to choose between pursuing him or saving innocent lives.”

Blinding rage roared through Julian’s veins. His hands flexed with the urge to wrap around Kellerman’s throat and squeeze. “So you let him get away. He’s out there somewhere while my wife – my fucking wife , Wentworth – is upstairs dying from a bullet meant for me.”

Wentworth’s expression wavered. “Her prognosis?”

“Too soon to tell.” Julian sucked in a raw breath, grappling for some semblance of control before his fury shattered him. “But if she dies. I’ll paint the city with that bastard’s guts. Understand me?”

Wentworth scrubbed a hand over his face. Began wearing out the rug again beneath his boots. “I’ll find him, duke. Her Majesty has every resource looking. We’ll scour London brick by brick if we must.”

“See that you do. In the meantime, I’m returning to my wife’s side. Send word immediately if you have news.”

“Of course. I hope your wife pulls through, Hastings.”

Back upstairs, Julian braced himself before entering the bedchamber. He focused on the figure in the bed, still motionless amid the pillows, her blonde hair spilling across the linen. Still balanced on the knife’s edge.

Crossing to the bed, Julian sank into the chair beside her. Gently took her hand between both of his. He clung to the solidity, the anchor keeping his fraying thoughts from slipping their moorings.

“Linnie.” Her name scraped raw and jagged from his throat. He traced the delicate blue veins beneath her translucent skin, felt her faint pulse. “I love you.”

Julian lifted Caroline’s hand and pressed his lips to her knuckles. Inhaled the scent of her. This hand he’d held countless times, from barefoot in sunny meadows to gilded ballrooms. These beautiful fingers that drew him. That touched him.

He wanted her to wake up and touch him again.

Please. One more breath. And then another.

“Come on, sweetheart,” he whispered into her palm. “Just open your eyes.”

Julian traced the sharp angle of her cheekbone, then the graceful bow of her lower lip. Soft. Still warm. Lips he ached to kiss again.

Wake up.

But she remained motionless amid the pillows. The only sound was her shallow breaths, growing fainter.