Chapter 36

MAB COULD HEAR HER father reading to her. She couldn’t make out the majority of the words, but from the way her father’s voice ebbed and flowed, she knew he was reading her A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

She must be very ill indeed, for her father only read her stories of fairies and sprites when he was worried about her health; the rest of the time her stories were referred to as merely “nonsense” and “too fanciful for ladies”.

The scent of lilies and iodine filled her nostrils. Mab supposed she should move, to show her father that she was at least awake, if not well. She tried her fingers, but they felt as if they’d been baked in clay, encased in something warm and solid and decidedly not for moving. She attempted to shuffle, but an intense shooting pain flashed through her abdomen, radiating through her entire body.

Well, if she couldn’t move her body, she supposed she should at least try to open her eyes. They felt as if they had been glued shut. With all the will she possessed, she managed to crack the first one open. What little candlelight she could see through the slit of her eye burned into her skull, and her eye promptly squeezed shut in response. It took no less than three more tries before she was able to open both eyes without feeling like boiling water was being poured into her sockets.

She could just make out the familiar domed ceiling of the infirmary. Why was she here? She rolled her eyes to the side. Her father was sat beside her, his hair unkempt and his moustache now wild whiskers upon his face. His eyes strained to read from the book he held aloft, and Mab had the intense urge to giggle as he adjusted it back and forth in a bid to keep the words in focus. She could finally make out the words he was saying, and the voice he’d assigned to Puck was truly ludicrous.

Mab was about to say as much, but the words stuck in her throat. Her throat felt like brambles had been shoved down it. When she finally did manage to speak, her voice sounded like that of a woman possessed. “What ... happened?”

“Oh! Thank heavens!” her father cried. Tears streamed down his face as he flung the book unceremoniously to the ground. “I thought I had lost you!”

As her father began mumbling incoherently, Mab felt a weight shift to her other side. She managed to roll her head and was met with a pair of peaty irises.

Hot tears pricked in the corners of her eyes as William’s face, contorted in worry for God knew how long, finally softened.

“My love,” he said, running a finger down her cheek. “You were shot.”

Shot?

Memories flooded her vision.

William pinning Robert against the wall. Tilly bolting. Robert confronting them in the study, gun outstretched. Mab unable to open the window. William— oh, God! William was shot too!

The memory of the bang, the flash of gunfire as William jerked in front of her. The coppery tang of his blood permeated her nostrils as he tried in vain to remain standing, to protect her from the second shot. The moment William’s legs had given way, Robert fired at her .

The gunshot hadn’t hurt, which had surprised Mab. She remembered falling to the floor, her head lolling and finding William’s. She’d reached out for him, and he’d held her hand in his. She remembered thinking that she was dying, but that it really wasn’t all that bad with William at her side.

The sound of swishing cloth caught Mab’s attention, but she was unable to lift her head to see who was making their way towards them. A few moments later, Angus, Aunt áine and the doctor, Sam, arrived at her bedside, each wearing varying expressions, ranging from concern to relief.

“How are you feeling, dear?” Sam said, placing a hand on her forehead.

“As if ... I’ve been ... shot,” Mab choked out, her lips pulling into the slightest grin at her joke despite it being decidedly unoriginal. But she had only just woken up after God knew how long, and she couldn’t possibly be expected to be remarkably witty given the circumstances.

Her father dutifully snorted before righting himself. “Now is not the time for sarcasm, dear.”

“I believe she gets her humour from her da,” Angus said, patting her father on the shoulder.

“And her wild streak from her mother,” her father said to Angus before turning his gaze to his daughter, a bushy white eyebrow cocked. “I have been informed that you have had quite the adventure in your short time here. Braving Scottish storms, throwing strange men off cliff sides, solving murders, shoot outs and a marriage proposal!”

“Almost as adventurous as your time here at Gaol Manor, Geralt,” said Aunt áine.

It took a moment for Mab’s brain to process what Aunt áine had said. Her father had been at Gaol Manor?

At her look of confusion, her father said, “Mab, you don’t honestly believe that a woman such as your mother could have met me, a docker, anywhere else but here?”

Something in her heart mended at his words. Her father hadn’t sent her off to the unknown !

“I believe I share the same sentiments,” William said from her other side.

Mab managed to roll her eyes in his direction. Heart now fully mended, it swelled with love and adoration for William. She wished she had the strength to tell him how much she loved him, her soon- to-be husband. His eyes softened, and she realised she didn’t need to – he already knew.

“I really must insist on some space for a thorough examination,” Sam said impatiently. “Unless you wish to assist in removing the stitches, Angus?”

Angus blanched. He wrapped his arm around Mab’s father’s shoulders. “C’mon, Geralt, let us reacquaint ourselves over a wee dram before I swoon.”

“That’s what I thought,” Sam muttered under his breath.

When her father, Angus and Aunt áine had left, Sam delicately pulled up her nightshirt and began the laborious process of removing the bandages. Mab was glad she was already horizontal, for when she saw her wound, she felt faint. It was only William’s tightening grip, his hand still firmly entwined in hers, that kept her grounded. Almost the entirety of her stomach was bruised, the mottled colours reminding her of the dappled light falling from a church window. The incision began at the base of her breastbone and travelled the entire way down to where her thatch of hair was, her modesty currently intact by a pair of drawers. The stitches that held her together were thick, and she had the odd urge to giggle as the image of a monstrous centipede resting on her stomach came to mind.

“The wound is healing perfectly, dear,” Sam said. “I do believe it’s time to remove your stitches. This might be a little uncomfortable.” Sam glanced at William. “You may want to provide some distraction.”

Dutifully, as Sam began his work, William filled Mab in on how she came to be in the infirmary.

After having sent Mab away, her father had decided to do some research into the man he had hastily tried to marry his daughter to. What he uncovered chilled him to the bone. He had gone to visit Lord Paxton, Robert’s father, who, upon hearing that Mab’s father had intended to marry Mab to his son, had issued a dire warning. His son was evil incarnate and to avoid him like the plague.

The Baron and his family had estranged themselves from their son after a series of allegations that had sickened them. They cut him off, which ultimately caused more harm than good. Once they found out that, with no source of income, he’d assaulted a young girl in a bid to force her wealthy family to marry her to him, they had hired a private investigator to find the girl, offer their help and support, and gather enough evidence to convict their son.

In the meantime, Robert, having failed to worm his way into the Dubarry wealth by marrying Mab, had resorted to sending a letter to the fabled Aunt áine. By all accounts, he was a charming man who did and said the right things to ensure his acceptance at Gaol Manor. While no one could confirm it, Angus and Aunt áine believed that he was unaware that Mab was in residence, no less Tilly and Arabella.

When Tilly had caught sight of him and fled, it appeared that he’d panicked. A series of unfortunate events meant that the guards were no longer at their posts, and Robert’s claim of seeing Tilly in the garden meant that he had free rein to explore the manor unhindered. Presumably, in a last-ditch attempt to save his name and reputation so that he might remain here to find his fortune in an heiress, he’d decided that those who knew of the assault must be eliminated. Though they would never truly know why he’d thought he could get away with murder.

For Robert Alabaster was dead.

While everyone had assumed Tilly had fled, she had in fact, with Benedict in tow, gone to Mab’s room with the singular purpose of retrieving Mab’s pistol. By the time Tilly found the pistol and made it back downstairs, she’d heard the first gunshot. She had only just made it to the study when the second shot was fired.

The third and final shot had been from Tilly, finding its mark directly between Robert Alabaster’s eyes.

William and Mab had been taken immediately to the infirmary. William had been shot in the chest – a through-and-through shot that had miraculously hit neither organ nor artery. Mab’s gunshot wound had been the worrying one. The incredibly talented doctor had had to open her abdomen to retrieve the bullet and staunch the bleeding. It had been touch and go, and no one had been sure if Mab would survive. William had woken the next day and had remained dutifully at Mab’s side ever since.

Mab could hardly believe that she’d been unconscious for almost two weeks. Though, given the fact that her father had been summoned, she should have guessed as much.

In other news, William was now a viscount.

Charles had sent word that when he had returned to Lady Sinclair’s estate to inform her of William’s innocence, she’d been waiting with news of her own that Lucius’s and Drucilla’s broken bodies had been fished out of a river. A note had been found in Lucius’s pocket with the words Payment received in full .

Sam finally finished his work and, after a very stern warning that the pair were not to engage in anything more than holding hands lest the wound reopen, left William and Mab on their own to write up his notes.

Mab, still lacking the strength to participate in the conversation with anything more than a nod or shake of her head, listened to William as he discussed their future together. Her father had already assured him that he would assist in any way that he could to help teach William how to run the estates, and particularly how to run the estates with a hot-headed wife by his side. Indeed, his most prominent advice was to simply let Mab get on with it.

That particular declaration had Mab barking a laugh, which she immediately regretted as her wound protested.

Her father had also offered William the shipping business, but William, immediately utilising her father’s advice, had said he must take it up with the boss.

Another ill-timed giggle and subsequent stabbing sensation in her stomach had William promising that he would not tell her any more quips.

Mab, however, decided that she didn’t want the shipping business. And when she found her voice, she would ask her father to find one of her cousins to take it on. Helping William run two estates would be plenty of work to be getting on with.

Not to mention that the moment her wound was healed, she fully intended to spend whatever time they weren’t working sequestered to the bedroom, making their way through William’s list.

When William finally had no more news to update her with, he declared that Mab should rest. Indeed, her eyes were growing heavy, the urge to sleep almost overwhelming. But feeling like she needed to be at least a little bit rebellious to make up for the last two weeks of unconsciousness, Mab, in direct opposition to the doctor’s orders, managed to croak out, “I love you, William. Now, kiss me.”

William’s eyes glittered in amusement, his lips curling into a proud smile as they descended towards her. His kiss was soft, careful and controlled, but somehow still full of a promise of what was to come when she was better.

He pulled away, his hand still entwined with hers as he settled back in his chair. “I love you more than you will ever know. Now, rest, my fairy .”