"Come on," she urged, her skin all over sweat. "Come on!"
Ten feet from the fall, Nitwit refused to budge.
Even that close,
Florence
couldn't see Freddie, just the: thrashing horse. Lord, she thought, Freddie must be underneath. She jumped from the saddle. The break was bad. Sooty's right cannon bone stuck out beyond his skin, the edges showing ragged through the blood. The horse was rolling his eyes, moaning low in his throat for help. She wished she could stop but she couldn't until she'd seen to Freddie.
As she feared, he lay under the horse, legs trapped by its weight, eyes wide and staring.
"Freddie!" she cried, kneeling beside him. He was pale as parchment.
And he wasn't breathing.
Her moan echoed the
horse's
. He couldn't be dead. He couldn't. What would Edward do? Edward
would die himself. She touched Freddie's throat.
A pulse.
She felt a pulse. She had to do something.
She couldn't move him, but she had to wake him. She had to make him breathe. God, she thought, praying this time. Please, please tell me what to do.
She didn't know if He answered but she drew back her arm and slapped his face. "Freddie! Freddie,
wake up!"
His body shuddered so she slapped the other cheek. This time he gasped, his chest lurching upward in a pull for air. His eyes jerked wildly as if he didn't know where he was. A second later, he tried to sit up. His groan was almost too low to hear.
"Don't move," she ordered, pushing him back. She gasped for air herself, so relieved she could barely speak. "You've had a bad fall. I think you got the wind knocked out of you, but you might have hurt
your spine."
"Fall?"
Then he saw what was lying across his legs. "Bloody hell," he said, the first time she'd heard
him curse. "He told me. He told me about the bloody badgers and I forgot." He pressed his arm across
his eyes. "God damn it, I've killed my horse."
His fist pounded the grass.
Florence
caught it before he could hurt himself any more. "Freddie, it was
an accident."
"An accident no one but an idiot would have had, a stupid, worthless—
Everything
I touch goes wrong.
I should be shot. I should be drawn and quartered. Edward's never going to forgive me."
Florence
stroked his bone-white, clammy face. More than his language shocked her. "Freddie. Edward might be disappointed, but the only thing he'd never forgive is if you'd killed yourself."
Freddie lowered his arm. Tears streaked his face, but she saw her words had calmed him. "You have to ride to the house and get him. Tell him to bring some footmen.
And a rifle."
Florence
looked at him,
then at the panting horse. He covered his eyes again. "Hurry,
Florence
. I don't want Sooty to suffer."
She hurried as well as she could on a horse who tried to skitter sideways every time she saw the house. She had to lash the mare hard before she'd gallop, and then it was only will that kept her in the saddle. Sliding off at the rose garden, she picked up her skirts and ran.
"Edward!" she shouted with the last of her breath. "Edward!"
He appeared, with Nigel West, on the first floor landing. She thought she'd never been so grateful to
see anyone in her life.
Edward paled when he saw her. "
Florence
, what's wrong?"
"It's Freddie. He fell.
The horse."
She held her stomach and gasped for air. "You need to bring some servants and a rifle."
Both men had run down the stairs in the time it took her to say this. Now Edward grabbed her arms
hard enough to bruise. "Is Freddie all right?"
"Yes, I think so. But he's trapped under the horse and the horse has a bad break. Freddie thinks he
needs to be put down."
Edward emptied his lungs. Then, visibly in control again, he addressed his companion. "Nigel, you get
the men and the gun. We'll meet at the stables and
Florence
will lead us to where it happened."
The steward pulled
himself
straighten "We should bring Jenkyns, too. He can patch Freddie up if he needs it."
"Good," said Edward. "Do it."
He hustled her into the garden before her brain had finished following what he'd said. Fortunately, she'd remembered to loop Nitwit's reins around a bench, though she didn't remember how she'd gotten onto
the horse's
back without a mounting block. Now Edward tossed her up so quickly, she nearly slid off
the other side.
He shook his head, took the reins from her hands, and led her to the stable as if she were a child. His anger was a cold, palpable force. The mare minced after him like a beaten dog.
Florence
wasn't beaten, though, not when it came to protecting those she loved.
"Freddie's sorry," she said, her jaw tight from steadying her voice. "He's sorrier than you could make
him if you tried. There's nothing I can do to stop you from yelling at him, but I really don't think that's what he needs."
Edward stopped. He stared at her as if she'd grown a second head. When he turned away, he quickened his pace. "I've no intention of yelling at my brother."
"What about glowering at him? What about making him
feel
as if that horse means more to you than he does?"
A muscle bunched in Edward's cheek. "My brother knows better than that."
"Not right now, he doesn't."
Edward walked faster still.
Florence
knew she had no right to dictate his behavior, but she refused to withdraw a single word. Freddie thought he was worthless. Freddie thought everything he touched went wrong.
"You have to be nice to him," she insisted, though her heart was pounding in her throat.
Edward snorted. "I'll shower him with the milk of human kindness."
His tone was as dry as she'd ever heard it. She could only hope she'd made her point.
* * *
She thought he
was a monster.
Even as Edward issued orders,
Florence
's scold played through his mind. Even as he waited for Jenkyns to gather his supplies, even as they rode like thunder across the downs, her estimation of his character made him grind his teeth.
She thought he was a monster.
But when they reached Freddie every worry but his brother left his mind. The horse lay over him from the waist down. This couldn't be good. In a single motion, Edward swung off Samson and tossed his
reins to someone else. His knees hit the turf by Freddie's side.
Freddie's eyes fluttered open. His face was the bluish white of too-thin milk. It glistened with perspiration. He was in pain, Edward knew.
Bad pain.
"Eddie," he said, a name he hadn't used since they were children. His voice was thready. "Tried to move, but my leg—" He grimaced. "Think I broke it. Only fair, I guess, since I broke the damn
horse's
."
"Sh," Edward soothed, brushing the hair from Freddie's brow. Freddie's tone alarmed him. Was
Florence
right? Did his brother think the horse meant more to him than he did?
"Stupid," Freddie said, rolling his head from side to side. "The groom warned me."
By this time, the stablemaster was kneeling by Freddie's other side. He touched Edward's arm. "I'd like
to get a look at his eyes, my lord. See how bad a thump he took. Then the men can hoist up the horse and we'll slide him out."
Edward nodded. Jenkyns was the best doctor Greystowe had, a man of sense and experience, with
people and horses. Not knowing what else to do, Edward moved to Sooty's head and held his tossing muzzle. "There," he said, over the horse's ragged pants. "You'll be out of this soon."
Sooty's great, liquid eyes held such
pleas,
and such faith in Edward's ability to grant them, that he felt
as if a vise were tightening around his ribs. "You're a good fellow," he said, the words like gravel in his throat. "You've been a good friend to my brother."
"Your lordship?" said Nigel. The steward stood one po
lite step behind him. "Jenkyns is ready to move him. We need your help to lift the horse."
"Of course."
Edward gave Sooty a last pat and got to his feet.
To his surprise,
Florence
moved in as well. Though he couldn't imagine what help she'd be in lifting a horse, some corner of his mind was pleased she wasn't hysterical.
"She's to steady Lord Burbrooke's legs," Jenkyns explained. "We don't want them jostled when we slide him out." The wiry stablemaster had positioned himself behind Freddie's shoulders, ready to pull the moment Edward gave the signal.
"All right," Edward said to the other men.
"On three."
They got him out on the second try. Both Freddie and the horse cried out at being moved.
"Stand back,
Florence
," Edward said once his brother was free. He could tell from Freddie's pallor that
he was about to be sick.
Florence
seemed to reach the same conclusion. Despite the warning, she rubbed his back while Jenkyns rolled him gently to his side. She didn't cluck or fuss, just stroked him the way a mother would a weary child.
When his sickness passed, they immobilized Freddie's leg and laid him on a canvas stretcher. Nigel took one end and Jenkyns the other. Woozy with pain, Freddie still reached for Edward before they could carry him off.
"You take care of Sooty," he said, his grip surprisingly strong on Edward's wrist. "He knows you.
I don't want him to go without a friend."
"I will" was all he managed to get out.
To Edward's surprise,
Florence
did not leave with her fiance.
"I'm staying with you," she
said,
her face tear-stained but determined.
"With me?"
She glanced at the footman who'd carried the gun, then lowered her voice. "I wronged you, Edward.
I should have known you wouldn't treat Freddie harshly. And I want to make sure you're all right."
His mouth fished open and shut. Protests streaked like quicksilver through his head: that he might have yelled at Freddie if she hadn't been there, that a man like himself did not require coddling, that Freddie needed her more and that her continued presence was hardly proper. She was the gentler sex. She was the one who shouldn't see this. Instead, he gazed into her sweet, stubborn eyes and knew he could not refuse her gesture.
"As you wish," he said. Though he'd meant the words to come out cool, they were as low and caressing as a lover's
sigh. Embarrassed, he shouldered the rifle and cleared his throat. He pressed the muzzle to the gelding's skull. As if he knew what was coming, Sooty calmed.
"Stand back," he said. "I don't want you spattered."
Florence
made a half-swallowed sound, more concern than horror. Edward didn't mean to look at her again, but their eyes locked just as they had over the hounds. A strange, drawing sensation pulled at his breastbone, a thin, painful tug, as if his soul were trying to reach her.
You ought to be mine, he thought. Only I can make you happy. But that was pointless. She belonged
to Freddie. She was Freddie's saving grace.