Лорен Уиллиг - The Seduction of the Crimson Rose

Mary struggled to angle the barrel back down. "A pistol shot is so loud, mon seigneur. You wouldn't want to draw attention to yourself like that, would you? After all, you have so much of your great work still to accomplish. Bonaparte wouldn't know what to do with himself without you."

"If you won't do it — " The Black Tulip's hand tightened over hers, gluing her fingers to the stock of the pistol.

"It's not that I won't," Mary amended hastily, wrestling him for control of the pistol. "But shouldn't we just strategize a bit first? Methods and all that? You know what they say. Shoot in haste, repent at leisure…."

" — then I shall just have to do it myself."

Without any further ado, the Black Tulip wrenched their joined hands into position, leveling the pistol at Lord Vaughn's unprotected back with the casual aim of a master marksman.

"Adieu, Lord Vaughn. Or should I say the Pink Carnation?"

In a single, brutal movement, the Black Tulip pressed her finger down against the trigger. Mary's elbow jerked ineffectually back, but the Tulip's grip was too strong to dislodge.

The force of the recoil kicked Mary straight in the shoulder, knocking her back against the Black Tulip. The arms holding her abruptly disengaged, and Mary went stumbling sideways, tripping over a long hem.

Mary didn't pause to pursue the Black Tulip; her one concern was Vaughn. Coughing, eyes watering from the acrid black smoke, Mary fought her way free of the bunting, just in time to see Vaughn fall heavily from his knees to his elbows and from there to the ground.

Next to him, Vaughn's cane rolled once, then twice before sliding to a rest in the trampled brown grass.

"Vaughn?" Mary skidded across the muddy field. "Vaughn?"

Vaughn's hands were splayed on the ground on either side of him. His only response was a low groan. He made an effort to move, his shoulder muscles bunching beneath the fabric of his jacket. Squirming sideways, he attempted to lever himself up, moving only inches before his arms gave way again. A wet trail marked his path, glistening burgundy against the faded grass.

Dropping to her knees on the ground next to him, Mary stripped off her gloves. Wadding up the leather, she pressed it hard against the hole in his back. The makeshift bandage did little good. Despite the tear in the back of his coat, the blood seemed to be seeping from beneath him, wetting her knees through her dress as she knelt beside him.

Seeing her, Vaughn tried again to hoist himself up onto one arm.

"Don't," Mary said harshly, grappling to keep her grip on the wad of leather, slimy with blood. "You'll only hurt yourself more."

Vaughn's clouded eyes shifted across her face. "Didn't mean — " he managed to force out between cracked lips. "Never wanted — "

"I know," Mary said quickly. "I do. Don't fret yourself."

Vaughn's eyes shifted downwards, taking in the dark stains, the steadily spreading puddle of blood. His lips peeled back from his teeth in a parody of his old smile. But before he could say anything sarcastic, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he went still.

Holding the wadded gloves hard against his back, Mary hunkered down beside him, bending her ear to his lips, listening anxiously for the sounds of life. His breath brushed her cheek, and she could have cried with relief. He was only unconscious, not — Mary's mind shied away from other possibilities.

But he was still losing blood, the precious fluid seeping into the ground at her knees. Without loosing her grip on the sodden gloves, Mary used her other hand to ease his left arm upwards, tilting him to the side. And there it was, a matching wound on the other side, just below the arm, tearing through shirt, waistcoat, coat. The fabric was so sodden, it was hard to tell exactly where the damage was.

Vaughn's cravat would make the best bandage, but the intricate knot defied deconstruction, especially with only one hand. Inspired by desperation, Mary emptied out the contents of her reticule, sending coins spinning dizzily in the dirt. Wadding up the soft fabric, she stuffed it beneath the wet patch on his chest, letting the weight of Vaughn's body do the rest.

It wasn't enough, though. She needed something to hold both pads in place. Mary let go for just a moment, and the sodden gloves on his back slid slowly sideways. Lurching forwards, Mary pressed them back into place. With her right hand occupied, she wriggled out of her spencer, wishing that fashion had called for slightly looser garments this season. One-handed, clumsy with haste and fear, she folded the back of the jacket over to make a thick pad. Holding the sodden wadding on his back in place with her elbow, she painfully scooted one arm of the spencer beneath him, leaning across him to yank it out the other side, the bloody gloves pressing against her breast. Edging back, she positioned the folded portion so that it would cover both sides of his wound, holding the already blood-soaked padding in place.

With the sleeves pulled tight, there was only just enough room to make a knot. The material, designed for fashion rather than function, slipped free as she tried to tie it off. Cursing beneath her breath as the material scooted away from her blood-slick fingers, Mary grasped the ends and pulled them fast, tugging them as tight as they would go.

Rocking back on her knees, she regarded Vaughn helplessly. Would he bleed less if she turned him onto his back? Or would the movement merely make him lose more blood? Letty would probably know, Letty who bandaged cuts and soothed banged knees and did whatever else one did with small children who had a habit of falling onto sharp farming implements. But Mary had never paid the slightest attention to any of that. Blood, after all, stained one's clothes.

"Do you need help, dearie?" Caught squatting ignominiously on her haunches, Mary glanced up to see crooked feathers towering over her head, like a great, black bird of prey.

The feathers were attached to a crooked bonnet, and the bonnet, in turn, to a raddled face from which wafted the strong scent of gin. It was the same woman she had seen before, the one who had been standing just in front of her in the crowd, watching the King ride up and down the ranks.

Remembering the brush of fabric against the back of her dress, Mary shied violently away. What better disguise than a raddled lady of the night? The broken bonnet cast her face into permanent shadow, and the reek of gin would keep away any but the most hardened sot. For a woman, her shoulders seemed unnaturally broad; they blocked the sun and sent a long shadow falling across Vaughn's helpless form.

"No," said Mary fiercely, shielding Vaughn with her body. "We're quite all right."

The woman — if it really was a woman — shrugged. "Suit yourself."

Hoisting her bottle to her lips, she wandered back towards the main crush of people. But Mary noticed that she stopped not far away. One hand held the bottle aloft, but the other was hidden by the tipsy fall of her shawl, long enough and thick enough to hide any manner of things, from a bottle…to a pistol.

It probably wasn't her, Mary belatedly concluded. There had been no gin smell around the Black Tulip, and goodness only knew that she had been pressed close enough to him — or her — to tell. But the Black Tulip might be anyone, dressed as anything.

Mary crouched protectively over Vaughn. No matter how dangerous moving him might be, she had to get him out of the park and back to the relative safety of Vaughn House. With all the crowds milling about, there were too many opportunities for the Black Tulip to finish the job.

"You. Boy!" Without leaving her protective crouch, Mary reached out and grabbed a small boy by the scruff of his pants.

"Yes, miss?" Staring google-eyed at the broad streaks of blood decorating Mary's dress, the urchin shrunk back as far as his waistband would allow him to go.

Mary hastily scooped up her fallen coins and thrust them in front of him. "If you find me a sedan chair and make it come here right now, all of these are yours."

"All, miss?" The boy's eyes lit as visions of gingerbread danced through his head, greed trumping caution.

"All," Mary repeated emphatically, waving the handful of shiny metal back and forth. "But only if you come quickly. Understand?"

"Yes, miss!" the boy was already in motion, racing for the gates. Mary fervently hoped he was running for a chair, and not just away. With Vaughn's blood streaking her hands, she looked like the sort of person who would snatch up small children and bake them into pies, or whatever it was that parents used to frighten their children these days.

Scrubbing her hands hastily against her skirt, she eased one hand gently beneath Vaughn's head. The short hairs prickled against her fingers. His head weighed against her hand like lead, entirely inert.

"I don't care," she whispered to him, leaning her lips close to his ear. "I don't care how many wives you have. If you pull through this, you can have a hundred more. Just don't die. Please."

If he heard her, he gave no sign.

Where was the boy with the chair? There were so many places for a would-be assassin to hide among the crowds. Even the very tree above their heads. In the background, the martial clamor rattled on, with the clatter of hooves, the rat-tat-tat of the drums, the shrill cry of the horn. No one would notice a cry in the midst of the cacophany. Even the sound of a shot would be entirely inaudible beneath the gabble of the crowd and the screech of the pipes and drums.

"I've brought 'em," the boy announced.

Behind the boy stood two men, in the traditional livery of the chairman, a loose blue kersey coat over black breeches, with large cocked hats shading their faces. Between them, they held a black box with long, springy poles threaded through metal brackets on the side. It was a far cry from Vaughn's own sedan chair, painted in shiny black lacquer and chased with silver, but it would have to do. Closed up in the box, he should be safe from harm — or, at least, safe from further harm.

"There was an accident," Mary said imperiously, emptying her handful of coins into the boy's palm. The boy scampered happily away, taking the remains of her quarter's allowance with him. "Move him gently."

The chairman regarded her laconically. "It'll be extra if he bleeds on the cushions, like."

"It will be nothing unless you move him," said Mary acidly. "Now."

With a shrug to show what he thought of uppity wenches, the chairman leaned over, his blue kersey coat flapping about his calves, and hoisted Vaughn up by the armpits.

"Both of you!" snapped Mary. "Gently!"

With an expression of extreme martyrdom, the second chairman reluctantly grasped Vaughn's legs. Together, the two men shifted him through the opening between the poles into the chair. Ignoring the chairman's protests that his vehicle was meant for one, Mary climbed in after him, pressing Vaughn's head protectively against her shoulder.

"Vaughn House," she commanded, cutting through the man's protests. "In Belliston Square."

"Don't think I know where Vaughn House is?" muttered the chairman rebelliously beneath his breath, but he picked up the front poles as his comrade picked up the back, hoisting their burden into the air.

Easing an arm around Vaughn's shoulders to hold him steady, Mary fussed over his bandage. The chairman's cavalier treatment had shifted it upwards, and the wadded mass that had once been her reticule was sticking out beneath one end, heavy with blood.

Vaughn, she had no doubt, would have a perfect quotation for the occasion, something about a pound of flesh, or taking one's price in blood.

Mary blinked, hard. From the dust in the road, of course. It was a singularly dusty drive, and the windows of the sedan chair didn't keep the dust out as they ought.

On the street, as if from a continent away, people went about their business, unaware that inside the sedan chair the entire world hung pendant over a dark abyss, suspended by nothing more than the fragile thread of Vaughn's weak breathing. From the gates of the park, weaving through the traffic with the ease of long practice, rode Lady Hester Standish, looking like a self-satisfied cossack in her fur-trimmed red habit. Mary caught a glimpse of black boot beneath a muddied hem as she rode by, her legs on a level with the window.