ismenin | A Regency Tale

Well, good morning! I'm here to put you out of your misery! On this sunny morning (Wonders Never Cease) in Wales, I give to you.....

Thanks to LSR - ever faithful - for two betas in one week! Snogses.

Part 19 - Sorrow and Anger

Barney had smiled as Dom pointed the muzzle of his pistol skywards, acknowledging that this engagement was a mere formality. Therefore the shock when Elijah fell momentarily stunned him.

So did Dom's scream of terror and rage. He had sounded to Barney like a wounded animal caught in a trap, but Barney could not spare a glance for Elijah's love - there was a murderer to catch.

He realised at once that the ball that had hit Elijah could not have come from Dom's pistol, and as he glanced around him for the perpetrator, he caught a glimpse of movement within the nearby copse.

Barney ran to Dom and grabbed his arms in an iron grip. "You see to him, I'll go after...see to Lij!" he ordered, and, with a yell of rage, Barney ran towards the fleeing figure, Gil hard at his heels, leaving the rest of the company to attend to the injured duke.

Dom almost fell when he saw what had happened - his knees could hardly bear his weight. The doctor and March rushed to Elijah who was lying inert on the ground. Dom stood still a moment longer, then steeled himself to walk forward and find Elijah dead.

Cedric wordlessly took the gun out of Dom's hand, and picked up the weapon that Elijah had dropped.

Dom knelt beside his love, not daring to breathe.

"He's not dead, m' Lord," said the doctor in a gruff voice, opening his bag and taking some bandages and a bottle of some anodyne out of it, but he had no chance to administer it, for his patient was unconscious.

"But, my Lord," the doctor continued inexorably, "whoever it was that shot him meant to have him dead. It was a near thing - damned near! Here, hold this!" he ordered, handing Dom the green bottle, and taking out a brown one instead.

March sat on the ground, cradling Elijah's head, heedless of the blood that spilt onto his clothing. Dom, not knowing what to do but wanting to scream his distress to the heavens, picked up Elijah's glasses, holding them carefully in his free hand as if they were a fragile treasure.

He could not look at Elijah's face or at his wound - he knew he would betray himself, and even if he was sure of Cedric, he could not rely on March's discretion, or the doctor's either.

"How is he, doctor?" The voice, taut and feeble, did not sound like his own.

"A nasty graze, my Lord - but a graze only," the doctor said, dabbing at Elijah's head with a piece of lint soaked in liquid from the brown bottle. "These scalp wounds always bleed more freely than most. I dare say he will have the headache for a few days, but..."

...the doctor had stopped to listen. Elijah's chest was rattling.

"Damn it, the lad should never have come out in this state. What possessed him? His seconds have been very remiss to allow him to appear here today."

The doctor had finished bandaging Elijah's head and replaced the bottles into his capacious bag. Dom could hardly suppress a shudder at his Lij's face, still red with his own blood. Dom shook his head, helplessly for he was not remotely reassured by anything the doctor had said.

March posed a question. "Where shall we take him? He would not care for people to see him carried into his own home in such a condition. How far may he travel, doctor?"

The doctor put down Elijah's hand, and stood up.

"His pulse is tumultuous, my Lord. He needs rest and quiet. It will do his Grace no good to be jostled about for miles in a hackney, however well-sprung it may be. Is there anywhere nearer than Berkeley Square that we can take him?"

It was Cedric who replied. "Sir Victor Murton's house is very near, doctor. Only a few minutes away. I daresay we can take him there. I will write a note for Corsham, to leave with his jarvey, telling him where we have gone, and you, my Lords - doctor - may go in Monaghan's carriage to Sir Victor's home. Here is his direction..."

"It's all right, Ceddy - I will take that. I am not so bereft of my wits that I cannot remember where Victor lives," Dom said quietly, taking the paper out of his friend's hand, and thrusting it into his pocket. Lowering his voice to a whisper, Dom muttered, "after you leave the note, see if you can find where Corsham and Faversham have gone."

"Pay off our jarvey - God knows when Corsham and Faversham may return, and we'll take their carriage, and they can easily call up another from a few yards down the North Road. The less these coachmen know the better."

"Come to Victor's and let me know what is going forward...if Corsham found who did this to my...to Lij...now, go!"

March had gone to their Hackney and brought the jarvey to help them carry Elijah to the vehicle.

"One of us could carry him, he is such a little fellow," the doctor remarked, as he took Elijah's shoulders, and pointed the coachman to lift his legs, "but I want him disturbed as little as possible. My God! he is heavier than he looks! Must be all muscle..."

Dom did not offer to help with Elijah, though he dearly wished to knock the two men aside and carry his love in his own arms to safety - if safety there was for him, after this violent attack.

Who has done this to Lij, and why?

Dom's mind was a maelstrom of emotion as they drove the short distance to the leafy square where Sir Victor resided.

Outside the hub of all the town's doings, this was still a place where the more affluent of men had their homes. Lawyers, barristers and doctors lived here, together with some poets, artists and writers. As they drew up outside Sir Victor's house there could be seen two coal heavers delivering their heavy sacks to houses a few yards down the road, and a milkman was chatting to a kitchen maid half way up the steps to Sir Victor's basement.

March called down to her. "Run quickly, girl, and open the front door - and call Sir Victor! We have a wounded man here! Tell him it is ...urgent!"

The startled maid withdrew quickly and within a very few minutes the door was being opened by a tall, stately woman of early middle age who announced herself as the housekeeper. She was certainly in no mind to let anyone enter the house with a wounded man, but when she saw Dom's white face and anguished eyes, she recognised him immediately as one of her master's closest friends, and stepped aside.

They carried Elijah into the hall just as a tall, dark headed man with a slightly saturnine cast to his features, bounded down the stairs. He was dressed in a robe of startlingly green silk that hardly fastened across his scandalously bare chest.

"Good God, Dom! What is this you have brought me? I do not see you for weeks..." He stopped abruptly as he looked closely at Dom's face.

He called out abruptly, and two men came up from the nether reaches of the house and he directed them to carry the unconscious form to the second best bedroom without delay.

He then turned and nodded and bowed to March, whom he was slightly acquainted, and Dom introduced the doctor to his friend.

March cleared his throat. "I will leave you for now, gentlemen, as I am persuaded I will only be in the way in a sick room. I shall send later to see how the duke is going on."

Dom handed over Cedric's note with the address scribbled on it, and begged his friend to go to his house and desire Morlock to come to him immediately with clothing for two and several nightshirts and linens for bandages. "He will be of use here. He helped nurse me when I had the fever once. Thank you for all your help, Julian, I am truly grateful to you,"

Dom managed to observe, without being discourteous to March, that Elijah was being carried aloft, his arm dangling loosely, his limp hand almost brushing the stairs.

At the top landing Victor took the inert form from the two men, and carried Elijah into the bedroom. The bed was made up and a fire was burning in the grate. "I am expecting Henry today. He can take another room. This, at least, is warm enough for a sick man," he said to Dom, as he placed Elijah gently on the sheets.

"I would be grateful if you would help me undress him, Sir Victor," the doctor remarked, pulling off one of Elijah's boots. Dom had gone to sit on a chair against the wall, and was looking nearly as pale as was Elijah.

Sir Victor yelled for someone called Sally, and soon the housekeeper came bustling in with a nightgown.

"Will you get Lord Monaghan a glass of brandy - hell's teeth! - get us all one, if you please. Yes, doctor, I know," laughed Victor, seeing the physician's troubled countenance, as he threw Elijah's fine woollen stocking onto the floor , "but you must allow it is not too early if the brandy is used for medicinal purposes. And you must see poor Dom, here, is looking like death!"

The doctor, humphed and said he thought the brandy a very good idea. "It is not the brandy that worries me, Sir Victor, but the state of the man lying here. I should have thought to have had some slight movement from him by now - it is not good that he has not moved since he was hit. Still, it is early days yet. I'll give him more time before I become seriously concerned."

By now Elijah was dressed in Victor's bedgown, several sizes too large for his slight frame, and he looked, to Dom a pitiful sight, lying there, so small and helpless, so still and pale.

The doctor drank his brandy, then excused himself, for he had a large practise and many demands on his time. He promised, however, to return later that day to see how his Grace had progressed.

Dom, leaving Victor to escort the doctor out of the house, took a chair by the bedside, and sat upon it. He took Elijah's cold hand in his, placed his cheek upon it, and closed his eyes.

Victor came back into the room and stared quizzically at Dom.
"So that is how it is, Dom?"

Even though Dom could not see him, the tone was evident in his voice. Victor, as always, understood.

Dom did not move, or open his eyes. He said in a quiet voice, exhausted by emotion, "Yes, that is exactly how it is, Victor, my dear friend."

*****

Dom refused to leave Elijah's side for breakfast or lunch, and Victor did not force him. Nor did he ask any questions; he knew Dom, and Dom would tell him all, in time.

Ceddy arrived an hour later and told Dom there was no sign of either Barney or Gil. He told Dom he was off to keep an appointment, but would return in the morning to see how things did.

His leaving coincided with Morlock's arrival.

Bernard Morlock was a tall well built man, who quite dwarfed his diminutive master. He had seen Dom injured in battle; he had seen him with a hundred French soldiers surrounding him and a group of five others; he had seen him after Lord Arthur had died in agony - but never had he seen him with such despair in his eyes.

Dom had tried his best to wash the blood from Elijah's face, and to make him look more the thing, but Morlock shook his head. "That bandage needs replacing, sir. When is the doctor returning, if I may ask?"

Dom had always wished that Morlock had been nearby when Arthur had been wounded, for he was a capital sick-nurse. But he was suffering from a bad sabre wound at the time, and did not return until Arthur had... gone.

Now Dom felt his heart lift a little - Morlock always managed to make him feel the world had turned the right way up again.

They removed the bandage and Morlock sighed, exasperated when he saw the dirt and leaves matted in Elijah's hair. Dom held Elijah's head over the edge of the bed whilst Morlock washed the hair clean. "I know folks think I'm a little dicked in the nob, sir - but cleanliness makes a mort of difference to a wound, I'll vouch for it!"

Then the servant banished Dom to the dinner table, saying he would be no use at all to the little Duke if he was three parts dead from hunger. Dom sighed and agreed. He needed his strength. He left Morlock in charge of the sick room, sitting by the fire reading a book, with a promise to fetch him if Lij woke. Dom went down to dinner.

The doctor came at nine, and apart from noting the new bandage, had nothing to say. He frowned and said he would return the next morning, and left Dom a bottle of laudanum in case, he said, the young man woke and was a trifle agitated.

When, a few minutes later the doctor left, Victor came with a bottle of port and two glasses, Dom told him all that had happened. Victor sat in the chair on the other side of the small fire, and listened intently to his friend without interruption.

Dom recited the tale calmly until he came to the shooting. Then his voice broke. "I thought I was saving him, Vic - from unwanted gossip and conjecture. Imagine what would have happened if I had let a man, with whom I was supposed to be barely acquainted, stab me in the arm! The talk would have gone around town like wildfire. It is not a thing one would allow of one's best friend, never mind a virtual stranger - people would have wondered what lay behind such unwarranted behaviour - and, perhaps come to the truth. It could not be allowed. He would have been ruined before he'd begun...so I let it go forward, and I held myself in check until... until..."

"... the look on his face when the ball hit him, I shall never forget! Oh, God! It is all my fault!"

It was at this point that Henry, Victor's son, arrived, and, after a few minutes, when Dom was calmer, Victor excused himself to talk with his son, who would, no doubt, wonder why his bed was being occupied that night. Victor, to his friend's anxious entreaty, assured Dom he would not tell his son of the duel.

Victor was inclined to agree with Dom over much of the affair, but he privately thought that to have saved the Duke further anxiety he should have informed his opponent prior to the meeting, that he would delope.

Not - Victor mused as Dom undressed and went to lie beside his lover in the bed - not that it would have made any difference to the outcome. But if the little Duke were to die, he would die thinking it was Dom who had shot him. How could he know otherwise? For Dom's sake, he hoped the young man would wake soon. Very soon.

Two candles were still burning, and a lamp glowed softly on a small table near the bed, casting a warm glow about the dark room.

Dom took Elijah's hand in his. Despite the night being warm, and the fire burning in the hearth, Elijah was still cold. Dom pressed himself as close to his lover as he could, and put his arm around Elijah's waist.

"I am sorry, my love...so sorry! Will you forgive me, Lij?"

The fire crackling in the grate and the lamp spluttering were his only reply.

Dom looked at the face beside him, peaceful in sleep. He could see the rise and fall of Elijah's chest, so he knew he was still alive - but he lay as still as death, not the slightest movement or twitch to say he was merely asleep. Dom wondered, not for the first time, if this unnatural state was coma.

He prayed that night as never before, for Elijah to wake. It remained to be seen if his God would look kindly upon his pleadings.

Glossary

Anodyne - Pain killing drug

Jarvey - Driver of a Hackney Carriage.

Dicked in the nob - same as "Queer in the attic" - not quite "there" in the mind.

The Etiquette of the delope

Delope - French for "throwing away" is the practice of firing in the air or into the ground during a duel, in an attempt to stop the conflict. According to most traditions the deloper must first allow his opponent the opportunity to fire after the command ("present") is issued by the second, without hinting at his intentions. However, the Irish code forbids the practice of deloping explicitly. (Dom, as you see, took no notice of that rule!)

The delope could be attempted for practical reasons if one's opponent was thought to be superior in ability, or for moral reasons - if the duelist had objections to attempting to kill their opponent - for example if he loved him trulymadlydeeply...

For one's opponent to insist upon a second shot after a delope, was considered ungentlemanly and unbecoming. It would fall to the seconds to immediately end the duel after a delope had been carried out.

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

lireeli.livejournal.com

It's so terrible!! I'm speechless! My poor Lijah, who wants you dead?
And he will never believe that it's not Dom who shot him...Life is really harsch for these two lovers...

From:

A Regency Tale - Nineteen

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