Free The Talisman Ring by Georgette Heyer Page B

she demanded.
    ‘Left shoulder. I think we’d better take the risk and make Hand Cross.’
    ‘Yes, but first I will bind up your shoulder. Are you bleeding very much?’
    ‘Like a pig,’ said Ludovic.
    She slid to the ground, stiff and somewhat bruised, and said imperatively: ‘Get down! If you bleed like a pig you will die, and I do not at all want you to die.’
    He laughed, but dismounted, and found himself steadied by two small capable hands. He reeled and sank on his knees, saying: ‘Damme, I must be worse hit than I knew! You’d best take the horse and leave me.’
    ‘I shall not leave you,’ replied Eustacie, busily ripping the flounce off her petticoat. ‘I shall take you to Hand Cross.’
    Receiving no answer, she looked closely at him and found to her dismay that he had fainted. For a moment she was at a loss to know what to do, but when she touched him and brought her hand away wet with blood, she decided that the most urgent need was to bind up his wound, and promptly set about the task of extricating him from his coat. It was by no means easy, but she accomplished it at last, and managed as well as she could for the lack of light to twist the strips of her petticoat round his shoulder. He regained consciousness while she was straining her bandage as tight as possible, and lay for a moment blinking at her.
    ‘What in – oh, I remember!’ he said faintly. ‘Give me some brandy. Flask in my coat.’
    She tied a firm knot, found the brandy, and raising his head, held the flask to his lips. He recovered sufficiently to struggle up and to put on his coat again. ‘You know, you’d be wasted on Tristram,’ he told her. ‘Help me into the saddle, and we’ll make Hand Cross yet.’
    ‘Yes, but this time it is I who will take the reins,’ said Eustacie.
    ‘Just as you say, my dear,’ he replied meekly.
    ‘And you will put your arms round me and not fall off.’
    ‘Don’t worry, I shan’t fall off.’
    Eustacie, finding a conveniently fallen tree-trunk, led her weary horse to it, and by using it as a mounting-block contrived to get into the saddle. She then rode back to Ludovic, and adjured him to mount behind her. He managed to do this, but the effort very nearly brought on another swooning fit. He had recourse to the brandy again, which cleared his head sufficiently to enable him to say: ‘Follow this track; it’ll bring us out on to the pike-road, north of Hand Cross. If you can wake old Nye at the Red Lion he’ll take me in.’
    ‘What shall I do if I see an Exciseman?’ inquired Eustacie.
    ‘Say your prayers,’ he replied irrepressibly.
    No Exciseman, however, was encountered on the track that led through the Forest, and by the time they came out on to the turnpike road, a mile from Hand Cross, Eustacie was far too anxious about her cousin to have much thought to spare for a questing Excise-officer. Ludovic seemed to stay in the saddle more by instinct than by any conscious effort. Eustacie dared not urge Rufus even to a trot. She had drawn Ludovic’s sound arm round her waist, and held it there, clasping his slack hand. It seemed an interminable way to Hand Cross, but at last the lonely inn came into sight, a dark huddle against the sky. It was by now long after midnight, and no light shone behind the shuttered windows. Eustacie pulled Rufus up before the door and let go of Ludovic’s hand. It fell nervelessly to his side; she realized that he must have swooned again; he was certainly sagging against her very heavily; she hoped he would not fall out of the saddle when she dismounted. She slid down, and was relieved to find that he only fell forward across Rufus’s neck. The next moment she had grasped the bell-pull and sent an agitated peal ringing through the silent inn.
    It was answered so speedily that Eustacie, who had heard rumours that Joseph Nye, of the Red Lion, knew more about the free-traders than he would admit, instantly suspected that he had been waiting up for the very