Free The Makeshift Marriage by Sandra Heath

gown.
    At her door Nicholas put his hand gently to her cheek. “Don’t cry, Laura.”
    “I’m trying so very hard not to,” she whispered, and then she caught his hand. “Please don’t meet the baron tomorrow. Please don’t —”
    “I must.”
    She closed her eyes and the tears welled out. His fingers tightened around hers and he drew her into his arms, holding her close. She raised her face, her lips parting to speak again, but he put a finger over them to silence her.
    “Don’t,” he whispered. “Don’t ask me, for I cannot and will not grant you what you wish.” He hesitated a moment and then bent his head to kiss her on the lips.
    She clung to him, holding him tightly as she returned the kiss. Her head was spinning, her pulse racing, and she could taste the salt of her own tears.
    Slowly he released her. “Good night, Laura,” he said softly.
    “God be with you, Nicholas.”
    Then he was gone. Her tears blinded her and she almost stumbled into her room. Bitter sobs shook her body as she flung herself onto the bed. Her heart was breaking. Please God, please let him live! Let him live because I love him so!
     

Chapter 9
     
    The light in the room was the palest of grays. Dawn was almost upon Venice. Laura lay awake on the bed. The posy of anemones were in a small bowl of water, their bright heads upturned. They had been so wan, their stems bending and their flowers drooping, but they were refreshed now and as beautiful as they had been the day before.
    She watched the pale light beyond the windows. She heard Nicholas’s seconds passing her door, their spurred boots loud. They knocked at a door and she heard the low murmur of voices. The hotel was so still then that she could distinctly hear the hum of insects out on the balcony. The footsteps returned then, spurs jingling, and she clenched her hands tightly, willing herself to remain where she was. She wanted to call out to him, to rush out and beg him on her knees not to go, but he would not welcome that and it would not help him to face the ordeal. She closed her tired eyes. The footsteps passed from hearing and silence returned.
    The limpid light softened and brightened with each passing minute now, but Laura’s face was hidden in her pillow and she did not see. The only sound was the slow ticking of the clock as the moments passed relentlessly by.
    “Fräulein Milbanke! Fräulein Milbanke!” Major Bergmann was hammering at her door.
    Laura got up. Her heart felt like ice as she stared at the door. She could not move toward it, for to do that would be to hear that he was dead… .
    “Fräulein Milbanke, come quickly please! Sir Nicholas is badly wounded, but he lives.”
    With a choked cry she ran to the door and would have gone to Nicholas’s room, but the major caught her arm. “I warn you, Fraulein, it is very bad and the doctor does not hold out hope.”
    She stared at him. “No,” she whispered, “No, I will not believe —”
    “But you must, for it is true. Sir Nicholas was struck twice.”
    “Twice? But how could that be?”
    “It shames me to acknowledge that the Baron von Marienfeld is my fellow countryman and fellow officer, for today he behaved in a most craven and disgraceful manner. He discharged his second pistol when Sir Nicholas was unarmed. It is always the baron’s custom to take both pistols from the outset, for his aim is as true with the left hand as with the right. Sir Nicholas, as is the more usual custom, took only the one, meaning to replace it afterward before taking the second. Both men took up their positions and the first shots were discharged. The baron was wounded a little in his shoulder, but Sir Nicholas was hit very badly in his left arm. He was still standing at this point, however, although losing a great deal of blood and obviously faint. But rather than face him equally a second time, the baron discharged his second pistol immediately. It was an act of cowardice and callousness such as I did not