Free The Spy's Kiss by Nita Abrams

and lifted his wrist. “No,” she said after a moment. “He’s just taken a bad knock on the head. He’ll come round soon, I should think. But we must get him inside quickly; his hands are like ice. Here, give me your coat.” She tucked it clumsily around Clermont’s shoulders. “Can you run down to the stables and get some men up here with a litter?”
    Immensely relieved to turn over responsibility to someone else, he pelted back over the top of the hill, then stopped.
    â€œSerena!” he called, turning back, “I see Bates on his way here already.”
    She emerged from the copse after a minute and looked down towards the valley. The head groom was riding up the path at a slow trot, leading another horse. “Aunt Clara must have decided it was too windy and sent after you,” she said. She sounded relieved as well. She waved vigorously until Bates spotted her and waved in return, then she hurried back into the trees, trailed by an anxious Simon.
    â€œAre you sure he isn’t dead?” Simon asked doubtfully as she knelt again by her patient. “That’s quite a bit of blood.”
    â€œDr. Wall says head wounds always bleed a lot,” she replied absently. She took out her handkerchief and dabbed at the cut on Clermont’s cheek.
    Bates appeared at the top of the path and, taking the situation in at a glance, dismounted in one leap and tethered both horses to a small tree.
    â€œWhat’s this, then?” he asked, looking from the unconscious man to Simon and then to Serena.
    â€œI would say that Mr. Clermont finally lost a round against Tempest,” answered Serena, brushing off her skirt and standing up.
    Simon was staring over her head. He tugged at her sleeve, pointing. “It wasn’t Tempest,” he whispered. “Look.” A thin length of brown rope about ten inches long was dangling from a branch of the tree, almost invisible against the trunk. A matching fragment, considerably longer, hung from a smaller tree on the other side of the path. Bates swung into the saddle of the nearer horse, his face grim, and rode up to the second tree, retrieving the rope end and holding it straight out from the branch over the path.
    â€œRider’s shoulder height,” he said succinctly. “Clear the horse’s head. Knock off the man on his back. An old horse-thieves’ trick. After we get this gentleman down the hill I’d best send for Googe again, Miss Allen.”
    â€œAnd Dr. Wall,” she said, looking down at Clermont. “At once.”
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    â€œWell, he’s a bit battered, but I don’t think it’s anything serious. Crack in the wrist bone, or perhaps a severe sprain, a few cuts, and a nasty blow to the head. Should recover, with proper care. Unless, of course, he develops a fever.” Doctor Wall tugged at a frayed pocket and extracted his pipe, then, recollecting where he was, hastily replaced it. Serena saw the habitual gesture and hid a smile. She and the doctor were old friends. Lately, in fact, there had been an unspoken conspiracy between them to wean the countess from her fixation on Simon’s constitution. Dr. Wall had been recommending more and more exercise, and his tonics now tasted suspiciously like ginger water, with an occasional decoction of lovage—equally harmless—for variety. If they had been up in the old nursery, where they had spent many hours together when Simon really had been ill, several years ago, she would have let him light the pipe. But here in one of the guest rooms, it was impossible.
    The physician tapped his fingers on the bedpost. Clermont was asleep now, thanks to a stiff tot of laudanum, but his color was poor, and he tossed a bit even under the restraint of the drug. “Fits of shivering, abdomen cold to the touch,” Dr. Wall mused. “Consistent with chill, especially in this weather. Enlarged pupils, bruises on head and neck,