Free Fortunate Wager by Jan Jones Page A

who’d got into childhood scrapes and who had never let anyone else take the blame. An honourable child.
    ‘Nanny?’ he murmured again. His arm wrapped around her leg.
    She stroked his hair. There was grit in it where he’d fallen. She finger-combed it, teasing out the dirt. ‘I’m here, Alexander. Go to sleep now. You’re safe.’
     
    Alex drifted in and out of a hellish, pain-filled limbo. The bridge across the Long Meadow lode. They’d been told not to use it. They knew it was unsafe. But Giles had dared him, laughing, running across and back himself over the swollen water to prove there was no danger. It was simply the adults making their usual fuss about nothing. Alex had always envied Giles his quicksilver lightness and his grace. Taller and heavier, he could hear the pounding of his boots on the wooden planks as he used brute force to try and match his friend’s speed. And heard the crack of wood splintering. And felt the blow as his temple caught the rail. He knew again the icy shock of water surging inside his collar and up his sleeves. He panicked at the weight of his soddenclothes as he tried to struggle free.
    ‘Hush,’ said a soft voice. ‘Stop fretting. You’re safe. Rest now.’
    Nanny, thought Alex, fastening on to this one detail. Lovely, comfortable Nanny. His neck was warm where he rested on her. He pulled her hand under his cheek and went to sleep.

CHAPTER FIVE
    B Y THE TIME the doctor arrived, everybody was up and the sky was getting light. Caroline’s lap was numb and soaked through with the damp from Lord Rothwell’s clothes. She was anxious about him waking and seeing her like this, even more anxious about him not waking, and could most definitely have done without a recital of all the nasty head wounds the stable-hands had ever encountered. They were worse than a parcel of chaperons for looking on the black side.
    Dr Peck had known her all her life. He evinced no surprise on seeing her at this hour, in this place, dressed as a lad, with a sopping wet, unconscious man’s head in her lap. He nodded to Harry then examined Lord Rothwell. ‘Dear me. Considerable loss of blood and several abrasions to the skull. Nasty. Going to take very careful nursing.’
    Caroline’s stomach turned over, thinking how many of those bumps on the head had been due to her. Oh, please let him pull through this. Don’t let her have him on her conscience. ‘Will we need a cart to get him to the White Hart, then?’ she asked.
    ‘The White Hart?’ said the doctor, looking up from his patient in surprise. ‘No, no. With care and a length of canvas and four of your stoutest grooms we should be able to get him indoors without further damage, but any greater distance I won’t answer for.’
    Caroline hoped, she really hoped, that she did not turn as pale as she felt at these words. They would have to look after him here? She would have to look after him here? But what if henever recovered? She eased Alexander’s head onto one of the men’s coats and stood up, wincing at her cramped muscles. She rubbed her forehead, thinking aloud. ‘I must get out of these clothes. Give me ten minutes start, Harry, and then send word to Fortune House for me to help Mrs Penfold urgently with the nursing.’ She looked at the men. ‘You’ll need the canvas horse sling. Ask one of the maids for a clean sheet to put on it, and request the back parlour to be made ready for an injured nobleman . You can carry Lord Rothwell into there through the long windows from the terrace.’
     
    Scroope, the butler, was so put out by a message from Mrs Penfold requesting Caroline’s presence on an indefinite errand of mercy before he’d even got his coat on, that he failed to put up any of the objections he would have fabricated given enough time. Caroline seized the moment and was gone without delay, leaving instructions for her clothes to be packed and sent on.
    Dr Peck and the grooms had only just started across the Penfold Lodge