The Viscount's Counterfeit Wife Read Free

was the blood coming from? She pulled his shirt away
from his skin and slid her hand up his arm, under his shirt. Just
above his elbow, she was unable to move any higher without shifting
his body onto the side. He was heavy, so she just barely managed to
lean him sideways enough to push her hand up under his clothes at the
back, to feel where the ball had entered. It appeared to have hit him
in the shoulder, but she wasn’t able to find the entry point.
    Relief weakened her
knees to know the blood was seeping from his shoulder not his chest,
though she was appalled at how much blood there was.
    It was the first time
she’d shot any one and her nerves were fluttering madly about like
a trapped bird’s wings. She put her hand to his heart. The powerful
beat had her snatching it back as if scalded. He certainly was not
dead or dying! Even so, she needed to get help for him.
    She pulled his coat
closed to cover him before she raced from the room and flew down the
stairs. It was lucky she was used to moving about in the dark
because, apart from the faint glow of moonlight filtering in through
the fanlight above the door in the hallway, it was total darkness.
    At the bottom, she was
on her way toward the back of the house, when a loud snore, coming
from the front hallway, stopped her. Startled, she peeked around the
corner.
    Even in her distress,
she had to smile. Foster, the old dear, was guarding the door.
Sitting soldier-straight in a high-backed chair, he was bundled up
with woolen hat and scarf against the night chill, his ancient
blunderbuss across his lap. He was sound asleep. Not even the
deafening gunshot that was still ringing in her ears had disturbed
his deep slumber. In truth, his hearing was really very poor now, but
still....
    She hated to wake him,
but who else could help her? They were just the two of them in the
house. They’d hired only Joseph, a small boy of uncertain age,
though definitely no more than nine, to help Foster with the chores
and do the running. But he went home at the end of the afternoon to
his mother and younger brothers and sisters.
    She tiptoed nearer,
carefully, fearful of waking him abruptly with that dangerous-looking
contraption in his arms.
    “Foster,” she
whispered loudly.
    No reaction.
    “Foster!” She
raised her voice even louder. She patted his arm lightly.
    Still nothing.
    Grasping his shoulder,
she shook him vigorously. This time, she shouted his name.
    “Heh? What?” He
straightened and, before she knew it, had his weapon aimed at her.
For an elderly man, he was quick to react!
    “It’s Tally!” She
pushed the tip of the gun away. “I need your help.” She saw his
rheumy eyes clearing as he wakened. “Quickly! I shot a burglar.”
    “What?” That jolted
him awake. He looked around. “Where?”
    “In my room.” Tally
headed for the stairs.
    “Eh? How did he get
up there?” Foster hobbled stiffly along beside her and they started
up the steps. “Ain’t nobody come by me.”
    “He climbed in the
window.” Noticing him wince, she slowed down. Her heart ached to
see how frail he looked. A puff of wind could knock him over! And how
much help would he be if the intruder upstairs recovered enough to
stand and fight?
    “He’s no burglar!”
He wheezed and stopped to catch his breath. “I told ye. Someone is
trying to kill you.”
    “Not that again!”
She brushed the idea away with a wave of her hand. “Why would any
body want to harm me? Who, in London, even knows I exist?”
    “I don’t know why,
Miss Tally, but they’re after you, that’s for demmed sure.”
    Was he right? It had
been easier to scoff at his notion that she was a target of foul
play, before that man had crawled through her bedroom window.
    “Did ye kill him?”
He took another step, a gleam of gleeful expectation in his sharp,
aging eyes.
    “I hope not!” She
ignored his snort of disapproval. “I hit him in the back of the
shoulder, but he’s losing a lot of blood.”
    They reached