Hello Stranger (The Ravenels #4)(69)

“Who did this?” West had asked Ransom as he lay in a filthy, crumpled heap on the settee.

“One of Jenkyn’s men,” Ransom had gasped, fighting to stay conscious, his eyes unfocused.

“Jenkyn ordered it?”

“Yes. Don’t trust police. Felbrigg. When they find me . . .”

“They won’t find you.”

“They’ll come.”

Let them try, West had thought, livid as he saw what had been done to his kinsman.

Kathleen had bent over the dying man, using a soft white cloth to wipe some of the grime from his face. Ransom lost consciousness for several seconds, and reawakened with a groan. “May I send for someone?” she had asked gently, and he’d responded with a string of nearly unintelligible words that she’d somehow managed to make sense of. She had turned to West with a perplexed and sorrowing look. “He wants Dr. Gibson.”

“Gibson’s in King’s Cross, isn’t she? We can fetch our family physician far more quickly.”

“He doesn’t want her as a doctor,” Kathleen had said softly. “He wants the woman he loves.”

It had struck West as a highly improbable pairing, the doctor and the government agent. But after seeing them together, he realized their connection didn’t have to be understood by anyone except the two of them.

Rising to his feet and looking down at Garrett’s strained face, West saw that she’d nearly reached the breaking point. She stared back at him vacantly, too drained and overwhelmed to ask a single question.

“Doctor,” he said gently, “I’ve just spoken to my brother, who’s arranged for us to take Ransom to Hampshire. We’re leaving in a few hours.”

“He can’t be moved.”

“He’s not safe here. No one else is, either. There’s no choice.”

Garrett snapped back to attention, her gaze sharpening. “All the jolting could kill him. It’s out of the question.”

“I swear to you he’ll be conveyed quickly and carefully.”

“On rough country roads?” she asked scornfully.

“We’re transporting him by private train carriage. We’ll reach the family estate by dawn. It’s quiet and secluded there. He’ll be able to heal in privacy.”

West could hardly wait to return to Eversby Priory. He was beginning to hate London and its hard-hearted chaos of streets, buildings, vehicles, and trains, filth, smoke, glitter, and grandeur. Oh, he missed the city from time to time, but after a few days he was always eager to get back to Hampshire.

The Ravenels’ ancient manor house was positioned on a hill from which anyone who approached could be seen for miles. The estate’s tens of thousands of acres had belonged to the family since the days of William the Conqueror. It seemed appropriate that Ethan Ransom, who—although illegitimate—was in the family’s direct line of descent, should be guarded from his enemies in the home of his ancestors. He and Garrett Gibson would be safe there. West would make sure of it.

Garrett was shaking her head. “I can’t leave my father . . . he’s old and ill . . .”

“We’ll take him with us. Now, tell me what Ransom will need for the journey.”

West was fairly certain that in ordinary circumstances, Garrett would have argued over the plan. But she looked at him dumbly, seeming paralyzed.

“If you don’t wish to come with us,” he said after a moment, “I’ll hire a nurse for Ransom. That might be for the best, actually. You can remain in London and maintain appearances, while—”

“We’ll need an ambulance cart from the clinic to convey him from here to the station,” Garrett interrupted with a scowl, “as well as from the Hampshire station to your home. We’ll have to take it with us.”

“An entire cart?” West asked, wondering how they could fit that onto the train carriage. “Can’t we make do with a stretcher and a good mattress?”

“The cart’s framework is fitted with special elastic springs to absorb jolts. Otherwise, the artery ligations won’t hold, and he’ll hemorrhage. We’ll also need portable water tanks, an ice box, hand lanterns, pails, basins, linens, toweling—”

“Write it all down,” West said hastily.

“We’ll also have to take my cookmaid with us, to look after my father.”

“Whatever you need.”

Her green eyes narrowed. “Why are you doing this? Mr. Ransom doesn’t like the Ravenels. The very name makes him hostile.”

“That’s because Edmund, the old earl, treated both Ransom and his mother quite badly.” West rolled up his loose shirtsleeve and began to pick at the strip of adhesive plaster Garrett had affixed over the puncture left by the hollow needle. It had stopped bleeding by now, and the bandage was beginning to itch. “I’m willing to help Ransom because in the past, he was kind to Helen and Pandora. Also because, whether he likes it or not, he’s a Ravenel, and there are damned few of us left. My brother and I were orphaned when we were young, and deep down I’ve always harbored idiotic fantasies of large family dinners and children and dogs running through the house.”

“I doubt Mr. Ransom would want any part of that.”

“Perhaps not. But we men aren’t quite as simplistic as we appear. A bullet in the chest could inspire a man to reconsider his opinions.”