‘Let go! I’ll catch you.’ Below her, out of sight. Cris. He had told her to jump and she had trusted him. He must have got something for her to land on, a sofa, some cushions. As the knife whistled down she forced her fingers to open and fell.
She crashed into something, something solid that collapsed down with her. Hands held her, she was pulled hard against cloth and she was still falling and then, seconds after she had let go, she was down, jolting and gasping on to a solid, yet yielding object. Something lashed around her ribs, holding her tight, then fell away.
The fall knocked the breath out of her for a moment, sheer shock kept her eyes closed, then the rising volume of shouts and screams forced her to open them. She was lying face down, her nose pressed into white fabric. She lifted her head and discovered it was a neckcloth and above it was Cris’s face, eyes closed. He was quite still. He had caught her with nothing to break his own fall.
‘Cris!’ Gabriel was on his knees beside them. ‘Are you all right, Tamsyn? Is anything broken?’ He was not looking at her, his fingers busy loosening Cris’s neckcloth, then sliding underneath to search for the pulse in his neck.
‘No.’ She rolled off Cris’s body, landing in a sprawling heap on the floor, the hard, unyielding floor that he had crashed down on to without his hands free to save himself. Down on to his head, his spine, with her whole dead weight on him. She ignored the pain to her overstretched arms, the blood from the knife cut on her hand, as she scrambled to her knees. All she was conscious of was terror. ‘Is he dead?’
‘No.’ Gabriel sat back and shouted, ‘Get a doctor!’ Then he bent to look closely at the side of Cris’s head. ‘No blood from this ear. Your side?’
‘No.’ She knew that was a bad sign if blood came from the ears, but there was so much else to worry about.
Someone came rushing up with a rug, pillows. ‘Don’t raise him or touch his head. Keep him flat.’ Dr Tregarth had told her that when she had helped him with three boys who had fallen from a barn roof. She spread the rug over him and looked across at Gabriel, whose expression was grim. ‘His head, his spine… Gabriel, do you know what to do?’
‘I know not to move him and I know not to let some damned leech of a doctor bleed him.’ His fingers were still against Cris’s jugular.
Tamsyn hardly dare touch the unconscious body. Carefully she threaded her bloodstained fingers through his still left hand and tried to send every ounce of her strength, of her love, to him. Someone brought more rugs, spoke to her. Alex.
‘Our doctor’s coming. He used to be an army surgeon, he’ll know what to do.’ He, too, reached out and laid his fingers on the column of Cris’s neck. ‘The pulse is strong. Chelford’s dead. He tried to struggle with the Runner and the knife—’ Alex broke off as Cris’s lips moved.
‘Curses,’ he whispered. ‘I wanted to break his neck myself.’
‘Cris.’ Her voice wavered and she bit down on her lip until she could master it. ‘Don’t move.’
‘I don’t intend to.’ Incredibly there was the thread of a laugh in his voice. ‘Who is fondling my neck with those cold hands?’ His eyes were still closed.
‘Gabriel and Alex.’ She managed a smile for them both and they lifted their hands away. ‘Can you move your fingers?’ There was a pause, as though he was recalling where they were, then the hand in hers contracted, squeezing her fingers.
‘Tamsyn, are you hurt?’ He opened his eyes, dark with pain or shock.
‘No, I am perfectly all right, thanks to you. And your feet?’
That time the pause was longer, but after an eternity that was probably only five seconds, the rugs over his legs shifted. ‘Wish I hadn’t done that,’ Cris remarked as his eyes rolled up and he lost consciousness.
‘The doctor, my lord.’ Both the men got to their feet, helped Tamsyn to hers. Gabriel swept her up in his arms, carried her across to the bench against the wall and set her down on it, keeping one hand on her arm as she tried to get up again.
‘Let the dog see the rabbit,’ he said mildly.
Someone had moved screens around Cris’s sprawled body. Beyond them she could hear the guests making their way down the stairs, Tess’s voice as she reassured them, thanked them for their understanding, wished them a good night. The doctor, lean and white-haired, knelt beside Cris, his hands running lightly over his body while Alex told him what had happened, how Cris had moved his hands and feet. She found she was praying under her breath, ‘Let him live, let him live, don’t let him be crippled.’
‘Ah, you’re with us,’ the doctor remarked and she realised Cris was conscious again. ‘We’ll have you off this floor soon, just tell me if this hurts…and can you move that? Good, and now, I’ll just try bending this.’
Cris’s muttered comments sounded profane, but Tamsyn was just happy he was conscious and able to swear. Tess came in, wrapped a shawl around her shoulders. ‘Come along, we’ll get you undressed and check you over.’
‘I can’t leave him.’
‘Yes, you can. Look, Dr Langridge is organising the footmen to put him on a tabletop and carry him to a bedchamber. He wouldn’t do that if there was any danger. And you can’t follow him in, they’ll be stripping him.’
‘I’ve—’
‘Yes, I know you have, but we don’t want the doctor being shocked, do we? Come on.’ Tess coaxed her to her feet, away from Cris, slowly up the stairs. ‘There’s a nice bedchamber just here.’
Tamsyn managed to get through the door and then, for only the second time in her life, she fainted.
Chapter Twenty-Two
‘Cris?’ Tamsyn demanded as Tess sl