Page 26 of A Wager with the Matchmaker (A Shanahan Match #3)

26

The wagon rumbled to a stop at the rear of the Shanahans’ St. Louis mansion. Kiernan was already bounding down from the seat before it came to a complete halt. He hurried to the back and climbed into the wagon bed.

His pulse thundered with dread as he tossed aside the few boards and tools Donahue and Dustin had placed over Torin’s body. The brothers had used the few minutes of darkness to take him out of the casket while Kiernan had been searching for a grave site. Then they’d carried the empty casket to the grave.

If anyone had been watching, they would have seen Torin’s casket being lowered into the ground and buried. And if anyone had followed them into the city, they would have seen an empty wagon bed, save for the shovels and an assortment of boards in a pile next to Dustin. Hopefully, they hadn’t seen the body underneath that pile.

They’d halted two blocks from the doctor’s house, and Dustin had set out on foot to secretly ask the doctor to come to the Shanahan home with all haste. Now Kiernan hoped they weren’t too late to save Torin after so much time had elapsed.

He yanked back the cover to find Torin’s pale face. His eyes were closed and his body motionless.

Was he dead?

Kiernan lifted a hand to Torin’s mouth, and a soft exhale warmed his fingers.

Kiernan’s shoulders deflated in relief. “He’s alive.”

Donahue was waiting at the end of the wagon bed. “Praise be.”

“Grab his feet, and I’ll hold his head.” Kiernan was already lifting Torin’s head as gently as he could.

As Kiernan crawled forward holding Torin’s upper body, and Donahue moved slowly with Torin’s legs, a light sprang to life in a window in the house.

Several moments later, Winston, their butler, opened the back door. The tall silver-haired man was attired in his usual black trousers and white dress shirt, which was untucked and only half buttoned. He wore his slippers and not his shoes. While he’d somehow managed to hastily don his clothing, he’d forgotten to take off his nightcap.

Winston hurried to the wagon and positioned himself at Torin’s midsection, slipping his arms underneath and holding the body steady while Kiernan descended.

Silently they made their way through the house, up the main stairway, and down the hallway to the family bedchambers, to Kiernan’s room.

The chamber was dark, and the mustiness of the room, having been closed off, greeted him along with the familiar waft of lemon oil used on the walnut furniture.

They carried Torin to the bed and laid him down. Winston lit the globe lantern on the bedside table, then moved to the lantern on the reading table near the hearth, flanked on both sides with wingback chairs.

Everything about the room was masculine and tasteful— the light blue wallpaper patterned with gray and white vines and leaves, the large chest of drawers, and the elaborately carved headboard.

Kiernan didn’t like knickknacks and had only one picture on the wall, a cityscape with the glass factory in the center. He’d had the portrait commissioned to remember his first step in what was to have been his long list of accomplishments. But now, with the damage and losses he’d incurred at the brickyard, maybe the glass factory would be his only accomplishment.

“How is he?” Donahue was watching Torin, his droopy face sagging more than usual.

Kiernan again tested Torin’s mouth and nose. “Still breathing.”

Winston started toward the door. “I’ll heat some water, find some fresh bandages and ointment, and then we’ll care for his wounds until the doctor arrives.”

Kiernan wasn’t an emotional man. But his chest constricted with gratitude for this old butler who’d served the Shanahan family so faithfully and was doing so again without any questions asked.

Donahue didn’t linger for long. Kiernan sent him on his way so they didn’t draw attention to a lone wagon parked at the house. Then Kiernan helped Winston with cleaning the wounds, and they were tending them when the doctor arrived.

The doctor set to work on Torin’s deepest cuts, cauterizing some of the smaller ones and then using ligatures to close off two more serious spots of bleeding that had slowed but not stopped.

All the while he reassured Kiernan that none of Torin’s internal organs had been hit—at least that he could assess. The doctor also was confident Torin would live as long as none of the injuries became gangrenous.

Kiernan didn’t have to explain much about the nature of the gang fight for the doctor to easily agree not to mention anything about Torin to anyone. The fellow likely guessed that if word got out that he’d helped save Torin, he would be putting his own life at risk.

As the doctor was finishing stitching one of the last gashes, the bedroom door opened, and Da stepped inside. With his face and clothing blackened with smoke and his hair a dusty gray from ashes, James Shanahan looked as though he’d spent the night fighting fires.

Had he gone out to the brickyard and helped?

“It’s a mess.” Da came farther into the room. “But we salvaged what we could.”

Before Kiernan could think of a response, his da was staring at Torin on the bed, bandaged and bruised—and naked except for a sheet now covering the lower half of his body. “Who’s this?”

“Alannah’s brother.”

Da’s eyes rounded. “We were told he was dead and that you were taking him to the cemetery on your way back into the city.”

“We did. As far as everyone else knows, he’s dead and buried.”

Da scanned Torin’s motionless body.

With as much morphine as the doctor had administered for pain, Torin wouldn’t waken for some time.

“’Tis a smart idea, Kiernan. But there’s just one problem.”

“There’s no problem.” He’d been thinking through all the options. “Once he’s better, I have a plan.”

“Oh aye, you haven’t been considering Alannah in all this, have you?” Da’s voice was grave, so grave that Kiernan’s muscles tightened. When Da motioned to the hallway, Kiernan followed him out of the room, dread building inside him. He’d left Alannah safe and secure at Oakland. If something had happened to her...

“What about Alannah?” he demanded as he closed the bedroom door. Winston had lit one of the gilded sconces on the wall, and Kiernan could see the serious lines furrowing in his da’s forehead.

“Shaw and one of his men came to Oakland looking for her not long after you rode off.”

Kiernan’s pulse pattered to a halt. That meant Shaw probably hadn’t been at the brickyard when the gang had come to destroy it, or at least hadn’t stayed long. What if he’d intended it to be a diversion so that when he arrived at Oakland, no one would be there to defend Alannah?

His heart picked up its pace again, this time slamming hard against his chest. “You didn’t let them take her, did you?”

“Of course not. They searched the place and couldn’t find her.”

“Where did she go?” Kiernan felt as though he was standing on the edge of a precipice about to fall off with one wrong answer.

“Zaira helped to hide her. Then later, Zaira said she exchanged her cloak with Alannah’s and rode down to the brickyard to distract Shaw.”

“Did he hurt Zaira?”

“Thankfully, they didn’t touch her.”

Although Kiernan was grateful to his youngest sister for her assistance, next time he saw her he intended to scold her for getting involved. He hated to think what might have happened if Shaw had realized Zaira’s part in the deception.

“She sent Alannah away on her horse, though.”

“What?” Kiernan began to fall, plunging down the precipice, with nothing to grab to stop him. “Where to?”

“She’s at Bellamy’s.”

Kiernan snagged on to the words of hope and clung to them. “Then she’s okay? Shaw hasn’t found her?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

Kiernan spun on his heels and stalked down the hallway. He had to go to her, had to make sure she was safe. The pounding of his heart and the pounding of his blood reverberated through his body. His need for her was almost painful.

“Wait, Kiernan,” his da called.

“I’m going to her.” Kiernan wouldn’t have been able to slow his steps, not even if someone had chained him.

“You should know something first.”

Kiernan glanced over his shoulder.

“She probably thinks Torin is dead,” his da finished. “That’s what everyone at the brickyard believes. That’s what we believed, and Zaira and Bellamy went to tell her.”

Kiernan picked up his pace and started down the stairway, taking them two at a time. He had to get to her before Zaira and Bellamy did. He wanted to spare her some heartache, at least temporarily. Because in the long run, she would lose Torin anyway. There was no other choice.