Page 61 of Beguiled

“Let go of me, you bastard! She is mywife!” Kinnell shouted, landing another punch.

The pain of that blow to David’s kidneys was astonishing, but even though his arms felt like porridge now, he kept his arms clamped round Kinnell’s body.

“David!”

A new voice this time. Murdo.

David twisted his head, looking up the steps to where Murdo stood at the theatre doors, eyes wide as he took in the sight of David brawling in the street.

Kinnell took advantage of David’s momentary inattention, breaking out of David’s arms and stuttering to his feet.

“Elizabeth!” he yelled as he surged forward, and David somehow knew from the tone of his voice that Kinnell could see her, that he had his sights set on her now.

By some miracle, David managed to lurch to his feet again, lungs labouring, shoes scrabbling against the slippery cobbles, body protesting. He lunged after Kinnell, a headlong leap of desperation, and grabbed at the tail of Kinnell’s coat, grasping just enough of a handhold to slow the other man down again.

Kinnell swung round in David’s grip, his expression murderous now. His hands came up, and he thrust David violently away from him. The shove sent David staggering backwards. Back, back, into empty air, his arms cartwheeling for a moment.

For that moment—or maybe forever—David was suspended there, in the act of falling. Falling, to the sound of panicked whinnying and someone shouting. Falling, under the immense shadow of a carriage horse as it reared in its traces.

The falling ended with a slamming pain.

Then nothing.

Chapter Seventeen

Waking—when he woke—was to enter a world of pain, and so much of it he couldn’t pinpoint where it began or ended.

He tried to resist consciousness, until a familiar voice said, “He’s stirring.” A familiar voice that thrummed with fear.

He couldn’t settle on a name for the voice, but it summoned an image of strong fingers entwined with his own. A secret, irrepressible smile. By an immense effort, he managed to crack an eyelid open.

A man was bending over him, his dark hair dishevelled, his eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot.

“David, thank God! Can you speak?”

He shifted, and the pain was agonising. A whimper was all he could manage. He sounded like an animal.

“Don’t move—” the man said at once, then looked over his shoulder. “Is that draught ready yet?”

When he turned back, he said, “I thought you were dead—” and his voice cracked on the last word.

Murdo.

David tried to say the name, to show Murdo that he knew him, but all he managed was another broken whimper.

A second man arrived beside Murdo. He was much older, with sparse grey hair that failed to cover his shiny scalp.

“Support his head, my lord,” this man said, his voice quietly commanding. “He will find it difficult to drink this and it will spill, but we only need get some into him, then he will sleep, and we will see what to do.”

Murdo slid a hand under David’s shoulders and lifted him, just a little, but it was enough that every nerve in David’s body screamed. Every nerve, but not his mouth. Again, the only noise that came from him was tiny animal sounds.

“I’m sorry,” Murdo whispered. “God, I’m sorry, David.”

The older man used one hand to press on David’s chin, opening his jaw, and the other to tip the rim of a bowl against his bottom lip. Bitter liquid flooded his mouth, too much to swallow. It flowed out of his mouth and down the sides of his face, but some of it hit the back of his throat, and he gagged on it, swallowing and choking weakly. Again it flowed. Again.

“Enough,” the man said at last.

The strong arm under his shoulders was gently withdrawn, and he was lowered to a flat position again. The impossible, unbearably intense pain that had flared when he was lifted subsided into something lesser, something that gradually began to feel more and more bearable as he continued to lie there and the draught did its work.