Page 103 of Rogue of My Heart

Boleran shifted anxiously, glancing to Marie for a moment, then over his shoulder at Christian’s father and brother’s bodies. “I’m afraid, well, that is to say, you…you’re the earl now,” he said awkwardly.

Christian swallowed the bile that rose to his throat, but it wasn’t enough. He let go of his mother and pushed away from her, rolling to the side and vomiting into the grass. Dear God, he was the Earl of Kilrea. Him, a younger son who was never meant to amount to anything. He’d murdered his father and brother for a title.

“Christian.” Marie’s voice was soft as she crouched by his side, smoothing her hand across his back. “Christian, this wasn’t your fault,” she whispered.

“Yes, it was,” he groaned, burying his face in the cool grass. “I killed them.”

“You didn’t,” Marie went on. Christian couldn’t tell if she was actually speaking too softly for anyone but him to hear or if his mind was still playing tricks on him. “You didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“But I did mean for something to happen,” he admitted, too ashamed to turn his face to Marie.

“This isn’t your fault,” she repeated.

He pushed himself to sit, nearly knocking Marie over as he did. She’d hunched close to him. She still held him as he rocked to his haunches, then stood, shaking her off.

“Where is the doctor?” he asked, not looking at her. He couldn’t. The guilt was too strong.

“On the way,” answered a roughly-dressed man Christian didn’t know.

“We should take Lady Kilrea home,” Christian heard himself say in a commanding voice he hadn’t known he could possess. But after all, he was the earl now. “She shouldn’t be here, with this…this….” He dragged his eyes up to stare at the wreckage and his father and brother’s bodies, and the driver’s beyond. “She should be at home,” he finished on a sob.

“Wait until the doctor has come and examined her,” Boleran cautioned him. “It’s the best chance she has.”

“Here he is,” someone shouted in the distance. “Here’s the doctor.”

Christian glanced around, more aware of the scene as the reality of the situation settled around him. A few more carriages had pulled up behind the wreck—probably guests on the way to the engagement party. At least a dozen bystanders stood at the far periphery of the scene, looking horrified and clutching each other. A young woman who seemed to have no place in the middle of such tragedy came forward from the farmer’s wagon with homespun cloths of some sort to cover the bodies of his father and brother.

It was too much for Christian to handle all at once. He turned away from everything, burying his face in his hands, and wept.

* * *

It was the most painful thing Marie had ever witnessed in her life. Not the splintered wreckage of the carriage or the gruesome sight of Lord Kilrea, Miles, and the driver’s bodies. Not the frighteningly injured form of Lady Kilrea. Not even the poor horses that were no longer screaming in pain for reasons Marie didn’t want to think about. Watching Christian fall apart as he stood in the midst of unimaginable loss pierced Marie’s heart.

“Stand back,” Lord Boleran boomed, taking charge of the situation. “Let the doctor through.”

Marie had to give the man credit, even if he’d been on the verge of mercilessly marrying his sister off to Christian. He was savvy and compassionate enough to stand with his body shielding Christian from the startled onlookers, giving Christian a shred of privacy as his world fell apart.

Marie looked right past Lord Boleran, reaching toward Christian as she started forward. “Christian, it wasn’t your fault,” she said, or at least started to say.

Lord Boleran caught her by the shoulders before she could come within a few feet of Christian. “Stay back, my lady,” he told her.

“But Christian needs me,” Marie argued, still too broken by Christian’s misery to be offended.

She attempted to step away from Lord Boleran, but he held her fast. “Lord Kilrea needs to speak with the doctor and attend to his mother,” he told her.

Anger flared suddenly hotter than pity in Marie’s heart. “Let me go this instant,” she demanded. “Christian is my—” She snapped her mouth shut over the words. There was no reasonable way for her to complete the sentence. Christian was her lover? Yes, he was now, but admitting as much to Lord Boleran under such circumstances wouldn’t just be scandalous, it would be crass.

The doctor reached Christian’s side, rested a hand briefly on Christian’s arm, and spoke something Marie couldn’t hear. Christian sucked in a breath and seemed to pull himself together. He and the doctor rushed to where Lady Kilrea still lay in the billows of her gown. The two men knelt on either side of her, and the doctor went to work.

“Let me go,” Marie repeated to Lord Boleran. “I have to see if Lady Kilrea is alive.”

Lord Boleran kept his hands firmly in place on Marie’s arms but checked over his shoulder as the doctor worked. “She doesn’t appear to be dead to me,” he said.

“How can you tell?” Marie writhed and twisted, trying to get away from him.

“Believe me, my lady. I’ve seen death.” There was a morbid note to his voice that gave Marie a chill, particularly when he glanced to the other side, where the farm girl who had covered Lord Kilrea and Miles’s bodies was now sitting between the two of them, keening as though she were some sort of officially appointed mourner, or perhaps a wise woman charged with seeing their souls to the other side.

“I have to go to him.” Marie tried one last time to shake away from Lord Boleran.