engine laboring at nearly full throttle as its wheels thrust them up and over the other side.
The deer bounded right, then left, and then disappeared into the darkness.
“Count!” Andrew cried. “What are you doing?”
And then Claire saw the blood.
The right side of his head was awash w [d wg of rotith it, dripping black into his pristine collar and soaking the gray wool of his driving coat.
“Count!” she shrieked. “Andrew, he’s hurt!”
Without a second thought, she grabbed the acceleration bar from hands that had convulsed around it. Between her position and her inability to move the unconscious man, it was awkward, but she pulled back on it with all her strength.
The Daimler had been moving at a speed of at least forty miles to the hour. The bar fought her, bucking and shuddering, but she did not release it. Instead, she threw her weight against it, wedging herself against the instrument panel and trying to gain purchase on the floor.
“Claire, the wheel!” Alice shouted. “You must turn the wheel to reduce the steam pressure!”
“I don’t have another hand,” she managed on a gasp.
Alice flung herself over the back of the seat and, hanging bent in half, feet in their delicate dancing slippers braced against the bench, reached for the wheel and spun it with both hands.
Something groaned deep in the belly of the landau and dual clouds of steam hissed out of both sides of the bonnet.
It seemed like an hour before the great landau came to a reluctant, canted stop against a small rise crowned by a stubby tree that had seen one too many winters. With a sigh, the vehicle settled onto its wheels, as blown as a horse.
Andrew gripped Alice’s waist and assisted her to slide back against him, and all three of them pushed open the wings and scrambled outside.
“Alice, grab one of the lanterns,” Claire said. “Andrew, help me get the count out where we can see him. Oh, please don’t let him be dead!”
Andrew slipped his arms under those of the unconscious man, and they pulled him from the Daimler. Once he was laid out on the long grass of the prairie, Andrew laid an ear upon his chest.
“Alive,” he said, and Claire’s knees went weak.
Alice bent down with the lantern. “This don’t make a lick of sense,” she said, “but it looks like he got creased by a bullet.”
“A bullet!”
“You’re right, that doesn’t make any sense,” Andrew agreed. “But only because we don’t have all the facts. But they must wait for another time. At the moment we must act, and quickly.”
“We have to get him back to Government House,” Alice told him in a tone that said there was no other option. “It’s a good couple of miles, but he needs a doctor, pronto.”
“Where are his captains?” Claire said suddenly. “They can help us. They may even have medical training.”
“I’ll fetch them.” Andrew leaped up. “See if you can stop that bleeding.”
The sound of his dress shoes thudding on the ground faded into the dark. Claire scrabbled under her skirts. “At last. A sensible use for froufrourk. Clairet size="+0">.” She ripped an entire row of eyelet ruffle from her innermost petticoat and wrapped it carefully around the count’s head. “I need something to secure it with. Do you have a pin?”
“Nothing,” Alice said in despair, waving her hands at the frothing pool of skirts. “This is the most useless outfit in the world.”
“My kingdom for my corselet and all its pouches. Never mind. If you would be so kind as to remove the ivory pick from my hair, I shall thread it through these holes. At least this fine cotton will provide some protection and absorb the blood.”
Alice pulled the pick from her chignon and sucked in a horrified breath. “Claire, you’re bleeding yourself!”
Claire secured the count’s makeshift bandage before she lifted a hand to her cheek and brought it away smeared with blood. “It doesn’t hurt, and I am fully conscious,” she said in a wondering tone. Would she collapse without warning at any moment? “It must have been the isinglass window. Is it very bad?”
“Head wounds bleed like a son of a gun,” Alice said quietly, her fingers gentle as she investigated. “There’s a lot of glass in your hair, and a bunch of tiny cuts, but nothing big. The count’s in much worse shape. If it was a bullet, and even if it did just graze him, we have to act fast.”