teeth chattering. “If she’s going around stabbing people, I’m disowning her.” Her shoulder was beginning to hurt more and more, the dull throbbing sharpening into pain that pierced down to her marrow. Her entire skeleton rattled constantly, as if she were being shaken by invisible hands. “What about Dragon? Where is he?”
“He went after her.”
“But his arm . . . he was hurt . . .”
“He said the cut wasn’t deep. He’ll be fine.”
Her shoulder felt like it had been burned with scalding grease. The ground was hard and cold beneath her, and her entire bodice was strangely soggy. She looked down, but Gabriel had covered her front with his coat. Tentatively she maneuvered her arm to lift the garment.
Helen stopped her, pressing a light hand to her chest. “Dear, try not to move. You must stay covered.”
“My dress is clammy,” Pandora said fitfully. “The pavement is hard. I don’t like this. I want to go home.”
Winterborne pushed through the crowd and crouched beside them. “Has the bleeding slowed enough to move her?”
“I think so,” Gabriel replied.
“We’ll take my carriage. I’ve already sent word to my staff physicians—they’ll meet us at Cork Street. There’s a new surgery and clinic in the building next to my store.”
“I’d rather take her to my family doctor.”
“St. Vincent, she needs to be seen by someone quickly. Cork Street is only a half-mile away.”
She heard Gabriel curse quietly. “Let’s go, then.”
Chapter 20
Nothing Gabriel had ever been through had felt like this, real and yet not real. A waking nightmare. Nothing had ever made him afraid like this. Staring down at his wife, he wanted to howl with anguish and rage.
Pandora’s face was strained and white, her lips blue-tinged. Blood loss had weakened her severely. She was propped in his lap with her legs extended across the carriage seat. Although she was weighted with coats and lap blankets, she shivered continuously.
Tucking the coats around her more snugly, he checked the bandage he’d fashioned with a pad of clean handkerchiefs. He’d bound it with neckties that went around her arm, crossed over the joint of her neck and shoulder and wrapped beneath her opposite arm. His mind kept returning to the moment when she’d collapsed in his arms, blood welling from the incised wound.
It had happened within seconds. He’d looked up to make certain Pandora had crossed the short distance to the carriage. Instead, he’d seen Dragon fighting his way through the crowd and running full-bore toward the corner of the building, where Pandora was standing with an unfamiliar woman. The woman had been pulling something from her sleeve, and he’d seen the telltale shake of her arm as she flipped open a folding knife. The short blade had flashed in the reflected theater lights as she’d raised it.
Gabriel had reached Pandora just a second after Dragon, but by that point the knife blade had already driven downward.
“Wouldn’t it be strange if I died from this?” Pandora chattered, trembling against his chest. “Our grandchildren wouldn’t be at all impressed. I’d rather have been stabbed while doing something heroic. Rescuing someone. Maybe you could tell them . . . oh, but . . . I s’pose we wouldn’t have grandchildren if I died, would we?”
“You’re not going to die,” Gabriel said shortly.
“I still haven’t found a printer,” Pandora fretted.
“What?” he asked, thinking she was delirious.
“This might delay my production schedule. My board game. Christmas.”
Winterborne, who was sitting with Helen in the opposite seat, interrupted gently. “There’s still time for that, bychan. Don’t worry about your game.”
Pandora relaxed and subsided, her fist closing in a fold of Gabriel’s shirt like a baby’s.
Winterborne glanced at Gabriel, seeming to want to ask something.
On the pretext of smoothing Pandora’s hair, Gabriel settled his palm gently over her good ear, and gave the other man a questioning glance.
“Was the blood spurting?” Winterborne asked softly. “As if in time to a heartbeat?”
Gabriel shook his head.
Winterborne relaxed only marginally, rubbing the lower half of his jaw.
Removing the hand from Pandora’s ear, Gabriel continued to stroke her hair, and saw that her eyes had closed. He propped her up slightly higher. “Darling, don’t go to sleep.”
“I’m cold,” she said plaintively. “And my shoulder hurts, and Helen’s carriage is lumpy.” She made a pained sound as the vehicle turned a corner and jolted.
“We’ve just turned onto Cork Street,” he said, kissing her cool, damp forehead. “I’m going to carry you inside, and they’ll give you some morphine.”
The carriage stopped. As Gabriel lifted Pandora with care and brought