Chapter 9: Graveyard Confrontation
The manor buzzed.
By midday, the day after the rescue, news of Teresa and Wayne’s heroics had seeped into every corner, up the back stairs and through the servant’s halls, spun into ever more elaborate threads with each retelling. It was already becoming legend: Miss Lisbon, the quiet archivist, marching into the dark wood with a rifle bigger than she was; Wayne Rigsby, a mountain of righteous fury; the crack of gunfire echoing like judgement; four bad men left for the crows.
Teresa heard the low hum of it through the library’s broken door. She kept her head down, sorting through a crate of water-stained naval charts. Her left arm throbbed with a deep, insistent ache. She’d glanced out the window earlier and seen Samuel in the yard below, re-enacting the entire event for a captivated audience of stable boys. He’d picked up a stick for a knife, demonstrating with grisly, childish precision the upward thrust she’d used. She’d watched for a moment, a strange dislocation settling over her, then turned back to her maps.
When Grace brought her afternoon meal—a thick slice of game pie and a hunk of cheese—the housekeeper’s eyes were wide with a fearful admiration. “The whole village is talking, miss,” she said, setting the tray down gently. “Martha’s saying you’re an avenging angel.”
“I’m a woman with a sharp knife and a good aim,” Teresa replied, her voice flat. She didn’t mention the hot slice of pain every time she lifted the teacup. She hadn’t bothered to tell anyone about the gash on her arm. After returning to the house the night before, covered in blood both foreign and her own, she had headed directly to her rooms, boiled water over her fireplace, and cleaned and stitched the wound herself. The needle and gut had been in her travel kit for years. It wasn’t the first time she’d taken care of herself.
The pie tasted like dust. She ate enough to keep Grace from fussing, then decided she needed to do less lifting. The heavy ledgers could wait. She spent the rest of the afternoon seated at the broad oak table, carefully unfolding and categorizing maps. Coastal surveys, ancient property lines, trade routes sketched on vellum so thin it felt like dried breath. The work was meticulous, quiet, and kind to her screaming muscle. Each map was a world where problems had clear borders and solutions could be charted with a steady hand.
By the time the light faded to a deep indigo, the ache had settled into a swollen, feverish heat that pulsed in time with her heartbeat. She stacked the sorted charts neatly, blew out the lamps, and left the library. The walk to her rooms felt twice as long as usual, each step sending a jolt through her shoulder. Inside, she managed to stoke the fire, heat more water, and change her bandages. The wound was red and angry, but clean. She tied the last knot with her teeth and one clumsy hand, sweating with the effort.
She barely had the strength to undress. She crawled into bed in her shift, the cool linen a relief against her hot skin. Sleep pulled at her, a black tide, but the pain was a relentless anchor keeping her partly in the room, partly aware of the fire’s crackle and the vast, silent weight of the stone house around her.
She woke to gray dawn light and the same throbbing misery. Dressing was a slow, painful puzzle. She chose a high-necked dress with long sleeves, the fabric loose enough to not pull. She made it to the library, but the thought of heaving another crate made her vision swim. Maps again. Safer.
She was leaning over a large surveyor’s map of the estate boundaries, her finger tracing the dotted line of the western pine thicket, when the library door—still hanging crooked on its splintered frame—was shoved aside with unnecessary force.
Patrick stood in the doorway. He looked like he’d been dragged backwards through a hedge, his clothes rumpled from travel and a night without rest, his jaw dark with stubble. The usual roguish dishevelment was gone, replaced by a wired, kinetic anger. His blue eyes were bloodshot and fixed on her with an intensity that felt like a physical shove.
“You.” The word was a flat accusation.
Teresa straightened slowly, careful not to jostle her arm. The motion sent a fresh wave of heat pulsing from shoulder to wrist. She kept her expression neutral, a mask of polite inquiry. “Lord Patrick. You’re back early.”
“Don’t.” He took two steps into the room, his boots loud on the wooden floor. The scent of cold air, horse, and stale whiskey came with him. “Don’t do that. The polite little act. It’s a bit late for that, don’t you think?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Cho told me.” He stopped on the other side of the table, the map between them like a battleground. “About your little adventure the other night. Your trip into the woods. Your… heroics.”
He said the last word like it was a foul taste. Teresa felt her own temper, thin and frayed from pain, begin to rise.
“I suppose that’s one word for it,” she said, her voice cooling. “Preventing a child from being sold to slavers is generally viewed as a positive action.”
“Is it?” He planted his hands on the table, leaning forward. The maps rustled. “And who asked you to? Who gave you a rifle and permission to start a war on my land?”
“War?” A short, disbelieving laugh escaped her. “It was four drunk bullards from the village, Patrick. It was a crime. Not a war.”
“It’s a line!” he snapped, his voice rising. He jabbed a finger toward the window, toward the unseen village. “A line that’s been drawn for years. They stay in their filth and leave my house alone. I leave them to it. It’s a quiet, simple, functional misery. And you’ve just kicked the whole rotten anthill.”
The sheer, bald cynicism of it stole her breath for a second. Functional misery. She stared at him, the man who had saved Cho from a ditch, and saw a stranger.
“So your solution was to let them kidnap children? To let Martha’ son disappear because enforcing the law might be… inconvenient for your grief?”
His face tightened. “My grief has nothing to do with the price of grain or the local drunkards.”
“It has everything to do with it!” She was shouting now, the pain in her arm forgotten, white-hot fury taking its place. “You are the law here. You. And you’ve been too busy staring at maps of France and drinking yourself blind to notice the festering wound on your own doorstep. Those men came here because they knew no one would stop them. They were right.”
“They came here because you’re here!” he roared, his composure shattering. He rounded the table, closing the distance between them. “You, with your lessons and your ledgers and your righteous bloody inspections. You drew their attention. You made this house a target again. Before you, it was just a haunted place on the hill. Now it’s a place with things worth stealing.”
The injustice of it was so vast it was almost funny. Her head felt light. “So it’s my fault? For existing? For doing the job you hired me to do? For caring about the people who serve you?”
“Yes!” The word exploded from him. He was right in front of her now, his breath hot, his eyes blazing with a chaotic, misplaced rage. “Do you enjoy it? Playing the martyr? The avenging angel? Does it feel good to prove how useless I am?”
She didn’t back up. She lifted her chin, meeting his glare. “At least I’m not hiding behind a bottle and a pile of old grievances.”
His hand shot out, faster than she could follow. It wasn’t a strike. It was a grab, his fingers closing like a vise around the upper part of her left arm—exactly where the deep, swollen gash pulsed under the fabric of her dress.
A bolt of pure, white agony seared through her. Her vision sparked at the edges. A gasp, sharp and involuntary, ripped from her throat.
But she didn’t cry out. She didn’t try to pull away. She locked her knees, absorbed the shockwave of pain, and kept her eyes wide open, fixed on his. The only sign was the sudden sheen of tears that welled, unbidden, from the intensity of the sensation. She let them pool but didn’t let them fall.
She saw the exact moment he registered what he’d done. Felt it. The hard, swollen heat beneath his fingers wasn’t normal. His own anger flickered, confusion breaking through.
From the doorway, there was a low, dangerous growl. “Patrick.”
Cho stood there, having moved with silent speed. He wasn’t holding a weapon, but his posture was that of a coiled spring, his eyes flat and deadly on Patrick’s hand.
Patrick didn’t look at him. He was staring at Teresa’s face, at the tears glittering in her furious, unblinking eyes, at the absolute refusal to give him the satisfaction of her pain. The defiance there was a mirror, sharp and clear, of his own buried rage, his own endless, screaming hurt.
His fingers loosened, but he didn’t let go. The anger in his face drained away, leaving something raw and vacant in its place. The library was utterly silent except for the ragged sound of Teresa’s breathing, carefully controlled, in and out through her nose.
He looked down at his hand, then back up at her green eyes, which held not an ounce of fear, only a challenge as deep and dark as his own.
His fingers sprang open as if her skin had burned him.
He rapidly turned to Cho, whose warning posture hadn’t shifted an inch. “I didn’t—” Patrick began, the words automatic, defensive. Then he stopped. He felt a strange, warm wetness on his fingertips. He looked at his hand.
Blood. Not a lot, but a fresh, glistening smear across his thumb and two fingers. It was shockingly red against his skin.
He turned back to Teresa. “What the hell?”
Her defiance had fractured. The color drained from her face in a visible wave, leaving her lips a pale, bloodless line. The world seemed to tip on its axis for her. Her eyes lost their fierce focus, the green clouding over like sea glass under a sudden fog. Her knees buckled.
She collapsed forward.
Patrick caught her before she hit the floor. The impact was solid, her body a dead weight, unnervingly warm even through her clothes. He fumbled, adjusting his grip, one arm under her knees, the other supporting her back. Her head lolled against his chest, her dark hair spilling across his coat sleeve.
“Cho!” The name was a bark, stripped of all anger, raw with something else.
He was already moving, hurrying toward the library door, her body strangely light yet leaden in his arms. The heat coming off her was all wrong. It wasn’t the heat of anger. It was the moist, sickly warmth of fever.
“Grace!” he shouted into the hallway, his voice echoing off the stone. “Fetch Grace! Now!”
Cho was beside him, a solid presence. “Her rooms?”
“Yes. Go for the doctor. Ride. Don’t stop.” The orders tumbled out, short and clipped. He was already taking the stairs, taking them two at a time, clutching her tighter. He could feel the dampness now, a tacky patch seeping through the sleeve of her dress onto his forearm. The blood.
Cho vanished, his footsteps a rapid tattoo fading toward the stables.
Patrick shouldered his way into her bedroom. The fire was low, the room orderly and simple. He laid her on the bed, her limbs arranging themselves with a boneless heaviness that frightened him. Her breathing was shallow, quick. He brushed the hair back from her forehead. Her skin was fever-slick, burning under his palm.
Grace burst in a moment later, her hands still dusted with flour. She took one look and pressed her lips into a thin line. “Infection,” she said, the word a grim verdict. She moved to the washstand, pouring water. “From the fight. She never said.”
“She wouldn’t,” Patrick muttered, stepping back to give Grace space. He stood there, useless, his hands hanging at his sides. He looked at his right hand again. The blood was already browning at the edges. Her blood. He had grabbed her, hard, right on a wound she’d earned protecting a child on his land. A wound she’d stitched herself, alone in this room, while he’d been off chasing phantoms.
Grace was peeling back the fabric of Teresa’s sleeve, her movements efficient. She hissed at what she saw. The gash was angry, swollen, and streaked with ugly red lines fanning out from the neat, self-made stitches. “Got to clean it proper. Need whiskey. Need clean linen.”
Patrick went to the sideboard in his own rooms, returning with a nearly full decanter of his best brandy. He handed it to Grace. She didn’t comment on the quality. She just poured it liberally over the wound.
Teresa jerked, a low moan escaping her lips, even in unconsciousness. Her brow furrowed.
“Hold her,” Grace instructed.
Patrick moved to the side of the bed, placing his hands on Teresa’s shoulders, pinning her gently to the mattress. He felt the heat, the tremble that ran through her. He watched as Grace worked, her capable hands cleaning away the old, failed poultice Teresa had applied. The smell of infection and spirits filled the room.
Outside, he heard the thunder of a horse leaving at a gallop. Cho was gone. It would be hours.
Time stretched, measured only by Teresa’s ragged breaths and the soft, wet sounds of Grace’s ministrations. Patrick didn’t move. He kept his hands on her shoulders, an anchor. He stared at her face, pale against the pillow, the fierceness all gone. He saw the faint freckles across the bridge of her nose. He saw the dark shadows of exhaustion under her eyes, the tense set of her jaw even now.
This was the woman who had faced down four men. Who had looked him in the eye and called him a coward. Who had silently, stubbornly, refused to fix his world for him.
And he had hurt her.
The thought was a cold stone in his gut. It wasn’t the grand, dramatic hurt he’d imagined inflicting on the Marquis. This was small, specific, and entirely his own doing. He had been so consumed by the specter of his old pain that he’d become blind to a real, immediate wound right in front of him.
Grace finished wrapping the arm with fresh linen. “The fever’s the battle now,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron. “We keep her cool. We get water in her if we can. We wait for the doctor.”
Patrick finally took his hands from Teresa’s shoulders. They felt empty. “I’ll wait,” he said, his voice quiet.
Grace gave him a long look, but nodded. She fetched a basin of cool water and a cloth, placing it on the bedside table. “Call if you need anything,” she said, and left, closing the door softly behind her.
Patrick pulled a chair over. He sat. He took the cloth, dipped it in the water, and carefully laid it on Teresa’s forehead. She stirred, a faint sigh escaping her.
He leaned back in the chair, the weight of the quiet room pressing down on him. The only sounds were the crackle of the fire, her breathing, and the distant, accusing echo of his own voice. Do you enjoy it? Playing the martyr?
He looked at her, truly looked, and saw no martyr. He saw a woman who acted. A woman who, when confronted with a wrong, picked up a rifle and a knife and went into the dark. The opposite of a ghost. The antithesis of everything he had let himself become.
The leather chair by her bed grew rigid, imprinting its shape into his back through his coat as the candles burned low and guttered out. He maintained the rhythm of wetting the cloth, wringing it, and placing its cool weight on her forehead. She would twist beneath it sometimes, murmuring fragments of sentences that made no sense—"...not the right folio..." and once, sharply, "Stanley, get back." Her unguarded voice, stripped of its defiance, was younger, laced with an urgency that spoke of a different kind of protection. The fever painted her cheeks with two spots of garish colour, a mockery of health in her pallid face.
He studied the fall of her dark hair against the white pillowcase. He watched the rise and fall of her chest, too quick, under the linen covers. He did nothing else. The world beyond her door ceased to exist. There was only the vigil, the awful heat coming off her, and the quiet accusation of the bandage on her arm, stark white against the quilt. His own fingertips still felt the phantom memory of that swollen heat, that tacky blood.
The door opened softly. Grace entered, a clean folded cloth and a fresh candle in her hands. "You've been here hours, sir," she said, her voice hushed but firm. "I can take over."
Patrick shook his head, not looking away from Teresa. "I'll stay."
Grace didn't move. She set her supplies down and approached the bedside, her practical eyes assessing. "You need to let me tend to her properly, Lord Patrick. That fever won't break if we can't get her cooled down. I need to get her out of that dress," she said, her tone leaving no room for debate. "So I can put cold cloths on her body. Properly. You can't do that."
His jaw tightened. A protest, instinctive and possessive, rose in his throat. He wanted to refuse, to insist on maintaining his watch from the chair. But Grace's logic was unassailable, a wall of simple necessity. He was an obstruction. He let out a slow breath.
"Alright," he said, the word reluctant. He pushed himself up from the chair, his muscles stiff from sitting. He paused at the foot of the bed, looking down at the unconscious woman. "You'll call me if—"
"The moment there's any change," Grace finished for him, already moving to the washstand to prepare the water."Go."
He walked to his own rooms. The fire there had died to embers. In the dimness, he stripped off his coat and waistcoat, then the shirt. The one he’d been wearing had a small, dark smear on the cuff. Teresa's blood. He stared at it for a long moment before balling the shirt up and tossing it into a corner. He pulled on a fresh one, the linen cool and impersonal against his skin.
He went not to his bed, but to his study. He poured a brandy, but didn't taste it. He simply held the glass, watching the firelight dance in the amber liquid, waiting for the sound of hoofbeats. The room, usually his sanctuary of maps and memories, felt like a hollow shell. Every book, every ledger, every chased-after rumour about the Marquis felt suddenly like dust. Meaningless.
It was nearly dawn when he heard it—the rapid thud of a horse approaching, then two sets of footsteps, one heavy and swift, one quicker and lighter, crossing the courtyard stones and entering the hall below. He was already in the corridor, meeting Cho and a heavy set, bald man carrying a worn leather bag at the base of the main stairs.
"Dr. Laroche," Cho said simply, his breathing slightly elevated from the hard ride.
"This way," Patrick said, turning without further greeting. He led the doctor up to Teresa's room, opened the door for him, and followed him inside. Grace stepped back from the bedside, her expression grim with relief.
The doctor set his bag down, glancing from Patrick to the patient. "Your wife, sir?"
Patrick felt the oddness of the question, a jolt in the quiet tension of the room. "No," he said, his voice flat. "She is employed here. To catalog the library."Dr. Laroche nodded, opening his bag. "Your man filled me in on the road. A knife wound, neglected, fever. Let's have a look." He gestured toward the door. "Gentlemen, if you'll wait."
Cho turned immediately, stepping into the hall. Patrick hesitated, his eyes on Teresa's still form. He wanted to argue, to state his right to stay, but the doctor’s professional demeanour was another wall. He followed Cho out, pulling the door closed behind them.
They stood in the dim hallway, silent. Cho leaned against the wall opposite the door, arms crossed, eyes fixed on the carved wood. Patrick paced, three steps one way, three steps back. The only sounds were the faint murmur of the doctor's voice from within, Grace’s low replies, and the scuff of Patrick’s boots on the runner.
An eternity passed, measured in heartbeats. Finally, the door opened again and Dr. Laroche emerged, wiping his hands on a small towel. He looked tired.
"The wound is clean now. I've re-dressed it. The infection was deep. The fever is the body's battle," he said, his words methodical. "I’ve given her a preparation to bring it down, but it must run its course. I've done all I can. Only time will tell now."
Patrick’s throat felt tight. "Can I go in?"
"It’s fine. She's resting quietly. Keep her cool. Try to get sips of water into her if she rouses." The doctor closed his bag with a definitive click. "I'll return tomorrow."
Patrick entered the room. Grace stood by the window, but she wasn't looking out. She was staring at the bed, at Teresa’s exposed shoulders where the quilt had been turned down, her face ashen. She looked haunted, her eyes wide with something more than worry.
"You should go back to your quarters," Patrick told her, his voice softer than he intended. "Get some rest. I'll sit watch."
Cho, who had followed him in, spoke from the doorway. "You need to eat.And rest. You’ve been up all night." His tone wasn't challenging, merely factual.
"I’m fine," Patrick said, not moving from his spot beside the bed.
"You're not," Cho said. He turned to Grace. "Can Martha sit with her?"
Grace blinked, the strange shock on her face receding into practicality."Yes. She’s just downstairs. She’ll want to."
"Then please send her up." Cho looked back at Patrick. "We will wait until she comes."
Patrick wanted to refuse. The idea of leaving Teresa’s side, of delegating this vigil to anyone else, grated against a raw, unfamiliar instinct. But the combined logic of Cho and Grace was a pincer. He gave a single, terse nod. "I’ll wait until Martha comes."
The three of them stood in a silent triangle around the bed until a light knock sounded. Martha entered, her eyes red-rimmed but clear. She went directly to Teresa, her hand trembling slightly as she smoothed the hair from the unconscious woman’s brow.
"Samuel is safe in his bed because of her," Martha said, her voice thick. "I'll watch over her like my own."
Satisfied, Cho gave Patrick a meaningful look and gestured toward the door. Patrick lingered for another moment, his gaze sweeping over Teresa’s quiet face, then followed Cho out. In the hall, Cho said, "I have duties to attend. You should go to the kitchen." He then walked away, his footsteps echoing toward the service stairs.
Patrick stood alone. The directive to eat was a hollow one, but moving felt necessary. He headed downstairs, the weight of the night pressing on his shoulders. The stone floors of the lower hall were cold. As he neared the kitchen doorway, the warm smell of baking bread and the murmur of voices filtered out.
He paused just outside, unseen. Grace’s voice was low, strained. "…never seen the like, Wayne. Not on a gentlewoman. Not like that."
Wayne’s rumble was a question. "The knife wound is that bad?"
"It’s not that," Grace said, her words spilling out in a horrified whisper. "When I got her out of her dress.The scars. Her back, Wayne."
Patrick froze, his hand half-raised to push the door.
"It’s covered in them. Old ones. It looks… it looks like she was beaten with a whip." Grace's voice dropped even lower, trembling. "And it goes all the way down her back. To her legs.”