Previously: Lavinia knows! Cedric's secret is out! She has discovered our hero, wounded and sick. Can she help save him? ;-)]


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At first Jacques was bent on ejecting her from the room as quickly as possible, but Lavinia refused to budge. Cedric needed her, and her nursing skills, and here she would stay. In vain did he argue that she would be missed if she remained in Cedric's room, but she paid that scant attention. With the Earl away from the house and Mrs. Clark spending part of every day with Lady Eliza, the only person who might require her presence was her father, and he was usually too caught up in his books and his theories to notice whether she was there or not.

Agitated, Jacques arranged the Avenger's cloak and other garments before the fire to dry them out.

"How did you get in," he stage-whispered fiercely? "The door, it was locked!"

"Non! It was not!" she countered, as she re-covered Cedric and began to bathe his face.

"I locked it myself!"

"The catch, it resisted a bit, but I was able to open it. Perhaps you did not lock it completely."

Furiously, he turned from her and went into the office to check on the door. She heard him shut and lock it, with rather more force than was probably strictly necessary.

Returning, slightly red in the face, he picked up their conversation from where they'd left off. "What are you doing here, anyway? In my day, young ladies did not visit young gentleman's rooms!

"I did not intend to come into son chambre," she told him haughtily, "and I would not have, if I had not heard Cedric moan. What did you mean by leaving him alone?"

Their discussion was not less heated for being conducted in hushed tones out of deference for Cedric's condition. But, while it ended in a draw, both parties seemed to have achieved some degree of release for their pent-up feelings.

In the end, Lavinia stayed and, truth to tell, Jacques was relieved. He had tended to sick persons before but he knew that wasn't the strongest of his talents. Lavinia, on the other hand, knew just what to do. She possessed a wide experience with herbs and their uses, and had employed that knowledge many times to help others before her father had inherited his cousin's estate. In fact, her father depended upon her various ointments, teas, and syrups for he was sometimes troubled by rheumatism, or would suffer cuts or singed eyebrows while conducting one of his experiments. Lavinia had also had more practice in binding up wounds, since the Revolution had begun, than she cared to remember.

Cedric's wound was becoming inflamed, so she decided to prepare a poultice to stop the infection. She told Jacques she would return shortly and then slipped away to her room for a cloak. Thankful that the Earl had made good on his promise to give her free rein in his gardens, she stepped out into the now familiar herb garden. After gathering what she could from there, she stopped off in the stillroom for a couple of dried plants. Back in her bedroom again to return her cloak, she lingered only long enough to pick up various other items she would need, as well as the laudanum she kept to ease her father's back pains. By the time she returned, Jacques had several lengths of clean linen and flannel laid out and a quantity of water heating over the fire.

She directed him to help her give some of the opiate to Cedric, hoping that it would lessen the pain for him during the coming treatment. Jacques lifted Cedric and easily held him while Lavinia tried to administer the drug. It wasn't easy, as Cedric wasn't fully conscious, but by cajoling, pleading and--on Jacques' part--false bravado threatening, they were able to get almost the entire dose into their patient. They laid him back down, covering him again, and went to prepare the poultice, allowing the laudanum a chance to work. While she cut or ground the herbs, and mixed in the other ingredients for the poultice, she asked Jacques to tell her what had happened.

Normally Jacques was the most reticent of men, but he was tired and worn down with worry and fright, and it was a relief to be able to unburden himself to someone. He didn't know the whole story, of course, but he told her as much as Cedric had been able to relate to him.

The coach had been waylaid, very near the spot where rumour had said it would. It was raining still, but two of the four lamps on the carriage were lit and by them Cedric had been able to see the outlines of a small group of men--two mounted and one on the ground--gathered around it. The coachman and a lone outrider both had their hands up and there appeared to be a scuffle in progress on the far side of the vehicle.

Cedric had seen a lot of robberies in the months since he'd donned the Avenger's mask, but this one didn't seem quite right to him. However, worried that he might already be too late to help, he ignored any uneasiness he was feeling and moved forward to surprise and attack. He fired one shot, wounding the robber on the ground, which frightened them all into running away. This was an unexpected and pleasant surprise, or so he'd thought. He'd ridden forward, to reassure the man in the coach, and had found himself facing a large pistol.

At first he'd thought the gentleman believed him to be just another robber and was about to assert his relative harmlessness, but that impression lasted only for a moment, because the stranger had laughed and said, "Checkmate to you, Masked Avenger." Then he'd levelled the gun to fire.

It was a trap!

Cedric tugged on the reins, to wheel the horse around, knowing it was futile ... certain he was about to die. But inexplicably help had come: a shot had rung out from the opposite direction and his would-be murderer had crumpled to the ground! Cedric hadn't tarried to sort out what had happened, nor had his frightened horse needed any urging to speed away, back in the direction they'd come.

Suddenly, the woods had seemed to explode in gunfire, and Cedric was hit. There was no time to check and see how badly he'd been hurt--his attackers were all around him. Holding his left hand to his side, he'd guided his horse with the other, weaving in and out amongst the trees, grateful for the rain which muffled the sounds of his retreat, and the clouds which obscured the moon. Sometimes he'd gained on his pursuers, but other times they'd drawn perilously near his hiding places.

The chase had gone on for hours, for he'd had to lead them in the opposite direction of the cave before he could attempt to return home. By the time he'd shaken them off he'd become thoroughly soaked and chilled, and his horse was beginning to stumble with exhaustion.

Faint from the loss of blood, and nearly blind with fatigue, Cedric had at last found his way to the cave. He'd fallen forward onto his horse's neck, spent, but the animal, having sensed its stable was near, had proceeded down the tunnel of its own accord.

At this point Cedric's recollections had ceased, so Jacques began to tell the rest of the story from his point of view. He'd been back and forth between the tunnel and Cedric's room at least a dozen times, each time growing more and more concerned. Finally, just before dawn, he'd gone down to check again and had found Cedric unconscious on the ground beside his horse.

"He was very cold, mademoiselle, and his clothes, they were soaked through. At first, I am afraid that he is dead, but then I see that he has fainted only, and the fear, it goes away a little. I begin to remove the wet clothes, and that is when I find the wound. It is not deep, but it has bled, oh so much, and I know that this is why he has fainted."

Lavinia nodded, her mind able to visualise everything that Jacques was telling her. Oh, if only there was a way to punish the canaille responsible for this!

"I wrapped him up to keep him warm while I helped his horse as quickly as I could. The poor creature! I have no doubt that his brave heart saved Cedric last night."

She completed the forming of the poultice and began to arrange what she'd need beside the bed, all the while listening to Jacques tell how he'd gotten Cedric up the stairs and into his bedroom.

"It was when I had carried him here, wrapped in blankets that he awakened. He was shivering, and very pale, and I begged him to be silent ... to save his strength, but he kept talking, except when he couldn't talk because of the pain, or the weakness. He needed to tell me what had happened, he said, in case ... in case he--," Jacques' voice was briefly suspended by impending tears, but then he continued. "I tried so very hard not to hurt him more, mademoiselle, but the wound, it needed to be cleaned .... What was I to do?" he finished, helplessly.

She took a moment to lay a comforting hand on his arm. "I know you wouldn't hurt him unless it was necessary, Jacques, and I know that he," she added, with a glance in Cedric's direction, "understood that, too."

Jacques was so grateful that, for a moment or two, he couldn't speak, then he replied, "Merci beaucoup, mademoiselle."

"Everything is ready, Jacques. Can you help me still?"

"Oui, bien sur. Once, long ago, I promised his mother that I would look after him. I will do anything you require."

"Bon. Let us begin."