“You!” thundered Lord Ramsgate, stretching out one arm to point at Daniel as if identifying the devil himself. “How dare you show your face here?”
Daniel held himself very still. Ramsgate had a right to be angry. He was in shock. He was grieving. “I came to—”
“Pay your respects?” Lord Ramsgate cut in derisively. “I’m sure you’ll be sorry to hear that it’s a bit early for that.”
Daniel allowed himself a glimmer of hope. “Then he lives?”
“Barely.”
“I would like to apologize,” Daniel said stiffly.
Ramsgate’s eyes, already bulbous, became impossibly huge. “Apologize? Really? You think an apology is going to save you from the gallows if my son is dead?”
“That’s not why—”
“I will see you hang. Don’t think that I won’t.”
Daniel did not doubt it for a second.
“It was Hugh who issued the challenge,” Marcus said quietly.
“I don’t care who issued the challenge,” Ramsgate snapped. “My son did what he was supposed to do. He aimed wide. But you . . .” He turned on Daniel then, venom and grief pouring forth. “You shot him. Why would you do that?”
“I did not mean to.”
For a moment Ramsgate did nothing but stare. “You did not mean to. That is your explanation?”
Daniel said nothing. It sounded weak to his own ears, as well. But it was the truth. And it was awful.
He looked to Marcus, hoping for some sort of silent advice, something to indicate what to say, how to proceed. But Marcus looked lost, too, and Daniel supposed that they would have apologized once more and departed had not the butler entered the room just then, announcing that the doctor had come down from Hugh’s bedside.
“How is he?” Ramsgate demanded.
“He will live,” the doctor confirmed, “provided he avoids infection.”
“And the leg?”
“He will keep it. Again, if he avoids infection. But he will limp, and he may very well be lame. The bone was splintered. I set it as best I could . . .” The doctor shrugged. “There is only so much I can do.”
“When will you know if he has escaped infection?” Daniel asked. He had to know.
The doctor turned. “Who are you?”
“The devil who shot my son,” Ramsgate hissed.
The doctor drew back in shock, and then in self-preservation as Ramsgate stalked across the room. “You listen to me,” he said malevolently, advancing until he and Daniel were nearly nose to nose. “You will pay for this. You have ruined my son. Even if he lives, he will be ruined, with a ruined leg, and a ruined life.”
A cold knot of unease swirled in Daniel’s chest. He knew Ramsgate was upset; he had every right to be. But something more was at work here. The marquess looked unbalanced, possessed.
“If he dies,” Ramsgate hissed, “you will hang. And if he doesn’t die, if you somehow escape the rule of law, I will kill you.”
They were standing so close to one another that Daniel could feel the moist air that escaped Ramsgate’s mouth with every word. And as he looked into the older man’s glittering green eyes, he knew what it meant to be afraid.
Lord Ramsgate was going to kill him. It was only a matter of time.
“Sir,” Daniel began, because he had to say something. He couldn’t just stand there and take it. “I must tell you—”
“No, I’m telling you,” Ramsgate spat. “I don’t care who you are, or what title your godforsaken father has passed down to you. You will die. Do you understand me?”
“I think it is time we left,” Marcus intervened. He put his arm between the two men and carefully widened the space between them. “Doctor,” he said, nodding toward the physician as he ushered Daniel past. “Lord Ramsgate.”
“Count your days, Winstead,” Lord Ramsgate warned. “Or better yet, your hours.”
“Sir,” Daniel said again, trying to show the older man respect. He wanted to make this right. He needed to try. “I must tell you—”
“Don’t speak to me,” Ramsgate cut in. “There is nothing you could say that will save you now. There is no place you will be able to hide.”
“If you kill him, you will hang, too,” Marcus said. “And if Hugh lives, he will need you.”
Ramsgate looked at Marcus as if he were an idiot. “You think I will do it myself? It’s an easy thing to hire a killer. The price of a life is low indeed.” He flicked his head toward Daniel. “Even his.”