But first, he wanted to shake her.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he exploded, not caring that her eyes went wide with surprise.
“Gabriel,” Nick interjected softly, using a knife to cut away the sleeve of Ralston’s coat, “have a care.”
“I will not!” Ralston turned back to Callie. “You cannot simply traipse across London whenever you damn well please, Callie.”
“I came to save you—” Callie started, then stopped.
Ralston gave a harsh laugh. “Well, it appears you did an excellent job of getting me shot instead.”
He barely registered Oxford’s arrival and defensive pronouncement of, “I aimed wide!”
“Gabriel.” Nick’s words took on a warning tone as he ripped the sleeve of his brother’s coat from his shirt. Gabriel winced, certain that Nick was taking pleasure in his pain. “Enough.”
“And you!” Ralston turned on Benedick. “What the hell were you thinking? Bringing her here!”
“Ralston, you know as well as I do that she cannot be stopped.”
“You need to get your women under control, Allendale,” Ralston said, turning back to Callie. “When you’re my wife, I’m going to lock you up, I swear before God!”
“Gabriel!” Nick was angry.
Ralston didn’t care. He turned on his brother as the surgeon knelt next to him and inspected the wound. “She could have been killed!”
“And what about you?” This time, it was Callie who spoke, her own pent-up energy releasing in anger, and the men turned as one to look at her, surprised that she had found her voice. “What about you and your idiotic plan to somehow restore my honor by playing with guns out in the middle of nowhere with Oxford?” She said the baron’s name with disdain. “Like children? Of all the ridiculous, unnecessary, thoughtless, male things to do…who even fights duels anymore?!”
“I aimed wide!” Oxford interjected.
“Oh, Oxford, no one cares,” Callie said, before turning back to Ralston, and saying, “You were worried about me? How do you think I felt knowing that I might have arrived and you might have been dead? How do you think I felt when I heard that gunshot? When I saw the man I love fall to the ground? Of all the selfish things you’ve done in your life, Gabriel…and I feel certain that you’ve done rather a lot of selfish things…this one is by far the most arrogant and obnoxious of them all.” She was crying now, either unwilling or unable to stop the tears. “What am I supposed to do if you die?”
The fight went out of him in the face of her tears. He couldn’t bear the thought of her worrying about him. He brushed off the doctor and cupped her face in his palms, ignoring the pain in his arm as he pulled her to him and spoke firmly. “I’m not going to die, Callie. It’s just a flesh wound.”
His words, a repeat of those she’d said to him all those weeks ago in the fencing club, elicited a watery smile. “What would you know about flesh wounds?” she asked.
He smiled. “There’s my empress.” He kissed her softly, oblivious to their audience, before he added, “We shall simply have matching scars.” She grew teary again, eyeing his wound skeptically before he repeated, “I’m not going to die, lovely. Not for a very long time.”
Callie raised a brow in a gesture she’d learned from him. “I’m not certain I believe that, Gabriel. It appears you’re not a very good shot.”
Ralston turned a narrow gaze on his brother as Nick snickered at Callie’s wry words before turning back to her. “For the record, Calpurnia, I’m an excellent shot when not worried that you might find yourself in the way of a bullet.”
“Why were you worried about me? You were the one in the duel!”
The surgeon probed at his wound, sending a bolt of pain down his arm. “My lord,” the surgeon said as Ralston hissed in pain, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to remove the bullet. It won’t be comfortable.”
Ralston nodded to the doctor, who was removing a collection of rather wicked-looking instruments from his bag in preparation for the procedure.
Callie gave a nervous look at the tools, and said, “Are you sure you want to do this here, Doctor? Perhaps we should go somewhere less…rustic?”
“Here is as good a place as any, my lady,” the doctor responded amiably. “It isn’t the first bullet I’ve removed in this particular field, and I feel certain it won’t be the last.”