Chapter 8

The man who had run off looking for a doctor never returned, but a physician walking down the street stopped to offer his help. Irene was gently picked up and carried to another carriage, which took her and her companions to the doctor's clinic. She was ushered into a back room, leaving Rebecca to sit in uncomfortable chairs until the physician finished his work and came to tell her Irene's condition.

Rebecca sent Verne to the restaurant to tell Phileas what had happened. The wait took hours.

Doctor Lehur walked back through the doors leading to his treatment area near dark. He was tired but confident that he had saved his patient. Upon seeing three people waiting tensely, he smiled to reassure them. "I am most happy I came upon the lady when I did," he said. The injury was the most serious. A stab wound of that sort would have killed her from loss of blood and internal bleeding. We got her here for treatment quickly. Mademoiselle O'Donnell will be well, but must be kept here for several days until the wound heals.

"What did she fall on, may I ask?" the doctor said. "The object was not in the wound."

"I don't know; we never saw," Rebecca said.

"Whatever it was, it was clean," the doctor said. "There was no dirt in the wound. Of that, I was most grateful, less chance of infection in that."

"May we see her?" Phileas said.

"The lady is sleeping," the doctor told him. "I gave her chloroform to block the pain of the treatment and do not expect her to wake soon. Are you family?"

"We are all the family she has in Paris." Phileas stated. "Her fiancé will be worried. He isn't here."

"Miss Fogg may sit by her bed if she wishes. If Mademoiselle's fiancé comes, he can certainly see her."

Phileas thanked the doctor.

The three remained in the doctor's foyer, speaking in hushed tones. "That wound was just below the ribs, Phileas," Rebecca said. "It went through the dress, corset, and all. Glass or other trash in the street did not cause that. That man stabbed her."

"Quite likely," Phileas said. "Would you know him again?"

"Yes," she said. "Blond, tall, thin, green eyes, English, I believe. His clothes did not look local. His French was not local either."

"I agree," Verne added. "I saw and heard him, too. He was not from Paris or anywhere else in France."

"Irish by chance?" Phileas asked.

"That I could not say," Rebecca said.

"One of us should keep watch here. David is going to come, whether we want him to or not." Phileas said. "We will have to keep watch in case her attacker tries again."


David's mad dash into Paris to see Irene put him at the clinic in the early hours of the morning. He sat with her through a fever that lasted into the next night. He was dead tired and hungry by the time the fever broke. None of them had left the clinic since the accident. Phileas threatened to have David thrown out if he did not get some rest. As the fever was gone, David relented.

On the trip back to Phillip's for clean clothes, a meal, and a short nap, David sat in the corner of his carriage, thinking. His cousins may think he did not know, but the ex-agent had heard their whisperings about his angel being stabbed in the street. Years of spy training allowed one to hear and interpret whispers. At the clinic, he had not had the time to consider that fully. Now David did; and the rage boiled in his ears.

David did not need to make a list of suspects. He knew exactly who had sent the assassin and who the assassin might be. After a chance to rest and pack, David promised himself that Joshua Kingston's favorite thug would catch a knife in his own ribs. For now, too drunk from lack of sleep, he forced himself to doze, coming in and out of fitful dreams of vengeance.

Suddenly, sleep was yanked from him. David came awake by a sudden lurching stop. David grabbed the hand rope to keep himself in the seat and reached for the door handle. The door flew open ahead of his movement. A hand grabbed him roughly by the arm and coat lapel and dragged him out of the seat into the dirt.

Highwaymen?

Before David could get his hands under him, they were grabbed and twisted behind his back. Ropes applied to hands and kicking feet. A hood was thrown over his head, blocking out the morning sun, and a drawstring was roughly drawn around his neck so tight he could barely breathe.

The two men handling him dragged him across the ground, away from his coach. Coming to a stop, their burden was lifted off the ground, swung and thrown into the air, dropping into the hard wooden floorboards of an open wagon. Things were tossed over him as his captors hid him and set the wagon at a fast pace.

David Fogg, trussed up and helpless, knew exactly who had him and exactly where he would be going. It was going to be a long, uncomfortable trip.