He wanted Bryony in his room, in his bed. It was illogical, and presumably only a passing fancy, but he looked down at the warm figure in his arms and resisted the impulse to pull her closer.
Brattle looked at him with disapproval for his heartless ways. “She’ll be ready when she tells you so. People heal at different rates, and you’d best leave her be to do so. I’ve brought laudanum for her. She’ll be in pain, and there’s no need for her to suffer.”
Kilmartyn didn’t even notice when the doctor left. Slowly, carefully he let go of Bryony, letting her slip back onto the mattress. He turned to look at Mrs. Harkins, who was now sitting on the edge of the bed. “She needs all that blood washed off her. I don’t suppose you’re going to let me take care of it.”
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, your lordship!” Mrs. Harkins puffed up in indignation, for all the world like a ruffled chicken. “I won’t be having such goings on, and I’ll tell you that direct. No one’s taking advantage of the poor thing while she’s so bad off.”
“And when she’s better?” he asked with a faint smile.
“It’s a good thing I know you’re funning me,” Mrs. Harkins said with the disapproval of a long-term retainer. “That poor girl hasn’t done you any harm, and I won’t be having you ruining her reputation.”
He glanced back at Bryony. Done him no harm? She’d destroyed his peaceful way of life, confused him, filled him with so much ridiculously impossible need that he was half-mad from it. He took a deep breath. “She’s lucky to have such a fierce protector in you, Mrs. Harkins.”
It was most definitely the right thing to say. The bristles vanished, and she began to look at him with a hint of, was it possible, approval?
“You’ll want to bathe her and change the sheets,” he said, finally pulling himself out of the strange bubble that had seemed to surround his head. “I’ll administer the laudanum as needed, and we’ll leave her in this bed for the time being. That will make it easier on everyone.”
“Yes, my lord,” Mrs. Harkins said in a properly servile voice. She rose, looking at him. Waiting for him to leave.
He wasn’t going to win this particular battle, but there’d be plenty of time in the future. “Very well, Mrs. Harkins. I’ll be in my library.”
“Emma,” the cook said, and one of the maids emerged from the shadows. He hadn’t even realized she’d been there all along. “Go up to Mrs. Greaves’s room and fetch a clean chemise and see if she has a nightdress with loose sleeves.”
“Yes, Mrs. Harkins,” the girl said, moving toward the door.
Kilmartyn rose, and the girl politely stepped out of his way. He, master of his house, was being dismissed by his servants, and he was allowing them to do so.
All for the sake of the spying Miss Russell. He really must be out of his mind.
CHAPTER TWENTY
SHE HURT. THAT WAS all Bryony could think as her mind went swirling around in brightly colored circles. That pain was all through her, but most of all her arm. She tried to sit up, but someone had tethered her to the bed, and through the bright daze all she could think of was Kilmartyn.
She opened her eyes, but that didn’t help. The room was very dark—only the glow of a fire at the far wall provided any light. Not her tiny attic under the eaves, then, unless someone had set the house on fire. She was ready to believe anything.
She closed her eyes again, trying to fight her way through the crippling dizziness. She knew what it was—laudanum. She’d been dosed with it enough when she’d been sick that she’d never forgotten the taste of it. She hated it, and its efficacy against pain seemed just about nil at that moment. If she was going to hurt like hell she’d just as soon be awake for it.
It took a few moments of intense concentration, but slowly she pushed past the smothering mists of the drug, like someone fighting through cobwebs covering a doorway. And she’d been spending too much time cleaning this wretched house if she started to think of things in terms of cobwebs and dust.
She counted in her head, forcing herself to concentrate on pragmatic, mathematical issues. Common sense began to drift back in, and she realized she wasn’t alone in this strange, dark bedroom. Someone was in the chair beside her, and she knew who it was. No one she should find safe and comforting. It was the devil himself.
Her eyes fluttered open, and she turned to look at him. He was asleep, stretched out in a club chair, his long legs propped on a stool. Why had he fallen asleep in her room? Did he think she was going to die? To run away? For some reason his voice echoed in her head, insisting she’d been shot. That was absurd! Why would someone want to shoot her?
She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out but a harsh croak, and she realized she needed water quite desperately. The tiny sound had woken him, though, and he sat forward, his feet hitting the floor as he looked at her.
“You’re awake, then. Obviously. What do you need?”
“Water.” It was so raw and garbled it was amazing he recognized the word, but he nodded, rose, and crossed the room. A moment later he was back with a tall glass of barley water. He sat down on the bed beside her in a matter-of-fact manner, slipped his hand behind her neck and pulled her up to drink, holding the glass against her mouth.
It was cool and refreshing, flavored with lemon and mint, and she drank it gratefully until Kilmartyn pulled the glass away. “Don’t overdo,” he said. “You’ll end up throwing it all up and I don’t fancy changing my clothes again.”
He set her head back on the pillow, slowly, and his fingers lingered as they pulled away from her neck, offering a quiet, soothing stroke before leaving her. “Did I throw up on you before?”
“You did not.”
She tried to shrug, but her left shoulder didn’t work, strapped down as it was. “One can only hope.”
His soft laughter was like a puff of springtime. “You are the most refreshing female I’ve ever met. There are not many women who would lie in my home, recovering from a gunshot wound, and insult me with such equanimity.”
“I didn’t insult you. I just said I wouldn’t have minded throwing up on you.”
“You said you hoped you’d thrown up on me. A very slight difference, I grant you, but a difference nonetheless. How are you feeling?”
She could think of several terms she’d heard in the stable but Kilmartyn was not someone to bandy curses with. “Words fail me.”
“One can only hope.”
She was surprised to find out she could laugh. It hurt, and she groaned in the midst of her chuckle, and she could feel unexpected tears fill her eyes. With luck he wouldn’t be able to see them, but luck had hardly been with her recently, and he’d already proved to be far too adept at seeing in the dark. Like a cat, she thought. Not a tame tabby, but one of those long, sleek jungle creatures she’d seen in books.
“Do you remember what happened?” he asked in his indolent fashion.
She tried to think. “You said I’d been shot,” she said after a moment. “But that’s impossible.”
“Since I watched Dr. Brattle dig a bullet out of your arm I assure you it’s not impossible at all. Did you happen to see anyone when this happened?”
“No one,” she managed to say. “I don’t even remember it happening. Did you shoot me?”
For the briefest moment she saw shock in his eyes, but he covered it quickly, and there was a faint flash of a grin in the darkness. “Now that would be a terrible waste of female flesh.”
It was wasted anyway, she thought with a trace of self-pity, her eyes filling with tears. She was young and strong and her body would wither and die without ever being touched, loved.
It was the laudanum, of course, making her maudlin, and she tried to ignore it. She really didn’t want anyone touching her.
She closed her eyes again, drifting into the pain. She could feel the tears slide down her face, and her misery only increased. She didn’t want to cry in front of him, be it from pain or weakness or both, but she couldn’t ev
en blink it away. She was alone, abandoned, and she hurt, and the misery encircled her like a cocoon, smothering her.
“Poor darling girl,” she heard his voice, a lilting, gentle croon, and the tears kept flowing, just as she was hoping to regain control. She didn’t want him being kind to her. She couldn’t accept pity from him, not from him.
The mattress dipped, and she distantly realized he’d climbed onto the bed with her. She should order him away, but her tears only came more heavily as she felt him slide one arm underneath her, so carefully that she barely felt it in her trussed arm. He put his other arm around her waist, and instead of trying to pull her against him he simply wrapped his strong, warm body around hers, tucking her head against his shoulders. He was wiping her tears away with something soft, but there were always more coming, and he whispered to her, words she didn’t understand. She didn’t need to. They were words of comfort, and he called her his darling, his love, his sweet, precious girl, and the colors swirled down around her once more. He had put laudanum in her barley water, she realized belatedly, feeling the last bit of her mind slip away. His long fingers were on her cheeks, brushing the tears away, and at the very last, just as she was sinking into sleep once more, she opened her eyes to see him looking down at her, such honest emotion in his eyes that it stripped the lies from her.
“Did you kill him?” she whispered.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
HE SLEPT BESIDE HER, a fact that astonished him. It was far from a comfortable position, half wrapped around her body. Dr. Brattle had tethered her arm to a board that was strapped to the side of the bed, to keep her from reopening the wound, and he’d simply had to move around her, arranging himself carefully. Her final words had been the ultimate mistrust, though they’d come as no surprise. She thought him capable of the most heinous crimes, of murder and embezzlement, of leaving his former business partner’s daughters destitute. With his wife’s bloody disappearance she might very well think him capable of even worse.
His mind should have been a whirl of questions, and instead he’d simply held her, offering her the warmth of his body, the strength of his arms, the shelter of his protection, and the comfort of his…
He wasn’t sure what he was offering her. Certainly nothing more than temporary surcease of pain and despair. And he expected he would be handsomely rewarded eventually. If he were a decent human being he would be lying beside her with only caring thoughts in his head, the wish to provide comfort for one in distress. Unfortunately he was a very bad man, his cock had been hard for so long it ached, and it was all he could do to keep from sliding his arm up to rest against her small, lovely breasts.
And they were lovely. He could remember from the shadowy kitchen, when she lay stretched out in front of him, ready for him, hot for him. Tipsy, and a virgin. And he’d been a damned gentleman for once in his life, the ultimate act of stupidity. He wouldn’t make that mistake again. He’d have to wait, of course. It would be all the lovelier when she was awake, alert, and bared herself to him knowing what she was doing. He’d never been fond of unconscious partners.
Sex was about give and take. Desire and retreat, need and generosity, control and abandon. He’d never waited so long for a woman, which amused him, considering it had only been four days. In his experience most women fell at his feet. And if they didn’t, there were always other women available. Unfortunately, at least for the moment, no other woman would do.
Bryony. He liked it. His very dear Miss Greaves was Bryony Russell, eldest daughter of Eustace Russell, a woman who was purported to be an invalid, one who was judged too frail to appear in public. He’d snorted with laughter at that one. Bryony Russell was about as frail as a steamship. She’d stormed through his house like a typhoon and swept everything in front of her. It had been days since he’d seen so much as a speck of dust.
He didn’t want her weak, broken like this. He wanted her strong, fighting back, and he wasn’t going to consider why, or whether it had anything to do with this strange fascination she held for him. Indeed, he should probably just take her and get it done with. But she was going to have to be feeling just a little bit better before he became the complete villain he knew himself to be.
He woke up before she did, a knot in his neck, the arm beneath her numb. He slid from the bed, careful not to wake her. Her skin was cool, her color good. She hadn’t taken on an infection, and since the bullet had thankfully landed in a fleshy part of her arm she should be up and about in a few days, a week at most. In the meantime, he had things to do.
If Collins was surprised to see him strolling from the housekeeper’s bedroom he didn’t show it. “I’m afraid Mr. Peach’s men are here again, my lord. Would you like me to send them away?”
“How noisy are they?”
“Not very, my lord. I shouldn’t think they’d disturb you, and they’ve promised to finish today.”
He grimaced. “It was Mrs. Greaves I was concerned about. She’ll need peace and quiet while she recovers.”
“I don’t believe they’ll present a problem, my lord. Your rooms are at the opposite end of the house. If they disturb her we could always see they’re sent away to a more opportune time.”
He nodded, dismissing him, but Collins wasn’t so easily dismissed. “Might I be bold enough to inquire whether your lordship might like assistance with his toilette this morning? I am accounted an excellent barber—my gentlemen always said I had a most delicate hand with a razor.”
He was damnably tired. “I prefer to shave myself. In fact, I believe I’ll take a bath first, unless the workmen are mucking about in the bathing room.” He was very fond of the huge copper bathing tub and the hot water that traveled by pipes directly into it.
“Not at the moment, my lord. Allow me to draw one for you.”
There was an odd note in Collins’s voice, and Kilmartyn looked at him sharply. The imperturbable Collins was looking decidedly perturbed, almost… guilty. Odd. And interesting. Instead of sending him about his business, Kilmartyn nodded. “Do so then. And I believe I’ll sample your skills with the razor after all.”
Collins bowed, and most men wouldn’t have noticed any difference in his behavior. But Kilmartyn wasn’t most men. Something was off. Was Collins going to cut his throat when he shaved him? He could try, of course, but he wouldn’t get very far. If he were dealing with the gently reared son of a British lord then he might succeed. But Kilmartyn hadn’t been gently reared, he was Irish, and even if he hadn’t developed an unexpected distrust for his butler-cum-gentleman’s gentleman it would require someone of great cunning and skill to best him.
A man of great cunning and skill wouldn’t be letting his current agitation show. Something was disturbing Collins, and Kilmartyn had every intention of finding out what it was. His initial thought, that Collins harbored romantic feelings for the housekeeper, had evaporated. There was nothing of the worried lover in the man’s bearing. Something else was troubling his manservant, the one who had been thrust upon him despite his protests.
There was a logical conclusion. Collins arrived soon after Bryony, at her behest. There was a strong probability that they were in this together. But he didn’t think so. For one thing, what would a gentleman’s gentleman care about an embezzlement scheme? There was no doubt that was exactly what Collins was—he was too good at his vocation to be an imposter. And Kilmartyn had sensed no collusion between them. His housekeeper had secrets, and he’d known that, but Collins came as a surprise.
The bathing room was large, a converted bedroom at the back of the third floor, a fact which had annoyed his wife to no end.
He shook his head. He really was a heartless bastard. He’d been so worried about Bryony that he hadn’t given a thought to the fact that the woman he’d been married to for almost ten years, the woman he’d once loved to distraction with all the passion of a twenty-year-old, was almost certainly dead. They’d hated each other so intensely that it was impossible to summon the grief he knew he should be feeli
ng, but at least he should remember she’d been murdered. Unless she was perpetrating some complicated sham as revenge.
He didn’t think so. He was Irish enough to trust his instincts on this. Cecily was well and truly dead. He was now a widower. Whether he could prove it, and whether that proof might send him to the gallows, was another matter entirely.
He saw the merest shadow out of the corner of his eye as he walked down the hallway, but he moved quickly, grabbing the child by the scruffy shirt he wore and holding him while he struggled.
“And what are you doing on this floor, young Jem?” He gave him a gentle shake. “Are you spying on me?”
The child looked both indignant and guilty, and Kilmartyn remembered with a flash that his reaction to Bryony’s being shot had been similar to Collins’s. Remorse.
“Am not, guv’nor. Me lord,” he amended hastily, his dark eyes shifting. “I was just wanting to make sure Mrs. Greaves was all right.”
“Why should you care?”
Again the guilt. “She hired me, didn’t she?” he said. “No one ought to have shot her. He said… I mean, she should have been safe.”
Kilmartyn froze. He forced himself to take a slow, calming breath. “He said?” he prompted gently. He’d known boys like this, rough and desperate and determined not to show it.
“Nuffin,” the child said stubbornly.
“You said, ‘he said.’ Exactly whom are you talking about?” The child was squirming, trying to get away from him, but Kilmartyn’s fingers tightened on the collar of his shabby shirt.
“Nuffin!” he shouted, and yanked. The shirt tore, and the child, Jem, was off, disappearing through the door to the servants’ stairs in a flash.
He could have caught up with him. Despite his generally indolent air he could be as fast as any street rat, something that would have shocked his titled friends. But he let him go. Time enough to deal with him later. He had Collins to deal with, Collins who would undoubtedly know more, and it wasn’t going to be pretty.