“Oh—oh, no, ma’am, not at all,” Hull stuttered, looking at Isabella with as much surprise as if she’d been a two-headed goat. She supposed she had offended him, and didn’t much care. Alec was getting weaker by the minute.
Alec shrugged and smiled apologetically, as if to say, “You know what women are.” Hull nodded with transparent sympathy as he backed from the room.
“I’ll send the doctor up when ’e comes. Can I bring you anything? A meal? The missus is cooking cabbage and hocks.”
“A meal would be fine—and Hull, I’d appreciate the loan of a pistol if you have it.”
Hull never even blinked. “Anything you want, Tiger, and ’tis yours.”
“I’ll remember this, Hull.”
With that promise in keeping, Hull took himself off. Isabella closed the door behind him and turned the key in the lock. When she turned back to the room, Alec had sunk down on the end of the bed, where he slumped wearily against the chipped footrail.
“You shouldn’t have stood about so long,” Isabella said in a scolding tone, crossing to the bed and pulling back the covers. She only hoped the bed did not house bugs—but she refused to let such squeamish thoughts daunt her. They were lucky to have found a haven, even such a one as this.
“ ’Tis always a mistake to let anyone see you vulnerable. Hull was my man once, but time and circumstance have a way of changing things.”
“You don’t trust him.”
“I don’t distrust him. I am just taking reasonable precautions. You learn to, after a while.”
With the bed readied, Isabella came to kneel in front of him. Instinctively, as she might have started to undress a tired child, she undid the buttons of his shirt so that she might peel the filthy garment from him. Alec suffered her ministrations without protest, watching her with a queer little gleam in his eyes that she did not see. His shirt fell open, exposing a chest that definitely belonged to a man, not a child. With her head bent over her task, Isabella never even noticed until at last her fingers brushed the warm, muscle-ridged skin of his belly. Unbuttoning his shirt when he was so weak had seemed perfectly natural until she touched his flesh; then tiny sparks seemed to shoot through her fingers all the way down to her toes and back up again. Blushing, she pulled her hands away, leaving the shirt hanging open to his waist.
“There, now, I’ve unbuttoned your shirt for you. You must do the rest yourself.” Her tone was brisk to cover her confusion. She didn’t look at him as she stood, but rather turned away to busy herself with the pillows.
“Shy, Isabella?” There was a note to Alec’s voice that made her cheeks grow even warmer. She thought of all the extremely coarse remarks he could make about how she no longer had reason to be shy with him, and almost cringed as she waited for one. Instead he said softly, “I appreciate your care of me.”
Isabella looked at him then, to find those golden eyes fixed on her with an odd expression that she could not quite decipher.
“I would do the same for anyone in need.”
The words were gruff, because the truth of the matter was that she was lying. There was no one else in the world she would do the same for, unless duty or charity compelled her rather than the tenderness that had come over her when she had looked at Alec, injured and weary. The thought of undressing a weakened Bernard made her shiver with distaste. Her feelings for her husband were in no wise tender. And her father—after years of neglect on his part, she could not truthfully say that she felt for him any degree of tenderness, either. He was her father, and for that he was owed her respect and obedience, but love?
For the first time it occurred to her just how very lacking in love her life was.
“Would you indeed?”
“What?” Lost in thought, it took her a minute to return to the present.
“Never mind. Aren’t those pillows sufficiently plumped yet? You’ve pummeled them to within an inch of their lives.”
He was teasing her, as usual, but she was too relieved that he was capable of it to take umbrage. Suddenly her world rocked back into place, and she was able to banish the unusual melancholy that had threatened to overwhelm her.
“You should be abed. If I help you with your boots, can you manage the, er, rest?” Self-conscious, she left off fluffing the pillows.
“I could—if I had any intention of going to bed. I do not.” From the obstinate look on his face, she could tell that he meant what he said. Isabella looked at him for a moment, aghast.
“Don’t be silly! You’ve been shot, you’ve lost a great deal of blood, and you’ve been looking like you could faint for the better part of an hour. Of course you must go to bed. Immediately.”
“I’ve never fainted in my life. I’ll certainly not start now, over this. ’Tis little more than a graze.”
“Alec, would you please get into bed?” She was losing all patience with him.
“No.”
They exchanged measuring stares. Isabella had to fight back an urge to clout him upside his injured head. He was being a silly, stubborn fool, and to what purpose?
“I assume there is some valid reason that you are refusing to do what any sane man would? Certainly you don’t have to prove to me what a brave fellow you are. I assure you, I’m quite impressed already.”
“I am waiting until the bloody sawbones that you insisted on comes and goes. I’ll not give anyone reason to suppose me helpless unless I must.”
“Oh.” That aspect of the situation had not occurred to her. With the wind taken out of her sails, Isabella felt vaguely foolish for not having figured that out for herself.
“Understand this, Isabella: these men are like jackals—if they sense weakness, even the most normally trustworthy of them are likely to close in for the kill. I’ll not chance it, for your sake as well as mine. Without me, you’d have about as much chance here as a nice, juicy bone thrown into a pit of starving dogs.”
“I’d not thought of that, I confess. Very well, then, if you’ll not lie down, at least let me wash some of the blood from your face for you.”
“Now, that I’ll not object to,” he said, and essayed a smile. The crooked attempt had an effect on Isabella that was far out of proportion to its relative dazzle. Her heart swelled, and she fairly bristled with protectiveness. Such a reaction frightened her. Not for the first time, it occurred to her that she was growing far too fond of Alec. She must not allow herself to fall in love with him. That way lay heartbreak.
There was water in the pitcher on the washstand. It was stone-cold, and probably stale, but it served to splash her face and wash her hands in. Catching a glimpse of her reflection in the small mirror hanging on the wall above the bowl, she almost cringed. She looked like a witch, or worse. Quickly she set about trying to remedy the damage the day had wrought to her hair. Gathering the trailing ends together, she gave the tangled mass a couple of twists to form a knot and thrust the pins through. Though her reflection did not show a great deal of improvement, under the circumstances she decided that it was the best she could do.
Isabella poured some of the water remaining in the pitcher into the matching porcelain bowl and carried it and a linen towel that had been draped over the towel rack to the bed. Sitting on the mattress beside Alec, bowl in her lap, she dipped the towel in water and reached up to gently sponge his bloody face.
He rested wearily back against the footrail, suffering her ministrations with closed eyes. Blood no longer seeped from beneath the bandage, and that which was on his face was mostly dry. She wiped at it, careful not to hurt him as she cleaned the gore from the chiselled planes of his face and neck. There was dried blood in his eyebrows, in the ear nearest the wound, along the side of his neck. More blood was caked in the curling mat of hair on his chest. By the time she was half-through, the water in the bowl was murky red.
“Can you take off your shirt?” she asked as she stood up to exchange the water in the bowl for fresh.
Alec’s eyes opened then. Isabella could feel them follow
ing her as she moved.
Again she waited for a comment or jest that would put her to the blush. Again he surprised her.
“You’ve uncommon gentle hands.” he said, then shrugged out of his shirt without another word.
Returning, self-conscious now as he sat before her bared to the waist, his magnificent torso available for her to look at and touch as she would, Isabella knelt at his feet with the fresh bowl of water, the better to get at the blood that had congealed on his chest. His shirt had absorbed a good deal of the gore, but still his chest hair was matted and sticky, and brown streaks anointed his muscled rib cage. Isabella forged herself to work slowly and carefully, so as not to betray her rising awareness of him. Yet so sensitive was she to the heat emanating from his body, to the silky texture of his body hair and satin sleekness of his skin, that by the time she had finished her pulse was tripping along at twice its normal speed.
When at last she dropped the towel back into the bowl and would have stood up with it, relieved to have it done, he stopped her with a hand sliding around the back of her neck.
“Thank you,” he said softly, his fingers caressing the soft skin at her nape.
Startled, her eyes flew to his and were trapped by the intensity of his gaze. By the softly filtered light of the late afternoon sun slanting through the window, she saw that the golden eyes were actually hazel flecked with gold, with the tiniest hint of emerald green near the pupil. Then he turned his head just enough for a dusty sunbeam to strike his face, and his eyes glowed as golden as metal. Isabella caught her breath, mesmerized by the sheer beauty of them. Had he been a woman, those eyes alone would have been enough to assure his reign as an Incomparable. The rest of his far too considerable male beauty was simply a case of a disproportionately generous Mother Nature heaping more bounty on top of an already ample feast.
“You shouldn’t look at me that way if you don’t mean it, Countess.” Those golden eyes never left her mouth as, dipping his head, he kissed her.
XXXVII
Before her lips could do more than flutter under his, there was a knock at the door.
“I’ve brought the sawbones, Ti—uh, Alec,” Hull called through the closed panel.
Alec’s hand fell away from Isabella’s neck, and she got quickly to her feet. Flustered, she forgot about the bowl and barely managed to save its contents from being spilled all over the floor as she stood.
“Steady,” Alec said. And there was the mocking note she had been waiting for.
She supposed it was deserved. After all, it was she who had protested vehemently not more than six hours before at the notion of becoming his mistress. Yet the merest touch of his lips on hers could make her knees turn to jelly, and her hands shake.
Without looking at him again, she opened the door to admit Hull, his wife, who was carrying a covered tray, and an older man in a black suit turned shiny with age whom Isabella assumed was the sawbones.
“Treat ’im gentle, you ’ear, McIver? ’E’s a good friend of mine,” Hull directed jovially, passing a pair of pistols to Alec as casually as he would have handed over a pair of gloves. Alec thrust one in the waistband of his breeches and laid the other on the bedside table.
“Dinner, such as ’tis,” Liddy announced without enthusiasm as she set the tray on the bedside table. She and Hull then left. The aroma of cooked cabbage emanating from the tray was so strong that there was no ignoring it in the closed room. The sawbones, nose wrinkling, paused in the act of unpacking his instruments to request that they go ahead and eat, which they did, with little enthusiasm for the lukewarm boiled cabbage and pork, and the less than fresh bread. Alec barely managed two bites, and those only at Isabella’s urging.
Isabella laid aside her fork when Alec did, and watched with a twinge of sympathy as the doctor went to work on him, poking and prodding and clucking importantly. By the time he had finished his examination, Alec, cursing all doctors with scant regard for this one’s sensibilities, was as grumpy as a rooster who’d had its tail stepped on.
Dr. McIver, pronouncing the wound to be superficial but the blood loss substantial, ordered at least a week of bed rest. Alec was determined to be on the road by the next morning, and said so. The doctor shook his head, prophesying dire consequences if his instructions were not followed to the letter. Alec called him a blood-sucking leech, along with other less flattering terms that would have burned Isabella’s ears had she not already grown somewhat accustomed to Alec’s penchant for colorful language.
Dr. McIver looked outraged at Alec’s invective. Isabella shook her head warningly at him when he opened his mouth to, she feared, reply in kind. Thinking better of it, the doctor contented himself with snapping closed his bag and storming out. Isabella followed him into the hall, shutting the door behind her.
“Well, what is it?” He eyed her up and down, looking thoroughly ruffled.
“Please allow me to apologize for Alec, Dr. McIver. He’s had some unpleasant experiences with medics lately.”
Dr. McIver snorted. “I don’t know what he is to you, but if you’ve a care for yon rude beggar, you’ll keep him abed for at least three or four days. The bullet not only tore off a large patch of his skin, it hit his skull with considerable force. Had the bone not deflected it, he would have been killed outright. If he tries to move about, I cannot say with any certainty what the consequences might be.”
“I will do my best to keep him here, and abed. But he is not a good patient under the best of circumstances.”
The doctor’s expression told her that he had already reached that conclusion on his own.
“Get this down him at night, and sprinkle this on the wound twice a day. If it does not get infected, and if he stays quiet, I’ve no fears for his life. More’s the pity.” This last was muttered as the doctor handed over a brown glass bottle full of a milky fluid, and a smaller, powder-filled vial, which Isabella tucked into her sash.
“Thank you for coming, Doctor.” Isabella reached into Alec’s purse—which she had taken from him without a qualm, just like the shameless hussy she felt herself to be rapidly becoming—and handed the doctor a folded pound note. The doctor accepted the money, nodded, and left. Isabella followed him down the stairs. Now that she was out of Alec’s sight, she had other business to attend to.
The excitement of the cockfight had calmed somewhat, and the taproom was swarming with men. One or two eyed Isabella, but most were too intent on going over the details of the fight and the amount each had won or lost to pay her any mind. Fortunately she did not have to look far to find Hull. He saw her hovering at the door of the taproom and came hurrying over to her.
“Can I get you sommit, miss?”
“There is a message I need to send to London. Could you show me where I might find writing materials, and then spare a lad to deliver it? There’s twenty pounds in it for the messenger.”
“Twenty pounds!” He looked suitably impressed. “I don’t doubt that my boy George’d be glad of the money—and I’ve pen and ink at the bar. I’ll bring ’em up to you, if you like.”
Isabella shook her head. “I’ll use them down here, if you’ve no objection.”
Isabella scribbled her message, sanded it, folded it and sealed it with a drop of wax as quickly as she could.
When she finished writing the direction on it, she handed it to Hull.
“If it is delivered tonight, there’s an extra ten pounds in it for your boy, thirty in all,” she said. “There are instructions to that effect in the note. The messenger will be paid as soon as it’s in the right hands.”
“For thirty pounds, my boy could make it to France and back, much less London.” Hull took the message and squinted at the direction on its back. “He’ll get it done for you, don’t you fear.”
“Thank you, Mr. Hull. You’ve been more than kind.”
She turned to make her way back upstairs, threading through the crowded taproom as quickly and unobtrusively as possible. The last thing she wanted to do was a
ttract attention, but in this she was not successful. One man left his seat and his guffawing cronies to trail after her as she passed.
Isabella was halfway up the stairs before she realized he was behind her. A quick glance showed her a stocky man in a black frock coat and gray frieze breeches who might have been dapper had he been cleaner. But claret spotted his waistcoat, and his neckcloth was grimy, as though it had not been fresh for several days. He was swarthy-skinned, and his features, though not unhandsome, were coarse. Isabella felt a quiver of apprehension as she met bold black eyes, and hurried on up the stairs.
“What’s your hurry, sweeting?” the man called after her, quickening his own pace to match hers. Isabella caught her breath as she realized that he was deliberately following her. She froze him with a glance, and went quickly along the hallway to her room. Fumbling for the key, she was not quite fast enough to elude her pursuer. He caught her by the elbow, and turned her to face him.
“How dare you, sir!” she said, jerking her arm from his hold. He stood frowning at her, his brows twitching together over his beak of a nose.
“I’d swear we’ve met,” he muttered. Ignoring him, Isabella thrust the key into the lock and turned it, intent on stepping inside and putting herself safely beyond his reach.
“Hold,” he said suddenly, reaching out to catch her arm again and turn her forcibly toward him. Isabella gasped, and shrank away. Every instinct urged her to call out to Alec, but she was loathe to disturb him for something that she could, she was sure, handle herself. Besides, Alec was not up to a fight on her behalf at the moment.
“Let me go, please. My husband is within.” She spoke the half lie firmly.
“Who are you?” He completely ignored her words, instead staring intently into her face. “Who are you?”
“My identity is no concern of yours. Pray release my arm before I am forced to summon my husband for assistance.”
“I’ll have your name.” His fingers on her arm tightened cruelly.
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