“What?” Stamford shuddered.
“Don’t make me repeat myself,” Martin warned, his voice low and calm. How he managed that when his own arm hurt like the devil he didn’t know. Hot blood trickled down his arm beneath his coat, but he ignored it.
“Why do you want it?” Stamford asked.
Martin continued to hold his pistol steady. “That’s my business. Do you agree to sell me the note?”
Stamford frowned, still eyeing the gun. “Do I have a choice?” Martin growled. “Fine, the note is yours.”
“Good,” Martin said. “I’ll have the funds delivered later today.”
Stamford exhaled in relief, his shoulders drooping. Martin raised the pistol into the air above the other man’s head and fired.
“Bloody hell!” Stamford snarled, leaping back.
For some reason Martin found that all too amusing, and he burst out laughing. The world spun a little, and he grunted as he fell to his knees. Blood dripped down onto the snow. So much blood…
“Banks.” Rodney was at his side at once. He grabbed his good arm, hoisting him up. “Come on. We need to get you to a doctor.”
Martin stumbled across the field, letting Rodney guide him into the waiting coach. He fell onto his seat and closed his eyes.
He must have lost consciousness, because when he came to, a doctor was crouched in front of him and they were outside a townhouse he didn’t recognize.
“Mr. Banks, glad to have you back with us,” the doctor announced. Martin shivered, and he realized he was bare-chested. The cold air permeated the coach, and he cursed softly.
Damnation, he felt weak.
Rodney’s face suddenly appeared in the doorway of the coach. “A decent wound, eh?”
“A decent wound?” Martin asked. “Is there such a thing? Ouch!” he yelped as the doctor cinched the white bandage around his arm.
“Well, you know, something romantic for the ladies to swoon over. My Anna would gush without end if I were shot defending her honor.” Rodney prattled on with a good-natured grin. Behind him the streets were bathed in morning light.
“Bennett, where are we?” If anyone saw him being tended for a wound from an illegal duel, he could be in trouble.
“On Duke Street. I brought you to Dr. Phillips. He’s one of the best.”
“Thank you, Dr. Phillips.” Martin tried to smile at the man. “What’s the damage?”
Dr. Phillips smiled a little, but he remained focused on the wound as he finished bandaging it.
“A flesh wound with some minor muscle injury. You will need to take care. I want to see you in a few days to see how you’re healing. Mr. Bennett has given me your card. I shall call upon you, if that’s all right?”
“Yes, that’s quite fine,” Martin said.
“Good.” The doctor helped him put his shirt and waistcoat back on. The garments were bloodstained, and his valet would be cursing him once he got home.
“You need me to go home with you?” Rodney asked as the doctor packed up his black bag.
“No, that’s all right. I’m sure Anna is missing you. I’ll send you a message if I need you.”
Rodney’s eyes deepened with concern, but he nodded and started to pull his head from the coach door.
“Bennett!” Martin called out.
His friend turned back to him. “Yes?”
“Thank you. For today…and for the day you stood by Helen all those years ago. I never understood what she faced, not really. This morning…” He shuddered and carefully favored his bad arm. “What I mean to say is, you’re a good friend. I don’t deserve you.”
Rodney grinned cheekily. “You certainly don’t. Anna and I will be in London for the holidays if you wish to attend the dinner at our house.”
“Thank you.” Martin watched Rodney cross the street and hail a passing hackney. He leaned out of the door and told his coachman to take him home. He’d barely slept at the club, and the brandy he’d drunk the night before along with a swollen eye and wounded arm were now taking their toll on him. As soon as he got home, he was going straight to bed. He would not think about Livvy until later in the day when he’d had a chance to rest and think.
When he reached his home, the coach driver helped him out of the vehicle and up to the door.
“Thank you, Jim.” He nodded to the coachman before entering. Harris was exiting the door to the servants’ quarters and froze when he saw Martin.
“Sir?” Harris gasped. “What happened?”
He waved Harris off when the butler came over to him. “I will explain later, but I’m all right.”
“Can I get you anything?”
“No, not now. I think I just need to sleep for a few hours.” He started up the stairs, his feet dragging. He felt as weak as a pup. When he got to his room, he sighed against the door as he turned the latch. He was suddenly very weary. If he could just make it to his bed, everything would be all right.
The door swung open, and he started toward his bed. But the moment his eyes touched upon his bed, he stumbled. It wasn’t empty. Livvy was lying there, beneath his sheets, asleep. Her dark hair rippled out across the pillow. She looked so sweet, so innocent and lovely it made his heart ache.
I should go to another room, but I’m too bloody tired. Martin fumbled with his waistcoat and shirt, wincing as he removed them. When he collapsed onto the bed beside Livvy, darkness closed in around him almost instantly.
The Gentleman's Seduction
Lauren Smith
Chapter Eleven
Livvy curled into the warm, hard object that lay beside her. It was like sleeping close to a roaring fire while it snowed outside. She sighed and rubbed her cheek against whatever it was.
I must be dreaming. It felt simply wonderful. It slowly occurred to her that there was no way her father could have afforded extra logs for the fireplace in her room.
She jolted awake and stared at the still form lying in bed beside her. She wasn’t in her room at home. She was in Martin’s bedchamber.
“Martin?” she whispered tentatively, touching his back. He lay on his stomach, one arm underneath his pillow, his face turned her way. His face was pale, and a slight frown creased his brow, as if whatever he was dreaming bothered him. When had he come back? She had crawled into his bed around midnight and had been quite certain he would not return. Yet it was barely past seven if the clock on the fireplace mantel was correct.
She started to slide out of bed, but Martin rolled onto his side and curled an arm around her waist. She gasped as she saw a thick white bandage around his upper arm. That same arm now gripped her in the way a child would a beloved stuffed toy. And one of his eyes was puffy and dark. She winced. What had happened to him while he was away?
“Martin?” She spoke his name a little louder, and he shifted, muttering something about finding a good horse. He must be dreaming. Livvy carefully tried to pry herself away from him. The soft skin of his arm was tempered with the hard and heavy weight of his muscles. For a moment she found herself looking at those muscles in fascination. Then she chastised herself and focused on lifting his arm. Her attempts only made him curl tighter around her.
“Martin!” she growled.
“Hmm?” The drowsy murmur made her temper flare. She really needed to use a chamber pot soon. She pressed her palm tightly on the wrapped wound, knowing it would hurt, but she had to get his attention somehow.
Martin hissed and released her waist immediately, then rolled up into a sitting position, clutching his wounded arm to his chest.
“What the devil?”
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you.” She pushed back the covers of his bed and tried to help him, but she didn’t know how.
He growled like an irritable badger and got out of bed. “It’s fine.” He turned his back on her as he stalked over to his washbasin and splashed his face with cold water. He scraped the cloth over his chin and cheeks, drying his skin.
“What happened to you?” She slipped o
ut of the bed and came up behind him, trying not to let the sight of his muscled back distract her.
“I don’t wish to discuss it. What the devil are you doing in my room?” His cold tone made her step back. “A man could get the wrong idea about a woman in his bed. You say that I’m cold, that I’m callous? You don’t know a thing about me. I vowed not to touch you without your permission, but when you’re touching me, how do you expect me to respond?”
“Well…I didn’t intend… But you can’t blame me for what happens while I sleep!” she snapped back, feeling a strange flush inside her as she verbally sparred with him.
“Then you shouldn’t have been in my bed in the first place. A man is liable to wander between his own sheets, and if he finds a soft, feminine body to hold, well, you can’t be mad at me for that.” He lips were twitching as though he was fighting between a frown a smile, and for some reason that set her off even more, wanting to provoke him into doing something utterly dangerous, like share another kiss.
“Can’t I?” she challenged, and he acted just as she hoped he would and took the bait.
He spun around and circled his arm around her waist, holding her captive at the same moment she almost threw herself at him. His kiss bordered on cruel, the savagery of it startling her, and she couldn’t help but surrender as her body betrayed her by melting into him. She dug her nails into his shoulders, wanting to get closer, needing the fury of their argument to blend into the heat of his kiss.
She shouldn’t like his anger or his rage, but something about it was deeply sensual and aroused her. He tightened his arms around her, lifting her up until her feet left the ground and she was carried to the bed. Livvy gasped as she was dropped onto the sheets. He stood over her, panting as he gazed down at her like a warrior ready to claim a captured princess.
She really had to stop reading Gothic novels. Her fantasies were starting to affect her rational mind.
“Still think it’s safe enough to stay in my bed? I’m the monster who bought you, Livvy, never forget that. You despise me, you made that much clear. I considered sending you home, but another man, one even worse than me, would surely collect you for debts as I have. So here you shall stay until I deem it safe to return you to your parents.” He glanced away, a tic working in his jaw. “If I find you in my bed again, I won’t restrain myself. So if you want to be bedded, you know where to be. Otherwise, stay out of my room.”
Livvy scrambled off the bed and rushed to escape. His foul mood shocked her, but it was clear that whatever had happened last night had changed things. She had been wrong to say those things about him, and now it seemed he was determined to make them come true.
She retreated to the refuge of her own chamber, where Mellie was laying out one of her new dresses. It was a lovely pale-blue gown with golden flowers stitched on the bodice and a light-gold netting dropped over the skirts. She’d never worn such a fine gown before, and guilt suddenly formed a knot in her stomach.
“Everything all right, miss?” Mellie asked.
“Yes.” Her reply was a little too quick, a little too tremulous even at that single word.
“The master is home now. Did you see him?” the maid asked, her brows knit with worry.
“I—yes.” She headed toward the dressing room to make use of the chamber pot. “He was injured last night, but I’m not sure how. He was most boorish toward me and wouldn’t share any details.
The maid stayed in the bedroom, giving her a moment to attend to her needs. When she returned, she was ready for Mellie to help her into her new gown.
“There. Now, go and have some breakfast.” Mellie shooed her out of the room, and she resigned herself to the fate of being alone all day. It wasn’t that she minded being alone, but this was different. The tension between her and Martin seem to fill the house with an invisible knot of ill omens, and she didn’t like it. She prepared a plate of food in the dining room and sat in a chair looking out a window facing the gardens.
It was not as though anyone would care that she wasn’t at the table. Martin wouldn’t be down anytime soon. She balanced the plate on her thighs and nibbled on a poached egg while she examined the frozen rosebushes that touched the edges of the windowpanes. The frost turned the heavy green leaves to pale seafoam, and crystals of ice in exquisite shapes painted the glass. She’d always liked ice and snow. Yes, the cold could be a dreadful thing, but winter itself was beautiful. She reached out to the window, gently tracing the patterns of frost on the glass. She smiled, dreaming of simpler times.
“What are you doing?” Martin demanded from behind her. She jumped, nearly toppling her breakfast off her lap.
“Oh!” She steadied the porcelain plate and relaxed. “I was looking at the frost.” She gestured toward the frosted windowpane.
“Frost?” he repeated darkly. “Why the devil do you care about frost?”
She bit her tongue. She’d provoked him by being cruel-tongued first. She would not make matters worse. She focused on her response instead.
“Frost is beautiful.”
“Why is it women are so focused on beauty?” He turned his back on her to lift up a lid of a chafing dish and inhaled deeply.
“I’m not focused on beauty for beauty’s sake,” she argued, trying not to bristle.
“Oh?”
“Yes. I love studying beauty, particularly in nature. Frost is beautiful because of its symmetry. It’s the same with snowflakes.”
“Symmetry?” He turned to face her, a full plate in his hands as he joined her at the window. He seemed less upset now and more intrigued.
“Yes.” She pointed to the edge of the frost. “Examine the edge, where the frost begins to form. There is a recursive self-similarity. I read about it in a book of mathematics. A seventeenth-century philosopher and mathematician named Gottfried Leibniz discussed recursive self-similarity. He proposed the idea that such repeating patterns he discussed in objects in nature were close to geometry, yet no one has been able to properly link those fractional components, as he called him, to geometry. Most mathematicians put up resistance to such theories, simply because they are afraid to dive deeply into the unknown. But I find it fascinating.”
“You have a mathematical mind?”
“No.” She laughed wryly. “But I do have a mind that focuses on concepts. I can see the patterns, recognize them, but I’ve no way to explain them with equations or formulas.”
“Philosopher, then,” Martin concluded. His lips twitched, and her heart gave a jolt. He wasn’t angry now. Could she take a chance and apologize? Yes. She could.
“I didn’t mean what I said.”
Martin didn’t speak, and for a moment she feared he hadn’t heard her.
“You’re entitled to your opinion of me, even if isn’t completely true,” he finally said.
He was still looking at the frost, not her, and she hesitantly put a hand on his where it rested on his knee.
“My opinion was wrong. You bought me out of anger, and that anger is only a small part of who you are. There are other parts, better ones, that make you the man you are.”
“I’m not a good man, Livvy.”
She studied him closely. “You are, but I believe it’s been a long time since you let yourself see that part of yourself.”
He frowned at her, but it wasn’t an expression of anger. It was more as if she had begun to pull at a thread that held up the mask he was trying to hide behind. She would tug it down completely one day, and he would see that he was a better man than he thought.
“Finish your breakfast,” said Mr. Banks, then he paused briefly before continuing. “We could go to the frost fair if you feel up to it?”
“Yes!” she exclaimed. “Oh, that would be lovely.” She dug into the remains of her breakfast, and he did the same. She tried to contain her excitement, but she was bursting with relief and joy. They’d made amends, and it seemed the awful distance between them had almost completely faded. When she looked at him now, she saw a man wit
h a vulnerable heart just like hers, one hungry for affection and acceptance.
“Fetch your cloak,” he said with a gentle smile as they exited the dining room together.
“I’ll just be a moment.”
She rushed upstairs to retrieve her cloak and muff and put on her sturdiest black boots. By the time she got back down the stairs, he was waiting by the front door, hat in hand and wearing his black greatcoat, an image of masculine beauty. She blushed, trying to hide her face as she slipped her hands into her ermine muff and joined him.
“My coach will take us to the Thames.”
Martin led her down the steps to his coach, and they climbed inside. They sat beside one another this time rather than across. Their new closeness was far more intimate than she’d expected, and her skin flushed each time his knee brushed hers. She couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like soon when they…and how their bodies would…
Lord, I have to stop imagining going to bed with this man or my face will stay as red as a cherry all day.
She shivered a little, and he noticed.
“Are you cold?” He reached around her and placed an arm over her shoulders, pulling her into his side. It was such a simple thing for him to do, and yet it was torture for her because she could breathe in his leather-and-sandalwood scent, and she wanted to crawl onto his lap and get even closer.
“Yes, I was,” she lied. If she confessed to the nature of her thoughts, he might just kiss her, and then they may never get to the frost fair.
The closer the coach got to the Thames, the more she leaned toward the vehicle’s window because she could hear the crowds. When they reached the river, she stepped out onto the embankment with a gasp. The river was truly frozen over, and for nearly two miles on the ice, a town had been constructed. Wooden huts, vast canvas tents, and all other manner of stalls had been hastily constructed. Thousands of people were on the ice, and the noise of it, the cacophony of the impromptu village, was startling.
“Quite the thing, eh?” Martin asked with a chuckle. He gave her his arm, and she looped hers through his as they began to walk down the slope to the river’s edge. Her boots slid and she gasped, her heart jumping into her throat as she lost her footing. Strong arms banded around her waist, and she was caught safely by Martin, their bodies pressed close together. Even through the layers of fabric she could feel the heat from his body, and it made her delightfully dizzy.
Rogues to Lovers: Legend of the Blue Rose Page 65