“I see that. And in quite a state. You should go and get dry.”
“Absolutely not.”
“They need to help me from the rest of my habit.” She swallowed and pressed a hand to her oozing side. “It isn’t so bad. I think the corset must have deflected the worst of the blade.”
Perhaps he believed her—or perhaps the mention of corsets did its work. Either way, Lord Whitby heaved a sigh but nodded and, after leaning down to kiss her forehead, headed for the door. “Ten minutes, and I’ll be back. Is there anything I can get for you?”
Mrs. Doyle stepped forward, setting the basin on the side table where La Bible usually rested. “She’ll want coffee, my lord. That steam-pressed concoction the chef makes.”
His lordship chuckled and gripped his daughter’s hand a moment.
Her attempt at a smile faded. “Oscuro?”
“Safe and well. The grooms had been knocked out and bound, but they were working themselves loose when you fainted. Francis is giving your horse an extra cup of oats for his heroics.”
She nodded, swallowed, and then fastened her eyes on her father. “Is he dead? The man?”
Whitby hesitated a moment and then nodded. “I imagine the constable will want to speak with you. Tomorrow is soon enough for that though.”
Deirdre tucked away a wisp of hair that had slipped from her cap and turned to the baroness’s feet. She would remove the muddy boots rather than stand idle.
“No, don’t put him off. I would as soon get it over with.”
“We shall see.”
They would see who was the more stubborn. Deirdre untied the riding boots and slipped them off as the earl finally left.
Mrs. Doyle closed the door behind him. And they got to work.
The scissors came out again to remove the ruined shirt. While Mrs. Doyle put it with the jacket pieces, Deirdre unhooked the corset and let it fall to the sides. From there, they could shift her chemise and get their first glimpse of the wound.
The baroness sucked in a fast breath but made no complaints as Mrs. Doyle sponged away the blood.
“It isn’t as deep as I feared, and the bleeding is slow,” the housekeeper said. “But it’s long and will still require stitches.”
“And let’s pray this eye doesn’t blacken and the scrapes heal quickly.” Deirdre picked up the wet rag that had already cooled and set it gently over the swollen side of the baroness’s face. “Otherwise you’ll be a fine sight for your cousin’s wedding next week.”
Lady Berkeley lifted her uninjured arm to hold the cool cloth in place. “Aunt Mary will be furious with me.”
“She couldn’t be, child. You were attacked.” Mrs. Doyle pressed her lips together and shook her head. Still, Deirdre caught the glint of tears in her eyes, and sure and the baroness did as well. “I cannot think why anyone would do this to you.”
Deirdre’s hands shook as they moved to assist her out of the split skirt. “Glad I am that Lord Pratt killed the monster.”
“No.” The lady’s eyes slid closed. “Now I’ll never know what he wanted from me.”
“Leave it to the law and his lordship to figure that out, child.” Mrs. Doyle held out a hand for the mud-caked skirt. “I agree with O’Malley. No one should be allowed to hurt one of our own. He got what he deserved.”
The baroness didn’t open her eyes, but she sniffed, and her nostrils flared. “One of your own?”
“Aye.” Deirdre headed for the door when there was a knock upon it. She cracked it open, smiling when she saw Monsieur Bisset in the hall, a steaming cup in hand. His lordship couldn’t have put in the order yet. But the chef had known. She took the espresso with a nod and could feel her da smiling down on her when she set it on the table. “And don’t you be forgetting it, my lady.”
As soon as they had her dressed again and settled in to await the doctor, Deirdre gathered the ruined habit to take down to the laundress. The split skirt possibly could be saved—and she knew that was the important part for her ladyship.
When she reached the bottom of the service stairs, those gathered in the kitchen all stood. Hiram stepped forward. “How is she?”
Deirdre nodded. “Awake again, and the bleeding has stopped.”
A collective sigh filled the room, and chatter sprang up. She didn’t try to make sense of all the mutters of outrage and sympathy. She headed for the laundry.
Hiram fell in beside her. “Jack said Pratt will be staying the night—I wanted you to know. He’s changed already and is in the library, so keep yourself above stairs with her ladyship, Dee.”
She paused in the empty, close hallway so she could look up at Hiram. “Don’t be worrying for me, Hi. I know how to steer clear of the likes of him.”
“I can’t help it.” He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and half turned toward the kitchen. “I know he comes sniffing around after the baroness whenever he can find the excuse, but usually his lordship boots him out as soon as is decent. Tonight he invited him to stay. It could make the lout bold.”
“But not so bold as to come to the baroness’s room—and that’s where I’ll be, for sure and certain.” She smiled, because she was glad he cared, even if she shouldn’t be. Then she nodded toward the laundry. “I need to take care of these. I thank you for the warning, Hiram. It’s good to know to mind my step.”
He gave her a thoughtful little smile that seemed to say I wonder and spun back for the kitchen.
Deirdre sighed and shifted her muddied, bloodied burden. She would wonder too, if she dared to let herself.
Laundry deposited for a scrubbing, she headed back up without speaking to anyone else. Not all the way to the family’s floor though—no, she headed for the library, checking over her shoulder often to make sure no one saw her go that way.
Ready to beard the lion, as they said, in his den. Feeling more certain with every step, she opened the door without hesitation, stepped inside, and clicked it shut behind her.
Lord Pratt stood by the fire, an arm braced on the mantel. At her entrance, he glanced up but then back to the flames. “How is she?”
“Well enough, I think.” Squaring her shoulders, she marched over to the fireplace. “Are you behind this, my lord? Did you hire him? Because I swear if you did, I’m done helping you. She could have been killed!”
“And you think I want that?” Temper flashing in his eyes, he straightened. “I want to marry her, you dolt, not attend her funeral. What possible good could she do me dead?”
He came a menacing step closer, but she didn’t retreat. Not today.
“But your plan could have gone wrong. You could have hired him still, to scare her, then happened by at the right moment to rescue her. Play the hero, win Whitby’s gratitude and her favor.”
He advanced another step, glared down at her. “You think me so low. So base. So willing to flirt with death for favor—yet you dare come in here and accuse me of it?”
It might well be her undoing, but she lifted her chin. “Did you do it?”
For a second, he held her gaze, and the familiar devil looked back at her. Then he looked away. “No.” His voice had lost its edge. “I did not hire that sot to scare the baroness so I could rescue her. Satisfied?”
She wasn’t sure. She shouldn’t be … Yet she believed him. Perhaps he had lied before, but this seemed different.
She backed up a step. “I had to ask. I don’t want to see her hurt again.”
“I assure you, Deirdre. Neither do I.” He returned to his place by the grate, turning his face back to the flames. “Go tend your mistress.”
She eased toward the door, hesitant to turn her back on him. But he seemed lost in the dance of the fire. She spun and slipped out again. As she made her way back to the baroness’s chamber, though, she could scarcely make sense of it.
Was it possible he actually cared about her ladyship? No—he hadn’t mentioned feeling, just that she wouldn’t do him any good dead.
She winced now, where she hadn�
��t before. Something had to be dead inside him, to speak so.
Voices came from the bedchamber when she arrived, and she found Lord Whitby inside with the doctor from Eden Dale. They were both smiling and making encouraging noises, so Deirdre slipped behind them and headed for the dressing room and its attached lavatory. Much as the baroness needed it, she wouldn’t feel up for the bath Deirdre had drawn. She drained the water.
Rising again, she set things to rights, taking her time. When she headed back through to the bedroom, the doctor was following Mrs. Doyle out.
The baroness seemed to be asleep.
“He gave her a bit of laudanum,” his lordship said from the chair he had pulled up beside her bed. “Just enough to ease a bit of the pain so she can rest.”
Deirdre crossed to the other side of the bed and pulled up another chair. “I daresay she needs it.”
But it looked none too peaceful. Lady Berkeley turned her head from side to side, little restless noises coming from her lips. Then the “Non, non, non” Deirdre knew so well.
Lord Whitby did not. He leaned forward, brow furrowed. “Perhaps I should have let her refuse it.”
“’Tisn’t the laudanum, your lordship. It’s the nightmare. She has it most every night.” But she shouldn’t have to suffer it this night. Deirdre sat on the bed, ran her fingers along her ladyship’s face as she would have Molly’s, and then caught up her hand. “Shh now, my lady. It’s only a dream. Only a dream.”
“The same one? Every night?”
She tilted her head toward Lord Whitby. “She never speaks of them—but they always look like this.”
“She’s never said a thing to me.” And the hurt of it made creases around his eyes. But still he took her other hand, cradled it in his. Murmured, “All is well, my little Brooklet. Hush now. Hush.”
For a second it seemed she would listen. Then she gasped, her eyes flew open, and her chest heaved. “My mother—it must be. ‘You have all her things,’ he said. All her things.”
Now his lordship looked to Deirdre, panicked question in his eyes.
She could only shrug. “That must be the laudanum, my lord.”
He sighed and brushed the fair curls from his daughter’s forehead. “Easy, precious. Go back to sleep.”
Her eyes unfocused, she shook her head. “Non. They always find me there. The lightning and the thunder and the night and …”
“Shh. They’ll not find you tonight. I’m here.”
“Papa.” She blinked rapidly, and a measure of awareness lit her eyes. “What was I saying?”
“Nothing.” He smiled and kissed her forehead. “Rest. I’m here. Rest.”
Deirdre slipped from the mattress and went to the window. Arms folded across her middle, she fought back the burn of tears. Her da had done the same thing when one of them had the fever or woke up in a fright. He had looked at her and her siblings with that same light of love. Family, it seemed, crossed from abovestairs to below with few differences, at the heart of it.
She sighed and looked past the pattering rain. The thunder had moved off. The lightning had ceased. But the night was full and dark and promised to be a long one.
Sixteen
Whoever invented laudanum ought to be executed. Never in Brook’s life had her head hurt so—though granted, it might not be all the fault of the drug.
She had to take the stairs slowly, largely because of the dizziness. Her legs were sore, bruised where the ruffian’s knees had pressed them, but not that sore. Her shoulder ached from the strained muscle, but she could have ignored it. And of course, her side was so tender and raw that a corset had been out of the question, necessitating Paul Poiret dresses that didn’t require one.
But it was the fuzzy head that was driving her batty.
“Lady Berkeley, what are you doing? Where is O’Malley?”
Brook gripped the banister tightly before trusting herself to look up. Mrs. Doyle was rushing up the stairs toward her, her frown not one to be ignored.
Brook ignored it anyway. “I sent her on an errand. Papa said the constable will be here in an hour, Lady Catherine’s note said she will be visiting not long after that, and I need to have my wits about me.”
The housekeeper pressed her lips together. And then looped her arm through Brook’s. “You should have had O’Malley help you down, my lady. We can’t have you falling and hurting yourself worse.”
A nearly valid point. She already looked a fright—bruised and scraped from face to foot—and they were to leave for London in three days.
There was no way she could stand beside Regan at her wedding like this. Would Aunt Mary even allow visitors for her? Brice and Ella had promised to call as soon as she made Town. And it made her stomach hurt outright to think that Justin’s first view of her in two months would be when she looked like the loser of a barroom brawl.
Her hand shook against the railing as they continued down. A brawl it had been, but she hadn’t been the loser. And she still couldn’t think why the man had lain in wait for her.
At least she would have another story to tell Justin. “Brook Tames the Darkness” for her victory with Oscuro … and “The Assailant in the Stables” for last night.
“A hearty breakfast will bolster you, my lady. Chef made the eggs you like so well, a sausage so spicy it sent poor Jack running for water, and of course your coffee.”
She had to swallow before she could speak. Who knew breakfast and coffee could mean so much? “Thank you, Mrs. Doyle. I will thank Monsieur Bisset later.”
The grand staircase stretched on for miles, but at last her feet touched even floor, and they headed for the breakfast room at a normal pace. Or nearly normal. Almost, nearly normal.
Her father’s voice floated out to meet them. “I don’t care if it takes a year, Constable, I want this man’s identity found. If I have to pay an investigator to inquire in every village and hamlet in all the empire, I will.”
She halted outside the door, her brow taut. Papa had said the constable would be here to meet with her at nine o’clock. It was only eight.
“And you may have to, your lordship—the folks in Eden Dale said they’d never seen him before, and he certainly isn’t one of Whitby’s usual drunks.”
She stepped into the room, extracting her arm from Mrs. Doyle’s. “He wasn’t drunk. He smelled of kippers and onions, not alcohol, and his reflexes were as quick as mine.”
The men came to a halt—all three of them. Her father with his tea halfway to his mouth, the man she presumed to be the constable with a click of his heels, and Pratt at the sideboard filling a plate with her eggs.
No one had mentioned he was still here. Though she supposed after saving them the night before, her father could hardly begrudge him a change of clothes and a warm bed. Something niggled there, though. What, again, had he been doing here? Some bits were so muddled …
“I don’t know whether to scold or rejoice.” Papa put down his cup and stood, motioning her in. He pulled out her usual chair. “I said we would bring him to the sitting room across from your chamber.”
“And I thought to breakfast with you first.” She tried to give him her usual cheeky smile, but a nasty scrape forbade it.
“Sit.” He indicated her chair and then turned to the sideboard. “Eggs, sausage, and this stuff you so optimistically call coffee?”
“Yes, please. And merci.” She sat, though it was little relief to her side, and looked to the uniformed officer. “You’ve no idea who he was?”
“Not yet, your ladyship. But the day is young, and we’ve only just started asking.”
A different song, it seemed, than the one he had sung for her father. She lifted a brow and kept her back straight, trying to keep all pressure off her side. “He had a strange accent, if that helps you. He put an L on the end of some words. Donnel for don’t. Coil for coy.”
The constable sent a glance over her head.
Papa put her plate and cup before her. His eyes, she saw when he retook
his seat, had gone thoughtful. “Bristol.”
“Bristol?” Pratt echoed. He took a chair across from her with a shake of his head. “It’s awfully far.”
For a man out for a random robbery, perhaps. For one on a mission … She took a sip of the coffee, nearly sighing in bliss.
Her father ignored Pratt altogether. “So he said ‘Don’t be coy.’ What else?”
She took another sip to clear her head. “He asked me where they were. I at first thought he spoke of people, but he must have meant things. Something …” It had made so little sense. “It sounded like feral ice. And he said I must have it, I had all her things.”
She looked up, a blurry image surfacing of her father leaning over her, the dream still clouding her mind.
Papa must have made the same connection. “Your mother. But what among her things could anyone be looking for? And why now, when she has been gone so long?”
“I don’t know.” It made no more sense than it had last night, and trying to focus on it made her head hurt.
“You are yet unwell, my lady.” Pratt’s voice sounded concerned—anxious even. “Pushing yourself will accomplish nothing. Rest, then send word to the constable if you think of anything else.”
“No. I am well enough.” He ended his words with Ls. So perhaps it wasn’t feral. Fear? But what was fear ice?
More coffee—that was all she needed. Though her stomach disagreed with her tongue and her head, forcing her to test the food as well. She must have missed dinner last night.
Kippers … so he had to have been in Whitby long enough for a meal at a pub. Perhaps he had rented a room. Maybe the constable’s knocking on those doors would reveal something after all.
Fire. Not fear, fire. Fire ice. Fire and ice. Ice … cold? Non. Jewels—diamonds. The British called them ice sometimes, did they not?
Brook put down her fork, though the food was perfect. Diamonds … she had many of them, now, that had been her mother’s. Bracelets, rings, necklaces.
Papa leaned back to murmur something to the constable. What was it he had said when he offered that first necklace?
“To match her eyes. The color of emeralds, with the light of diamonds.”
The Lost Heiress Page 19