In Love With a Wicked Man Page 5

  “Ah, a secret Chartist!” he said on a chuckle. “Will women want the vote next?”

  “I hardly think we could fare worse in wielding it, do you?”

  “Touché, Lady d’Allenay,” he murmured. “A rabble-rouser. I begin to like you better and better.”

  Against her will, she burst out laughing, then set her fingers to her mouth. “Dear heavens, you’re thinking,” she said. “Dr. Fitch will have my head on the platter.”

  “And a lovely head it would be,” he said smoothly. “Dare I suggest a surround of parsley and winter cabbage? It would set off your creamy complexion to quite good effect.”

  Kate felt her heart hitch, then jerked herself back to reality. “I’m afraid, sir, that you’re flirting,” she said, “which is more of a mental strain, I daresay, than thinking. I must insist you stop it at once.”

  His eyes glittering, he opened his mouth as if to parry words, then abruptly shut it again, twitching at his bedcovers as if uncomfortable. “I beg your pardon,” he said. “You’re right. It seemed to … just slip out. I must strike you as ungrateful.”

  “No, I—I’m sorry.” Good heavens, the man seemed to keep her eternally off balance. “If it amuses you to pretend to flirt—”

  “Pretend?” His eyes lit with mirth.

  “Yes,” she said tartly, “and if you find it diverting, I daresay I must bear it with grace. Were it not for me, you wouldn’t be here in this awkward situation.”

  “Yes, you suggested as much earlier,” he said. “And I’m sure it’s not the case. Still—and tell me precisely—what the devil did happen?”

  “It is very much the case.” Kate wrung her hands, and explained how their horses had nearly collided, and how he had forced his horse to wheel around, thereby taking the worst of it upon himself.

  But the man brushed aside the story and simply said, “And why, Lady d’Allenay, were you in such a temper? I confess, you do not look the type.”

  “Because you do not know me,” she said. “I’ve a frightful temper, and it often serves me ill. As to why, well, I had quarreled with Nancy. My sister.”

  “Ah, the beauteous Miss Wentworth,” he said blandly. “I met her when the doctor came in. Do you mean to tell me what the quarrel was about?”

  “Certainly not,” said Kate. “It would be of no interest to you whatever.”

  “I am bedridden,” he reminded her. “By this time tomorrow, I’ll likely find Bristol’s tidal charts engrossing.”

  Just then, a knock sounded and his tray was brought in. Kate had ordered a light repast; not just the broth, but a little sliced chicken and a bit of bread and cheese.

  “Oh, bless you,” he said, falling on it as if famished. “I was afraid of being reduced to porridge.”

  “It was suggested,” she said lightly, “but you do not seem all that incapacitated. And it is, after all, your brain which has been concussed, not your stomach.”

  That did indeed appear the case. After a little help in situating the tray, and with the most discerning of table manners, Edward made short work of it while Kate nattered on about the weather, and tried not to hover.

  When she returned from helping Hetty out the door, she paused at the foot of the massive bed, her hands lightly crossed. “Well, I should leave you now, I daresay,” she said. “There is a footman in the great hall at all times. Should you need anything, you have only to ring that bell.”

  He crooked his head to look at the wire that was now wrapped about his bedpost. “Yes, your housekeeper threaded that round the room slick as a ribbon.”

  Kate unfolded her hands. “The hooks were already in place,” she replied. “This was once my brother’s room. He lived here as an invalid for a time, and the regular pull was too far for him to reach.”

  “Ah, I see.” He fell quiet for a moment. “But now he’s gone, I collect? Otherwise, the title would have fallen to him?”

  “Yes,” she said simply. “So the wire goes directly to the footman’s station. Even in the middle of the night, he’ll promptly attend you. And on no account must you get up. Not this evening, and certainly not in the night. Well, not unless—”

  She cut an uneasy glance toward the dressing room door.

  He waved away the embarrassment. “I understand, Lady d’Allenay,” he said, “and to be honest, I feel as if a cartload of bricks fell on me, and haven’t the least wish to stir from this bed.”

  “Good.” She gave him a little nod. “Then I shall wish you a good evening.”

  “But I thought we were going to have our train conversation,” he said, his gaze very direct.

  “In the morning, perhaps.” Kate pulled open the door.

  “I have offended you,” he said quietly.

  “Not in the least.” Kate forced her gaze to soften. “But you look tired. And I wish to go into the office and study my maps.”

  “Your maps?”

  “Yes.” She nodded. “Tomorrow, if it is agreeable to you, I mean to send one of my grooms off on your black horse,” she said, “to poke about.”

  “To poke about?”

  “You’re not from here,” she said again. “Of that I’m certain. And it makes no sense to think you rode here from London, or even from Bristol. You certainly haven’t a carriage. So you must have come by train.”

  He seemed to consider it. “Perhaps I was visiting somewhere,” he proposed, “and simply went out for a ride?”

  She set her head to one side. “I think not,” she said. “You were carrying a greatcoat and a valise full of fresh linen.”

  He grinned. “Poked through my smallclothes, eh?”

  “I did,” she said. “I was looking for something, you see, that might identify you, for I was afraid—”

  His face softened. “Afraid I mightn’t wake up again,” he said. “I’m sorry to have frightened you.”

  “You certainly didn’t mean to,” she said a little stridently.

  “No.” Fleetingly, he looked hopeful. “But you found nothing?”

  She shook her head. “I fear not,” she replied. “But you do wear spectacles, and have a rather refined taste in reading. Tomorrow, when you’re looking more the thing, we’ll see if anything in it jogs your memory.”

  “Yes.” He looked disheartened. “Yes, a good plan.”

  “In the meantime,” she added, “my groom will visit the livery stables and country houses hereabouts, in greater and greater circles, until someone recognizes either the horse, or our description of a large, recalcitrant man who does not care to sleep when he’s told to do so.”

  Thus chided, he drew the covers up to his chin again. “Killjoy,” he grumbled.

  She lit the lamp, and turned it very low. “I will check on you again after dinner,” she said, “at which time I expect to find you insensate with sleep.”

  He responded with a loud snorkk! with his eyes already closed.

  Kate laughed, then returned to the door, pausing halfway out. “Good night, Edward.”

  But he said no more; not until the door was shut.

  Then, “Good night, Kate,” he said very quietly.

  CHAPTER 4

  Becoming Edward

  Edward woke to the sounds of a house coming to life. For an instant, he wallowed deeper into the softness of his bed and attempted to push away reality. It didn’t work; he sat up on a shaft of uncertainty to find that in the faint light of morning, nothing looked familiar. Confused, he threw back the bedcovers and looked down at a nightshirt he didn’t recognize.

  Indeed, he didn’t even own a nightshirt.

  There it was again. Another obscure fact.

  He did not own a nightshirt.

  Reality began to trickle back—the preceding few hours of it, at least. On a sigh, Edward fell back into the bed again, drawing with him the lofty eiderdown and wool counterpane, both of which smelled of clean country air.

  There was an odd sort of pleasure in coming awake in such a homey place, he realized. Though he felt a degree of un
certainty weighing him down, he also felt an odd sense of comfort and rightness about him, and the buoyant realization of having nowhere to be, and no obligations.

  He likely oughtn’t get used to it. He surely must have obligations.

  In fact, he knew he did. And one of them was rather pressing.

  But what was it? Something flickered just on the edge of his conscious mind, like a pennant snapping in the wind. He could not reach it. Left with no alternative, he heeded the doctor’s advice and let the memory go, then stretched himself luxuriantly, like a cat stirring.

  He could feel a good deal of soreness in his shoulder and ankle—bruises, perhaps—but nothing intolerable. And though his vision seemed not quite right, his head no longer hurt.

  For a time, he lay simply listening to the house; to the soft, swift sounds of servants’ feet on thick carpet, and to the occasional clack or clatter of a bucket or broom. Such great houses were all very alike at such an hour, he supposed. Except that this, his hostess had said, was a castle.

  Bellecombe Castle. In Somersetshire.

  And apparently, he had ridden here. From somewhere. Edward closed his eyes and tried to conjure up a memory—or at least a notion—of what the castle might look like. Was it massive, ancient, and generously crenellated? Or was it one of those faux castles so favored by the nouveau riche, with outlandish turrets and barbicans built for show?

  No, this was a real castle. He was sure of it.

  And his intriguing hostess, Lady d’Allenay, was a real aristocrat.

  Oh, you would be surprised at what I cannot afford, she had said to him last night.

  It was the mark of a true blueblood, that quiet admission—and an honest one. These monstrous old houses drained them, oftentimes. Or their sons did.

  How did he know this?

  Edward shrugged. He knew it as he knew the sun would inevitably rise. Indeed, it had risen, and was beginning to warm the room now. He looked up at the great black beams of a ceiling that had not, thank God, been covered over with decorative plaster, and at the massive tester bed, almost ebonized with age, which appeared to have been sitting in the same spot since Elizabeth’s reign.

  He liked that. He liked this place. It felt like a home, though he could not have said why.

  Then he tried to think again of what might have brought him here.

  Again there was the flicker of something—something important, or so it felt. He was not witless, he reassured himself. He was fairly certain he was Edward. That he’d come here for a reason—a good reason, he thought. Moreover, his conversations since waking in this room yesterday were quite clear to him.

  Gingerly he sat fully upright, somewhat reassured that the pain was not worse. But he did still feel a little unsteady, as if he were suffering a bad morning after. Good Lord, he had not suffered one of those since …

  Since when?

  Since … the army?

  Wait. Had he been in the army? He had some notion—some fragment of memory about sitting around a fire …

  He gave a bark of laughter. For all he knew he was a cattle drover. Or a shepherd.

  But there it was, that little sliver of memory; a flickering campfire, and a bottle sent around, catching the light as it passed. Then the memory was gone, and Edward was left with the sudden, sinking sensation that he didn’t want it back again.

  That he did not want any of it back again.

  But what a mad notion! What sort of man would not want his life back?

  He was simply unnerved by all the uncertainty. He wished she would knock on his door again. Lady d’Allenay. Kate. The Goddess.

  Except that she was not a goddess, really. She was too tall, with the plainest gray eyes and brown hair imaginable. Colorless, he would have called her.

  Except that her eyes were keen with intelligence and wry humor; one got the feeling Lady d’Allenay laughed often—and frequently at herself. Yes, there was a vast deal of color inside her. And her hair—though it appeared not to have so much as a wave in it, and despite the fact that she had dressed it as severely and plainly as was possible—it had suited her; it had looked efficient and practical.

  But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her, for her hair is given her for a covering.

  The words sprang to his mind unbidden. Why?

  Because it was that sort of hair. The hair of a modest woman, he thought; hair that would fall about her naked form like a silken curtain. Hair that shimmered with deep, mysterious hints of chestnut red, but only when the light caught it.

  Perhaps she was a goddess after all. Not Venus, but Vesta; blazing with the flames of hearth and home instead of a simmering seduction or a facile charm. And yet he found her enticing all the same.

  Good Lord, what fanciful notions. He wondered if he’d always been such a sapskull or if the blow to his head had disordered him. He had the deep-seated certainty that he was not behaving like himself, at least not the self he had been. And what other sort of self was there?

  Irritated, Edward threw back the covers and, despite the discomfort of his bruises, did precisely what he was not supposed to do. He got out of bed. After the room stopped spinning—well, slowed—he went a little unsteadily to the tall mahogany wardrobe, already knowing what he would see. He threw the latch and pulled both doors wide.

  His riding coat, two waistcoats, and three freshly pressed shirts hung within. Folded neatly on the shelf below lay two pairs of breeches; one of them the pair he’d worn yesterday, now freshly brushed, along with a folded stack of cravats and drawers. Even his boots had been freshly polished.

  Yes, somehow he recalled what he’d worn yesterday. Why could he not recall where he’d been when he put it on? Or where he’d purchased it?

  In any case, it was time to get up and about. The deep bruising and pain would abate all the sooner, he reassured himself. And there must surely be water? He staggered his way into the antechamber that served as a sort of dressing and bathing room, clutching at pieces of furniture as he went. There he attended to nature’s call, then poured out an entire pitcher of water into the basin atop the washstand.

  It was his last clear thought.

  He didn’t hear the crash of the basin as it fell, nor the sound of his door bursting open a moment after that. And his next memory—by no means a clear one—was of hands, many of them, cool and competent, bearing him back into the soft, fresh bed.

  When he woke again, daylight blazed through the crack in his draperies. Woozily, he sat up to find a small cot had been placed beside his bed, and that a liveried servant—a young man of perhaps twenty—now sat just inside his door, his chin buried in his neck cloth as he drowsed.

  Well. His goddess had set spies upon him, it seemed.

  And wisely so, perhaps. A little irritated, he yanked the wire wrapped around his bedpost. To his surprise, Miss Wentworth came in, her wild, red-gold curls somewhat contained beneath a cap, and a feather duster in hand.

  “Jasper?” she said, looking around the door at the servant.

  “Let the poor boy rest,” Edward rasped.

  She turned to him brightly. “Good morning,” she said. “Are you feeling a bit steadier now?”

  “Thank you, yes.”

  Edward did not much care for being viewed in a nightshirt by so pretty a young lady. Which was not to say that many a female had not often seen him in far less, he sensed. But in this case, he felt awkward—and at a distinct disadvantage.

  That was what irritated him. He was not a man often caught at any sort of disadvantage. Of that he was quite certain.

  The footman had leapt from his chair to neaten his waistcoat in an attempt to pretend he had not been asleep.

  “Thank you, Jasper,” said Miss Wentworth. “Kindly go downstairs and ask Cook to send up a light breakfast for Mr. Edward.”

  He was hungry, dash it. But food, interestingly, was not foremost on his mind. “Where is Lady d’Allenay?” he asked.

  “She rode out early with Anstruther, her s
teward,” said Miss Wentworth. “She often does. But as you see, she altered your arrangements a bit before going.”

  Miss Wentworth had gestured toward the cot. “Blast,” he uttered under his breath. “Was she here when I fainted?” he said more audibly. “I did faint, did I not?”

  “Oh, you did, and she was,” said Miss Wentworth, eyes wide. “She ran across the passageway in her nightgown and helped Jasper and Fendershot lift you back into bed.”

  Edward felt a rush of mortification. “Lifted me?”

  “She had only your feet, I believe, but Kate is surprisingly strong,” Miss Wentworth went on. “Jasper and the butler had a shoulder each. I came in just in time to mop up the water.”

  “I do beg your pardon,” he said gruffly. “I have put everyone to a vast amount of trouble.”

  “Not in the least,” said the girl. “After all, this is Kate’s fault—and, well, mine.”

  “Yes, you were quarreling, I hear,” he said, grinning. “What, I wonder, could two such agreeable ladies find to quarrel over?”

  “A man,” said Miss Wentworth, lifting one shoulder. “Really, do women ever quarrel over much else, when you strip it bare?”

  Edward didn’t know what to say at that. A man. How odd. He had somehow imagined that …

  “What time will Lady d’Allenay return?” he asked, trying to hide his impatience.

  Miss Wentworth’s eyes glittered with humor. “Oh, it will be hours,” she replied. “They’re riding the lower pastures, getting ready for the autumn damp.”

  He lifted one eyebrow. “Damp?”

  She smiled brilliantly. “Yes, the sheep must be counted, and checked to be sure they are sound for the winter, then driven off the coeing ground. Coe being a disease of sheep, you see.”

  “It sounds dreadful,” he said vaguely.

  “Yes, tapeworms or liver flukes or some such thing.” She shrugged. “Kate can explain it better than I.”

  “Your sister must have a remarkable knowledge base,” he said dryly.

  “Oh, if you live here long enough, you’ll learn all about sheep, whether you wish to or not,” she replied. “Besides, Kate has to know. Our lower pastures are too wet for wintering.”