His hand dipped under her again, and she gave a small moan. Pain, no doubt. But the luxurious delicacy of her skin tried to lull his exhausted brain into thinking otherwise.
He needed something to keep him sane. “Who was behind the attack?”
“I don’t know.”
He circled the bandage several more times until she was securely wrapped. “Who was near when you were stabbed?”
Her voice was weak and breathy. “Everyone. I didn’t even know I’d been stabbed at first. It just felt like someone had struck me. When I realized what had happened, I tried to identify my attacker, but there were too many people.”
“No one in particular struck you as odd? Someone badly dressed? Walking too fast?”
Her brows pleated together. “I keep running through the situation in my mind, but cannot think of anyone.”
The furrow remained on her face. Without thinking, Gabriel reached out and smoothed it with his thumb. “You have an excuse. I, on the other hand, deserve to be flogged.”
Her breath misted over his wrist, alerting him his hand had meandered to her cheek. “Hmm . . . If that is what you enjoy.” Her eyes sparkled with a hint of mischief, but then grew serious. Turning her head, she touched her lips to the inside of his wrist. “Thank you for helping me.” Her lips brushed against him as she spoke, then settled more firmly for a lingering caress. Her tongue flicked out and traced the vein on his wrist. “I should think of a way to reward you.”
Although her mouth touched only a tiny portion of his skin, the resulting heat was more than enough to burn him alive.
Her eyes rested on the bulge his breeches were unable to hide, then with a slight smile, she laved a slow circle on his wrist.
As if either of them doubted where he was imagining those lips.
With a throaty breath, she turned her head slightly, catching the tip of his thumb in her mouth. She suckled it gently, letting the flat of her tongue rasp over the end. His groin throbbed with each pulse of her tongue.
Then she moaned, the low, gasping sound of a woman enjoying herself.
Liar
.
He’d heard that moan before when she’d allowed one of her suitors a lingering kiss of her hand. Despite the temptation to allow her erotically skilled lips to continue on to every other part of his anatomy, he pulled away. “Why do you do that?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Reward men that please me?”
“Play the seductress.” He pulled the sheet over her torso.
Only a heartbeat’s pause betrayed her surprise. She traced his lips with her finger, the movement dislodging the cover he’d placed over her and revealing the pale edges of her breasts. “I like to play, and I imagine you’d like some of my games.”
His body agreed, but his mind took note of the exhaustion that lurked in her eyes and the wan cast of her complexion. Not to mention the pile of bloody towels and clothing next to them. He caught her wrist and lowered her arm back to her side.
“Don’t you want me?” Confusion warred with shock in her eyes.
Hell, yes
.
“I want you to sleep. You need to rest if you’re to recover.” He lifted the sheet up again, this time adding a coverlet from the foot of the bed for good measure.
She studied him through slightly narrowed eyes as if she didn’t know what to make of him. As he suspected, her eyes started to drift closed.
But then she blinked them open. “What did you mean, play the seductress?” Sleepiness slurred her words.
He frowned. “It’s as if you decide to become the courtesan, like an actress playing a role.”
Her head rocked side to side. “No. I’m afraid it’s who I am.”
“I’m not sure I believe that.”
“Then you’re doubly a fool.” She grabbed the top of her blanket and pulled it all the way to her chin.
“You hide behind the façade of seduction.”
“What if that’s because I’m hiding something worse?”
His role as a Runner couldn’t let a question like that go unaddressed. “Are you?”
She closed her eyes. “Nothing you need to concern yourself with.”
“I told you I mean to discover who you really are.”
“You say that as if there’s something to find.” Only the smallest slivers of her eyes were visible, so it was impossible to read the dark emotion that lurked in them. “I’m tired. I’ll see you tomorrow morning for our drive in the park.”
Perhaps he should have taken her to Bedlam rather than home. “No. You need to allow your wound time to heal.”
Her eyes snapped back open. “Impossible. I don’t have time to waste lying abed.”
“I’ll use the time to further investigate your bidders. You’ll hardly impress your suitors if you faint at their feet.”
She sighed. “I’ll rest one day, and I expect to hear your report tomorrow evening.”
“Two.”
“One, but I will only go on my morning outing on the second. I heal quickly.”
“You’ve been stabbed before?”
She shrugged. “Once or twice.”
The devil!
“When?”
She settled into her pillow. “You don’t think I’m serious, do you? You must be as exhausted as I.”
He didn’t know what to believe about her anymore. But her refusal to rest concerned him. “Why does your life mean so little to you?”
“Why does it mean so much to you?”
Gabriel didn’t have an answer, so he smoothed a strand of dark hair from her forehead. “I don’t get paid if you’re dead.”
She chuckled weakly at that. “Trying to appeal to me in a language I understand? I’m touched.”
He folded his hands behind his back to keep them from wandering again. “Go to sleep, Madeline.”
She huffed at his order, but after a few moments she lost the fight with her weariness, and her breathing settled into slow, even whispers.
The candlelight cast a warm, golden glow over her face, revealing a vulnerability she tried so hard to obliterate while she was awake. Who was she really?
With a grimace, Gabriel stood, pulling his jacket on over his bloody shirt. The coat was undoubtedly stained as well, but at least the black fabric disguised it. If he lived to be a hundred, he would never be able to divest himself of the agony on her face as he’d closed the wound.
But he had many such memories.
Madeline gave a quiet whimper in her sleep.
Gabriel hesitated, then continued to the door. He’d done his duty by her. Yet his hand refused to grasp the tarnished brass handle.
She wriggled in her sleep.
Damnation, she might reopen the wound. The thought carried him back to her side. Trailing his fingers down her cheek, he soothed her back to stillness. Perhaps he should stay tonight in case she needed him.
The satin softness of her skin entranced him, and he traced the delicate features of her face. The arched wings of her brows. The high, delicate cheekbones. The lush, rosy mouth.
Enough
.
Gabriel wrenched his hand away. He didn’t want to be entranced, especially by her. He wanted to solve the puzzle that she presented. The puzzle was what captivated him. Why his every other thought lingered on her. There were too many things about her that didn’t add up.
He glanced again at her sleeping form tucked neatly under the blankets, then around the dark room. If he wanted information, she’d provided him with the perfect opportunity.
W
hat type of woman had no personal effects at all? Gabriel closed the dressing room door as silently as he’d opened it. The room contained her clothing and shoes but nothing more. No love letters poked out from among her stockings. No small keepsakes or mementos rested in her jewelry box. Her toilette table held only a wooden comb and a box of pins. No ornate silver brushes or expensive perfume.
Perhaps she kept those things locked away elsewhere.
He paused, listening to ensure no one was about, before he stole into the adjoining bedroom.
The light from his candle illuminated pale blue wallpaper, but holland covers shrouded everything else in the room. If she had a secret hideaway, this wasn’t it.
Gabriel moved back into Madeline’s room. He would have searched further into the house, but he suspected her butler lurked nearby in case he needed to be of assistance.
Gabriel set the candle on the side table. He knew no more than when he’d started, although that shouldn’t come as a surprise—
The thin, cool blade of a knife rested at his throat. Sharp. Short.
His muscles tensed in unison. The bastard had come to finish the job on Madeline.
With an explosive movement his arm shot up, tucking under the wrist holding the knife to his throat and wrenching it away while simultaneously throwing his head back into the face of his attacker.
Gabriel spun away while holding the man’s wrist, maintaining control of the knife. A quick blow to the man’s armpit sent the knife clattering by Madeline’s bed.
But his assailant had already compensated. A powerful fist connected with Gabriel’s kidney. He sucked in a breath as he darted back, kicking the assailant’s knife into the corner of the room. By his next breath, Gabriel had pulled his own dagger from his boot and balanced the familiar weight.
His eyes adjusted to the dim glow cast by the fireplace.
The other man waited where Gabriel had left him, a new knife brandished in his hand. His placement between Gabriel and the fireplace ensured Gabriel couldn’t discern his face, just a hard, lean outline.
“Well done. You held up far better than I anticipated.” The man’s voice was deep and cultured, but Gabriel didn’t recognize it.
“Drop your knife.”
The man shrugged. “I just honed this one. I’d rather not chip the blade. But I will put it away.” True to his word, he sheathed the knife at his waist in a smooth motion.
The man’s lack of weapon didn’t lull Gabriel into following suit. He’d seen how comfortably the man controlled his blade. “Who are you?”
“A friend of Madeline’s. Canterbury sent for me.”
“Forgive me if I don’t believe you.”
“I would be disgusted if you did.”
Gabriel sidled to his left, and as he hoped, the other man turned as well. The reddish light from the coals slid across his face, illuminating a dark, rugged countenance. A crescent scar marked his right cheekbone.
“So who are you?”
“Most call me Wraith.”
In Gabriel’s experience, two types of people used a name like that: lunatics and criminals. He would put this man in the latter category. “And the others?”
The man’s lips curled in a cold smile. “Ian Maddox.”
“Who are you to her, Maddox? A former lover?”
A touch of real humor entered his smile. “I wish she were awake enough to hear you say that. How is she?” His humor faded as concern swept his face.
Gabriel didn’t lower his arm, but his muscles relaxed slightly. “She’ll live.”
Maddox exhaled slowly. “I should’ve known not to believe her damned nervous butler.” His eyes narrowed. “Now, where the devil were you when she was stabbed?”
The man’s anger did more to allay Gabriel’s fear than anything he could’ve said. But he wasn’t about to risk Madeline. “Three feet away from her.” He studied Maddox, awaiting his reaction.
But the other man’s expression didn’t change. “Did you catch him?”
“No. She didn’t tell me she’d been stabbed until we were out of the theater.”
Maddox’s grunt was half amusement, half acceptance. “Did she see who attacked her?”
“No.”
Maddox ran his hand through his hair. “Damned sloppy.”
The sentiment echoed Madeline’s a little too closely. “How did you say you know her?”
“I didn’t.”
Gabriel was too exhausted to tolerate any more ambiguous partial answers this night. “Then go.”
“I’m supposed to leave her with a man who skulks about her house as soon as she’s asleep?”
The door to the room opened, spilling a stream of light into the darkness. Another man swept in as Canterbury hovered in the doorway.
The new gentleman was taller than Gabriel and Maddox and leaner. However, like Maddox, the man moved with the grace of a trained fighter.
“How is she?” the newcomer asked.
“Wound’s not mortal,” Maddox answered with an annoyed glance at the butler. “Unlike the dire predictions I was fed.”
Canterbury sagged against the door frame. “Thank heavens.”
Maddox nodded toward Gabriel. “Gabriel Huntford, may I present Clayton Campbell?”
Gabriel was tempted to say no, but he inclined his head. “Campbell.”
Campbell’s eyes narrowed as they moved from Madeline’s prone form to the knife still in Gabriel’s hand.
“He’s not the one who stabbed her,” Maddox said.
“We’re sure?” The gleam in Campbell’s eyes promised that a swift death hung on his answer.
Gabriel was glad he still held his knife.
“We only have his word for it, do we not?” Campbell said.
Gabriel met Campbell’s glare with one of his own. “Just as I only have your word that one or all of you aren’t the assailants come to finish the job.”
Canterbury straightened. “I assure you
I’m
not.”
All three of the men glanced at Canterbury.
“Well, I’m not. And I would thank you all to save your violence for later. It isn’t proper to fight in a lady’s bedchamber.”
Maddox raised his brow. “The parlor or the drawing room is preferable then?”
Canterbury pointed his finger at Maddox, his bushy, white brows drawing together. “In the gutter. I think you are quite familiar with it.”
Campbell walked over to the bed and drew back the quilt covering Madeline. His glare turned black as her breasts were revealed. “Enjoyed yourself, did you?”
Gabriel readied his knife as Campbell lunged toward him.
Maddox stepped between them. “See to her life, then worry about her virtue.”
Gabriel grabbed Campbell’s arm before he could disturb the bandage. “Are you a doctor?”
Clayton shook him off with a cold look. “No, but then neither are you.”
Gabriel pressed his knife to Campbell’s side. “Move away from her.”
“Would you gentlemen move your pissing contest out of my room?” Madeline cracked open one eye, let it drift closed, then opened both with a sigh. “You’re all still here.”