The Notorious Nobleman (2 page)

Julia watched him a moment, then looked from
his drawn face to the window. “Do you think my horse will be safe
out there? Perhaps you should go out and find him?”

“
Go out and

! No, young lady, I shall
not
go out and find your horse. In case you
haven’t looked outside

”

“
You don’t suppose he’ll be struck by
lightening, do you?” she asked, interrupting him before his tirade
could be fully launched.

He didn’t think it would be such a bad thing
for the horse if it were. Judging from the looks of its
oh-so-respectable mistress, the beast was probably nothing more
than a sedate nag such as the kind ladies of breeding rode in Hyde
Park. He rather suspected that if he were a horse, he’d rather
suffer a lightening bolt between the eyes than have to live the
life of a Rotten Row hack.

He almost considered saying so to Lady Julia
Pettingale; but there was something about her eyes gone wide with
concern, and the manner in which she caught her full lower lip
between her even, white teeth that conjured up a long forgotten
emotion. The biting retort that had been poised on the tip of his
tongue died away and he said, grudgingly, “I shouldn’t worry about
your horse. He’s probably back at the vicarage by now. Animals have
a way of fending for themselves.”

“
I suppose you are right,” she said,
but she still looked doubtful. She stood watching the Duke, hoping
for more conversation to help take her mind off the storm and off
the possible fate of her horse, but he offered none.

As Julia’s eyes swept over him, she noticed
that he wore no cravat and his shirt was open at his throat,
allowing her a teasing glimpse of the dark curls that crept up
toward his neck from the broad expanse of his chest. His hair was
dark, with a natural curl where it fell at the back of his neck and
over his ears. His eyes were dark, too, and he appeared to be a
good ten years older than she.

He also appeared to be not the least
interested in conversation. His mouth was set in a grim line and
there was a harsh, rather ruthless expression about his eyes that
Julia had never before seen on a man, and she wondered over it.

Then she saw him shudder slightly.

At first she thought she had been
mistaken, that her eyes had played a trick on her in the dim light
of the cottage; but he did it again. It was only a slight
tremor

the merest of
movements

but she saw
it.

Another rip of lightening lit the sky and
flashed through the window, and Julia suddenly saw the cause of his
shivers.

There was a large, dark spot on the left
sleeve of his brown coat. It was fresh and still damp.

“
You’re hurt!” she exclaimed. Her
expressive eyes traveled from the growing stain on his sleeve up to
his face. “That’s blood, isn’t it?

“
It’s nothing,” he muttered,
tightly.

“
But you need attention! At the very
least, you should have a physician!”

“
I don’t need a physician,” he said,
shooting her a forbidding look; then he leaned his head back to
rest against the wall and he closed his eyes, dismissing
her.

He hoped she would take the hint and leave
him alone. He hoped the sudden stillness in the room meant she had
retreated to that shadowed corner to wait out the rest of the storm
in silence; but after a moment, he heard her begin to move about
the cottage.

He did his best to block out every sound she
made but instead, even the merest noise seemed to be magnified. He
heard her rattle about in a small cupboard, then open and shut the
cottage door; and he muttered a strangled curse, knowing full well
that if she didn’t keep still, in a matter of mere seconds he was
probably going to do or say something that he would no doubt
regret.

No sooner had he formed that notion than her
movements came to a sudden and complete stop. Curiosity caused him
to open his eyes.

While the Duke had been wishing her in
Jericho, Julia Pettingale had lit the fire in the hearth. She had
also lit a tallow candle and he watched her set it down on the
table beside him, along with a sheet of bed linen and a bottle of
brown liquid. The stuff looked very much like a bourbon of some
sort and his opinion of her immediately rose a notch or two.

Julia dropped to her knees in front of him
and said, briskly, “Take off your coat.”

He looked at her with fire in his eye. “No, I
won’t take off my coat, but I will take that bottle.”

She was there before him, snatching up the
bottle and moving it out of his reach. “Take off your coat so I may
examine your arm.”

“
I’ll do so in hell first! If you think
for one minute I’m going to allow you to play the ministering
angel

!”

“
Don’t argue with me,” she said,
cutting him off with an air of assurance that silenced him, “and
don’t deceive yourself. I am not a ministering angel and you may
believe me when I say that I do not at all care if you should live
or die.”

“
Then leave me alone!” With his good
arm he caught her wrist just as she reached up to grasp the lapel
of his riding jacket. Julia tried to pull away, but he held her
fast.

“
You’re going to bleed to death if you
don’t let me do something about your arm,” she said in a slow,
measured tone.

“
You said yourself, you didn’t care if
I should live or die,” he countered.

Julia cocked her head to one side and looked
up at him with the hint of a rather charming smile pulling at her
lips. “I lied.”

He hadn’t expected her to reply so, and for a
moment he was a little startled. Julia Pettingale was still
kneeling before him, her slim wrist still captured in his hand. She
had taken off the riding gloves she had been wearing and the little
tricorn hat was gone, too, removing any last remaining doubts he
might have had about her features.

Yes, she was a redhead, but she wasn’t a
redhead of the typical fashion. In the light of the tallow candle
he saw that her hair was more of a dark auburn and it was arranged
very flatteringly about her face. She didn’t have a typical
redhead’s complexion, either. Her skin was smooth and white and
there was no sign of those ghastly freckles that were the bane of a
redhead’s existence. The green of her riding habit matched the
green of her eyes; and she gazed back up at him with a look of calm
purpose.

“
Please take off your coat,” she said
again. “I will help you.”

“
I don’t need your help,” he said,
ungraciously, as he released his hold of her. “I just need that
bottle.”

“
You may have a drink from it but you
may not have the entire bottle.”

“
Why not?”

“
I might have to use some of the
spirits to clean your wound. But I cannot know that until you take
off your coat.”

He cast one last malevolent look at her
before he silently leaned and began to shrug his arms out of his
sleeves.

Julia didn’t try to help him. A duke he may
be, she thought, but he had no grace and fewer manners. Even now,
as he shifted his weight to work his arms out of his coat, his feet
scuffled slightly and one muddy boot left a footprint where the
skirt of her riding habit had billowed out on the floor. Julia
yanked the precious velvet skirt out from under his feet, but it
was too late; the damage had been done. He muttered something but
she thought it sounded more like a curse than an apology; and when
he leaned a bit closer to her, she could smell the odor of old
spirits on his breath.

Her husband, when he was alive, had smelled
the same way; of brandy and tobacco and, sometimes, of other
women’s perfume. An old, forgotten feeling of disgust swept over
her as she realized that the Duke appeared to be the kind of man
she most disliked—the kind of man who valued horses and sport and
drink above all else; the kind of man her husband had been.

Gavin gave one final, thorough curse as he
tugged his wounded arm from his coat and Julia saw that his entire
shirt sleeve was covered with blood. Over his sleeve, a wad of
cloth had been pressed against the wound and inexpertly tied in
place with a length of material that had probably once been a most
immaculate cravat.

“
You bandaged this yourself, didn’t
you?” she asked, studying the makeshift dressing. When he didn’t
answer, she poured a small amount of bourbon into a chipped teacup
and handed it to him. “Drink this.”

He didn’t need to be asked a second time. He
threw back the bourbon in one swift motion and held the cup out for
more.

“
I cannot like the thought of speeding
a man toward inebriation,” Julia said, casting him a doubtful look,
“but I suppose you shall need something to lessen the
pain.”

He lifted one dark brow. “Worried? Afraid too
much bourbon might make me behave as less than a gentleman?”

“
I believe you have already proved
yourself to be less than gentlemanly.”

“
A few rude words

Is that your idea of ungentleman-like behavior?
You
are
a prim little
thing!”

A rush of angry heat covered her cheeks but
she decided it best not to answer his taunts. Instead, she refilled
the cup and handed it to him, and watched as again he downed its
contents in a single swallow.

The next time he thrust the chipped cup at
her, she took it from him and put it down on the table; then she
set about carefully untying the cloth on his arm. When she slowly
lifted away one corner of the bandage, he winced.

“
I’m sorry. I shall try not to hurt
you.”

“
You didn’t hurt me,” he retorted, but
the white lines about his mouth told her otherwise.

She stood up, relieved by the chance to put
some distance between them. “I’ve set a bowl outside to catch some
rain water. I’ll use it to cleanse the wound. But first, you shall
need to take your shirt off, too.”

She didn’t wait for him to reply but went to
the door and darted out into the storm to fetch the full bowl of
water. By the time she turned back into the room, he had shrugged
out of his shirt.

Julia pushed a rain-soaked strand of hair
back from her forehead and tried to keep her attention focused on
his wounded arm. Too often, though, she found her gaze straying
toward the mat of dark curly hair sprinkled across his chest and at
the broad breadth of his shoulders. There were small scars along
his chest and across the solid ridges of his belly; and one large
scar stretched along the top of one shoulder, as if he had once
broken his collar bone and it had healed improperly. She didn’t
doubt for a moment he had got those scars from fights. He was a big
man; a man of brawn, who, according to rumor, used his size and
strength to his advantage in all things.

But his strength was quickly deserting him.
The effort of taking his shirt off had cost him. His face had gone
pale and his expression was grim. Julia silently refilled the
teacup and handed it to him, then turned her attention toward his
wound.

With a piece of the clean bed sheet she had
found, Julia began to gingerly bathe his arm in rain water. When
she had washed away a good portion of the blood, she saw that the
wound was clean and not too deep, with no jagged edges. She had
seen that kind of wound before. It was the kind of wound a sword
left.

“
You had this in a duel, didn’t you?”
she asked. She had resolved to keep any emotion from her voice, but
her tone had sounded accusing, even to her own ears.

“
What do you know about
duels?”

“
I know they are against the
law.”

“
Laws are for cattle,” he said, through
clenched teeth. “I never let them dictate my behavior.”

“
And only see where it has got
you.”

His dark eyes widened slightly as his gaze
flicked over her. “You argue like a woman.”

“
And you argue like
William.”

He frowned. “Who the devil is William?”

“
My husband. He’s dead now. But when he
was alive he, too, caroused and fought and drank too
much.”

“
He was probably driven to it,”
muttered the Duke, then he sucked his breath in sharply as Julia
unconsciously applied a bit too much pressure on his
arm.

She rocked back on her heels and fixed him
with an icy glare. “You,” she pronounced with heartfelt sincerity,
“are a horrid man!”

“
So I have been told,” he answered,
unperturbed.

“
Do you not care that I think you are
horrid?”

“
Not at all.”

“
What if I were to tell you that I
think you quite odious?”

“
I should never concern myself with
anything so trifling.”

“
You should, for your behavior is a
source of great gossip. That is why everyone whispers about you. I
dare say your reputation is vile, indeed!”

“
People shall think what they like
about me, no matter what I do,” he replied curtly.

“
Ever since I arrived at the vicarage,
I have heard bits of stories about you and your reputation.” She
glanced up at him and found that he was watching her, quite
unmoved, his expression unreadable. Encouraged, she said, “My
friend, Harriet whispers about you to her friends, but she won’t
tell me anything about you. I can only conclude, then, that you are
quite scandalous.”