“Um, not quite. My proof is not exactly submissible to the court.”
“I do not understand.”
“I want to explain, truly I do. Perhaps I will be able to make you see someday.” He made a feeble attempt at an excuse: “When I am feeling better.”
“I will try to be patient.” She leaned over to kiss his cheek. “I hear footsteps. That is either the footman with the beef broth I sent him to fetch or Murchison with your uniform. Murchison is to sit with you this afternoon.”
“You’ll come back?”
His wanting her company meant Amanda would move heaven and her godmother to visit him again. “As often as your mother permits me. She thinks we must behave with discretion, especially with our increased notoriety after your incident.”
The footsteps she heard were more a scrabbling of hurryingclaws on the bare wooden floor, through the door Amanda had left open for propriety’s sake. “Oh no!”
She threw herself in front of the viscount just as Verity launched her heavy body to rejoin her master on the bed.
The dog’s weight knocked her over, right atop Rex.
The dog sat wagging her tail, licking Rex’s face, then Amanda’s as she tried to disentangle herself from Rex.
“Ahem.”
Murchison was at the door, with a tureen and a ladle and a towel, to serve Rex his soup.
“The dog jumped,” Amanda blurted out. “I was protecting Lord Rexford. I fell, I swear.”
“Um-hum.”
“Nothing indecent about this at all,” she said, scrambling off the bed, pulling down her skirts and pulling up her neckline, scrubbing at her cheek where the dog had slobbered in joy at being united with her master.
“Hmm.”
“You can ask Lord Rexford.”
Murchison could ask, if he felt like speaking, but he’d get no answer. Rex had passed out from the pain. The dog, the woman— How many bricks had he been hit with?
He was unconscious again.
The French were firing, pulling Rex from the sweetest dream of Amanda in his arms. No, those were not rifles, he realized, they were loud voices, angry voices, fired across his bed.
“I shall sit with him.”
“No, I shall.”
“He is my son!”
“He is my son, too.”
Good grief, his parents were in the same room, his room, and they were arguing over him as if he were the last tart on the platter. Rex decided to keep his eyes closed until they figured it out.
“You look too feeble to watch over a flea,” the usually polite and poised countess hurled at the earl.
“Well, you don’t look like any spring rosebud yourself,” the ever-calm and even-tempered earl fired back.
“I haven’t lived like a hermit, if that’s what you mean, hiding myself away and eating heaven knows what.”
“Well, I have not been trotting about town to every gad-fly entertainment.”
“No, you have been nursing your grievances in solitude for decades.”
“While you have forgotten you were ever married.”
“Oh, no, you don’t, my fine lord. You dare not accuse me of infidelity, not ever again, not once! I have honored my wedding vows—you know I am speaking the truth— and that is the last time I shall defend myself against your charges for all of eternity. I remember my promises every day, and I remember how you stole my son from me.”
“You left us!”
“You forced me to leave!”
“You could have come back.”
“You told me not to.”
“And so you did not come for the son you now profess to love with a mother’s devotion. Bah! Leave us alone again, and go to a play or a party or a masked ball. You’ll like that.”
“I am sure you’d like me to leave my house, and my son, so you can claim them again. I will not go!”
“They
are
mine, madam! This is Royce House, he is Jordan Royce, and I am Lord Royce.”
“I am Lady Royce, you wretched old man, and have every right to be here.”
“You sent for me.”
“I would not have, if I thought you were as cantankerous as always. But now that you are here, do something useful. Go to your friends at the high court and stop Sir Nigel Turlowe from calling Amanda’s trial for next week.”
Next week? Rex struggled to sit up, ignoring the pain. Amanda’s trial was next week and he was still abed? Damn it! And damn his parents for caring more about past arguments than Amanda’s future. Then he felt a hand on his chest, pushing him back. He looked up to see Amanda’s face, pinched with concern. She was not looking at him, but at his parents, at either side of his bed.
“My lord, my lady, can you not see you are causing Lord Rexford pain and agitation, which the surgeon said was bad for his recovery?
I
shall sit with him.”
The countess recalled her manners. “I am sorry we aired our dirty linen in front of you, Amanda, but you can go now. The earl and I can act like adults and resolve the matter amicably.”
“Quite right, my dear Miss Carville, and I also apologize that you had to hear our little contretemps. My wife and I shall take over the sickroom duties now.”
Little contretemps? Rex thought. He’d swear the entire household heard them, if not the neighborhood. He was about to speak, but again Amanda stopped him.
“I am sorry to disoblige you, sir, but I will not leave Rex until I am certain you will not shout and carry on, or do each other injury.”
The countess smiled. “If we have not torn each other to shreds by now, we shall survive our son’s recuperation. Furthermore, you know how improper your presence in his bedroom is. We have been at pains to correct any unfortunate impression your own illness created.”
The earl nodded. “Highly irregular, miss. You’d best go along before you start still more tittle-tattle. I have already sent messages to anyone with influence at the magistrate’s office. The trial will not be held until your defense”—he looked down at his son, who looked away—“is quite ready.”
“I care nothing for the gossip, my lord. I do care for Lord Rexford. He was injured on my behalf, so I feel responsible. I thank you for your assistance, and I regret that you had to travel all this way, but I will not leave now.” She took a deep breath and looked at both of Rex’s relatives in turn. “You have caused him enough pain. I do not know your differences, and have no right to interfere, but I beg you to consider the harm you have caused the son you swear you love. You have kept him from his own brother, and from having two caring parents. Please, go settle your differences elsewhere, without tearing him apart between you two.”
The earl and the countess looked at each other, then at Amanda. Finally they looked at Rex. He smiled, and held out a hand to Amanda. “My angel.”
“She is right, you know,” the countess told her husband, leading him from the room. “And you need a good meal. I’ll have Cook fix your favorites. Do you still prefer lamb over beef?”
The earl glanced back once, then followed his wife. “I like that gal. She has a good head on her shoulders, and good bottom, too.”
“Of course. She is my godchild.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
T
oo bad Rex could not enjoy the company he wanted, now that he had Amanda in private. The door was left open for convention’s sake, but they were alone for however long it took his parents to eviscerate each other. Just him and both of her. Damn.
She laid a cool cloth across his eyes and told him to rest. Rest? That was all he had been doing, and the sands of time were cascading through the hourglass. Still, Amanda’s touch was soothing. When Murchison applied a cold towel to Rex’s head, it felt like a sack of wet sand pressing his brains against the sides of his skull as if to hold off a flood. When Amanda did it, he felt butterfly kisses, the lightness of a spring day. He sighed in pleasure. Not as much pleasure as he wanted to feel, even in his debilitated state. He wasn’t dead, after all.
He sighed again, because he might as well be. “I suppose they think it’s safe to leave us alone, knowing I am too weak to ravish you.”
He could not see with the cloth over his eyes, but he could hear the smile in Amanda’s voice when she asked if he wanted to ravish her.
“Take you against your will? Never. You must know I would never hurt you. But want you? I have wanted you since the first time I picked you up and you fit so well in my arms. I despised myself, because you were helpless, needing care and protection. But then I had to bathe you and I was lost. I might be despicable, but your body is like a magnet to me, a lodestar with a siren’s song. Then, knowing you, hearing you, seeing your courage and virtue, I found more to admire, more to desire. I suppose it is fortunate I am too befuddled to do any ravishing.”
“But I am not.” Her hand stroked his cheek, where Murchison had shaved him that morning. “Recall, I was the one who came to your room. I wanted you ever since I woke up in your arms, knowing I was safe. Everything about you befuddles me, and I have no broken head for an excuse.”
He pulled the cloth off his eyes so he could see her— one of her, thank goodness—and note the rosy color that stained her cheeks at the admission of unladylike impulses. He blessed those impulses. “Gads, you are so beautiful I could weep for not being able to hold you again. No matter how wrong I know it might be.”
She placed a feathery kiss on his lips. “But would it be so wrong? You almost died. I might still face the hangman.”
“It would be very wrong,” he insisted, the edges of his vision starting to blur from the effort to keep her steady and single in his sight. “But for the life of me I cannot remember why.”
“Because I would only love you more, and you would feel duty bound to offer for me. That would be far worse.”
He heard her distress, that he should speak of wanting, while she spoke of love. He tried to soften her disappointment. “I feel far more than wanting, angel. Truly I do.”
She smiled. “I know that, silly. Do not fret. I shall not take advantage of your weakened state. Should I leave?”
Leave, when he felt a hundred times better, simply by having her near? “Please stay. Your touch is like . . . Your voice is like . . . Hell, I am no poet. I just like having you here. Please stay, talk to me.”
Amanda sat beside his bed with the chair pulled close, but she kept her hand atop his. At first they spoke of his parents, but Amanda did not know all of the stumbling blocks between the older couple, and Rex was not ready to explain about the truth-seeing. She would only suppose his brain was severely damaged by the brick. Worse, what if she ran off, thinking her protectors, Daniel, the earl, Harry, and himself, were all demented or all deviants? He was not ready to put her understanding to the test.
He felt disloyal, but to her or his family, he could not say. He decided to ask about her parents instead. Had they been happily married, her mother and father? How had they met? Had they wished for other children? He had few enough examples of good matches, love matches, to consider.
Marriage was not a good topic at all, he realized when Amanda started gnawing on her lower lip. Her parents were dead, and her last beau, Ashway, wanted her for material gain, not affection. As for himself, well . . .
“They are getting closer to the valet’s trail,” he quickly said.
She leaned forward and squeezed his hand, as eager to drop the subject of marriage as she was for more news. “Do you truly think they will find Brusseau soon? Nearly three days have gone by.”
“If it is at all possible, Daniel will find him. Dimm is helping, and half of Bow Street is after the reward we’ve posted. Harry says he knows the demimonde, the underworld, and he’ll be paying for information there. The valet cannot have gone far, not with the men we stationed at the docks and the posting houses and tollbooths asking for an injured Frenchman.”
“But what if he was not the one who threw the brick? You said you already believe he did not kill Sir Frederick.” She did not ask why he believed the valet. Perhaps Brusseau had an alibi.
“If he did not commit the murder, he knows who did. I think he is the one who attacked me because his height and weight fit the man in the alley, and no one else has reason. Besides, if Brusseau is not guilty of assault, or lying wounded by Verity, why did he go to ground? He knows we are looking for him, and we know he is not at Johnston’s any longer.” He took her hand in his and let his thumb rub against her wrist. “They’ll find him. We’ll have answers. Then we can think about those other questions.”
Before Amanda could ask about the other questions, Rex fell asleep. When he awoke, Amanda’s hand felt cooler and stiffer in his. “Have I kept you sitting here too long, sweetheart?”
“Not at all, darling,” Lady Royce said dryly, patting his fingers.
He grabbed his hand back and tucked it under the covers. His mother brought a cup of lemonade to his mouth and then dabbed at his lips when he was finished drinking, almost as if she knew what she was doing. “Thank you,” he said. “Where is Amanda?”
“Where she belongs, which is anywhere but your bedroom. If you were not so ill I would give you a piece of my mind for what you are doing to that poor child. Doesn’t she have enough to worry about?”
How could he tell her godmother that Amanda felt her virtue entirely dispensable? “As you can see, I am not up to hell-raking today. Perhaps tomorrow.”
“Sarcasm is uncalled for, and I do not refer to Amanda’s innocence. I am thinking of her heart, you lummox. I warned you I would not tolerate your trifling with her tender feelings.”
Rex tried not to squirm like a child with his pockets full of pilfered cookies. “Speaking of tender feelings, have you and my father finished tearing strips off each other? Is he on his way back to the Hall?”
The countess fussed with the pitcher of lemonade and glasses on the bedside table rather than face Rex. “Royce and I have agreed to cry peace. We did not so much as toss the turtle soup at each other at dinner. Of course, I insisted Amanda join us for the meal to maintain the pretense of politeness, but we managed quite well. Your father was charmed, as I knew he would be. He has agreed to stay in Town to help clear Amanda’s name.”