No one stopped Rex as he limped through the halls of the prison carrying his slight burden. Then he was out in the fresh air, headed for his . . . horse.
Damn. If ever he needed Murchison and his father’s coach, this was it. They were an hour outside of London, though. Two hackney drivers sped away, rather than take up a sickly passenger from Newgate.
“Now what?” Rex asked. The woman did not answer. She was so quiet he would have wondered if she still breathed, but he could feel her chest rise and fall even under his uniform jacket, which enfolded her. For how long? He knew he could not stand outside the prison gates waiting for a messenger to fetch Murchison and the carriage. Miss Carville needed help, now, and his bad leg could not support her for so long. So he draped her limp body over his horse’s neck until he mounted and gathered her up again, silently apologizing to both the woman and the horse for such rough treatment.
Then he cursed again, turning the horse in a wide circle while he thought. What the devil was he going to do with Miss Amanda Carville now that he had her? He could not take her to the house, where she had—perhaps—shot the owner. If Sir Frederick’s household had cared about the chit, she would not have been in such mean accommodations in prison. She’d had no visitors, the guard had said, confirming their belief in her guilt. Rex could not take her to his inn, not with the riffraff there, or the lack of a physician or an apothecary or a decent woman. He could try a hotel in Town, but Lud, he’d be laughed at for trying to bring his filthy, fetid burden into a respectable place. Daniel’s lodgings were out of the question, even if he know the location. The girl needed tending, not likely to be found at whatever rough bachelor digs Rex’s cousin had claimed. No, Rex had one choice. One blasted, blighted choice: Royce House. Where his mother lived.
Chapter Four
T
he knocker was off the door, which indicated that the resident was away from home. Good. That meant Rex did not have to face Lady Royce. Not that he never saw her, simply that he saw her as rarely as possible, more often by accident than design. When he was at university, a scholar on a spree, or later, a young man about Town, avoiding encounters was easy. Countesses seldom frequented gaming hells or whorehouses or sporting events. Young bucks and beaux did not attend debutante balls and afternoon teas and musicales unless dragged by their female relations. Lady Royce knew better than to try to drag Rex anywhere. She did send him letters, which he answered politely on his father’s orders, and packages while he was in school or with the army. Often there would be warm socks, tins of tea, a coin or a pound note tucked in, so the other lads thought Lady Royce was the best mother in the world.
She was no mother at all. Right now Rex was pleased he did not have to make stilted conversation with the stranger who gave him birth. It was enough that he was here at her bidding, cradling an unconscious convict.
On the other hand—the one holding his coat closed over the young woman’s torn gown so he had to kick at the door instead of knocking—with the countess away, who was going to take charge of Miss Carville? He almost dropped her, panicked at the thought that no one was left at the London town house to answer his call. No, the housekeeper would be somewhere, Rex decided, or the cook. There were competent women in most households, experienced with invalids and infants. He kicked at the door again.
Both were away, the butler announced when the man finally opened the door, aghast at the foul sight in the immaculate doorway of his domain: a dusty soldier in shirtsleeves, a filthy urchin in his arms. He sneered.
Rex frowned at the butler’s bare feet.
The major domo wrinkled his nose at the stench of horse and worse. Rex raised his eyebrow at the scent of patchouli that wafted from the bewigged butler, but he again demanded a woman to look after Miss Carville.
According to the butler, Dodd, Cook was with the mistress in Bath, as were Lady Royce’s dresser, her companion, and the upstairs maid. The housekeeper was visiting her sister in Richmond and the parlor maids were on holiday. So the young female could not be brought into Royce House, no matter who she claimed to be.
“She claims nothing. She is too ill.”
“Then she belongs in a hospital, sir.” The butler started to shut the door in Rex’s face.
Still holding the woman close to his chest despite the cramp in his right shoulder and the trembling in his left forearm, Rex kicked the door fully open with his good leg. He would have kicked the blasted butler if he could have reached. As it was, the man had to leap backward to avoid the heavy door connecting with his bare toes. “I’ll call the Watch,” Dodd threatened. “We don’t allow vagrants and vermin around here. This is a house of nobility. Lady Royce knows only the finest people, not criminals and cutthroats.”
“Do you know who I am, you sanctimonious prig?”
The butler curled his lip again. “No one who should be calling on a countess, that is for certain.”
“And I wouldn’t, had I any choice. Your countess is my mother, confound it!”
The butler’s face went pale. His toes curled under his feet as he finally recognized the air of authority under the grime—worse, the likeness to a boy’s portraits in the sitting room and the parlor. “I . . . I do not believe you,” he said.
Rex was seeing red. Not just at the lie, but out of anger. Miss Carville could be dying for all he knew, or dead already, while this supercilious servant worried about her presence and his pedigree. And whoever heard of a butler going barefoot? He pushed past the man and headed for the stairs that had to lead up toward the bedchambers. “Find me a female to attend Miss Carville. Now!”
“But . . . but no one is on duty but a footman, the potboy, and a kitchen drab.”
“Get her. And have the boy bring hot water. There is a groom outside holding my horse. Send him for a physician—whichever one Lady Royce uses. The footman can get a message to my man at the Black Dog Inn.”
Instead of carrying out Rex’s orders, Dodd hurried after the viscount and his burden. Rex stopped at the first door, his leg protesting the climb.
“No, no! That is the countess’s own bedroom.”
The next one was the earl’s, it seemed.
“Has my father ever been here, then?”
“Not that I know of, but I have only been in my lady’s employ for six months. Her previous butler retired.”
And this one would not last long if Rex had anything to say. According to Dodd, the next door led to her ladyship’s companion’s room, and the following chamber was being redecorated.
Rex was too tired to care about that lie, and too concerned about getting Miss Carville onto a bed before his arms gave out. Dodd finally rushed ahead to open a smaller room done up with rose-painted wallpaper and roses on the fabric hangings. It was as feminine and frilly as the rooms that stayed closed and clean next to the earl’s bedchamber at the Hall.
Rex placed his burden on the bed and removed his coat from around her, then stood back, shrugging into it, waiting for the scullery maid.
The girl took three steps into the room, pointed at the figure lying so still on the bed, and screamed “Murderess!”
“She is an accused murderess,” Rex countered, buttoning his uniform coat so he would feel more in command of a situation that was far beyond his ken. “First she is Lady Royce’s goddaughter and she is ill.”
“Gaol fever!” the maid yelled. She threw her hands in the air and fled, almost knocking the bucket of water out of a wide-eyed boy’s hands. Rex grabbed for the bucket as the boy stared at Miss Carville’s half-naked body. Rex hastily pulled down the remnants of her skirt to cover her legs.
“You, out!” he bellowed at the boy. “Fetch more water, and some soup if you can find it, or biscuits and tea.” Then he once more ordered the butler to send the footman for Murchison, a woman—any woman—and his cousin Daniel, in that order.
“I . . . I know of a woman nearby. My, ah, sister.”
“Get her, man!”
In mere seconds—and mere doors away, obviously the one Dodd claimed was being redecorated—a female staggered into the room. She did not look like Dodd, but the patchouli she must have bathed in did smell like him. Dodd suddenly had his shoes on, Rex noted, but the female did not have her gown fastened. Her face paint was smeared and her lips were swollen. She had a bottle of wine—from the Royce wine cellars, Rex guessed—in her hand while the other hand held the gaping front of her gown over fleshy, flabby breasts.
“You’ve brought your whore into my mother’s house?” Rex shouted at the butler, who was edging toward the doorway. Even Rex, as far from polite society’s ways as he could get, knew that was an outrage. “And here, to tend to a lady?”
“Lady, my arse,” the female said. “She’s nobbut a light skirt from what they say, and a cold-blooded murderer to boot. Who’s to say she’s better’n old Nell?”
“I say it, damn it! Get out, before I throw you out. And you”—he turned toward Dodd—“if you want to keep your post past tomorrow, you’ll make certain your doxy is gone without lifting any of the countess’s silver, and then you will find a respectable woman to come help. Try next door if you need to. And when the footman gets back from finding my cousin and my valet, post a message to Lady Royce, saying that her goddaughter has arrived.”
He did not speak his thoughts, that the countess should have been in London while her godchild was in peril, not leaving him to comfort a delicate female, not abandoning yet another innocent to his or her fate.
If Miss Carville was innocent. He still did not know.
“Tell Lady Royce to come home now.”
“I cannot give orders to my mistress!”
“She sent for me. Now send for her. Miss Carville is her responsibility.”
Dodd bowed, shoved Nell ahead of him, and ran to do Rex’s bidding. “Yes sir, my lord. Right away, Captain, ah, your lordship.” Good positions were hard to find. Besides, Viscount Rexford looked like he’d have Dodd’s head if his demands were not met, no matter how unreasonable. The butler had heard the war reports as well as the rumors. Everyone had. No one, it seemed, disobeyed his lordship, not ever. Or else. Murder and mayhem flashed from those ice-blue eyes, for certain. Dodd vowed to get the housekeeper back if he had to drag her himself. Yes, and Lady Royce, too.
Once the room was empty of servants, Rex stared at the unmoving form on the bed. “You are Lady Royce’s mess,” he declared, more for his own sake than the febrile woman’s. “Not mine.”
But the countess could not come fast enough, and Rex could not walk away or lie to himself, which made it his mess after all.
He repeated Murchison’s French blasphemies, then a few of the cavalry’s finest curses. The woman was still lying atop the covers, in rags and in need. Damn. He could not leave her like that. He could not wait for a maidservant, either. Murchison was an hour away, at least. Who knew how long before the doctor would arrive? The female was shivering, despite beads of sweat on her forehead. He lit the coals in the room’s fireplace.
Oh, lord. He gave up the curses and prayed harder than when he’d found himself facing that party of advance French scouts.
Hell, they were the enemy; Miss Carville was a lady, which was far worse. Rex had never undressed a lady in his life, much less washed one. He looked at the bucket of water, which was cooling, and the towel on the washstand. “Miss Carville? Please, miss, please wake up.”
She did not open her eyes. So much for swearing, praying, and begging.
Rex took his coat off again, feeling perspiration dripping down his own back, but not from the heat of the room. He took a deep breath and straightened his spine. “Very well, please do not wake up then. That will be easier on both of us.”
Like a general studying his maps and maneuvers, Rex planned his campaign. First he fetched a nightgown from the countess’s room and a bottle of brandy from the earl’s. Then he turned down the covers on the other side of Miss Carville’s bed so he’d have some place to roll the female onto when she was clean. He had a sip of brandy.
He brought the water and towel closer, and had another swallow. He’d wipe her face and hands first. How bad could that be? The brandy was good.
As gently as he could, Rex wiped at the dirt and scrapes, avoiding the swollen, discolored skin around the woman’s left eye and the bruise on her chin, her cut lips. The doctor would have to prescribe salve and ointments for those. Rex carefully cleaned her hands—how small they were in his—and marked the raw place where someone had pulled a ring off her finger, and the sores on her arms from what he assumed were manacles. Her wrists were so narrow he could reach around them with his fingers and still have room. Shackles on this wisp of a girl? The notion turned his stomach, or perhaps that was the brandy. No, he was queasy at his next job.
Where the devil was Dodd and a decent woman?
Rex took a long swallow and set the bottle aside. A man needed a clear head to face the enemy, and his demons.
He raised Miss Carville and slipped the nightgown over her head, stuffing her arms into the sleeves, which were much too long. The countess was far larger, and far away, blast her.
Rex’s strategy was to cut away the rags of Miss Carville’s gown, lowering the night rail as he went to preserve her modesty as much as possible. He’d leave the washing of her body to whatever woman Dodd found. He thought he could hear voices in the front hall, a door shutting, footsteps on the stairs. Reprieve! He reached for the brandy again.
Of course that was when Miss Carville opened her eyes. And saw a rough-looking, long-haired man bending over her, a bottle in one hand, a knife in the other.
She shrieked. What else could Amanda do, when she was too weak to raise her arms, and they seemed to be swathed with cloth bindings anyway, with more wrapped around her throat? There she’d been, safely cradled in her father’s arms, tenderly comforted by her mother’s cooling, soothing touch. Someone cared for her; someone loved her. How sweet her dreams. Then she awoke to yet another nightmare of stabbing, strangulation, torture. The loathsome demon’s eyes were wide with evil intent. An angry scar ran down his cheek and he stank of spirits. A guard? A prisoner? Amanda had no doubt he meant to rape her, then kill her. She shrieked again. No one was going to hear and help her, but what did she have to lose?