I Adored a Lord (9 page)

 

Chapter 7

The Hero

W
ater burning his skin with cold, Vitor reached her and grabbed her beneath the arms. His legs tangled in her skirts. He kicked them free and pulled her back against the current. She helped him, but her skin was already white.

It seemed an age of frigid pain before he reached the platform. Together they struggled against her sodden garments and dragged her entirely from the water. With shaking hands she fumbled at the fastening of her cloak. Struggling to his feet, he grabbed his coat, pulled forth his knife, and fell to his knees before her.

“Can't—­” She plucked at the knot. “Get—­” Her words were barely audible, her lips blue.

He pushed her hands aside and cut the cloak fastening, then turned her and at her back sliced a line up the fasteners of the heavy woolen gown and the linen undergarment below. The laces of her stays split beneath the sharp blade, and she struggled out of the garments. He reached for his coat and she slid her arms into it stiffly as he pulled on his boots. She climbed to her feet in the slushy depression they'd made in the snow. Like a wraith, her black hair was matted about her face and neck and her eyes were sockets of ebony in the stark white oval of her face.

He took her up into his arms and climbed toward the road. As slight as she was icy, she tucked her face and hands against his chest and did not protest, which terrified him.

By the time he strode through the main gate, her body shook in violent tremors. But he felt her hard breaths and knew she was trying to withstand it. A guard followed. No one stirred in the great hall. Vitor carried her to the housekeeper's day chamber, small and easily heated.

“Have a fire laid immediately and bring tea,” he commanded the guard. “Then alert Monsieur Brazil and Sir Beverley, but no one else. Be quick.”

“
Sim, meu senhor
.” The man disappeared.

He lowered her to the chair before the hearth, drew his coat from her stiff limbs, and wrapped a blanket about her. She allowed it all in trembling silence. But when he tucked the wool around her feet, then took her hands between his to chafe, she tugged them away.

“Go,” she whispered between clacking teeth. “Dry.”

“You must remove the wet garment. Whom do you wish me to call to assist you?”

She shook her head. “Go.”

“When the guard returns.”

Damp lashes lifted over the starlit eyes bright with irritation. “
Go
.”

“Damn it—­”

“
Meu senhor
,” the guard said, entering with a lamp in one hand and faggot of wood beneath his other arm. “Monsieur Brazil sees to the tea himself.” He moved to the hearth and knelt to make up the fire.

“Go.” Her shrunken lips barely moved. “Or I'll tell everyone how you got that wound on your lip.”

“I dare you to. And I will leave when Sir Beverley arrives.”

She glared weakly, the fight gone out of her. When he took her hands again she did not pull them away.

“What did you see?” he said quietly.

“Nothing.” A shiver wracked her. “You must—­”

“If you continue to insist that I leave, I will remove that soaked chemise myself.”

Her lips made a firm line.

The guard arrived with tea, and the fire warmed the tiny chamber. She sipped from a steaming cup as Sir Beverley and Mr. Pettigrew entered.

“Good God.” Sir Beverley came forward, his face grim. “Brazil said she fell in the river.”

“She was pushed.”

“Dear girl, what a frightful business.” Pettigrew sat beside her and patted her hand.

She turned her eyes to Vitor. “Go.” Her teeth clicked against the porcelain. “Now.”

He took up his sodden coat and went. Monsieur Brazil hovered in the corridor.

“Monseigneur, I have taken the liberty of preparing a bath for mademoiselle in her bedchamber.”

“Excellent.” His numb lips slurred over the word. His clothing clung. “Inform Sir Beverley.” He crossed the great hall. The door to the forecourt—­and beyond that, clues to her attacker—­beckoned. But he would be of no help to her if he died of fever. He mounted the stairs. In his chamber he hung his clothes to dry, then walked the corridors to her bedchamber. There he stood before her door, nonplussed.

He had dragged her from a river and together they had examined a dead man's body in the middle of the night. Yet without a servant to assist him now, he was at a loss. He knew nothing more about women's clothing than what he must to remove them. Also, he had every suspicion that if this particular woman learned he had entered her bedchamber even to acquire dry clothes for her, she would do him further bodily harm.

It took him all of three seconds to decide that he could accept that consequence. He reached for the door handle.

“Ah, my lord! There you are. I was looking for you.” Sebastiao strolled toward him with exaggerated lethargy. “Why are you staring at that door? Thinking that if you stare long enough it will open by the power of your formidable will alone?”

“I had not considered it.”

“Whose bedchamber are you not considering entering?” His half brother's brow waggled.

“Miss Caulfield's.”

“Ah, the pretty little Gypsy.”

Vitor turned fully to him. “Gypsy?”

“Duskier than a Saracen. If she weren't English she might be an Andalusian. What do you suppose my father had in mind to include her among this party of inestimable maidens?”

Vitor found his hand clenching. “Your good fortune, I suspect.”

Sebastiao propped his chin in his palm and his lower lip protruded. “She has a quick tongue. I like that in a woman. But of course there is nothing to like in a woman of virtue
except
conversation.” He grinned, then his eyes narrowed with a sly sort of defiance. “I had an Andalusian woman once, you know.”

“Sebastiao . . .”

“She rode me like jockey for three days with barely a pause for wine. Seems what they say about the virtue of the women of the south is true.” He cut a grin that only a young man who took pleasure in boasting of conquests would affect. “Their blood is especially hot, you know. Down there.” He cocked a brow. “Do you think our little Gypsy's blood is hot too?”

Vitor drew in a slow, steadying breath. “Your highness.”

Abruptly, Sebastiao's face crumpled. “Oh, don't ‘your highness' me. I despise that.” His shoulders slumped, the bravado draining away from him in a rush. “I am peevish, only. Whitebarrow stuck his nose in the air at me and I cannot get the odor of his superiority out of mine. I believe he actually thinks he would be doing me a favor to bestow one of his icy daughters upon me,” he said glumly. “The mother treats me with deference, though. I imagine she wants grandchildren of royal blood, at whatever the cost.” His head snapped up, his face stark now. “My tongue disobeys me, Vitor. You know I did not mean to imply that Miss Caulfield is anything but virtuous. I did, of course, but I did not mean it. You know.” It was a question—­rather, a plea. For years it had always been thus: outrageous misbehavior, bravado to justify the sin, then abject penitence and pleas for understanding. He was a boy of tender conscience in the skin of a spoiled prince, unstable at worst and too greatly indulged at best.

“You needn't prove yourself to me, Sebastiao.”

“On the contrary! You are the one person to whom I must continually prove myself. And Father.” Face averted, Sebastiao spoke to the closed door. “He admires you. He trusts you. And he tells me so at every occasion.” With a heavy breath of decision he met Vitor's gaze. “You have no idea what a chore it is to try to live up to you.”

“We both know that it is foolish of you to believe you must.”

“See there? With an economy of words you prove me the fool. As always.” He swung away. “Your life of loyal labor is an example no man should be forced to emulate.”

“Your father has never expected you to be anything but who you are.”

“My father sent me into exile in this castle with you as my
domini canis
in a last vain hope that I will learn how to be a man through necessity. A wife will cure me of my incontinent ways? Tame my unruly spirit? Ha! If this is not comedy of the highest order, then I have never set foot upon an honest stage.”

Vitor said nothing. Swinging so precipitously between elation and abjection, Sebastiao's humors had always controlled his tongue. But, unlike his fits over the past ten years, he was sober now. Suffering distorted his features.

“Ah, brother,” Sebastiao cried when he remained silent, “you needn't even speak, for I know what you are thinking. The very breaths you draw put me to shame!”

“Good day, your highness? My lord?” The whisper, uncertain as a mouse peeking its nose from a crevice in a wall, came from several yards away. Ann Feathers stood behind a ray of sunlight slashing through an aperture window. Dressed in layers of scrolling, puffing fabric, with her hair tugged tightly into a knot and rendering the bottom half of her face especially pale and round, she appeared nothing less than a frightened titmouse.

But she was precisely who Vitor needed at the moment. “Good day, madam.”

She came forward as though upon tiptoes.

Recovered, Sebastiao swept her an elegant bow. “I found this fellow wandering the corridors and was admonishing him to join me in the drawing room for a game of cards. I beg you, come along and enliven the company.”

Her curtsy dipped deep. “I am honored, your highness, though I fear I am neither lively nor particularly entertaining company.”

“You mustn't contradict me. I am a prince, you know.” Casting Vitor a curious glance mingled with worry, he grasped her hand and lifted her from the curtsy.

“Miss Feathers, may I beg a simple ser­vice of you?” Vitor asked.

She nodded.

“Miss Caulfield has suffered an accident—­”

She gasped. Sebastiao's eyes went wide.

“She is well.” He prayed it was true. “But she requires fresh garments. In the absence of the maids, may I prevail upon you to choose for her suitable raiment?”

“Of course, my lord.”

Sebastiao thrust back his shoulders. “I will assist you, madam. A diminutive lady like yourself mustn't be employed in tasks suited to servants.”

“Oh, I don't mind it, your highness,” she said, staring at her shoes. “I like to be useful.”

Sebastiao took her hand upon his arm. “Shall we?” He opened the door to Miss Caulfield's bedchamber and they passed inside. Rubbing the back of his neck, Vitor headed for the great hall and his coat.

“
T
HANK YOU,
M
ISS
Feathers. You are kind to lend me these.” Ravenna fingered the frothy neckline of the muslin gown that was insanely impractical for a castle in the middle of winter, but she could not have refused it.

“I hoped you would like them. The prince insisted. He said that . . .” Miss Feathers's cheeks colored like round ripe peaches. “That your gowns . . .”

“That my gowns are not as fashionable as everybody else's?”
A vast understatement
. Petti had insisted she pack more than her usual gowns borrowed from the housekeeper. Even so, she had nothing to compare to the potential brides' clothing. “I don't mind it, Miss Feathers. In the usual course of things, you see, I have no need of such finery.”

“Miss Caulfield?”

Ravenna took another sip of tea. She couldn't seem to drink enough of it; the chill had only just left her bones. Petti had suggested adding whiskey to the tea, but she didn't fancy having a muddled head the next time the killer tried to dispatch her. Or the next time Lord Vitor Courtenay came within five yards. “Yes?”

“Would you—­” Miss Feathers attempted. “That is to say, I wonder if you would not take it amiss if I asked—­ I mean to say, if you might consider—­”

“I would be happy to call you Ann if you will call me Ravenna.”

Her face relaxed. “You do not mind that I ask?”

“You haven't asked. I offered.”

Ann fingered her ruffled cuff. “I never had a sister. And I have rarely had . . .”

“A friend?” Ravenna reached for Ann's hand and squeezed. “Now you do.”

“You don't think I . . . Well, that is . . . that I . . .” Her eyes dropped to her lap in confusion.

“That you are the murderer? I don't. You are far too kind, as evidenced by these gowns and whatnot that you have lent me.” She had changed out of her sodden shift into one of Ann's deliciously thin French linen chemises, dry stays of the finest cord and linen, a petticoat embroidered with tiny pink roses at the bosom, and a pale green pin-­striped frock. Wrapped in a blanket and curled into the remarkably comfortable chair Mr. Brazil had set by the fire in her bedchamber, she felt like a veritable queen. “You may never have had a friend to call by her Chris­tian name before, but I have never worn such a pretty dress.” Albeit with three superfluous flounces at the hem. But those could be removed with the needle she carried in her black bag for emergency surgeries.