In Bed with a Rogue (2 page)

A low groan carried on the air followed by an almost unintelligible curse.
Almost
. The word
bugger
had been clear enough to make her blush. The man’s moans grew louder.

Whoever was out there was in pain, but it was too dangerous to come to his aid. Her fingers gripped her gray skirts. She had promised Fergus she wouldn’t leave the alley for any reason.

“Help.” The man gasped for air.

She covered her ears to shut out his pathetic moaning, but it did no good. What if he lay bleeding in the road and here she hid like a frightened mouse?

She eased along the wall toward the mouth of the alley and peeked around the building. An indistinct dark lump crawled toward a building with flickering lights in the windows, but collapsed in the street.

“Help me, please.” His voice was raspy and weak.

He couldn’t know she was there, could he? Yet his plea seemed directed at her.

“Please.”

Oh, good Lord above!
She couldn’t take it anymore. As quietly as possible, she slipped into the street, holding the dagger at the ready, and hurried to where the man lay facedown in the mud.

“Help has come,” she whispered as she sheathed the dagger and knelt beside him, “but you must be quiet before someone else discovers you and finishes the task the other men started. Can you roll over?”

Grabbing his shoulder, she pulled firmly. He flipped to his back with a sharp hiss. “Feels like knives when I breathe.”

She cradled his head in her lap and wiped the mud from his eyes and mouth as best as she could. “You may have cracked ribs. I know it hurts, but we cannot leave you in the street.”

He started to reach a hand toward her face then jerked to a stop with another painful moan.

“Do not try to move yet. We are going to need help.”

She looked toward the brothel, hoping Fergus would reappear with the lantern so she could see what damage had been done by the footpads.

“Are you the angel?” the man asked.

“I am no—” He went limp in her arms. “Angel.”

Blast!
Now what was she to do? She didn’t have the strength to drag him back to the alley. He was at least six feet tall and—she placed her hand against his chest to check for breathing—he was solid. Her hand began to wander and she snatched it back.

Her body was practically purring with him close. She eased his head to the ground and scooted away. She couldn’t be the only widow to miss intimacy, but that was no excuse for being familiar with a stranger, no matter how well formed he was.

“
Mo
chroi
,” a harsh whisper carried on the air. “Where are you?”

Fergus
. “In the street. Come quickly.”

They had decided if Fergus needed to address her on their clandestine outings, he would use the childhood pet name her mother had given her. She would rather no one know she was nobility, although she was a lady by marriage only.

It was strange to hear the gruff Scot refer to her as his heart, but it provided a cover story for them as well. She could play the role of disgruntled wife seeking out her husband at the brothel if need be.

Fergus emerged from the alley with the lantern held aloft. A golden halo surrounded his broad shoulders and highlighted his messy mop of brown hair. He scratched his whiskered cheek and frowned at the man lying in the mud. “Stuck the scoundrel in the gullet like I taught you, aye?”

“Dear Lord, no! Footpads attacked him.” She studied the man’s sculpted face and recognition sparked. Lady Eldridge, Helena’s cousin by marriage, had pointed him out just yesterday when they were shopping on Bond Street. Lord Thorne’s name and the circumstances of his jilting had been spoken at every gathering Helena had attended this last week.

“I know him.” She pushed to her feet and took the lantern. “Carry him to the carriage. We will take him home.”

“He’s no’ a stray cat,” he said as he stooped to heft Lord Thorne over his shoulder. Fergus never ignored her wishes, although he didn’t hesitate speaking his mind. “Can’t give him a dish o’ milk and a scratch under the chin and expect him to curl up on your lap.”

She aimed a mischievous grin at her companion. “Are you saying I cannot keep him? Pity that. I bet he would clean up nicely.”

Fergus laughed. “Luna would be jealous if you brought this alley cat home.”

Luna was the scraggly feline Helena had rescued days earlier during one of their midnight excursions. A bath and a few good meals had worked miracles with the animal’s appearance and disposition. But a cat was one thing. Helena didn’t need a man in her life to order her about, even if her body tended to disagree.

Fergus jostled the baron to get a better grip and the unconscious Lord Thorne groaned.

“Be careful. His ribs might be cracked.”

“He is no sack of flour, lass.”

“I know he must be heavy, but please. For me.” It was a long jaunt until they reached the Prestwick carriage waiting in a park outside the rookery for fear someone might recognize her berlin. A pang of embarrassment for asking so much of Fergus drove her to reach for his arm. “Thank you.”

The Scot offered a gruff “At your service,” and trudged along with his burden. “What do you intend to do with him?”

“Return him to Mayfair where he belongs. To Thorne Place on Savile Row.” She would see him safely under the care of his family, and her search would have to resume the next night. “Am I to assume you didn’t find Lavinia?”

“No, I dinna, but do no’ worry yourself. We’ll find her.”

His voice lacked conviction, and she tried to keep despair from creeping up. She and Fergus hadn’t been searching long. Only two weeks. But it seemed they were no closer to finding any of her sisters than she had been hidden away at Aldmist Fell, observing the proper mourning time.

When they reached the carriage, her driver grunted a greeting to Fergus. The clansmen had a strange way of communicating, but she had grown accustomed to their habits after years of living at her husband’s estate. She held the carriage door open.

“Take care not to bump his head.”

Fergus grimaced. “Are you certain you want him inside? He’s covered in mud.”

“I am aware, but unless you wish to carry him all the way to Mayfair, there is no other choice.”

That settled matters quickly, and Fergus dumped him on the carriage floor. The baron roused long enough to release a string of curses damning the servant’s manhood before he slipped back into unconsciousness.

Helena arched her brows at Fergus. “Well, that saves me the trouble of taking you to task for carelessness, I would say.”

“Aye, that it does, milady.” He took the lantern from her and grinned. With his assistance, she climbed inside and stepped over Lord Thorne to settle on the bench.

Fergus eyed the baron crumpled on the carriage floor taking up the majority of space inside. “I’ll be on the box with Robert. Signal if he wakes.” He closed the door, shrouding the interior in darkness. When the carriage jerked forward, the motion elicited another miserable moan from her passenger.

When a wheel hit a rut and his head knocked against the floor, she winced. It was bad enough the baron had taken a beating from the footpads. He didn’t need additional bruises courtesy of her assistance.

She opened the curtain to allow for light, slid onto the floor, and arranged his head on her lap to cushion any further blows. The scent of ale wrinkled her nose. Perhaps his addled state had more to do with overindulgence than injury, at least she hoped.

She had never made Lord Thorne’s acquaintance. He didn’t attend the assemblies, but she couldn’t blame the poor man. Invariably, details of his jilting were on gossips’ lips at balls, garden parties, and every at-home. Helena had begun to feel she knew him personally, and her heart went out to him.

She wiped his lips clean with her handkerchief and sighed wistfully. Such a lovely set of lips. If a duke’s daughter had jilted
him
, Helena wanted to see his competition. Lord Thorne was quite possibly the handsomest man she had ever seen, even caked in mud.

He mumbled something in his sleep. On instinct, she smoothed a hand over his hair. “Shh, you will be home soon.”

Perhaps if circumstances were different, she would ask for a proper introduction. She shook the thought from her head. No, she wouldn’t. Sebastian Thorne was trouble, and she didn’t need trouble getting in the way of her finding her sisters and giving them a better life now that she was free of her husband.

The carriage rolled to a gradual stop, and the door swung open. Fergus filled the doorway. With his face in shadow, she couldn’t see his expression, but she thought she had heard a small gasp. She supposed she’d shocked him by touching the baron, but there was nothing inappropriate about the situation.

“He didn’t wake,” she said. “Perhaps he requires a doctor.”

“His family will summon one if need be.” When the Scot grabbed Lord Thorne’s arms and tugged, the baron’s head rolled back. Fergus tossed him over his shoulder again. “Thorne Place is around the corner. Robert will take you home, and I’ll wait out of sight to make certain his household discovers him.”

She scrambled to her feet as Fergus turned. “Wait!”

The servant raised a bushy brow in her direction. She had no idea what she wanted or why she had called out. It was just… Well, something inside of her wasn’t ready to let the baron go yet.

“Do not let anyone see you.”

Fergus flashed a cockeyed grin. “That is part of the plan, lass.”

Two

Sebastian’s thoughts were preoccupied with angel’s wings and harps as he drifted into consciousness. More precisely, he was thinking the angel from the mist had possessed neither wings nor a harp, which meant his savior had been no angel at all.

From the feel of the thick mattress beneath him and the familiar sounds of the house settling, he wasn’t in heaven either. He was in his bedchamber. God only knew how he had gotten there.

He smacked his lips. His mouth was dry, like someone had shoved a wad of muslin in it. With eyes still closed, he fumbled for a glass of water on his side table without success. He cracked open an eye.

“Faith!” He jumped, then sucked in a sharp breath as pain sliced through his ribs.

His younger sister pursed her lips. “What happened
this
time? Did an irate husband chase you out a window?”

“I refuse to respond to such a ridiculous accusation.” Gingerly, he probed the bandage around his middle. How had that gotten there?

Eve slid from the edge of the bed and went to retrieve a porcelain pitcher from a tray sitting on a side table. “The doctor said you bruised your ribs and knocked your head. And don’t pretend I have insulted you. I smelled the lady’s perfume on you before your valet cleaned you up.” Despite her scolding tone, her brown eyes were sympathetic when she glanced over her shoulder. “I worry about you, Bastian. God only knows what you are doing that causes you to come home with bruises. And no coat or boots at that.”

“Well, it’s not bedding married women, not that you should know about such goings-on.”

Snatching the glass from his bedside table, Eve filled it from the pitcher. A drop of water slid down the side and dripped to the floor. “You forget I was almost a married woman. I received the talk, fat lot of good it will do me now.”

“Thank you,” he mumbled as he accepted the glass. He hadn’t forgotten she had been abandoned at the altar or that the blackguard had left England without allowing Sebastian a chance to defend his sister’s reputation. It mattered not that Eve was blameless. Society had decided Benjamin Hillary must have discovered something untoward about Sebastian’s sister and cried off. Eve had been ruined, and Sebastian had been helpless to correct the mistake.

He hadn’t forgotten anything. No amount of alcohol—or bumps on the head, apparently—could erase the things he wanted to forget.

The water chased away his thirst, but sitting up to drink it made his head pound. He handed the glass to his sister, eased back against the pillows, and closed his eyes. “Does Mother know of my condition?”

“She was abed when Milo answered the door and found you. After the doctor said you would live, I didn’t see a reason to wake her.”

From the short shadows on his walls, he guessed the time to be near noon. “And you mentioned nothing when she woke this morning?” It was likely too much to hope this could be kept a secret from their mother.

Eve shrugged. “She wished to break her fast, and a gander at your face would spoil anyone’s appetite.”

He scowled, but she simply chuckled and pulled the covers up to his armpits. “Not under normal circumstances, mind you. Just this morning you look a fright.”

“Thanks,” he said flatly. The bruises from his fight with Ellis had only recently disappeared and now he had to heal all over again. “Where is my watch?” It wasn’t on the bedside table in its usual place.

Eve set the glass on the table. “You would have to ask your valet. Are you hungry? I could have Mrs. Wilmot prepare a tray.”

His stomach roiled at the thought of food, and he shook his head.

“So, what happened last night?”

“Footpads got the best of me. A woman came to my assistance, which explains the perfume.” Likely a prostitute, given the location and time of night. Sebastian didn’t much care what class of woman she was. If she hadn’t come when she had, he might not be safe in his bed now.

He hadn’t gotten a good look at her face, but the pleasing lilt of her voice had been soothing, and her hand on his forehead had been gentle in the carriage. Much kinder than the bloke who had tossed him into it. Sebastian frowned. Of course a common whore wouldn’t have transportation at her disposal or a servant to do lifting, which made it seem more likely his rescuer was a lady.

He propped up on his elbows and gritted his teeth. “I believe she brought me home. Perhaps Milo asked her name so I may thank her.”

When he sat up and swung his legs over the side of his bed, Eve planted a hand against his chest. “You’re not going anyplace right now. The doctor said you must stay in bed until you are healed.”