Page 9 of The Tantalizing of a Scandalous Rake

Before she could finish her sentence, Alex and Leo barged into the room. Alex paused at the sight of him, one brow lifted.

“I told you he would be alive,” Leo said.

Adam cast his gaze between his two brothers, their forms filling the room practically to capacity. “How in the devil did you find me?”

“You look bloody awful,” Leo commented.

“Why thank you. One does tend to feel pretty bloody awful after one—”

“Has a little accident!” put in Rosie, her tone thin and reedy.

Adam peered around his brothers at her.

She smiled though it did not reach her eyes then laced her hands primly together. “As you can see, I have been looking after him. Unfortunately, I had little idea who he was as he has been barely lucid these past days so could contact no one to tend to him. But he is healing fast.”

So the woman did not want his brothers knowing the truth of the attack. But why? Was she protecting someone? He and his brothers had grown closer since their confinement here in the lakes but even before that he’d never lied to them. However, the pleading look in her eyes gave him little choice.

Or perhaps it did, and he was being a fool. Maybe this stab wound had made him weak. No other woman had ever managed to sway him with one mere panicked look.

Alex, his oldest brother and the Marquis of Kirbeck, peered down at him with his most superior look. Adam ignored it. Before his marriage to Lucy, he’d been quite the rake and adventurer.

That had not changed he supposed. For their honeymoon, they had travelled for a month, visiting castles in Wales and England. They intended to visit Scotland next year. However, that did not change the fact his brother had found himself in many dangerous situations in the past.

Adam narrowed his gaze at him. “Do not give me that look.”

“Only you could...” Alex looked to Rosie, that brow still arched. “Trip and fall on a knife?”

Leo shook his head. “Getting too deep in your cups, Brother?”

“Why thank you for the sympathy? I only nearly died you know.”

Adam ignored Leo’s chuckle. They were close in age with scarcely a year between them and looked so similar they sometimes got mistaken for twins. It had meant they could not help but be competitive with one another and if there was anyone he did not want thinking him a fool, it was Leo.

Anyway, the man could not talk. He’d twisted himself into knots when his old love had arrived in Langmere, and Adam had been nothing if not a wise and sage confidant. Come to think of it, he’d aided them both in wooing their wives. If it were not for him, his brothers would still be chasing their damned tails so they owed him at least a bit of their respect.

“We should get you home,” Alex commented.

Rosie took a step forward. “The doctor said he cannot yet be moved. He will need more time to heal.”

Alex pressed his lips together. “The wound must have been deep.”

“It was,” Rosie confirmed, “but it was a clean wound with no sign of infection.”

“Strange given the knife was on the floor.” His brother eyed Rosie for some moments but her expression did not flicker. “I should send my own doctor, just to be certain.”

“As you will, my lord.” She gave a quick dip. “Well, I shall leave you, but I shall return soon with food.” She turned her gaze to Adam, her gaze insistent.

He gave the subtlest nod. He would keep her secret for now. Or their secret, he supposed, but she would owe him.

Leo hauled over the chair and sat, leaning back to eye him. “How the devil does one fall on a knife?”

“The same way anyone falls on anything,” Adam shot back.

“Mary-Anne has been frantic,” Alex said.

Lucy’s younger sister had been staying at the family home for some time. Adam could not help having a soft spot for the fourteen-year-old, who reminded him a little of himself at that age. Bold, curious and far too clever for her age, his brother’s new sister was already coming close to beating him at a game of whist.

“Tell her I expect her to be practicing her card games while I am gone.”

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