Page 3 of Eliza and the Duke
His friend began patting Simon down, as if looking for a hidden pocket in his coat. “Where is it?”
“Me ones and twos. Where else?” Simon answered.
Seeming to understand this, the man switched his focus to Simon’s boots. Simon lay there in a daze staring at the ceiling as his friend quickly and none-too-gently unlaced his boot.
“Simon,” she said, finally addressing the invalid himself, and taking a few steps closer. His dark hair, longer than was fashionable, had broken free of its pomade and now fell back over the arm of the sofa leaving his face exposed. There was a cut over his cheekbone, beneath his eye, and another over his brow, and the flesh was swelling, promising a black eye come morning. His bottom lip was split, as well. He’d clearly been in a fight. “What happened to you?”
He jerked at the sound of her voice and turned his head until his eyes met hers. His pupils were dilated, making the irises a slim swirl of indigo and midnight, and he seemed to have trouble focusing on her.
“Milady,” he said.
She didn’t bother to correct him. “Who did this to you?”
“Mum your dubber, mate.” Simon’s friend paused long enough to speak, give her a warning glare, and then went back to unlacing Simon’s boot. He’d already rid him of the right, and now he was on to the left one.
Eliza had never heard that phrase before, but she knew the man had warned Simon about giving her any information, or perhaps he had warned him against talking to her altogether.
“What is your name, sir?” she asked the man unlacing Simon’s boot.
She caught him glance at her from the corner of his eye. She didn’t think he was going to answer, but then he said, “Dunn.”
“Should we send for the police, Mr. Dunn? This man looks a fright.”
Mr. Dunn was already shaking his head. “No, no police.”
He pulled off Simon’s boot and held it aloft, upside down. A roll of bills fell out and dropped to the floor. A hundred pounds, she’d guess. His eyes widened in glee before he scooped the bills up and thumbed through them.
Growing irritated, she said, “A physician, then. He needs medical care.”
“No, we’ll get ’im fixed up.”
Mr. Dunn was proving himself to be of little help.
“Simon, do you need me to send for a doctor?” His gaze had already drifted unfocused to the ceiling again, so she reached out to touch his chin and gain his attention. Thestubble on his jaw scraped the pads of her fingers in a way that was not completely unpleasant.
“Don’t bother yourself, milady. I’ll be better after a sleep.”
His coat had fallen open to reveal the terrible trauma he had endured. “At the very least you need to bind your ribs.” She knew next to nothing about medical care, but it seemed logical.
He moved to sit upright and let out a groan. “ ’Tis not that bad.” Upright probably wasn’t the best way to describe how he leaned to the left. “I won the quid and ’tis all that matters.”
“You won? Did you fight for money?”
“The only reason to fight there is.” He wasn’t smiling anymore, but he had the aura of someone who was very pleased with himself.
“This…” She indicated the mess of his body. The bruised, likely broken, ribs. The swollen face. The lacerations that were too numerous to count. “This is for money? One hundred pounds?” She couldn’t conceive of that amount being worth the damage. Not that she had grown up with money. She and her mother and sisters had scraped by with very little extra, but this wasn’t worth it.
“Drink.” Mr. Dunn pressed a flask of what she felt certain was full of alcohol into Simon’s hand, and he dutifully drank down a healthy portion. To her, Mr. Dunn said, “Shouldn’t you be going, miss?” He pointedly looked down at her dinner gown. “Someone must be missing you.”
He was right. She had been here for far too long as it was, but she had learned shockingly little and her curiosity was running rampant. “But…”
“Go on with ye, milady,” Simon said. “I’ll be well.”
He did seem a bit better. His gaze seemed to be focused onher again, and he wasn’t staring at the ceiling. “Are you certain?” she asked because she simply couldn’t leave yet.
His answer was to sing.“She’s as sweet as a rosebud, and lily flow’r chang’d into one. And who would not love such a beauty, like an Angel dropp’d from above.”It sounded like a jaunty music hall tune. Even inebriated, his voice wasn’t half-bad. He paused in his singing to ask, “Are ye my guardian angel? Wot’s yer name?”
She shouldn’t tell him, but something out of her control made her say it. “Eliza.”
