Page 16 of The Marquess Wins a Wife
Perversely, it made anger sizzle through her veins. He’d been unconscious for the whole of it—he had no idea whatsoever what it had cost her to stitch him up. “Of course I did notenjoyit,” she snapped, “though perhaps I simply had not enough of an acquaintance with you to have a proper appreciation for the opportunity!” And with a toss of her head that would have done Imogen proud, she stalked away from him and his spurious accusations.
∞∞∞
Christ. What the hell had he been thinking, taunting her like that? Luke winced as the razor—sharpened to an incredible edge he doubted even his valet could have achieved—nicked the skin on the underside of his jaw. He was clumsier with it than he’d have liked, but then he supposed he was already at a disadvantage; still far too weak, with a minute tremble in his hand, and without the hot water that would have better softened the whiskers or a soap more suitable to shaving.
Which was a damn shame, given that he doubted very much that he had the blood to lose. Still, a cold bath and a shave was better than the alternative—which was continuing to reek of sickness and sweat. By the time he’d finished, he felt nearly half-human. Startling, given that that alone was significantlymorehuman than he’d felt in recent memory.
He’d lied to her about the razor. Though he was far from fully recovered, he could easily have made the dresser to retrieve it. No longer did his legs threaten to buckle beneath him at the slightest pressure. The dizziness that had been his frequent companion of late had receded enough to allow him to move about, though certainly he could benefit from another few days of rest and recovery.
But he’d wanted her to lay it into his land. That deep flush that had saturated her cheeks with embarrassment to have caught him at his bath—he’d enjoyed it perhaps a little too much. More than was proper, certainly. More than waswise. How long had it been since he had last known a woman who could be moved to blush?
His world—at least, the world he’d occupied this last year—entirely precluded such prudishness. But she was just a little country miss, too innocent for her own good. She hadn’t the dissipation he’d acquired. Probably her world was very small, centered around this decrepit manor house and the family with whom she shared it.
Another man, likely, would have felt the tug of conscience; that small inner voice that separated man from beast. The one that inexorably steered agoodman from the depraved and twisted paths that beckoned back into the light toward justice and mercy and all thingsright.
But Luke had made a skill of ignoring that voice for some time, ever since—no; he wasn’t going to think ofherany longer. Not when there were pleasanter things with which to occupy his mind. Pleasanterwomen, for certainly Lizzie, even with her propensity toward murder, was a sweeter diversion.
Perhaps it was the very goodnessin her that called to the wickedness in him. A light unspoiled, still so pure and innocent that everything dark and dissolute within him longed to bathe itself in that cleansing glow.
But how long could that flame be expected to hold back the darkness? How long until it, too, was extinguished beneath the suffocation of his corruption?
∞∞∞
The only thing that had kept Luke confined to the room for the remainder of the day was the fact that he knew himself to be located upon the upper level of the house, and the thought of risking his neck in a tumble down the stairs proved enough of a deterrent to keep him largely confined to bed for yet another day.
He’d found spare linens tucked within the wardrobe, and had tried his hand at making up a bed for the first time in his life—a thankless task it had turned out to be, since he couldn’t seem to get the corners of the sheet to stay tucked where they ought, and the result had been bedclothes that seemed to creep up upon him whenever he shifted his weight. He’d also found several sets of clothing, years and years out of date and musty-smelling besides, but even slinging on a shirt that had pinched in around his shoulders and a pair of trousers several inches too big in the waist and too short in the legs had made him feel lesslike a worthless layabout.
What he had not found, in his inspection of the drawers and general contents of the room, was any sort of the accoutrements he might have expected from a home as grand as this once had been. Decorations were sparse, and what few there were showed evidence of neglect. Nothing remotely precious or costly yet remained, almost as if it had never existed at all.
Or it had been stripped away.
There were curious sounds from without his room on occasion—hushed words, whispers, odd thumps.Somethingwas happening beyond his door, to which he was not privy. It wasn’t that it annoyed him,per se, but since the Talbot family’s secrets had developed the regrettable tendency to involvehimthus far, it made him uneasy, unsettled.
He had likely been discovered missing at this point. A man of his station did not simplydisappearwithout someone noticing—and even if those who had attended the house party from which he had been abducted had not noticed him missingimmediately, then even they could not have failed to do so after a week’s absence.
It was the prerogative of a man of his rank to go where he pleased, when he pleased—but there was simply no reality that existed in which some sort of alarm hadn’t been raised when he’d failed to meet his coachman to be returned to London.
Doubtful that anyone would think to look for him in Hatfield. But certainly some sort of communication would have gone out to his various estates, inquiring whether or not he’d made an unannounced journey there.
Someonewould have to be informed. And he needed things, besides—things he doubted very much whether the Talbots would have the means to acquire. He rifled through the aged desk situated at the corner of the room beneath the window, and found, tucked away at the very back of the drawer, a few scraps of paper yellowed and brittle with age. And a bottle of ink gone a bit too thick to write cleanly. And a quill pen, its nib long dulled.
He sat down upon the chair at the desk and began to scratch out instructions. Money—that was his first requirement. He doubted anyone this far out would be willing to accept a bank draft, given that they’d have to go to his bank in London to receive its value. Clothing was imperative, since he did not intend to spend his time swathed in garments that had seen betterdecades. Mr. Wycombe, too, would have to be handled—
The shrill creak of the hinges assailed his ears. “Ah, good,” he said. “I’ve a letter that needs to—”
“Are you gonna hang Lizzie?” The belligerent voice came from just inside the door, and it soundedyoung. He lifted his head at last and caught sight of them lingering just over the threshold—the children he’d heard skittering up and down the halls, shrieking in that way that children had, and which had grated upon his nerves.
The girl was a bit taller than the boy, though he doubted that either of them were above the age of ten or eleven. They had the same dark, coffee-colored eyes as their elder sister; the boy blond and the girl brunette. Their clothes were plain, though the boy’s had some notable stains about the knees, as if he spent a not-insignificant portion of his time rolling upon the ground.
“More Talbots, I assume,” he said, with a lift of one brow. “I can see you’ve inherited your sister’s predilection for entering without knocking.”
“But are you going tohangher, sir?” This from the girl this time, and damned if she didn’t nudge her chin up in a haughty manner more befitting a dowager duchess instead of the bedraggled little thing she was.
Because the impudent little whelps had chosen to intrude upon his privacy, he pretended to think it over. “Well,” he said, “shedidshoot me.”
“It was an accident! Willie said!” The boy curled his hands into fists, throwing his shoulders back as if preparing to throw a punch. Luke could almost admire it; he’d met dozens of men with pedigrees more pure who wouldn’t have thought twice on a sister’s fate.
The girl laid her hand upon his shoulder like a guiding angel. “He’s not going to hang her, Georgie,” she said with abrupt certainty, and those dark eyes assessed him like those of an old soul, like she could peer within him and find the truth. Still, her lip curled—as if she’d found more than she’d bargained for there within him and hadn’t much cared for it. An uncommonly intelligent child, then.
