How To Vex A Viscount (32 page)

The innkeeper served up a hearty supper of thick stew in the black-timbered common room. The rowdy patrons who’d booked up the other bedchambers crowded around the long trestle table, sopping up their stew with chunks of barley bread and telling randy stories, each more ribald than the last.

Daisy and Lucian kept to themselves till one of the men at the far end of the room wondered loudly “if a lady’s tits are softer than a barmaid’s.”

Lucian slammed his fist on the table. “I’d mind my tongue, if I were you.” He didn’t raise his voice, but the menace in his tone travelled the length of the room quite effectively.

“And who’s going to make me, gov?” the man said. “I got me three friends here, and looks to me as if you and the lady are traveling alone.”

Quick as a blink, Lucian was on his feet, the blade at his hip out and poised to strike like an adder. “We may be alone but we are not entirely without resources.”

Surprise coursed through Daisy. She’d observed Lucian without his shirt and knew he was well muscled, but she’d come to think of him as more the scholarly type. She’d never seen him move with such lethal grace.

The men pushed back from the table, swiping their mouths with their sleeves and brandishing long dirks. Now panic followed surprise through Daisy’s limbs.

“Lucian—”

“Daisy, go upstairs and lock yourself in the room.”

It wasn’t a request. It was a command, spoken with such ringing authority, it didn’t occur to her to disobey. Besides, she reasoned correctly that her presence would only be a hindrance and a distraction to him.

She scurried up the rickety staircase, but couldn’t bring herself to full obedience. She stopped halfway and sank onto the steps, pressing her face between the spindles on the barrister. If she could find something to hurl from this height, perhaps she could dispatch one of his attackers, but there were no friendly potted plants available.

Where on earth had that blasted innkeeper gotten off to?

Her heart pounded with fear.

The men circled, looking for an opening. Lucian turned with them, feinting with his length of steel like a great cat lashing out with its claws to keep the hunting dogs at bay. Daisy shoved a knuckle into her mouth to keep from crying out.

Then it began. One of the men lunged, and Lucian’s blade flashed. Muscle and sinew, intelligence and instinct, everything came together in perfect concert as Lucian danced with the rustics’ dirks. Daisy was both terrified and awestruck at the nimble, masculine beauty of his sword work. He fought to disarm, not to kill. One by one, they yelped and swore and finally dropped their weapons, unwilling to step within the reach of Lucian’s longer blade.

All but the first man.

“Bloody cowards,” he said when his friends withdrew. Throwing a knife was a final recourse in a brawl. If the aim was true, the gamble paid off. If not, the fighter found himself disarmed and at his opponent’s mercy. The man must have liked his chances. He flipped his dirk around, grasped it by the blade and launched it at Lucian.

Lucian tried to dodge clear, but the blade caught his sword arm just south of his shoulder. Daisy screamed. Lucian yanked the dirk out with his left hand and brandished both blades at his attacker, bellowing with pain and bloodlust.

“What’s going on out here?” The innkeeper finally reappeared through the door that led out to the summer kitchen, bearing an old but serious-looking blunderbuss. “You’re getting blood all over the floor, ye heathens. Get ye to yer beds, and I mean now or out ye all go.”

“I have no bed,” Lucian reminded him.

“Get ye upstairs with that ‘sister’ of yers then, before I throw the pair of ye out.” He cast a murderous glance around the room. “And if I hear anything louder than a mouse’s fart out of any of ye, ye’ll be sleepin’ with the pigs and payin’ me double for the privilege of finer bed companions than ye deserve. Now go!”

“I can climb the stairs by myself,” Lucian complained. Daisy fluttered about him, lifting his good arm over her shoulders as if she could actually bear his weight. “Stop. What are you—I don’t need your help. You’re more likely to send us tail-over-teakettle than anything.”

“It would serve you right,” she said as she kicked the bedchamber door open for them. “I mean, honestly! Taking on four simpletons with knives.”

“That’s just it. I was never in any real danger.” He removed his sword belt and draped it over the back of the only chair in the spartan room. “You said it yourself: they were simpletons.”

She snorted and slammed the door shut, throwing the bolt for good measure. “They weren’t the only ones.”

He yanked off his jacket and shirt. The wound was shallow, but he needed to stop the bleeding. Daisy was two steps ahead of him. She’d already ripped the flounce from the bottom of one of her petticoats and was dabbing at his biceps with part of it.

“We need some spirits. Mr Dedham is probably still in the common room.” She pressed the wad of cloth to his wound and moved his left hand to cover it. “Hold it there. I’ll be right back.”

“No, Daisy—”

The door slammed behind him and he sighed. For a moment, he had a dizzying glimpse at the rest of his life if Daisy Drake swirled at the centre of it. No matter what he said, this woman was always going to do exactly as she pleased.

Surprisingly enough, that didn’t bother him as much as it should have. He sank onto the chair and waited. She bustled back in with an armful of fresh muslin, already torn into strips. Apparently, knife fights weren’t all that uncommon at the Wounded Boar, so the innkeeper was well prepared. Lucian noted with pleasure that she brought up a small jug of spirits, as she’d intended.

“I don’t mind if I do.” He reached for the jug. She hugged it to her breasts, twisting to hold it beyond his grasp.

“Not yet. Only if there’s any left after,” she informed him. All business, she scrubbed his arm, first with soap and water from her washstand, then with the raw spirits.

“Yow!” he yelped when she dribbled a little on the gap in his flesh. It burned like the fires of hell.

“Careful,” she said. “That was definitely louder than a mouse fart, and I don’t think you particularly want to sleep with the pigs.”

“Aside from inflicting the most possible pain, why did you do that?”

“I was raised by pirates, remember. Mr Meriwether said his mates who sloshed a bit of rum on themselves while the ship’s surgeon stitched them up seemed to fare better than those who only drank the spirits.” Twin slashes of concentration formed between her brows. “Now you may have a drink.”

He tipped the jug and watched her as she wound the muslin around his arm. She turned her lips inward and sighed as she worked.

“Where did you learn to fight like that?” she asked.

“There was a girl once who bested me with a pike,” he said with a grin. “I promised myself that would never happen again, so I took my fencing lessons seriously from that day forward.”

“Then it seems you owe that
girl
a debt of gratitude instead of constant recriminations for something that you know beyond doubt was an accident. There.” She tied off the bandage and fisted her hands at her waist. “I suppose we must be grateful the wound wasn’t worse.”

“Well, my arm isn’t the only casualty.” He picked up his frock coat and examined it. Blood stained the sleeve to the elbow, and the knife hole was too jagged to patch without being noticeable. “That settles it. My association with you has officially ruined my entire wardrobe.”

“Would you have preferred I bared my breasts so they could satisfy their curiosity about their relative softness?” she said.

He caught her by the waist and pulled her between his spread knees. “I’m thinking to reserve that privilege for myself.”

He reached a hand behind her neck and brought her down for a kiss. Her lips trembled, then stilled beneath his as he slanted his mouth over hers. She was so sweet, so tender. He didn’t push when she failed to open to him, though it pained him to hold back. The rush of excitement from his fight coupled with her nearness had given him an aching cockstand.

She pulled away from him. “No, Lucian.”

“No?” he repeated with incredulity. He’d just faced down four armed men for her. What more did the woman want?

“We’ve behaved . . .
I’ve
behaved rashly in the past,” she amended. “It is an error I do not intend to repeat.”

“An error. You believe what we’ve shared, what we’ve been to each other is wrong?”

“As the world counts sins, definitely,” she said with a sad little smile. “As for myself, I would have said ‘no’ until very recently. But I’ve come to realize it was all a game with you.”

“That’s not true.”

“How can it not be?” she said, stepping back from him another pace. “You don’t trust me. Not enough. It was wrong of me to become . . . intimate with someone who cares so little for me that he doesn’t wish me to know his
business.”

“Oh, Lord, we’re back to that.”

“If two people don’t share something as ordinary and mundane as the business aspects of their lives, how can they hope to achieve a deeper bond?” Her face threatened to crumple. “I know things have been difficult for you, Lucian, but believe me, money is not everything. I certainly don’t think any less of you for your financial situation.”

If only it were that simple . . .

“I’ve never met a man who worked harder than you,” she went on. “Society may frown on your efforts, but I admire you for them—”

“Daisy, stop.” He held up his hand. “This has nothing to do with money. Once we find the treasure, my concerns on that front are over, in any case.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me Mr Peabody was spying on your progress and working in concert with Sir Alistair?”

“Because of why they want to find the treasure. Fitzhugh intends to use it to fund another Scottish uprising to put James Stuart on the throne,” he said.

“But that’s treason,” she said, aghast. “If you didn’t want to tell me, why didn’t you go to the authorities and have them arrested?”

If he said the words, if he admitted his fears aloud, it would remove all doubt and make them real. But nothing was more real than his feelings for Daisy. And sharing this horrible truth was one way to show her how he trusted her. Needed her. His shoulders slumped. “Because I fear my father may be in league with the traitors.”

“And the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone.’ Perhaps it has escaped His notice, but it’s no treat for the woman either.”

—the journal of Blanche La Tour

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Lucian dragged a hand over his face. “And it’s not just that.”

“Not just that? Not
just
treason, you mean?” Daisy’s eyes widened with surprise.

“I fear my father’s losing his mind,” Lucian said.

“Well, I knew he had an unreasonable hatred of my family, but plenty of people hold grudges, whether they have cause or not,” Daisy said softly. “It may mean they’re cantankerous, but it doesn’t mean they are mad.”

“No, this is more than a grudge,” Lucian said. “He means your family, your uncle in particular, grave harm. I came across his journal lying open in the study. . . .”

He hadn’t meant to pry, but the volume was spread on his desk, as if his father had been called away suddenly and hadn’t taken the time to sand the page and close it. His father’s normally spidery script was ballooned all out of proportion, almost a childish scrawl. The page was pocked with inkblots, and passages describing the earl’s most fervent ill wishes were virulently underlined. Some was pure gibberish. And the rest was deeply troubling. The venom in his father’s pen chilled Lucian’s heart with foreboding. No one should have that much hate boiling inside them.

No sane person did.

He looked up at Daisy’s clear-eyed face and couldn’t repeat what he’d read. “There’s more than that. He talks to himself. Late at night, far gone in drink.”

“If I could count the number of nights I heard my uncle’s friend Mr Meriwether stumbling about Dragon Caern singing to himself, I could count the stars,” Daisy said.

“Yes, but did Mr Meriwether sing of dismembering someone?”

Daisy sank onto the edge of the sagging bed. “Pirate songs are not noted for delicacy, but no, there was nothing like that.”

“The earl hides it well, but there’s something wrong behind his eyes. With each day, it’s more pronounced.” Being able to finally voice his concern flooded Lucian with relief. The problem wasn’t resolved, but he was exorcizing the demon a bit. “It’s as if little parts of him, all the good and decent parts I remember from my childhood, are going to sleep and something much darker is waking to take their place.”

“And you fear he’s involved with Sir Alistair’s plot?”

Lucian nodded.

“I wonder if someone else doesn’t suspect it as well,” Daisy said, knitting her fingers together. “When Lord Wexford forbade me to see you again, he didn’t come right out and say so, but he hinted that he knew something about your family, something scandalous. ‘Something dangerous’ were his exact words. He didn’t wish to see me or, by association, himself and my great-aunt caught up in it.” She studied her tangled fingers. “I thought it must be some silly society debacle, but now, I wonder if he meant this Jacobite scheme.”

Lucian’s lips flattened into a grim line and he stared down at the braided rug between his feet, a miasma of faded colours with no discernible pattern. It looked as hopeless as he felt.

“Wexford must have caught wind of the plot,” Lucian said. “He doesn’t strike me as the sort who suffers society’s foolishness gladly.”

A man who’d married a former courtesan, and one who couldn’t give him an heir to boot, effectively thumbed his nose at convention. Clearly the Earl of Wexford didn’t court public opinion that fastidiously. But treason would give any man pause.

“Each time my father tried and failed to reverse the family fortunes, he slipped a little farther into the abyss,” Lucian said. “His latest ploy is to see me well married.”

“To Clarinda Brumley.”