Truly Yours (7 page)

Now it was Rex’s turn to blush—for perhaps the first time in ten years. Lud, the female was looking at him as if he were a fancy bonnet in a shop window, no, a bonbon on a platter that she was thinking of tasting, of biting and licking and—and if she wet her lips one more time with her pink tongue, the towel was not going to be enough to save both of them from more embarrassment. “I apologize for my undress, and for Verity’s disturbing your rest. Please get back under the covers.” Where the fire’s light could not outline her slender figure through the white lawn nightdress. She bent to put the pitcher back on the bedside table and he drew in a breath at the sight of her rounded bottom. Good grief, he had been without a woman too long if he was drooling over a sickly female with a noose hanging over her head, almost literally. “Please get down, you have been too sick to be so active.” He’d help her, but that would take two hands, and he needed one at the hastily tied knot of the towel.

She was feeling dizzy, actually, but she did not want to go back to sleep, or to have him leave. “That is your dog?”

“Hm?” He’d been watching her smooth out her nightgown, then gracefully slide under the blankets. She was sitting up, though, with her breasts uncovered except for the gown’s thin fabric. He could make out the dark shadow of her nipples, and wondered if she really was a virgin, or a hardened seductress. Rumors had her meeting a lover, according to his information. If she were already bachelor fare . . .

“I suppose the beast must be yours, the way it is drooling on your foot.”

Rex tore his gaze away from the woman’s breasts and his thoughts away from the gutter. Who was the beast? Him? “Oh, Verity. More like I am her person. She found me one day and has hardly left my side since. I apologize for not warning you. You were sleeping soundly, so I saw no reason to disturb you from the rest you need.”

Amanda looked at the dog with distrust, then scrubbed a hand over her cheek. “I am sorry if I bothered you, after all your kindness. I think she must have been licking my cheek. The unexpected wetness startled me, that is all. I do like dogs.”

The muddiness in Rex’s mind cleared when she added, “Small, friendly ones. I should not have screamed.”

He shrugged. What was one more earsplitting shriek? “Half of London already believes I am torturing the truth out of you.”

“I do not understand.”

“That is a godsend. But speaking of the truth, will you tell me now how your stepfather died?” Rex knew he should wait until they were both properly attired, but she seemed alert and eager to talk. And he did not want to leave yet. “Did you kill him?”

“I—”>

“Well, I have never seen the like, in all my born days! You know better than that, Master Jordan, prancing around in your altogether—and in a lady’s bedchamber besides. Why, I’d think you were raised by wolves if I hadn’t done the job myself!”

“Nanny?” Rex hardly recognized the gray-haired woman who had been the nearest thing to a mother he had after the countess left. She was a great deal smaller than he recalled, and stooped over. For all her bent back, she tossed her own plaid woolen shawl over his shoulders to cover his bare skin.

“Who else do you think would come when that fool Dodd sent a man blathering about murder and disaster and the downfall of the countess? He was right, too, from the looks of things. Why, I would be mortified if the countess found out I let you compromise her goddaughter.”

Rex ignored the bit about compromising. “But how? I mean, how did Dodd know to send for you?”

“Tsk. My sister is your mother’s housekeeper, don’t you know. Sadie stays with me in Richmond while the countess is away.”

“I did not know you lived so near to London. I would have visited.”

“Like you visited your mum, then?”

“I do not wish to speak of that.” Rex noticed that Miss Carville was following the whole conversation, her brown eyes shifting from him—and his bare legs, damn it—to Nanny Brown.

“Don’t you go getting all niffy-naffy on me, Master Jordan, me who wiped your bum when you were born.”

“Nanny!” Rex saw Miss Carville hide a smile behind her hand. Lud, he wished he had his breeches, or a bigger towel.

There was no stopping Nanny Brown. “But the trouble between you and the countess is for another day. Today is for the kettle of slops you’ve landed in now.”

That took the smile off Miss Carville’s face.

“Well, you always were one for trouble, weren’t you? At least this time you knew enough to come to your mum’s house. My sister is already taking over the kitchen until Cook comes back, although Sadie never could cook worth a ha’penny and she gets bilious, don’t you know. I’ll take over with the young lady.”

That was a dismissal, so Rex headed toward the door. Nanny followed, until they were out of Miss Carville’s hearing. Then she wanted to know what the doctor said.

“He said that she’d live long enough to hang.”

“You won’t let that happen.”

Her words showed as a bright yellow to Rex. Nanny really believed he could alter the course of British justice. “I’ll try.”

“Well, get on with you then. You won’t find the guilty one sitting here. And you don’t belong in a young lady’s bedchamber in the first place. You should know better.”

“Yes, Nanny. But—”

“And without your clothes? Heaven help us if that’s what they teach young gentlemen in university. Or did the army give you bad manners along with a limp? You need fattening up, besides.” She poked a bony finger in his ribs.

There was nothing like being treated like a little boy, right after acting like a rutting stag. Since he had not received the answers he needed from Miss Carville, though, Rex asked for Nanny’s opinion. “You don’t believe she is guilty?”

“Why, look at the little lamb. And I don’t mean the way you were gawking when I came in, either. No, if she did shoot the cur, she’d have good reason. Your mother adored her, Sadie says, so there cannot be a mean streak to her. Now get on with you. Sadie is heating some stew for all of us. I made it, so you’ll like it. Until we get more help, you’ll have to take potluck—once you are decent.”

At least Miss Carville was in good hands. Now Rex could start unraveling the knots in her tangled circumstances. Nanny seemed confident he could. The stew was indeed good and filling, and Murchison had packed some of his old, comfortable clothes. His leg felt better for the hot bath and the rest.

He had no more excuses for staying in, or for not finding his cousin Daniel.

T
he footman who was sent to find Daniel came back with his current address, but not his present whereabouts.

“One of the other boarders says as how Mr. Stamfield oftentimes drinks and dices at Dirty Sal’s, a low den in Seven Dials where no gentleman less’n his size and reputation would dare walk,” the footman reported. “I wouldn’t put one foot there.”

Rex had no choice but to leave Miss Carville alone with the servants although he worried about her welfare with such watchdogs: a philandering butler and a cowardly footman, a sniveling kitchen maid and a pimply potboy, a masquerading French valet, a housekeeper who could not cook, and a bent old nanny. Meanwhile the real watchdog, Verity, hid under the bed at the first sign of trouble.

They’d have to do, Rex decided as he tucked a pistol into his waistband and secured a dagger in his boot. His jackass of a cousin had to be stopped from committing suicide in a slum. That, too, was now Rex’s responsibility. Last week he’d been riding and sailing, with nothing but his thoughts and his dog for company. Granted his thoughts were dismal, but now he was in the metropolis, with people depending on him again, fools that they were. He’d sworn to take orders from no one, be beholden to no one, and have no one’s welfare depending on him and his one freakish talent.

Once again, his wants and wishes were blown about like leaves in autumn.

“Shall I call for your carriage, my lord?” Dodd asked, all respectful in hopes of keeping his position.

“No, the crested coach would be set upon instantly, if it could fit through the narrow streets, and a horse would be stolen as soon as I dismounted. I’ll take a hackney as far as the driver will carry me and walk the rest of the way.” He practiced sliding the case off the cane he carried, revealing the sword hidden within. His clothes were plain country wear, with no gleaming rings or fancy buckles to tempt the denizens of London’s underworld, but if anyone should challenge him, he’d be ready. He half wished some thug would try to pick his pocket or steal his purse. Heaven help the poor bastard.

Maybe the scum who hid in alleys had unspoken talents of their own, like reading danger in the set of a man’s jaw, or seeing murderous intents like sparks in his eyes. No one bothered Rex. For a coin, a street urchin led him straight to Dirty Sal’s, after asking twice to be sure the toff really wanted to go inside that sinkhole. For another coin, the boy offered to take a message to the gent’s family, for when he didn’t come out.

Rex tossed him a coin without answering, and stepped through a cloud of smoke and sour ale and sweat. He waited for his eyes to grow accustomed to the gloom and his nose to the stench, while he kept his back to the wall near the doorway. The gaming tables were full. So were the spaces at the long plank bar against the opposite wall. Rex could not make out every face, or see into every corner, but Daniel’s size usually made him more easily spotted than most. Rex noticed a man with an eye patch leading a woman in a loose blouse up rickety stairs to the floor above. Perhaps Daniel was taking his pleasure—and the pox—there instead of at the dice tables. The viscount ordered a mug of ale while he waited. The barmaid leaned forward so he could see where she tucked his coin, and offered him more than a drink. He smiled and shook his head.

From his position, Rex could overhear some of the conversation at a nearby card table. Without even trying to pick colors from their words, Rex knew at a glance which of the players were cheating. They were all cheating. Marked decks, hidden cards, signals passed across the table—just a friendly game among pals. An argument ensued over how many aces were in the pack. Heated words turned to a shove, which turned to a punch, which pushed a chap at the next table into dropping his dice, which came up sixes for the fifth time, which led to more shouts, more punches, and more of a melee, with his cousin Daniel in the middle. Of course.

Chairs were flying, tables were overturned, the barkeep was swinging a club, and Dirty Sal herself—or so Rex thought she must be—was waving a musket around.

Now this was the very entertainment Rex had been missing. Slashing out with his cane, he cleared a path to his cousin and got between him and the owner of the establishment, who appeared ready to shoot the next rotter who broke a chair. If there was one glass left unbroken at the end of the night, that would be a miracle.

“I’ve got your back,” Rex shouted over the din of the fight.

Daniel turned and grinned, using his thick upraised arm to fend off a tossed stool. “Just like old times, you little nit. You need me to save your skin.”

“Hah!” Rex punched a ferret-faced man in the midsection.

Daniel threw another combatant aside as easily as he’d thrown the stool. Rex used his cane to trip a charging drunk. Daniel banged together the heads of a pair of men who did not have seven teeth between them—and Rex lobbed a pitcher of ale at Dirty Sal and her musket, dampening the powder enough to render the fight less deadly.

Daniel laughed his loud, deep laugh, and Rex had to laugh, too. The Inquisitors were together again, in the middle of a fine rowdydow.

When it looked as though the establishment’s regulars were going to join forces against the newcomers, Rex shouted, “Had enough?”

“Unless you want to go one on one, little coz.”

“Not this minute, bullyboy. We need to talk.”

“Not here.”

A French cannon wouldn’t be heard in the place. The cousins waded toward the door, dodging fists and punching back when they couldn’t, sticking close together. “Just like old times, eh?”

Rex shook his hair out of his eyes. “Better. No one is shooting at us anymore.”

Daniel suddenly stopped just as they reached the street. Unmindful of the fighting spilling out of the doorway behind them, he took Rex’s chin in his broad hand and turned it to the lantern hanging by the entry, so he could see the scar. Then he looked at Rex’s leg and the cane now bearing his weight, while Rex stayed quiet, breathing hard. “I should have been there with you. This wouldn’t have happened.”

Rex pulled away and started to walk across the street from the gambling hell. He hid his limp as much as possible. “No, we both would have been shot. No one saw the Frenchies creeping around camp until too late.”

“I should have been there,” Daniel insisted in his mulish way. “Your father told me to look after you.”

“Dash it, I was not a child needing a nursemaid. And your mother and sister needed you at home.”

Rex was watching his cousin, not the fight at their backs, so he never saw the thug come at him with a raised bottle. Daniel did and bellowed. Rex turned in time to feel the brunt of the bottle on his nose. Daniel roared a curse, dove at the man, and started pounding at him on the ground.

“Let him go. I don’t think my nose is broken,” Rex said, trying to stop the bleeding with a thin monogrammed square.

Daniel lumbered to his feet and handed over a sturdy spotted handkerchief. “You shouldn’t have called me a useless dumb lummox.”

“I didn’t mean it.”

“I knew that. Didn’t like hearing it anyway.”

“You were too damn stubborn to go home any other way.”

“I am not stubborn, damn you!” Daniel drew his ham-hock fist back and made sure Rex’s nose was broken this time.

“Oh, hell,” Rex muttered through the kerchief, which was joined by Daniel’s neckcloth, then his own. “I thought my father told you to look after me.”