Gabriel D'Arcy. Ann Lethbridge
the urge to laugh at the sharpness of her attack. Nor would he pretend she had not scored a hit. ‘You will see when we get there.’
They finished eating in silence and she took her cup of tea back to the hearth. Any other woman would be trembling with fear at this point. But she wasn’t any other woman. She was his enemy and likely carefully chosen. He might admire her. Even lust after her. But he would not underestimate her.
Another scratch on the door.
Her expression turned wary. As well it might. She would not like what he would do next.
He gestured to the bed. ‘Please, lie down.’
A flare of anger sparked amid the blue. ‘Why? Are you planning a ménage à trois? I assure you it is not to my taste.’
‘Good grief,’ he said, before he could stop himself. ‘What would make you think such a thing?’ He pulled his pistol from his pocket. ‘The bed, if you please, Nicky.’
She responded to the note of command in his voice with an upward tilt of her chin. Her gaze dropped to the pistol as if considering her options. He bit back a smile at her courage. Finally, clearly unwilling, she climbed gracefully onto the bed.
‘Hands together, if you please.’
She rolled her eyes, but complied. ‘Really?’
He caught both hands in one of his, set down his pistol and pulled the rope from his pocket. He made quick work of the knot then tied it to the bedrail above her head.
She gave a small tug, shook her head and smiled. ‘You pervert.’
‘Sorry. I just don’t need to be worrying about you for a while.’
He let Walter in. ‘Well timed.’
‘You said to wait fifteen minutes.’
Gabe could imagine him down in the kitchen watching the minutes tick by. ‘You did very well indeed.’
Walter flicked a sideways glance at the countess. His jaw slackened.
‘I need your help,’ Gabe said.
‘Yes, my lord.’ The lad’s eyes were clear and guileless.
Gabe sighed. This was about to get very difficult. And very painful. ‘Put the things I asked for on the hearth and help me out of this coat, if you please.’
Walter knelt and produced several items from his capacious pockets. A knife. A box of basilica powders. A bandage. His lips moved as he laid the items out on the grey-veined marble. He looked up at Gabe for confirmation that he had all that was requested.
‘Well done, old fellow,’ Gabe said. Damnation, he did not want to ask Walter to do this.
The lad stood and Gabe turned to let him peel the coat over his shoulders and down his arms.
Walter gulped. A gasp came from the bed.
He glanced down. He wasn’t surprised to see the bandage the innkeeper’s wife had applied soaked through with blood.
‘You idiot,’ Nicky said. ‘It looks a great deal worse than a scratch. Do you have a death wish?’
He looked at her and was surprised by the anger in her face. ‘It is not as bad as all that.’
She made a scornful sound in the back of her throat.
She was right. Beneath the bandage, his arm was a mess. By rights, he should be calling for a surgeon. Not something he had time for. He glanced at the greenish tinge to Walter’s face.
‘Dear fellow, fetch me a bowl of hot water, will you, please?’
Walter swallowed and nodded, his gaze still fixed on the bloody bandage.
‘Off you go, then.’ Gabe watched him gallop out of the room. Carefully, he untied his cravat and laid it over the chair, then worked at the knot in the bandage.
‘Can I help?’ Nicky asked.
He glanced over at her, stretched out on the bed, her arms over her head, her face framed by her elbows, her lush breasts pushed up against the confining fabric of her riding habit. Again a surge of unwanted lust. He grinned. ‘The sight of you lying there is keeping my spirits up.’
‘More than your spirits,’ she said, pointedly glancing at his hips.
‘Hussy,’ he said, with a laugh. ‘Your kind of help I can do without.’
‘I don’t think your Walter is going to be of much assistance,’ she retorted. ‘He’s likely to cast up his accounts and have you playing nursemaid.’
‘Too true.’ He got the knot undone and pulled the bandage away from the wound, sucking in a breath of pain when it caught in the dried blood crusted around the edges.
‘Mon Dieu,’ she muttered. ‘Les hommes.’
No doubt she was rolling her eyes again. With the bandage off, he pulled his shirt over his head and inspected the wound he’d only glimpsed when the woman had bound it up for him. An inch or two to the right and it would have hit his heart. He probed it gently with a fingertip. And cursed.
‘The ball is still in there.’ she said.
He wiped his bloody fingers on his shirt. ‘Apparently so.’
* * *
Nicky glared at him as he got up and draped his shoulder with a towel from the washstand in the corner. The man was an idiot if he thought he could take a ball out of his arm himself.
The boy returned with a kettle of steaming water and a bowl. ‘Set it down on the hearth, lad.’ Walter did as requested and then beamed at his master.
Mooreshead frowned. ‘I should have asked you to bring up some brandy.’
The boy looked worried. ‘What does it look like? Me mam went back to the cottage.’
Mooreshead shook his head. ‘It’s all right. I’ll get it. You wait here with the countess.’ He strode out of the room.
‘Walter,’ Nicky said with a beguiling smile. ‘Untie me. Please.’
He giggled, but didn’t move.
‘Walter,’ she said again, more firmly but gently. ‘He can’t possibly remove that ball from his arm. He needs my help. Untie me.’
‘I don’t take no orders from anyone but him.’ He stuck out a lip.
She sighed and let her head fall back. ‘What makes you so loyal to a man like him?’
He stared at her in puzzlement. Innocent loyalty. What would he say if he knew the truth about the man he served? Would he care? Probably not. She certainly thought better of Mooreshead for his kindness to this poor benighted man-child.
‘Tying people up is wrong, you know.’
Shadows filled his eyes. ‘I know,’ he mumbled. ‘Mam wouldn’t like it. But she said I must always do as he asks.’
‘Why?’
He frowned and stared off into the distance as if he was trying to recapture a memory, then smiled in triumph. ‘Old marquess tossed us out with not a penny in our pockets—’ he inhaled a quick breath ‘—so we must do all we can to help my lord. It’s only right.’
The words came out so fast it took a moment to make sense of them. ‘His father tossed you out?’
‘When Pa died. He...he needed the cottage for the new man.’ He frowned. ‘I don’t know the new man. My lord was very angry. I thought I was bad. He was bad. Old marquess.’
He started to look upset.
‘And so Lord Mooreshead brought you here, to his home.’
‘Lord Templeton.’
She