“Shoulder wound,” the physician announced. “There’s no need to flee the scene, my lord.”
“Lucky bastard. Like a cat, he is. But one day, Alynwick, you’ll use up those nine lives, and I hope that when you are on the ninth and final one, it is my bullet that sends you straight to hell. Come along, Sheridan,” the earl ordered. “It is time to return home to deal with my wife.”
“Into the carriage, my lord,” the physician instructed.
“I shall follow in mine. The bullet must be removed and the wound cleansed.”
“I thank you,” Iain growled as Black hefted him up from the wet grass, and none too gently, either. “My man will see to it.”
“You keep a surgeon at the ready, do you?” the physician said with offended hauteur.
Iain laughed at the thought. Sutherland was no doctor. He was barely a valet. But he was a hell of a villain, when Iain found himself in need of one.
“Well, then,” the doctor muttered with a snap of his leather satchel. “I shall bid you good-night.”
“You shouldn’t have ordered him away,” Black snarled as he all but dragged Iain up the carriage stairs. “Your injury is extensive. What if Sutherland can’t manage it?”
“Then I should think that butler of yours,” he gasped as he fell onto the carriage bench, “would do nicely.”
“Billings is at home with my wife, keeping her safe.
I am not having him removed to tend you and your stupidity.”
“Fine, then,” Iain said as he let his head fall back against the squabs. Dawn was slowly rising in the distance, and he closed his eyes as blood continued to pump from his shoulder. “Take me to Sussex House,” he said, his voice sounding distant to his ears.
“Sussex House?” Black enquired. “What for? Patch yourself up first before we descend upon Sussex.”
“Damn you, man!” Iain roared. “Honour a man’s dying wish. Take me to Sussex House, to Elizabeth,” he heard himself murmur. Thankfully, he passed out before he could hear Black’s response.
ON THE EDGE OF Grantham Field, amongst the trees and the fog, stood a town coach with four gleaming black stallions. No one saw it, for he did not want them to. He was not ready for them yet. But soon… Soon the Brethren would be his.
“Did you expect this?” his companion asked as she smoothed her delicate hand up the length of his thigh.
Indeed, he had not. Alynwick was always the wild card in the troika that made up the Brethren Guardians.
A hotheaded Scot, and a man who barely had any control over his base desires and his animal rage.
He had thought the marquis would simply blow the earl away, but instead, Alynwick had been wounded.
A measure of glee swam inside him. Alynwick was wounded—considerably so. It would make things that much easier with Alynwick out of the picture, even temporarily.
Patience, he told himself as the placket of his trousers fell open, and he was gripped by a knowing, skilled hand.
Patience always paid off in the end. He had waited a long, long time for this. And soon, he would be rewarded.
Soon, the Brethren would belong to him—to Orpheus.
“Take me,” she whispered, and he rapped his walking stick against the carriage, sending the vehicle lurch-ing forward.
“Soon, pet,” he mumbled. “I have something to do first. A little surprise for His Grace.”
“It’s not like you to be so kind,” she murmured as her lips worked their way down his neck.
“I’m in the giving mood,” he mumbled, thinking of what he would do. “And Sussex will be the benefactor.” IN THE END, Black ignored his request, which was so typical of him. The bastard always did whatever he wanted.
Instead of taking him to Sussex House, Black carried him, half-conscious, from the carriage and into Iain’s own town house, past his shocked butler, whose harsh, indrawn breath echoed off the fourteen-foot-high ceiling, and all the way up the ornately carved, curving staircase to Iain’s bedroom, where he dropped Iain onto the bed as though he were a sack of grain. Only then did Black rouse Sutherland.
Shortly after, his valet stumbled into the room, wiping the sleep from his eyes. “And what scrape have ye gotten yourself into this time, my lord?”
“What does it look like?” he growled. “I’m bleeding onto the sheets.”
Sutherland grunted when he saw the extent of the wound he was expected to work on. “Won’t be a pretty sight after I’m done, my lord.”
“He’s too pretty now,” Iain heard Black state in his characteristic sombre voice. “A little mark to remind him of his arrogance should be his reward for this night’s business. Patch him up, Sutherland.”
“The ladies will only find the scar more endearing, I’m afraid.”
“Yes. Peculiar how many ladies find something of merit in Alynwick.”
“I’m awake and can hear every damn word you’re both saying.”
“Good,” Sutherland muttered as he tore the blood-soaked shirt from Iain’s chest. “Then you know I’ll make a botch of this shoulder. But you’ll live.”
“Scotch,” he demanded, before saying, “I don’t give a damn what it looks like, just stop the bleeding.”
“You won’t be saying that once you have a look at my handiwork, I’ll wager.”
“For Christ’s sake, Sutherland, I’m not a vain man.”
“I wonder if you’d be claiming that if it was your face I was to work on.”
“Well, then I’d look like the devil on the outside, just as I am on the inside, wouldn’t I?” Sutherland quirked a thick auburn brow. “Yer in one of those moods tonight, I see.”
“Get on with it, or I’ll drag myself out of this bed and find someone more inclined to work, instead of prat-tling like a maid.”
The sound of the crystal stopper popping out of the decanter was music to his ears. However, the roar he let out when Black poured a good measure of the liquid gold onto his shoulder was not.
“Like bloody hellfire,” he gasped between gritted teeth, stiffening under the burning onslaught. “And there’s cheaper stuff to be used for medicinal purposes.
That’s a twenty-five-year aged single malt, Black, and you’ve pissed it away for no good reason.”
“I assumed saving your hide from a stinking puru-lence would be reason enough.”
“The inferior brands can do that as well as any of them.”
Black merely raised one laconic brow as he peered down at him from the side of the bed. “I’ll leave you to your duties, Sutherland. Nothing more to drink for his lordship, no matter what he says or threatens you with.
I’m tired of lugging him about tonight. I want him to walk into Sussex House on his own two feet.”
“Right, my lord.”
Iain glared at the door as it slammed behind Black, then turned to give his valet a wrathful glare. “Cease coddling the damn wound and sew it shut. Or better yet, heat the poker and singe it closed.” It would match the brand on his chest, the one that had been seared upon his flesh when he had been anointed as a Brethren Guardian. Iain had stoically endured the pain, making his father press the glowing brand harder into his skin, trying to break him. But Iain had always been as stubborn as a mule and had refused to do anything but look up into the spiteful eyes of his father and dare him to do his worst. He had suffered silently beneath his initiation. He could withstand the same now.
“I will not burn you,” Sutherland said with disgust.
“Barbaric thought. I’ll sew you up good and tight and hope for the best.”
“Much more expedient with the poker. Use it.” Sutherland ignored him as usual. And unable to provoke a fight to give himself something to fix upon other than the pain, Iain thought of pleasure. His thoughts drifted back to the hours before—at the Sumners’, when he had clutched Elizabeth’s voluptuous curves to his hard body.
A man could make a meal out of her. He certainly wanted to. An image took hold, and he barely felt the straight needle prick h
im, diving under skin and tissue, grabbing more flesh before being pulled tight, tugging the ragged edges of his wound together.
Closing his eyes, he thought of Elizabeth, her long, sable hair unbound, spilling in velvet waves upon a glistening mahogany dining table. Naked, pale, full curves outlined against shining veneer, beneath the delicate glow of a chandelier. She was surrounded by wine goblets and tiered plates of grapes and strawberries.
He sat at the end of the table, sipping a dark merlot, studying the landscape of her body, the way it arched and curved before him. He would wait—would make her wait—as he watched her. He would talk to her, suggest wicked, lascivious things he wanted to watch her do. She would respond to his voice, would be helpless to stop the movement of her body along the table. Her lips would move and part, her breasts… He groaned, not in pain, but pleasure, as he thought of the way her breasts would bounce and sway. He’d have her on her knees, palms planted on the table as she crawled to him, amidst rolling grapes spilling from overturned silver dishes, and streaming rivulets of red wine snaking from toppled goblets. He would watch her, unable to take his gaze off her breasts, the turgid nipples, the way her shining hair moulded to the sway of her full, rounded hips.
“Lower” he would command, and she would respond, as she had once responded so beautifully to his voiced commands. In this fantasy, it was no less true. Lower…
And she would raise her hips, lower her breasts till they just scraped the table with their pointed tips. He’d watch the red wine cover her nipples as she crawled, and the wine drip from them.
Licking his dry lips, Iain watched his fantasy play out in his heated mind, the drops of crimson wine slipping from elongated nipples, the slow, seductive crawl on her knees to him, the feel of his cock, so hard, so throbbing, released from his trousers, his hand fisting it…. Then the movement of his body, the lowering of his head, his lips beneath her breast—so close, waiting for the next drop of wine to slip effortlessly onto his tongue. Her sigh when he drew her into his mouth and suckled, as he pleasured himself… He could come just imagining it.
“I believe, my lord, that we are all finished.” Reluctantly, Alynwick pulled himself from the fantasy to see his shoulder bandaged in white cloth. One glance down the length of his body to his tented kilt made him close his eyes with a groan.
“Whatever you were thinking about, my lord,” Sutherland said knowingly, “it worked. You didn’t flinch once.” TWO HOURS LATER, Alynwick sat in a large chair before the Duke of Sussex, with yet another tent in his kilt as he thought of the images that had flowed through his vivid, fevered imaginings while Sutherland worked over him.
How easy it was to conjure the image of a fair Elizabeth, naked, crawling toward him, red wine staining her body. In his mind he had been seated like a sultan before a harem girl, studying her—his possession. He loved to watch, and there was no woman he found more fascinating than Elizabeth York, with her exterior of innocence, and the eagerness of a harlot. He’d once watched her in the grass, watched the undulations of her body beneath his roving hand as he made her come with slow, knowing caresses and whispered words that were far too indecent for any well-bred young lady’s ears.
She had been younger then, less full than she was now. She’d been beautiful to his eyes, but now… Now he’d give what remained of his soul to see her body, all full, voluptuous curves and soft planes, with secret places for his hand to touch, his lips to caress. He’d had only a glimpse of it last evening, and he wanted more. So much more. To say he was hungry for her was an amusing un-derstatement. He was starved for her.
He groaned, wiped his palm along his unshaved face.
He was damn hard, sitting before Sussex while thinking lurid thoughts of the duke’s sister. He really was an un-repentant rake to debase the innocent sister of his friend with his lascivious dreams and erotic wishes.
“What’s with you?” Black demanded of the silent duke. “Are you ill?”
For the first time, Iain took in Sussex’s haggard appearance, and felt some measure of pleasure. His Grace looked nearly as worn as he did this morning.
When he and Black had barged into Sussex’s study not more than ten minutes before, they had roused the duke from his sleep on the couch. Sussex had nothing to grumble about; he had not been shot in the shoulder.
It was then that Alynwick recalled he had some unfinished business with his friend.
“What the devil d’ye think ye were doing, fobbing me off at Grantham Field?” he asked indignantly, his anger getting the better of him and allowing him to slip into his brogue. “Ye were supposed ta be me second!”
“No,” Sussex growled impatiently, “one of us was supposed to be your second, and because you showed up at the Sumners’ musicale drunk and itching for a fight, I had to bodily remove you from said musicale. Ergo, I was not able to perform as your second, since I wanted to shoot you my goddamn self!”
“I wasna drunk,” Alynwick grumbled, wishing he could forget about the scene he’d created at the Sumners’.
“Itchin’ fer a fight, aye, but no’ drunk.”
“Careful,” Black said with some amusement, “your cultured English accent is giving way to your heathen Highland one.”
Black was hardly helping. And the bastard seemed to be taking an extraordinary amount of enjoyment out of it all. Iain rarely allowed himself to fall victim to his brogue. All the more evidence that something was ruling him, and it was not the coldhearted calculations he was notorious for.
Sussex’s steel-grey eyes settled on him once more.
“Surely you did not believe that it was the thing to do to be your second after the stir you caused at the Sumners’?
Everyone saw what happened, and how I had to remove your arm from Sheldon’s throat!”
“Get at yer point, ye windbag,” he snapped, hating the earl’s name being mentioned. Iain had purposely tried to forget that Elizabeth had been in that room hanging on to the arm of another man. And by the looks of things, bloody well enjoying herself.
“My point, you infuriating brute, is this. We are not supposed to be friends, or even acquaintances, in the eyes of the polite world. We’re to pretend that our own private circles do not cross, so no one will suspect that we are acquainted—in ways we have all vowed never to reveal. And then you stroll in and force my hand, making my sister the object of ridicule and gossip, and you wonder why I didn’t come and perform as your second?
The reason, you Highland ninny, is simple—because no one would believe it! No one would think it plausible that we were out for a pint, met up and I just merrily agreed to travel at dawn to some godforsaken farmer’s field to aid you in putting a bullet hole in someone, when not four hours before you were importuning my sister and nearly killing the Earl of Sheldon!”
Black’s gaze volleyed between them, then he groaned as the truth of Sussex’s revelations sank in. “Alynwick, you didn’t. Good God, you did, didn’t you?” Iain was not chastised, and more to the point, he was ready to fight again. “You didn’t force me away from anything,” he sneered. “I allowed you to tear me off that piece of trash.”
“And how do you know anything about Sheldon,” Sussex growled, “when your face is constantly gazing into the bottom of a whisky decanter?” Iain lunged over the desk, ready to tear his friend apart, but Black caught him by the coat and hauled him back. “None of that, now,” he grunted as he tossed Alynwick into the chair. “Stay!” he shouted, pointing at Iain as if he were a biddable canine when he tried to stand up again.
“I’m no’ a bloody mongrel to heed yer commands.”
“Really?” Black straightened his waistcoat and resumed his seat. “You look like something that’s been roaming the street for weeks. Where did you go after I left you in Sutherland’s care?” He’d gone to find Lady Larabie, that’s where. But he’d been too deep in thought to do anything but regale the lady with the gossip of his fight with her husband. Contrary to Larabie’s boasts, the man had not returned home t
o deal with his wife, but instead made his way to his club in St. James’s. That had left the lady free to dally, but dallying had been the last thing on Iain’s mind. In a strange mood, he had sought out Georgiana for something else entirely. Comfort perhaps. Solace. She’d provided nothing of the sort—only petulance that he did not seem inclined to pleasure her. He was literally sickened by it, sitting in her overly ornate little parlor fending off her roving hands, when all he really wanted was to lay his head in her lap and feel her feminine fingers run through his hair while he pretended he was with Elizabeth. But it had all been to no avail. The lady was not capable of solace, and he had left, disgusted with himself for desiring such a thing. Iain Sinclair did not need anything from anyone—most especially sanctuary in a woman’s arms.
With a sigh, he answered, “You doona want t’ know where I was.”
“By the stench of you, I think I already do.” Iain sent Black a glare, aware that he appeared debauched. But he wasn’t. He was restless, mindless. There was a sickness ruling his thoughts, and if he had the courage to look through the darkness inside him, he’d be able to name the illness. He was heartsick, his soul crying out for the one remedy that could cure his illness. Elizabeth.
But she did not want him, or the love that he could no longer deny.
Sliding deeper into the chair, Iain allowed his hands to riffle through his hair. He wanted his bed, the cool, crisp sheets, and he wanted the images of Elizabeth burning his brain. In his fantasies he could have anything. Even Elizabeth back again.
“Good God, Alynwick, what the devil were you thinking, coming to the Sumners’ and stirring up that scene?” Sussex continued, his considerable arrogance pricked.
“It’ll be in all the gossip rags this morning, and we don’t need that kind of exposure. Damn you!” Sulking, Iain stared out the window, thinking of last night and the scene that had greeted him. A smiling—
glowing—Elizabeth standing beside a man who was looking down upon her with far too much interest. “A provocation, I believe.” He was under control now, his brogue banished. “I was never good at resisting taunts.”
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