The Accidental Countess

by Melissa Schroeder

  He had awakened a few minutes earlier to find himself stripped out of his clothes and with one hell of a headache. Although he liked a good brandy, he reeked of cheap whiskey, a drink that more often than not made him sick. He had no idea where he was. It was not an odd occurrence for him to wake up in a woman’s bed, but he usually remembered her face. Apparently, this woman had something to do with the removal of his clothes.

  “Well, Miss—and I presume it is Miss Macgregor—I repeat, where are my bloody clothes?”

  She visibly swallowed, and her grey eyes widened behind her lenses. As she took another step back, she reached out in front of her with her hands, as if looking for something—or someone—to protect herself with. After a moment’s hesitation she said, “I-I found you outside. Passed out in the snow.” She swallowed again.

  He studied her and realized she just might be telling the truth. From the innocent expression to the ugly blue dress she wore, she had do-gooder written all over her. He shook his head and another shard of pain shot through it. Closing his eyes, he tried to block out the ache as the room around him spun.

  “Oh, sir, you need to lie down.”

  Now there was an understatement. The way his head felt, he would gladly lie comatose for several days. Slowly, trying to minimize the pain in his skull, he heeded her advice and lay back down.

  “Are you warm enough, sir?”

  “Yes.” Burning up in fact.

  Her footsteps neared the bed, and after a moment she pulled the quilts up over his chest again. “Now that that’s settled, who are you?”

  “Sebastian Ware.”

  “Visiting from London, are we?” she asked, a bit of sarcasm seeping into her tone. He was happy that she was at least no longer afraid of him.

  “Yes. I assume you live in this godforsaken area, but I am visiting.”

  “Hmm, well I don’t know what it’s like in London, but it’s generally not a good idea to drink and pass out in the middle of a blizzard.”

  He opened his eyes. She stood by the side of the bed, her hands on her hips. The expression on her face reminded him of a reprimanding nanny.

  “I didn’t drink. I remember a woman…some woman.”

  “Beatrice?”

  For a moment, the offering of Beatrice’s name didn’t register. When it did, suspicion burned within him. Perhaps she wasn’t all she seemed to be. After all, spinsters usually didn’t strip men and put them in their beds. The smirk that had been on her face faded and the wariness was back.

  “Yes, Beatrice, how did you know?” he asked.

  She hesitated, then offered, “You said her name several times.”

  He still doubted her word, but with his head spinning and his body aching, he needed time to think. To plan.

  “Oh, well, yes. I was at Freddy’s party, met Beatrice, then…” He tried to grasp at bits of his memory but there was nothing substantial for his mind to grab hold of. He could remember the party, but past that, everything seemed to fade into oblivion. “I can’t remember one bloody thing.”

  “Yes, well, that happens when you drink too much.”

  “I had nothing to drink, save a solitary glass of brandy,” he said from behind clenched teeth. He sat up, prepared to verbally bash the woman, when the streaks of pain shot through his head. There was a bright light and then nothing at all.

  * * *

  Colleen stared down at Sebastian Ware. Something else was wrong. Drunks passed out, but they definitely did not recover as fast as this one and they did not faint. Eighteen months with her stepfather Harry and she knew what inebriated men did.

  She poked him in the arm with her finger and, realizing he truly had fainted, placed her hands on either side of his head. She studied his face and noticed he had regained his color. That was a good sign. It showed that his blood was pumping. She straightened back up and wondered about Mr. Ware. Lord something or other, if his haughty accent and clothes were any indication of his background.

  Leaning over him again, she noticed a red stain on her pillow. Gently, she cupped the back of his head, lifted it and found drops of blood marring the ivory linen. She turned his head and gasped when she found more dried blood matted in his hair.

  Chapter Two

  Colleen leaned closer. Mr. Sebastian Ware had definitely been coshed on the head by something or someone. Or, he could have hit his head the first time he passed out, she supposed.

  She straightened and placed a hand on each hip. As she looked down at him, she wondered how she missed the blood to begin with. Thinking back, she closed her eyes, remembering how she found him. If her memory served her right, the snow had been untouched, except for the impression his body had left. Blood would have easily shown up against the whiteness of the snow. Which meant that he’d probably been injured somewhere else and then was either dumped by someone or staggered to where he’d lain.

  Not knowing how long he’d had the injury, she assumed it needed cleaning. With all her other troubles, it wouldn’t due to have him succumb to an infection.

  Noting his even breathing, she left the room quickly. She gathered cloth, sewing supplies, brandy to clean the wound as her mother had taught her and a bowl for the brandy.

  She set her supplies on the bedside table then sat down slowly, trying her best not to jostle him. After pouring a bit of brandy into the bowl, she dipped her linen cloth, soaking it in the liquor. With her other hand she gently threaded her fingers through his raven-colored hair, which was unfashionably long and in need of a good trim. He had quite a bit of blood caked in his hair, making it more difficult to find the wound. When she finally did, she discovered a huge bump with a gash in the center.

  “Sir? Mr. Ware?” No response. “Mr. Ware?” Still nothing. “Sebastian?”

  “Wha…”

  “Mr. Ware, you have a nasty cut on the back of your head, and I need to clean it. It’s going to sting.”

  “Cut…sting…” His voice was muffled against the mattress, his tone barely coherent.

  She decided it shouldn’t wait. Gently, she dabbed the cut, once, twice, then pressed against it.

  “Hmm—mumph—bloody hell!” He tried to jerk his head out of her reach, but she held on to it.

  “Oh, hush.”

  He continued to struggle but she tightened her hold. When he apparently realized she wasn’t going to let go, he stopped.

  “Good God, woman. What are you doing to my head?”

  “Cleaning it as I told you.” She dabbed at his head with the cloth, trying to clean away the dried blood. “Someone must have been pretty upset with you. You have a good-size knot on the back of your head. And if you don’t quiet down, I’m going to give you a matching one right on top of it.”

  “Why do I have to be quiet?” Knowing he was probably wearing the same disgruntled look as he had earlier, she smiled.

  “Because, I don’t want to listen to you screaming like a little girl.”

  “I don’t scream like a girl. Ouch! I think you’re enjoying this.”

  She chuckled. “I’m thinking you may not have been that drunk.”

  “I had only a brandy last night.”

  “Your clothes reeked of whiskey.”

  “Hate whiskey,” he muttered, sounding like a little boy again.

  “Well, you could probably do with a few stitches, but I’m afraid you’ll cry.”

  “Oh, stop. If I need a few stitches, I’ll take it. Stiff upper lip and all that.”

  She chuckled again, and Sebastian resisted joining in. He had pegged her for a prude. Truth be told, he knew she was. Though if he hadn’t seen that morbid dress and scraped back hair, he would have never known.

  More than likely it was her voice. Low, husky and comforting, it was the type of voice a man liked to hear in the bedroom. The sound of it sent a rush of heat to his belly. The contradiction between her voice and her personality confused him, and also intrigued him. He willed the feeling away. Spinsters were not his cup of tea, no matter how sensual th
ey sounded.

  “Now, I’m going to stitch it up.” Her tone was so kind and reassuring, he wondered if she were the same woman who had threatened to give him another bump on the head.

  “You thought I was a drunk,” he said, wincing as she began stitching up his wound.

  “I did find you lying lifeless in the snow, with no coat and smelling of cheap whiskey. What was I to think?” Her voice was no longer as warm, but practical instead.

  “You know Beatrice?”

  She remained silent but he did not want to let it go.

  “Miss Macgregor?”

  “No. You mentioned her once or twice.” Her voice had cooled a bit more, and he realized he must have said something to embarrass her. With his past, that could be just about anything.

  “Hmm…any other interesting tidbits I shared I should know about?”

  “No, you just mentioned a few names.” He could hear the shrug in her voice.

  “Names?”

  She hesitated, then said, “Female names.”

  “Oh?” When she continued on with her task and ignored his prodding, irritation inched up his spine, making his head pound harder. “I didn’t try anything, did I?”

  She cleared her throat. “N…no. Not really. There you go. All done.”

  Miss Macgregor stood, and Sebastian rolled over on his back, being careful of his head.

  He studied her as she gathered her supplies. “So you saw no one around when you found me?”

  She placed all the items in a basket and answered him without looking in his direction. “No. And I daresay you were there for a time.” Picking up the basket, she turned to him.

  He watched her for a second or two, trying to make eye contact, but she looked everywhere but at him.

  “Why?”

  Finally, she brought her gaze back to his face. “Why what?”

  “Why did you think that I had been there for a long time?”

  Relief relaxed her features. “You were covered in snow. Less than an hour though, because I would have noticed you when I left to go to visit the vicar and his wife.” She walked toward the door, then stopped when she reached it and turned around. “I’m going to put these away. Are you hungry?”

  His stomach rumbled, and her lips curved into a small smile. Her grey eyes sparkled behind her spectacles. For just a second, she didn’t look so much like a spinster.

  “I’ll take that as a yes. I’ll be back in a few minutes. I have something for the pain, but I’m not sure if you should take anything just yet. Head injuries are tricky. Rest while I’m gone.”

  With the click of the door, Sebastian relaxed. He had been on edge since he had awakened and found himself practically naked and in a strange place. It wasn’t as if it hadn’t happened before, but he usually remembered how he got there, and felt a damn sight better since a warm body frequently accompanied him in bed.

  At least the lady didn’t seem to be ready to throw him out. He glanced at the door again, wondering about his savior. No young woman of his acquaintance would have hauled a complete stranger to her cottage and fixed the injury. Well, Anna, his sister, probably would, but she rarely used good sense. And she would have fainted at the first sight of blood.

  He examined his surroundings and realized her furnishings were of quality. Not the highest, and much of it outdated, but definitely more than one would expect of a young lady who apparently lived by herself in a tiny home. Small glass and ceramic figurines littered the surface of a beautifully crafted cherrywood dresser. Much nicer than he’d expected of a woman who dressed in such atrociously ugly clothes.

  There was a strange combination of English and a hint of something else—Scottish?—in her voice. She also spoke with a sense of decorum, a sense of culture one usually heard from aristocracy. He chuckled at the thought of Miss Knickers-in-a-bind being a member of the aristocracy, spending her time hauling drunks in from out of the cold.

  Gingerly, he lifted his head and carefully tested her stitches. What the hell had he been doing to end up passed out in the snow, smelling of whiskey?

  * * *

  Colleen rushed her preparation of the evening meal. Since she had left so early that morning, she hadn’t made bread. She looked out the window and noticed the snow getting heavier. Knowing that there was a good chance they would be snowed in for at least a day or two, she pulled out all the ingredients to make bread and began her task. The weather, coupled with the fact she needed to keep an eye on Mr. Ware, made her anxious to finish. At the thought of her patient, a delicious thrill shot through her, warming her from the inside out. Her hands stilled in the bread dough as her mind froze.

  What was she thinking? She was not thrilled to be spending her afternoon with a totally unrepentant rake with dark blue eyes and a dimple. Colleen didn’t even like men that much, especially charmers. Except for her father, she had not met a man worth the trouble. From the drunk her mother married to her sister’s lover, a powerful aristocrat with a nasty temper, Colleen had good reason to avoid men.

  She shook herself from her morbid thoughts and hurried through her chores. In her opinion, she was better off knowing most men were not like her father. Most men were drunks and cheats and rakes. Not unlike the man in her bed at the moment. She’d do well to remember that, especially when his smile did funny things to her insides.

  * * *

  Not twenty minutes later, Colleen breezed through the door to her room with a tray of tea and sandwiches in her hands.

  “It took you long enough.”

  The withering look she gave him did not help his dangerous mood.

  “I can leave you to starve,” she said, her tone sickly sweet.

  “I’ll just follow you dressed only in my drawers.”

  It delighted him when her face flushed with mortification. He was even more pleased when she refused to back down. “Listen, Lord Ware, I saved your life. You owe me.”

  He winced and she smiled—a bit evilly.

  “You know it and I know it. Besides”—she shrugged—“you’d never make it to the door in your condition.”

  Sharp-tongued spinster. Sebastian would love to tell the woman just whom she was dealing with. He could ruin her in a heartbeat. But, the truth was, he didn’t have much choice. The woman had taken him into her home, at a risk to her reputation, and he owed her a boon. No matter how much it irritated him, Wares did not leave a good deed unrewarded. And besides, she was right. He really didn’t think he would make it very far on his own two feet. If he could regain them to begin with.

  “What do you plan to do with me?”

  She turned an adorable shade of pink and busied herself with setting the tray on the bedside table. So Miss Macgregor was not immune to him after all. Why a curl of heat warmed the pit of his stomach he did not know, but the very proper Miss Macgregor’s blush caused a certain part of his anatomy to sit up and take notice. He pulled his knee up to hide his reaction from her. Lord knew she’d probably go running from the room screaming. It was scary enough to him, he could only imagine her response.

  He settled back against the pillows, his head throbbing now. He tried to ignore the ache but it radiated from the area she had worked on and sent fingers of pain coursing through his head.

  “I really don’t know. The storm is getting worse by the minute so you may be stuck here for a few days.”

  “A few days? I’d planned to return to London tomorrow.”

  “I do not think that is going to happen.” She offered him a frown but applied herself to making their refreshments. “Do you take anything in your tea?”

  He shook his head and it sent the room whirling. The wave of nausea took him by surprise and almost had him embarrassing himself by vomiting. Maybe he had lost more blood than he thought.

  She poured the tea into a cup. The tiny cup matched the teapot that sat on a silver service. While not new, the whole service was well cared for. Sebastian still could not piece together the puzzle that was Miss Macgregor. She offered
him his cup then poured one for herself. She placed a few sandwiches on a plate and handed it to him.

  He took a bite and was pleasantly surprised. “Meat!”

  She chuckled, and he looked at her, one eyebrow raised. She shrugged. “Men like meat. Although, I was worried you would be sick from that bump on the head. I didn’t want you humiliating yourself by vomiting.”

  He ignored her barb and said, “You seem to know a lot about men.”

  Her smile faded. “What do you mean by that?” The sharp tone in her voice was back, and he was relieved. If she sounded like that, maybe he could control these insane reactions he had to her.

  “I mean you seem to know a lot about their likes and dislikes.”

  “I had a father and a stepfather.”

  “Oh.” He took another bite. “Well, I need to get down to the nearest town and hire a horse.”

  Her grey eyes narrowed. “Apparently you weren’t listening, sir. There’s a blizzard raging outside. There will be no horses to hire, no one to help. From my experience, and I talk of twenty-five years of experience, this storm may end soon, but the effects of it will be felt for days. I know for a fact that the inn is filled with stranded travelers. There is no way to get out of the area for at least a day or two. Even for Lord King of the Drunks, second in line to an earldom.”

  “Quit calling me that.” Wariness whipped through him. Maybe she did know him. Maybe he’d been a mark, someone she decided to steal from. “How do you know about the earldom?”

  “You told me when you were reprimanding me for not being nice.”

  “Oh.” He sneezed, surprised at the chill that left him shivering.

  “I was afraid of that,” she said, her voice stern with reproof. Like it had been his fault he’d caught cold. She placed her teacup down and laid the back of her hand on his forehead. Her hand was cool against his warm skin. And he was hot, burning up. He had not realized just how hot until he felt her hand on his skin.