“You were most fortunate, Your Grace,” the physician said, as he finished wrapping a bandage around Sebastian’s midsection. “The knife didn’t slice into any organs.”
If the pain in his side was that of a fortunate man, then Sebastian would hate to experience the pain of an unfortunate one.
“Not a professional assassin then,” Rafe said. He was leaning against one of the posters at the foot of the bed, his arms crossed over his chest. Once Tristan had gotten Sebastian home, he’d sent word to Rafe who had come posthaste, physician in tow. William Graves seemed not much older than them, but he knew well the business of healing.
“Or a soldier,” Tristan said, holding the drapery slightly aside and peering into the night. “Otherwise he’d have known where to strike.”
“I turned. I could have thrown him off.”
“Either would have stayed to finish the job,” Tristan said. “You said he ran off.”
“Maybe he heard someone else coming.”
“Wouldn’t have mattered if he were an assassin,” Rafe insisted. “He’d have done what he was paid to do.”
“Know a lot about assassins do you?” Sebastian asked.
To Sebastian’s consternation, Rafe held his gaze somewhat defiantly, then shifted his attention over to Tristan. “You don’t have to keep watch. I have a couple of my men patrolling.”
Tristan released his hold on the draperies. “So he’ll live?”
Graves completed his task and stepped away. “Most certainly.”
“Pity. I rather fancied the notion of becoming duke.”
The physician halted in the closing of his bag to stare at Tristan. Sebastian settled back against the pillows. “My brother has a strange sense of humor.”
Graves gave a brisk nod. “I shall return on the morrow to change your bandages and assess the healing.”
“I’ll escort you out,” Rafe said and proceeded to lead the doctor from Sebastian’s bedchamber.
Tristan ambled over and dropped into a burgundy velvet chair near the bed. “Our little brother seems to have quite the knowledge regarding unsavory matters.”
Sebastian didn’t want to ponder how he had come to have that knowledge. Rafe returned and took up his position at the foot of the bed, leaning against the post, arms once again crossed—as though he had no desire to make himself comfortable here. Or perhaps he simply didn’t feel comfortable here.
His reappearance, however, seemed to be a signal to Tristan to continue striving to uncover the events of the night. “So you didn’t see the fellow who attacked you?”
Sebastian shook his head. “He came from my left side.”
“I crossed paths with Fitzwilliam as I was looking for you. Perhaps he scared him off.”
“Fitzwilliam couldn’t scare off a rabbit.”
A corner of Tristan’s mouth hitched up. “You don’t like him. Why is that?”
Shrugging, Sebastian regretted the movement as soon as he did it. His side burned as though someone had built a fire beneath the skin, but he’d endured much worse. The physician had given him laudanum before beginning his work. It left him feeling as though he traveled through a fog, striving to snatch hold of his thoughts, only to find them disappearing on gossamer wisps.
“Does it have anything to do with Mary?” Tristan asked.
Mary. She was with him. She left. His heart picked up tempo. Then he remembered that Tristan had seen her, that she was all right. But his heart refused to slow. If anything had happened to her—
“I know you kissed her,” Tristan said.
His arms falling to his side, Rafe straightened as though the news had come as a blow to his midsection. “Why the devil would you do that?”
“Why does any man kiss a woman, Brother?” Tristan asked, his voice laced with humor.
“But Mary. For God’s sake, we don’t want to ruin her, not after what she did for us.”
“I have no plans to ruin her,” Sebastian ground out. “It was simply a . . . a distraction.”
“Distract yourself with one of my doxies. Not with Mary.”
“I don’t need you telling me how to behave. I’ve apologized to her. It won’t happen again.”
“Why not?” Tristan asked. “If you want her, take her.”
“She wants Fitzwilliam. If she didn’t, she’d have never agreed to marry him.”
“When she accepted his offer of marriage, she thought you were dead. She invites you to dinners and balls. For what purpose?”
“She invites us. She does it to aid us in our efforts to reclaim what is ours. It is her nature to help where she can. Now leave it be.” Sebastian pressed a hand to his head in a vain attempt to stop the room from spinning. He couldn’t deny that Mary was a beautiful woman or that she stirred him, but she deserved a man who was not as broken as he—a man who could love her, and he no longer had the capability of loving anyone. Marriage to him would be a miserable existence. “I believe we’ve strayed from our purpose here. I suppose we can assume Uncle was at the root of this situation tonight.”
“He’s a fool if he thinks killing all three of us will go unnoticed,” Tristan said.
“Perhaps he believes it enough to kill one and the other two will run—as we did when we were lads,” Rafe offered.
“Then he failed to notice that we are no longer lads. More’s the pity. We know where he is. I say we confront him,” Tristan said.
“Would be better to first discover what resources are at his disposal. His wife might know,” Rafe replied.
“We could ask Mary to speak with her,” Tristan mused.
“We’re not going to involve Mary,” Sebastian told him.
“She’s already involved.”
“Not in this.” He made to get up, to give more power to his words, but the pain rifled through him and he collapsed back down. Breathing heavily, gritting his teeth, he hated opening his eye to discover Tristan leaning over him. He’d suffered worse. He wasn’t going to be unmanned by so trifling a wound.
“You need to rest,” Tristan said. “Rafe and I will ask around. See what we can discover.”
“Not Mary.”
Tristan studied him a moment before finally nodding. “No, we won’t involve Mary.”
Knowing she would be safe from scandal and danger, Sebastian allowed himself to sink into the oblivion of the laudanum.
Bloody, bloody, bloody fool! How could you be so stupid?
Lord David stared at his reflection in the mirror. The gash on his cheek burned where his brother’s signet ring had sliced deeply into his flesh. He pounded the basin with his tightened fist.
It must look like an accident.
“I know that!”
He hadn’t meant to attack his nephew, but when the opportunity had arose—
Why waste it? he’d thought. He hadn’t even known his nephews would be at the Weatherlys’. He’d been sneaking through the gardens to see if he could catch a glimpse of Lucretia at the ball. She so enjoyed dancing. He couldn’t envision that she would not attend. And damned how he missed her.
But then his cursed nephew had distracted him from his purpose.
He couldn’t stay here. Knew they had him followed, knew where he was. Cunning lads, but he was more so.
Where will you go? How will you get there? No vendor or shop owner will extend you credit. They saw to that.
He’d tried to buy a bit of jewelry for Lucretia earlier in the week, only to be denied. He sent the basin hurtling through the room and took satisfaction as it crashed against the wall, breaking into a thousand shards. His landlady had warned him that if he broke another she’d not replace it. Who did she think she was to talk to him like that? To make threats.
He was a lord!
One day he would be duke. Then Lucretia would return to him. He would have everything then, everything he should have always had.
He would show his brother the price to be paid for stealing from him the only woman he’d ever loved. Even Lucretia could not compare to her beauty.
You should have killed him last, made him suffer more.
But then, opportunity that could not be ignored had presented itself. And it would again.