lara had not yet fallen asleep. She had not joined the earl’s sisters for dinner that night. Nor had she left her chamber since he had escorted her to it in the wake of their virulent row. For what must have been the thousandth time since stepping over the threshold and slamming the door in Ravenscroft’s too-handsome face, she paced the room. According to the mantel clock, it was well after two in the morning.
He had not come to her. Instead, he’d left before dinner. She’d watched him step out from her window, dark and debonair. Perhaps off in search of his club or some other form of amusement. Not a mistress, she hoped, though she had no right or reason to keep him from indulging his hedonism. His departure rather stung, much as she didn’t want to acknowledge it.
She detested the weakness within her that missed his presence. He was vital, a man who simultaneously sucked all the air from a room and yet breathed all the life into it. She wanted to rail against him, berate him, dress him down. She wanted to make him suffer and make him pay for deceiving her. But she also wanted him to kiss her. To knock at her door and appear, leonine and seductive, ready to strip away all her protest.
Somewhere during the course of her hours of reflection, she’d realized that part of her thrilled to the notion of being the earl’s countess. And not just in name only. He had awakened her body. He had charmed her. He’d listened to her, appeared to value her thoughts and opinions. She couldn’t believe his every action had been a ruse. Some men were too facile of tongue, creatures who never listened to a word a lady said. Others listened too much, pretending to care in an effort to use their feigned interest to their advantage. Ravenscroft was neither of those sorts of men. He was, she hated to admit, a law unto his own.
But what of his motivation? If it was only her dowry he’d been after, he should have been all too happy to see her off to Virginia, depositing her on the nearest docks. He didn’t require her—as he’d pointed out, the marriage settlement was already in his possession. Why then, did he want her as his wife? Did he merely want to bed her? She hardly thought so, for much as she hated to concede it, he likely could have bedded her at any point during their fortnight of courtship if he’d merely pressed her enough. Her resistance was that weak.
Still he hadn’t done so.
Even in the carriage that day, he’d put his hand up her skirts, touched her most improperly. But the moment she’d pushed him away, he’d respected her wishes. He could have arrived at her door, could have barged straight through it, at any point between the moment she’d slammed it in his face and now. He had not.
The Earl of Ravenscroft was a dichotomy. He had spent much of his life in sin. He was a wicked voluptuary. But he had also personally seen to the preparation of her chamber. During her many rounds of pacing, she’d begun to notice small details.
This chamber, unlike the rest of the house, was not threadbare or outmoded. Its wallpaper was crisp and new, its carpet well-padded and sculpted in a grand design. A corner bookcase possessed an assortment of volumes that were all of interest to her, from a treatise on the female vote to the poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. A hand-colored lithograph of a whip-poor-will, a picture of Richmond, and some engravings of the verdant Virginia countryside ornamented the walls.
He had recalled their conversations, had tried hard to make a space for her that would appeal. It hardly made sense. But then, the man himself scarcely did. Was he gilding her cage? Attempting to win her over? Why had he not come to her? Why had he not made her his wife in deed as well as name?
Clara stilled as she heard a sudden commotion in the hall. Voices, loud and tight with worry, carried to her. Footsteps sounded, then the crashing open of the door to the earl’s chamber just next door. Something was amiss.
Heartbeat kicking into a rapid pace, she donned her dressing gown, knotting the belt at her waist. In two steps, she was at the door adjoining her chamber to his, throwing it open to reveal a grim scene. Her mouth went dry as she spotted Ravenscroft’s limp form being carried by the butler and two footmen. His head lolled, his midnight hair and beautiful face drenched in blood.
Dear God.
She raced across the chamber, not having a care for her state of undress, and supported his head as the men gently laid him upon his bed. Blood coated her fingers, warm and sticky. A violent wave of nausea hit her. He looked like a corpse. She pressed a bloodied hand to his chest, absorbing the gentle rise and fall of his breathing.
Not dead, thank the Lord.
But all that blood.
Her mind spun. “Call for his physician at once.”
“It is already done, my lady,” said Osgood, the butler.
“What happened to him?”
“His lordship was attacked outside after he returned from his club.” If she’d thought him grim before, Osgood was positively funereal now. “Fortunately, the vagabond was scared off before he could do further damage.”
Attacked.
Misgiving assailed her. Someone had viciously beaten Ravenscroft outside his very own home. He was a large man, capable and muscled. His assailant must have approached him from behind. He wouldn’t have had a chance of defending himself. Who would do such a thing?
But her questions would have to be answered later, for now, Ravenscroft needed all her focus and energy to be on tending him. She had never dealt with such an injury. Panic snaked through her. She gripped the earl’s lifeless hand, squeezing. “I’ll need clean cloths,” she ordered the butler. “Hot water as well. Bring the doctor to me as soon as he arrives.”
“Yes, my lady.”
And then he was gone, leaving her alone with her unconscious husband and the ever-growing knot of fear within her.
Clara kept vigil at Ravenscroft’s bedside after the physician had gone. By the time Dr. Redcay arrived, the earl had begun regaining consciousness, making it necessary for the doctor to administer chloroform. She had held Ravenscroft’s hand as Dr. Redcay examined, cleaned, and stitched his wound. Had held her breath as she awaited the serious man’s final diagnosis.
“Fortunately, there doesn’t appear to be a fracture of the skull, my lady,” the doctor had said. “His lordship’s brain is severely concussed, but I see no reason to attempt trepanning at this juncture. Should he suffer seizures or sudden fever, call for me immediately. I’ve left you some bromide of potash should you require it, but his lordship is generally a strong and healthy man. Change the wound dressing daily as I’ve shown you, using antiseptic. He must rest for several days but he should be back to himself in no time.”
Clara had nearly swooned with relief at the proclamation, for she’d gotten a good look at the instruments inside Dr. Redcay’s medical case. Thank the Lord he hadn’t used the insidious looking trephine upon Ravenscroft’s skull.
She would not be made a widow on the second day of her marriage. No, he was not dead. He would survive. Now if only he would wake, she thought, watching him through eyes that burned from lack of sleep. The effects of the chloroform should soon wear off, she hoped.
Ravenscroft remained in his evening clothes, his form troublingly still. His skin had acquired an unusual pallor, undoubtedly from the blood loss he’d suffered. His hair was damp from her ministrations, his perfection sullied only by the bandage wrapped about his head. Her heart hurt for the pain he must have suffered. How could someone have visited such violence upon him?
Perhaps more importantly, who?
The unkind thought occurred to her that perhaps his assailant was a cuckolded husband from his past. Swiftly, she swatted it from her mind. Her first instinct had led her to believe it could have been a cutpurse, but he appeared not to have been robbed of his valuables—he still wore his gold signet ring, wedding band, a pocket watch tucked into his waistcoat. No, a cutpurse likely would not have aimed for such a grave wounding. Whoever had done this to the earl had meant to kill him. She grew more certain of it by the moment.
Her stomach clenched, bile in her throat. She feared she would vomit, worn down by the aftereffects of shock, lack of sleep, and the realization that someone intended to murder her husband. She stared at his still form, willing her nausea to abate.
One breath, two breaths, three. She would not lose her nerve now. She focused on him. A fourth breath. A fifth. No, she would not cast up her accounts. Ravenscroft needed her to remain calm. His evening finery disturbed her. For the sake of his comfort, she really ought to remove it. His manservant had fled the chamber long ago, squeamish at the sight of all the earl’s blood.
And who else should do it, after all? Clara was Ravenscroft’s wife. No, not Ravenscroft, she thought for the first time, but Julian. She squeezed his long fingers again, as if with her mere touch she could force him to wake unscathed. Her anger with him for his clever manipulations could wait. The sight of him, bloodied and unconscious, being carried by servants, had undone her.
She meant what she’d said to him that day during their walk in the park. She liked him. Far more than she should. In fact, as she watched him, helpless and laid low, a stern protectiveness filled her breast. How dare anyone hurt him? For all that he had a black reputation as an unrepentant sinner, a strong vein of good ran through him.
Clara released his hand and stood, moving to the foot of the bed. She had no experience in divesting a man of his clothing, and the notion of touching him so intimately made her cheeks go hot and a strange sensation unfurl low in her belly. It was a necessity, she reminded herself. And it was perfectly acceptable now, given their married state. She could tend him at his sickbed without turning into a featherhead.
She removed his fine leather shoes first, then his silk stockings. Even his large feet possessed an elegant refinement in keeping with the rest of him. They were perfectly formed, not at all ugly as one might expect of a man’s feet. Next, she moved back to the head of the bed, working on his loose-fitting black jacket. His arms were heavier than she’d expected, corded with muscle that her fingers found cause to linger over a moment longer than necessary. His waistcoat proved more difficult to remove, so she settled for undoing the buttons. His crisp white shirt was bespattered with blood. She pressed her hand over his heart, feeling the steady thump and the warmth he radiated.
Suddenly, he moaned, shifting beneath her hand as he came to.
Julian became aware of his body in stages. His brain felt as though it had swelled three times its normal size and now sought to escape his skull. Pain reverberated through his head. His scalp was pulled tight. Dizziness washed over him, his mind a confused hodgepodge of questions. He was wrapped in a fog, experiencing all sensation with an odd detachment.
What the hell had happened? He struggled to open his eyes, an act that sent a fresh onslaught of pain hammering into him. The interior of his bedchamber swam before him, the sharp delineations of familiar objects blurring like melted wax from a candle. He was at home then. Thank Christ.
A small, feminine hand lay atop his chest. When he would have turned his head to identify the hand’s owner, nausea churned through his gut with unexpected violence. He slammed his eyes closed again. The darkness was a comfort, a delicious void into which he could lose himself. His head pounded. Who was in his chamber?
Lottie? He groped blindly for the presence at his side. His fingers tangled in soft, billowing fabric. No stiff boning kept him from feeling the lush flesh just beneath the garment.
Not Lottie. Recognition sifted through him like awareness, small grains of sand collecting into a greater conscious. The scent of oranges and musk traveled to him then, mingling with the copper of blood. Clara. His wife. Sweet little dove. He wished he hadn’t plucked the wrong name from the recesses of his aching brain, for he’d never confuse Clara with Lottie. The two couldn’t have been more opposite.
His hand curved around her waist where it belonged.
Yes, he recalled now. He was a married man, and his countess had not been pleased to discover his duplicity. They’d rowed. He’d gone to his club, hadn’t he? He’d intended to give her time and space to see reason. He remembered dining at his club. He’d given in to temptation and downed a whisky. The ride home had been ordinary, nothing of note to remark upon. After that, his memory was as blank as a night without stars.
“Julian?”
He forced his eyes open again, pleased to at long last hear his name in her buttery drawl. No defiant “Ravenscroft” or “my lord” this time. A worried bite made her tone almost harsh. She was a blur of colors for a moment as she came into focus. Her blonde hair fell unbound in a mass of burnished curls. Half moons darkened the creamy skin beneath her blue eyes. Her lovely face was a study in worry. Blood stained her dressing gown. His blood.
“Little dove.” He tried to smile in reassurance, but even flexing his facial muscles into a semblance of cheer gave him pain. “You look as if you’ve been to battle.” Even his words emerged slowly at first, as though his mind were a pump that needed priming after the blow he’d taken.
She looked down at herself, snatching her hand away from his chest and pressing it over the smears on her dressing gown. “I feel as if I’ve been to battle.” Her voice gentled as her gaze snapped back to his, drinking him in or so it seemed. “You gave us all a fright. How do you feel now?”
He gingerly lifted a hand to touch his head, finding a bandage there. The devil. “I feel like hell. What happened to me?”
Clara frowned. “I was hoping you would remember. Someone attacked you, my lord. You’d just returned from your club. Your driver saw only a fleeting shadow of a figure running away. No other servants were about.”
Jesus. He forced himself to think again about the drive home. He recalled debating whether or not he would knock on the door joining his chamber to hers. Weighing the merits of drawing out his seduction of her until she was mad for him or simply barging over the threshold and seducing her in one night. Then, the carriage had come to a halt and he’d alighted. He had a vague recollection of taking a few steps, but he couldn’t be sure what, if anything, had occurred beyond the moment the sole of his shoe had touched the ground.
“I was attacked,” he repeated, feeling fuzzy as he tried to comprehend the knowledge that someone had intentionally wounded him. And from the grinding pain in his cranium, it would seem that his assailant had meant to cause him serious injury. Perhaps even to kill him. A chill of foreboding passed over him. “I recall nothing.”
“I feared as much.” She caught her luscious lower lip in her teeth, pausing for a beat. She seemed to struggle for words.
As for him, he most assuredly wasn’t dead yet, for watching her work her lip made his cock stir to life. “Something troubles you. What is it, little dove?”
“Who would wish you ill, my lord?”
He made another attempt at a grin. “Damned if I know. I’ve fashioned any number of enemies over the years. None that I’d imagine would stoop to braining me from behind just outside my residence.”
The temerity of the bastard filled him with an unholy rage. It was his wedding night, by God. He was not meant to be lying abed, half clothed, with his virginal wife tending to him like a bloody nurse. He should have been in her bed, his head between her thighs, making her spend. He would find whoever was responsible for this travesty and feed him his teeth.
“I fear that whoever did this to you intended to do far worse, Lord Ravenscroft.” Her face was ashen, and yet she remained the loveliest thing he’d ever seen.
His head thumped. “Never say you’re worried for me, wife?”
“You mustn’t call me that.” Her fingers fretted with the sleeve of her dressing gown.
“Why? Are you not, in fact, the woman I married today?” It didn’t matter that he’d taken a severe bludgeoning. She was still his, damn it all, and he wasn’t foggy on that fact. Not one bit.
“You know quite well what I mean to say. Despite your protestations to the contrary, we will not have a true marriage. I’m returning to Virginia and you cannot stop me.” She looked into her lap. “But of course I worry. How can I not? Someone almost killed you tonight, and I very much fear your assassination was the villain’s primary goal.”
Ah, there it was, the truth unfettered between them. They were done dancing at pretense. She was too clever for a woman of her tender age. He wondered what had made her become cynical enough to reach the same conclusion as he. Other ladies he’d known would have swooned at the sight of an injured man. They would have retired to their chamber until he regained consciousness, and then they would’ve made the easier and safer assumption that he’d been the victim of a random crime.
For some mad reason, her worry warmed him. Perhaps she didn’t hate him for his subterfuge, then. Perhaps she even cared, just a modicum. “The bastard didn’t succeed, however.” He strove for a bland tone. No need to upset her more than necessary. His mind yet grappled with the implications of what had befallen him.
“Someone tried to kill you.” This time, she was blunt, looking up from her nervous fingers to meet his gaze. “Are you not concerned?”
Hell, yes he was concerned. But his mind was still jumbled and muddled. His head hurt like the devil. He very much wished he had not gone to his club, spurred by his pride, and had instead gone to her.
“Surely your father wouldn’t hire an assassin?” he asked, opting for flippancy, which had always served him well.
Her eyes went wide. “He would never! You cannot think my father to blame for this?”
He didn’t answer her immediately, partly because although he’d posed the question in jest, he had to admit it did have some merit. Her dearest papa, after all, thought him a black-hearted despoiler of innocents, a vile fortune hunter who had preyed upon his beloved daughter. The timing seemed rather suspect. The very night of his wedding. By the contract they’d agreed upon, his demise would have left Clara with any estates that weren’t part of the entail and all her marriage portion. Tidy method of solving a problem, that.
“My father is a good man,” she protested, apparently reading his silence all too well. “Do not waste time misdirecting your suspicion upon him, for then the true criminal will remain free to make another such attempt on your life. You ought to carry my pistol with you whenever you’re about, at least until the son-of-a-bitch is caught.”
He blinked. Had his murky mind heard correctly? Somehow, an epithet coming off the lips of his sweet little dove seemed wrong. But it also aroused him. He was an absurd fellow, half his scalp cracked open and nearly bleeding to death, and his cock hard as coal. Something was wrong with him. Perhaps the blow to the head had rendered him completely mad.
And then, the rest of her words filtered through to him. She wanted to give him her pistol. His fierce little Virginian miss thought he needed her firearm. Bless her. Of course, who could blame her for thinking him an inept duffer after he’d allowed someone to all but slay him ten paces from his own door? And on their bloody wedding night, of all times.
“Allow me to reassure you that I can protect myself without your weapon, Lady Ravenscroft.” He took great pleasure in reminding her of who she now was. A gash to the head had not altered that.
“Miss Whitney shall do nicely,” she informed him, her tone cool and impersonal. “You must accustom yourself to the fact that I will leave you, my lord.”
“Leave me to be murdered?” Some vicious part of himself, long buried, unearthed itself in that moment. “My blood already stains you, little dove, so you may as well. Tell me, why do you linger here? A servant can do as well as you.”
She blanched. His words had found their mark, but he felt no pleasure in it. The aching in his head was making him peevish. He longed to call back what he’d said. Damn it, he wanted to seduce her, not to push her away. But she was ever stubborn. Ever smug in her unwavering belief that she would sail away to Virginia. He longed to shake her from her position. A woman couldn’t marry her homeland. Couldn’t she see how much he needed her here?
Jesus, where had that thought come from? He was the Earl of Ravenscroft, by God. He’d lived thirty-one years without ever needing a woman. A man required only funds, after all. Not a warm cunny and a luscious pair of tits. What was wrong with him, chasing after this slip of a girl as though no other woman would have him? He ought to let her go. Load her on a Virginia-bound ship. Wave goodbye.
But he couldn’t.
“You need not be cruel,” she said then, her voice accusatory. “I do care about you, my lord. Surely that must be apparent. A woman without feeling would not help carry a wounded man to his bed, clean away his blood, or hold his hand while the doctor stitches his wounds. A woman without feeling would not have prayed for you to wake.”
Her anger coiled in his chest like a serpent ready to strike. His head ached. His mouth was dry. His stomach jerked, threatening to cast up its accounts. Devil take it. He was in no shape for this reckoning.
She had been by his side, tending to him. She’d held his hand. The jagged pieces inside him shifted, fitting together in perfect harmony. He reached for her, clasping the nearest bit of her, those agile fingers.
“Thank you,” he said simply, for he meant it. Never had he been more thankful. “You didn’t owe me that, Clara, and I thank you for it all the same.”
Her expression softened, and she turned her hand palm up, tangling her fingers with his. “You’re welcome, Julian.”
Not precisely an extension of the proverbial olive branch, but he would take it. Yes, damn it, he would take it.