He didn’t let Silken spring the horses until he’d fashioned a new bandage from the clean napkins and settled her again against his chest. She was so bloody slight. How could anyone have ever believed her a young man? And just look at that smooth white jaw. That soft white flesh, the thick lashes, a shade darker than her blond hair. And where were any whiskers? Not in this lifetime, that was for certain.
Fools, they’d all been fools. Sir Harry, Monteith’s best friend, had never suspected. Julien St. Clair hadn’t suspected. None of them had.
He found himself impatiently gazing out the carriage window for familiar landmarks that would tell him they were drawing close to Thurston Hall. He had never greatly cared for the rambling mansion with its forty bedrooms and ghostly draped ballroom, yet when he saw the entrance to the park, lined with naked-branched lime trees, it was the most welcome sight he’d ever seen. He breathed an audible sigh of relief when the carriage drew to a jolting halt in front of the great pillared front entrance.
Silken jumped nimbly down from the box and jerked open the carriage door. “Is he still alive? Aye, I see that he is. Can I help your grace with the young gentleman?”
“I can manage,” the marquess said as he gently carried the still unconscious Henrietta Rolland up the deep-inlaid marble steps. He’d realized for the past hour that he would be the one to care for her, no other. He couldn’t even let his servants know, no one must know that the young gentleman was a young lady. Jesus, he couldn’t believe this. What if she died? No, he wouldn’t let anything happen to her. He pictured again the instant when his foil sliced into her side. It made him shudder. And she’d closed her mind to the pain she’d wanted to kill him so much. Yet she hadn’t, when she’d disarmed him, she hadn’t killed him.
Silken reached the great oak front doors a few steps ahead of the marquess and soundly thwacked the knocker. Croft, the butler at Thurston Hall since before the marquess’s birth, inched the door open and looked vaguely out into the gray winter morning.
The marquess eyed his butler. “Open the door, damn you, Croft. You’re bloody drunk again, you miserable sot. Just look at you, your eyes are so bloodshot, you can scarce make out that I’m your master and I’ll boot your butt to the next county. Damn you, hurry.” Croft, striving desperately for dignity, weaved about noticeably in the doorway.
“Ah, it is your grace. How welcome you are, sir. Ah, here you are, right here on the front steps, waiting for me to open the door for you.”
“Foxed again, you blighted specimen. Get out of my sight before I lock you in my wine cellar and throw away the key.”
“Your grace, what a fine idea. But what are you doing here? It’s early in the morning. You should still be abed in London. Why did no one warn me, that is, give me ample notice that your grace would bless us with your presence? Who is the young gentleman, your grace? He’s bleeding. His blood is on your shirt and breeches. It isn’t what I’m used to. However, let me take him. It’s my duty. I’ll make sure he doesn’t bleed on you anymore.”
The marquess could only growl. “Shake up the servants, Silken. I need hot water, clean strips of linen very clean, mind you basilicum powder and laudanum. Cook has a sturdy needle and thread.” He whirled about to his glassy-eyed butler. “As for you, Croft, go dip your head in a bucket of cold water. I want you alert in an hour, do you hear me? If you’re not alert, you’ll be walking to East Anglia. Ah, Silken, don’t forget the laudanum.” He knew he could count on Cook to have hoarded a supply of laudanum, particularly when there had not been enough to ease his pain when his shoulder had lain raw and open. He took the wide stairs two at a time. The long eastern corridor had never seemed so endless.