My Scandalous Viscount (4 page)

“Jesus, Nick.”

“I’m still working on Trevor, but I think he’s comin’ ’round. He’s getting pretty bored down in the cellar.”

“Cellar? Damn you—”

“Relax. He has everything he needs down there.”

“So he’s your prisoner. Your best friend, who saved your bloody life several times, as I recall. Your hostage.”

“More like my pension, for years of faithful service. Life insurance, mate.” He nodded. “Well, we mercenaries aren’t very nice chaps at all, are we? Not like you valiant Order knights.”

Beau shut his eyes for a second, in a cold sweat.
This is a nightmare.
The worst part was that he had never seen it coming. Of all the horrific fates he had imagined in the dead of night, trying to dream up some logical explanation for their disappearance, this was one he never would have guessed.

On the other hand, Nick had always been a rebel, even by Order standards, and was without a doubt the fiercest member of their team. Beau was the leader; Trevor was the brains, the strategist, the planner. But Nick had always been the ablest assassin.

A bloody nightmare.

Nick’s gaze flicked to Beau’s pistol pointed at him. “I am going to go now,” he said. “I’ll give Trevor your regards. Don’t worry, I’ll release him once I’m clear. You take care of yourself, Beauchamp.” He hesitated. “It’s been an honor serving with you.” He nodded in farewell, then very deliberately turned around and began walking away.

“Stop!” he barked. “You’re coming in, Nick!”

“No, I’m not,” he replied, though he did prudently pause, lifting his hands.

“Don’t make me shoot you—”

At that moment, the theatre door right behind Beau suddenly opened, bumping him in the back. He stepped forward to catch his balance, and his first thought was that Nick had expected trouble; he must’ve brought along some mercenary colleagues for assistance. Beau’s reaction was instantaneous; aiming for the leg, he pulled the trigger.

Nick cursed and reached down, grabbing his thigh. But as a well-trained agent, his counterattack was equally swift. He fired back as Beau whirled to meet the new arrival in the doorway.

Beau heard the shot and cursed as Nick’s bullet sliced across his biceps. But the bullet kept going to graze the new arrival, too.

No mercenary henchman.

Knife already in hand, Beau stopped himself from attacking.

Carissa!

Her face went white as she lifted her gloved hand and touched the right side of her head.

Nick cursed.

Time seemed to stop as she looked down at her white satin glove, smeared with blood.

Then she lifted her gaze uncomprehendingly to his; Beau stared back at her, aghast.

“Ugh,” she murmured. Her eyes rolled up into her head, and she crumpled.

Beau caught her as she fainted, but glancing over his shoulder, he began cursing like a sea dog.

Nick had disappeared, and the girl of his dreams lay unconscious and bleeding in his arms.

Chapter 4

C
arissa awoke to darkness and the sensation of speed. She was in a rocking carriage. The clatter of hooves and wheels racing over uneven cobblestones made her head pound harder. Suddenly, terror gripped her innards because, beyond that, she did not know where she was or what had happened. The side of her skull felt like it was on fire.

Struggling to orient herself, she began panicking all over again to find her usually busy mind a blank. When she started to rise, strong arms stilled her.

“Shh, lie back,” said a silken whisper by her ear.

“Beauchamp?” It was only then that she realized he was holding her, keeping some sort of cloth pressed against the side of her head.

“I’ve got you, sweeting. Just lie still. It’s going to be all right,” he assured her, but she heard the tension in his voice.

His arms felt wonderful around her, so protective—but as she wondered why they were speeding through the dark streets in a carriage, she remembered abruptly.

That bang the moment she had opened the theatre door to go and warn him. She had been shot! In the head.

By a bullet meant for him.

“Am I going to die?” she mumbled.

“No, sweet, of course not,” he assured her. “You’re going to be just fine.” The strangled tone of his voice wasn’t very convincing, however. She rather thought he was trying too hard to sound calm. “I’m going to take care of you, I promise. You just need to relax now. Stay calm. Hold still and let me keep the pressure on the wound, or you’ll only make it worse.”

“I’m scared,” she whimpered.

“I know, sweet. But you’ve got to be brave for me just a little longer. We’re almost there.”

“Where?” Struggling to keep her eyes open, she saw through the carriage window the black silhouette of twisty spires in the moonlight, shrouded in fog. She gasped and tried to sit up.

The Inferno Club!

“No! I can’t go in there!” she cried frantically—or so she thought. In truth, her voice only came out as a mumble.

“It’s all right. You’ll be safe—”

“No decent girl goes in there. I’ll be ruined . . .”

“Shh,” he whispered again, giving her a reassuring little squeeze. “Sweetheart, you’ve got to trust me,” he whispered. “Trust me.”

“Ugh.” Her pounding pulse and struggles made the blood seep faster from her wound, as he had warned. She felt it trickling hotly past her ear and down the side of her neck, and the sensation was so sickening, so horrifying, that much to her chagrin, like a blasted ninny, she passed out once again.

B
eau cradled her in his arms, trying to keep her from being jostled about as they approached the Order’s headquarters. His heart was pounding with utter dread.

He had seen plenty of men get shot in his lifetime. He’d been responsible for more than he had any care to count. But that was completely different from seeing blood coming out of Carissa Portland.

In point of fact, he was in an unheard-of state of terror for an agent rigorously trained to fear nothing.

Beyond that, he was furious.

I’m going to kill Nick for this.

And if Carissa lived, he might just kill her, too, for snooping around after him and getting herself shot.

Maybe now the chit would learn her lesson!

You see, Father? You see why I don’t get married?
he thought angrily. Find one blasted girl he really liked, and he ended up getting her shot.
This is why I just bed them and keep my distance.
Was that so hard to understand?

He paid no attention whatsoever to his own wound. He’d had worse. She was the one who mattered, and in the dark, with all that long, thick hair of hers, he couldn’t tell yet how badly she was hurt. But his luck . . .
argh.

Her head was bleeding a lot, but that’s what heads did in his experience, he attempted to assure himself. A lot of blood was never good, but when it came to head injuries, blows that produced no blood at all sometimes turned out worse. The person just fell asleep and never woke up again.

If heaven showed mercy on a sinner like him tonight, her wound would turn out to be nothing more than a gash like the one on his arm.

He chose to believe for now that the bullet had only grazed her. Until he could look at her in the light, dig through her luxurious auburn tresses down to her scalp and clean the wound, and determine how bad an injury they were dealing with, he clung to the hope that it might not be as bad as it looked under all the blood.

Or it might be worse.

One thing was certain: At this moment, he could understand with crystal clarity why Nick wished to quit.

In this moment, with his carriage pounding through the dark, foggy streets of London, his driver whipping the horses to gallop as fast as they could, he could quite happily go live a country life as boring as his father’s.

Aye, forget the spy game and all its illicit thrills.

He’d become a dull, old, pipe-smoking, gentleman farmer, with no more pressing cares than deciding which breed of sheep to buy next spring.

“Hold on. Fight for me, girl,” he murmured to her, as they careened toward their destination. “You’ve got a hell of a lot of fight in you. I know. I’ve seen it. Come on, now. Stay with me, love . . .”

Thank God, his carriage jounced to a halt at last in front of Dante House. Going there was a reflex for him whenever there was trouble, and with his own survival training in battlefield medicine so that he could keep himself and his team alive on their missions, he knew he had everything that he needed to care for her properly.

If her wound was beyond his ability to handle, the Order always had two or three good surgeons ready to come to the agents’ aid at a moment’s notice.

His driver promptly flung open the carriage door; Beau gathered Carissa up in his arms with a cold sweat beading on his brow and long-forgotten prayers streaming through his mind. She had to be all right. She had to. He could not bear for any harm to come to her, especially when it was his fault.

She could not die, moreover, when his last words to her had been so rude and improper, propositioning her like a thoroughgoing blackguard—when the truth was, deep down, she made more sense to him than most of the people in London.

He lifted her smoothly from the seat, which was now also stained with blood, and carried her out of his town coach. “Door,” he ordered.

His coachman ran ahead of him to fling wide the black wrought-iron gate, then raced again to the front door of Dante House. Beau strode up the front path with Carissa’s limp body dangling from his arms.

“Mind the dogs,” he said to his driver. “Wait here. I may want you to go for the surgeon if this is beyond my skill. Otherwise, I’ll need you on hand to assist.”

“Yes, my lord.” His driver pushed the front door open, and as Beau stepped in, immediately, the pack of vicious guard dogs rushed around to greet him.

He kicked the door shut and roared at them in German to shut up. The black-and-tan beasts sat and cowered.

“Gray!” Beau bellowed.

The old butler came running while Beau carried the senseless lady of information into the nearby parlor and laid her down carefully on the couch.

He realized he was shaking.
Jesu,
what was wrong with him? He’d been hurt worse than this himself over the years and had never reacted so badly.

But this was different. She was an innocent. A civilian. She had no part in this. She was just a girl.

The butler rushed in. “Sir?”

“The lady’s hurt.”

“You brought her here?” he cried.

Beau glared at him but only realized then that, inexplicably, he had, perhaps, panicked a little.

Well, it was too bloody late now to sit around and try to think up another plan! “Damn it, man, she needs help! Fetch hot water and bandages. And bring lamps, candles. We need more light in here. I’ll get the medical bag. Go! Keep the dogs out!” he added. “The smell of blood might set them off.”

“Yes, sir—your arm!”

“Never mind that. Hurry!” he ordered, yanking off his elegant, ruined coat.

Gray whisked off to do as Beauchamp had ordered, dutifully shutting the door behind him to prevent the fierce guard dogs of Dante House from coming in to bother them. Beau felt sorry for the beasts. Poor creatures barely knew what to do with themselves ever since their master, Virgil, had been killed. Lud, he wished the old man were there right now.

With the thought of the agents’ gruff, Scottish handler, who had dealt with more gunshot wounds and broken heads than he could count, Beau flinched. He did not think he could stand another loss right now of somebody he cared about. He was already haunted enough. How the hell was he going to explain this to Rotherstone, anyway?

No, I didn’t seduce the girl, of course, but I’m afraid I got her killed. Sorry, old boy. Your wife’s going to have to find a new best friend.
He swallowed hard.
No.
She had to be all right. He bent down to smooth her forehead gently.
So pale.
He clenched his jaw. “Hang on, sweet. I’ll be right back. You’re going to be fine, I promise.”
And then I’m never letting you out of my sight again, you dear little pain in the arse.

Unsure where that possessive thought had come from, he tore himself away from her, strode over to the bookshelves, where he grasped what looked like an ordinary bookend in the shape of a small bronze statue, and twisted it.

At once, with a mechanical click, the hidden door disguised as one of the built-in bookcases popped away from the wall. Beau went and pulled it open.

Pausing, he glanced over his shoulder at Carissa one more time. She was still out cold. Then he slipped inside the secret passageway and ran to get the medical bag.

C
arissa was having the strangest dream. It was lovely and terrifying at the same time, a feverish mix of blood and sensuality. She dreamed that Lord Beauchamp was gently letting down her hair, loosening her gown, untying her stays so she could breathe more easily.

His hands on her were warm and sure, and when she dragged her eyes open and met his stare, his own blazed hotly into hers. “It’s all right,” he whispered, as she panted and clung to him in fear.

“Trust me,” he breathed again, his hand at the side of her neck, cupping her nape, melting her protests. She closed her eyes, giving in. But why was he always saying that?

Trust
him
? It was such a silly thing to say, coming from a libertine.

She felt him pressing warm wet cloths to her head, then heard him wringing them out, bloody rags, in a bucket of water. “That’s good. Good girl,” he whispered.

When she looked again, she whimpered at the sight of her own blood, reddening the water. “I don’t want to die, Beau.”

“You’re not going to die,” he said calmly, sounding much more certain of that now than he had in the carriage. “I’m happy to say the bullet only grazed you. You need a few stitches, then you’ll be all better. Did you ever get stitches before, sweeting?”

“No!” She cowered from the needle. “Does it hurt?”

“Just a pinch. Nothing compared to getting shot, and you’ve already withstood that like a trooper.”

She cringed again. He caressed her cheek, holding her gaze with stalwart confidence in his blue eyes. “Don’t worry. I’ll have you sewn up in a trice.”

“Wait,
you’re
going to do it? Where’s the surgeon—”

“I can do it.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’ve done stitches loads of times, including on myself. It’s nothing. Just close your eyes and let me work, all right? The sooner we close this cut, the better off you’ll be. This will stop the bleeding. Now, relax. And trust me.”

“I wish you would stop saying that.” She let out a low, unhappy, and dubious little moan, but she cooperated as he tilted her head so he could get started.

Then, by the blaze of the lamps and candles everywhere, she noticed a long lock of her hair lying by some scissors on the table. “You cut my hair?” she protested.

“Just the smallest bit! Well, I had to! It was in the way. I promise, you won’t even be able to tell. If you don’t like it, I’ll take you to the best milliner’s shop in London and buy you any hat you want. Now, can we please get this over with?”

She closed her eyes again. “I hate you.”

“I know, love.” She could hear the smile in his voice, feel the dangerous warmth of his charm. “Now, be still, or I’m going to kiss you again. Just like that day in Whitehall.”

She smiled faintly, forgetting to scowl; then she peeked at him with one eye, and he flashed a roguish half smile at her. But when she saw him holding the needle over the candle flame to purify it, she went woozy again.

Ugh, needles and bullets, all in one night!

He took hold of her head. She squeezed her eyes shut, but somehow stopped herself from squirming away, realizing he was only torturing her like this in order to help her.

Then he got down to business, holding the torn ends of her skin together and piercing both with his needle.

“I’ve decided,” he remarked in an idle tone as he worked, “that when all this is over . . . I am going to find you a husband.”

“Oh, really?” she muttered, aware that he was talking to distract her from his work on her wound.

“Mm-hmm. You need someone looking after you, I daresay. Some nice, safe chap to hold the leash.”

“I’ll give you a leash,” she muttered.

“Some good, solid, sensible fellow who’ll stop you from following every impulse like a harebrain. Why did you follow me? Just to snoop? Haven’t you ever heard what curiosity got the cat?”

“Not to snoop,” she mumbled. “I was coming to save you.”

“Save me? What are you talking about?”

“I saw him. I saw the man. And I didn’t warn you. I’m so sorry . . .”

“Oh, there, darling, don’t cry. I forgive you.”

“That’s why I came over toward your theatre box tonight. I wanted to trade information, but you wouldn’t. You were so stubborn. What kind of viscount are you, anyway, that you know how to make stitches?”

“You should see my fancy embroidery.”