She wasn’t sure how much of the tale might be true, and how much a product of the Scot’s love of drama. But one thing was clear to her—Stephen Byrne had risked his life to protect Amanda’s family. Indeed, he’d saved the life of her son, the only child Louise could ever expect to have.
With bruised and scraped hands and faces clean, the extent of the pair’s injuries seemed less life threatening than they’d at first appeared. “Now off with your shirts,” she said.
Byrne smiled at her. “Thoughtyou’dneverask,” he slurred, and reached for her.
“Stop that.” She smacked away his hands and caught Lorne’s curious gaze hesitating over her then shifting to Byrne. Whatever he was thinking, she hadn’t the time to find out. She frowned at the gash in Byrne’s left trouser leg, which appeared to be crusted with dried blood. “What’s this now?”
He shrugged. “Crowbar. Hurts”—he hiccupped—“like hell.”
She tried to roll up the pant leg. When that didn’t work she peered inside the slashed fabric but could see nothing. “Drop the pants.”
Byrne grinned.
She cast Lorne a desperate look. “He’s hopeless.” When she turned back again, her mother’s agent had collapsed against a cabinet, eyes closed, his beard-stubbled face pale as porcelain. While he was passed out and harmless, she ripped off the pant leg at the tear. “Oh my, that is bad.”
“Don’t think it’s broke,” Brown mumbled, resting his head in his hands. “He was walkin’ on it. To the pub and back here.”
“Was he now?” She examined the purpling flesh and jagged wound. Best if it were seen by a physician, but perhaps it would heal on its own. She did all she could to clean up the rest of him, trying to ignore the little spurts of heat through her fingertips as they grazed his lovely muscled abdomen and chest.
It occurred to her, as she heard more of the story from Brown, that Stephen Byrne might have died in that alley had the Scot not come along when he did. The thought sickened her. Moreover, she would have been the cause of his death. Had she known Darvey wasn’t just a bully capable of picking on the weak, that he was truly a dangerous killer, she’d never have asked Byrne to confront the man.
Louise cleaned him up as best she could then ordered Brown and Lorne to carry him to one of the empty servants’ rooms in the attic, to sleep off the drink. She followed along, thinking it was probably a good thing he was drunk. The alcohol numbed the pain, for the time being.
When the other two men left the room, Louise lingered behind. She tenderly pulled the sheet up over Stephen Byrne, smoothed her fingertips through the black wing of hair fallen over his forehead. “Sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so very sorry.” Then she sat down to watch over him while he slept.
Thirty-eight
Byrne woke with a start. He flung a defensive arm wide and bolted upright—disoriented, lungs rasping. No one came at him with knife or cudgel, but needles of pain jabbed his knee.
On a bed. He was on a bed, alone in a room . . . somewhere. He fell back down into the linens with a groan, lay still, waited for the wretched knee and dregs of the nightmare to subside. But now his ribs ached from the sudden movement. And his head throbbed like a military drum. He squinted down at his body. Someone had undressed him, but for breeches, and taped his knee and ribs. His face felt stiff with bruising. Every muscle in his body called out to him.
He had imagined himself back in the alley, set upon by a dozen pipe-wielding thugs. Then he recalled that Darvey was dead. And, unless he was still mixing dreams with reality, there had been a bizarre interval of camaraderie with the Scot that must have resulted in his current hungover state.
Slowly events reeled back through his mind. He recalled Brown retrieving his Colt from the grate, hauling him to his feet.
Byrne looked around the dim, silent room, trying to place himself. The space was not much larger than a closet, the bed narrow, single window darkened with a heavy muslin curtain. The walls were plastered and clean but bare, except for a plain wooden crucifix over the door, as if left by a previous occupant or put there as a suggestion of piety to a future resident. A monk’s cell? More likely servant’s quarters.
But of course. Brown, or whoever had helped him out of his clothes, and into bandages and bed, wouldn’t have snugged him up in Buckingham’s family wing. They’d hidden him away, hoping Victoria wouldn’t discover he’d been fighting again. And yet he wasn’t concerned. It was fighting Brown that had gotten him into trouble before. Not fighting alongside the Scot, for the protection of the queen’s daughter and grandson. Although, he was sure, Victoria would never publicly recognize Edward Locock.
Slowly, muscle by tender muscle, Byrne eased himself into a semitolerable sitting position and shifted his legs off the side of the bed. He let his body adjust to this new angle, then looked down and saw a sodden bundle of toweling. Ice, he thought. Someone had taken care to apply cold compresses to his injured knee while he slept. That was probably why the swelling was no worse than it was now.
He tried to stand and felt elated when he was able to put weight on the leg. A minor miracle.
Someone had cleaned and hung on a peg his clothing—minus pants, which must have been ruined. They’d been replaced by another pair with a drawstring at the waist that looked like something a gardener might wear. He relieved himself in the chamber pot then dressed, cuffing the too-long trousers. It took him a good twenty minutes to make himself moderately presentable.
He heard someone on the stairs outside his door and tensed. A moment later a soft knock sounded at the door.
He hobbled over and opened it.
Louise stood there, her face aglow, her lovely golden brown hair brushed loose and shining down her back. She looked even younger than her years. She smiled. “You’re standing.”
“I am. Damn proud of that.”
She held up a tray arranged with what appeared to be a fortune in silver-domed dishes. “I thought you might be hungry.”
“Starving, but you didn’t need—”
“I did need to. What little I would have paid you to watch out for the Lococks wasn’t sufficient for risking your life as you did.”
“I doubt it was that serious.”
Louise gave him an “oh, please” look and brushed past him and into the room. She looked around, seemed startled to see no table to set it upon. It occurred to Byrne how heavy the blessed thing must be and he kicked himself for not having taken the tray from her right away. He pulled the one straight-back chair over near the bed then took the tray from her and set it on the chair’s seat—an improvised table.
She said, “I heard enough of Mr. Brown’s recital of the fight to come to the conclusion you very nearly died in the line of duty, Mr. Byrne.” She met his eyes. “Stephen,” she amended.
“I am, I admit, in debt to the Scot. But it’s possible I’d have survived.”
“Well, that’s an optimistic view.” Her laugh, to his ears, held a near hysterical edge. Her eyes glittered with unshed tears as she turned away from opening the curtains to let in the sunlight.
Byrne sat on the bed and smiled when he noticed two cups on the tray. He patted the mattress. Louise sat demurely on its very edge, a good two feet away from him.
He poured tea, lifted the lid of one of the servers, and found thick rashers of bacon and fat sausages.
“There are hard-cooked eggs under the other cover,” she said then lifted a cloth napkin to reveal slabs of toasted bread under pools of butter.
“A meal fit for a king,” he murmured over his split lip. It would hurt to eat, but he was famished.