"Deuce take it, I saved her from being beaten and raped! I took her to where she could be tended and healed."
Daniel headed down the stairs with his burden, as if he carried a bandbox instead of a trunk. "You ought to know the ton don't care a whit about the right or the reason. They only care about the looks of the thing. An earl's son, a spinster lady alone in a house. Sounds like wedding bells to me. You better hope she's guilty."
"No, I shall not hope for that. And no one can force me to the altar."
"I don't know about that," Daniel called back over his shoulder. "Your mother is a powerful woman. Made me take tea with her cronies and their daughters a few times. You know how I hate that kind of thing. Makes me break out in a rash."
"That's not pushing you to wed one of them."
"I don't know. Your mother had that look in her eye. I was glad she left for Bath when she did, except she did set a fine table. Oh, pull the door shut behind you, there's a good fellow."
There's a wed man walking.
Chapter Seven
Nanny Brown clutched her heart when she opened Miss Carville's door to see Rex looking as if he'd been run over by an oxcart.
Rex almost had palpitations too, when he saw the gun wavering in the old woman's gnarled fingers.
"My stars!"
"My pistol." Rex still had the mate tucked into his waistband. He gingerly reached out to take the weapon.
Nanny almost dropped it before he had his hands on the barrel. Daniel ducked, behind him.
"Oh, it is not loaded, but I thought it best to keep the thing nearby. My knitting needles are in my pocket and the warming pan is next to my chair."
"You needed a weapon to defend yourself from Miss Carville?" Good grief, had he carelessly left his former nursemaid alone with a homicidal maniac? He'd supposed that the younger woman had a good excuse for shooting Hawley, if she actually did commit the murder. Not that she was liable to murder a frail old woman in her sleep along with the rest of Lady Royce's household.
Rex shuddered to recall his last day in the army, when the same overconfidence in his intuition almost let a troop of French scouts fire on headquarters. He was the only casualty, thank goodness, or he never would have been able to forgive himself. Lud, if something happened to Nanny, he'd be in worse straits. She was not even a soldier.
He should have waited for morning to find his cousin, or left a message at Daniel's rooms. He should have posted guards, or stood sentinel himself. He should have-
Nanny sniffed, then scowled at the odors of cheap ale and fine wine and clucked her tongue. "How much have you been drinking to come up with such a foolish notion? Of course I did not need to fend off Miss Carville. She is a lady, not a criminal. But someone loose in London killed that unfortunate man." She stepped closer and peered up at Rex. "Did he attack you?"
"No, we encountered a spot of trouble at a gaming club, that's all." Rex touched his swollen nose. "A, um, discussion about the dice used."
"It looks broken, which is no more than you deserve, gambling and drinking and brawling, on your first night in London. What will her ladyship think?"
Rex was about to say he did not give a rap for what the countess thought when Nanny caught sight of the large man standing back in the shadows of the hall. She clucked again. "I should have known. Daniel Stamfield, you always were up to no good. From what my sister tells me, you are no better now than the nasty little boy you always were, getting my lamb into trouble."
Instead of taking offense, Daniel laughed and rubbed at his chin. "You always were blind when it came to your favorite. Everyone in Royston knew Rex was the ringleader. You must be the only one who thought he was an angel."
"I'll have you know I still do. Except for the gambling and drinking and brawling, of course."
"And Daniel was never little, Nanny," Rex put in, before he received another scolding.
"No, and he has never been other than a heathen, either. Is it true what my sister says about the night last month when you escorted Lady Royce to Almack's?"
Rex looked back at his cousin in amazement. "You actually went to that pillar of propriety? The place they call the Marriage Mart?"
"I told you, your mother is a strong woman."
Nanny poked at Daniel's chest, but she was too short and stuck her finger in his stomach, grown soft in London's clubs and pubs. "She said you scratched your arse right in front of your aunt's friends and Princess Lieven."
"I warned her that all that gossip and sham politeness made me itchy. It always did, but she insisted. Said I had to have outgrown throwing spots like a high-strung debutante. At least she never bludgeoned me into going again."
Rex was laughing out loud. The wine at Daniel's house might have had something to do with his hilarity, but the thought of his bumbling giant of a cousin among the dainty manners at Almack's cheered him up considerably.
Daniel muttered, too low for Nanny's hearing, "Keep laughing if you want your arm broken, too." To Nanny he said, "I apologized to Aunt Margaret."
"A great deal of good that did. Why, my sister said the poor lady decided to leave for Bath the next day, so she did not have to face any of her acquaintances. Which is why she wasn't in Town to help Miss Carville last week. As for you, Master Jordan, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, getting into a nasty brawl at your age. Why, you are supposed to be an officer and a gentleman, not sowing wild oats. For that matter, you are supposed to be proving Miss Carville's innocence."
Which reminded Rex of why they were all standing in the hall outside the woman's door. "We have come to see about that very thing, Nanny. Is Miss Carville able to answer a few questions?"
"At this time of night? I should say not. She is fast asleep."
Rex could tell by the red flashes that sweet old Nanny was lying through her false teeth.
"We'll just disturb her rest for a moment."
Nanny crossed her arms in front of her age-flattened chest and barred the door. "You will not come into a gentlewoman's bedroom looking like a prizefighter, the one who lost the bout. You will not come into a proper young lady's chamber at night at all, ever. Now you go on and get that man of yours to do something about your face before you give the poor girl more nightmares in the morning."
With Daniel's words about compromise and marriage echoing in his mind, Rex nodded. "We shall speak with Miss Carville early then. We have a lot to accomplish tomorrow."
The ancient martinet shook her head. "I promised the lass a bath and a hair wash if she has no fever in the morning. That will make her feel better about things. So you'll just have to wait."
"Devil take it, I have to insist."
"Insist all you want, my lord. I do not take orders from you, no matter how much you glare at me. I'm here because you need me, young man, not because I need a salary. Your father made me a generous pension, so mind your tongue."
"Yes, ma'am," Rex answered, stepping back on Daniel's foot to stop his cousin's snicker. "You will tell us when it is convenient to begin trying to prove Miss Carville's innocence. I am certain her clean hair will impress the judges."
Nanny used her pointing finger like a poker to Rex's chest. "And I won't have you dressed like a stable hand in my lady's chamber, either. You tell that valet of yours that, too, unless he's deaf as well as dumb. He refused to listen when I asked for your pistol, so I had to fetch it myself when he was out."