Both were away, the butler announced when the man finally opened the door, aghast at the foul sight in the immaculate doorway of his domain: a dusty soldier in shirtsleeves, a filthy urchin in his arms. He sneered.
Rex frowned at the butler's bare feet.
The major domo wrinkled his nose at the stench of horse and worse. Rex raised his eyebrow at the scent of patchouli that wafted from the bewigged butler, but he again demanded a woman to look after Miss Carville.
According to the butler, Dodd, Cook was with the mistress in Bath, as were Lady Royce's dresser, her companion, and the upstairs maid. The housekeeper was visiting her sister in Richmond and the parlor maids were on holiday. So the young female could not be brought into Royce House, no matter who she claimed to be.
"She claims nothing. She is too ill."
"Then she belongs in a hospital, sir." The butler started to shut the door in Rex's face.
Still holding the woman close to his chest despite the cramp in his right shoulder and the trembling in his left forearm, Rex kicked the door fully open with his good leg. He would have kicked the blasted butler if he could have reached. As it was, the man had to leap backward to avoid the heavy door connecting with his bare toes. "I'll call the Watch," Dodd threatened. "We don't allow vagrants and vermin around here. This is a house of nobility. Lady Royce knows only the finest people, not criminals and cutthroats."
"Do you know who I am, you sanctimonious prig?"
The butler curled his lip again. "No one who should be calling on a countess, that is for certain."
"And I wouldn't, had I any choice. Your countess is my mother, confound it!"
The butler's face went pale. His toes curled under his feet as he finally recognized the air of authority under the grime-worse, the likeness to a boy's portraits in the sitting room and the parlor. "I… I do not believe you," he said.
Rex was seeing red. Not just at the lie, but out of anger. Miss Carville could be dying for all he knew, or dead already, while this supercilious servant worried about her presence and his pedigree. And whoever heard of a butler going barefoot? He pushed past the man and headed for the stairs that had to lead up toward the bedchambers. "Find me a female to attend Miss Carville. Now!"
"But… but no one is on duty but a footman, the potboy, and a kitchen drab."
"Get her. And have the boy bring hot water. There is a groom outside holding my horse. Send him for a physician-whichever one Lady Royce uses. The footman can get a message to my man at the Black Dog Inn."
Instead of carrying out Rex's orders, Dodd hurried after the viscount and his burden. Rex stopped at the first door, his leg protesting the climb.
"No, no! That is the countess's own bedroom."
The next one was the earl's, it seemed.
"Has my father ever been here, then?"
"Not that I know of, but I have only been in my lady's employ for six months. Her previous butler retired."
And this one would not last long if Rex had anything to say. According to Dodd, the next door led to her ladyship's companion's room, and the following chamber was being redecorated.
Rex was too tired to care about that lie, and too concerned about getting Miss Carville onto a bed before his arms gave out. Dodd finally rushed ahead to open a smaller room done up with rose-painted wallpaper and roses on the fabric hangings. It was as feminine and frilly as the rooms that stayed closed and clean next to the earl's bedchamber at the Hall.
Rex placed his burden on the bed and removed his coat from around her, then stood back, shrugging into it, waiting for the scullery maid.
The girl took three steps into the room, pointed at the figure lying so still on the bed, and screamed "Murderess!"
"She is an accused murderess," Rex countered, buttoning his uniform coat so he would feel more in command of a situation that was far beyond his ken. "First she is Lady Royce's goddaughter and she is ill."
"Gaol fever!" the maid yelled. She threw her hands in the air and fled, almost knocking the bucket of water out of a wide-eyed boy's hands. Rex grabbed for the bucket as the boy stared at Miss Carville's half-naked body. Rex hastily pulled down the remnants of her skirt to cover her legs.
"You, out!" he bellowed at the boy. "Fetch more water, and some soup if you can find it, or biscuits and tea." Then he once more ordered the butler to send the footman for Murchison, a woman-any woman-and his cousin Daniel, in that order.
"I… I know of a woman nearby. My, ah, sister."
"Get her, man!"
In mere seconds-and mere doors away, obviously the one Dodd claimed was being redecorated-a female staggered into the room. She did not look like Dodd, but the patchouli she must have bathed in did smell like him. Dodd suddenly had his shoes on, Rex noted, but the female did not have her gown fastened. Her face paint was smeared and her lips were swollen. She had a bottle of wine-from the Royce wine cellars, Rex guessed-in her hand while the other hand held the gaping front of her gown over fleshy, flabby breasts.
"You've brought your whore into my mother's house?" Rex shouted at the butler, who was edging toward the doorway. Even Rex, as far from polite society's ways as he could get, knew that was an outrage. "And here, to tend to a lady?"
"Lady, my arse," the female said. "She's nobbut a light skirt from what they say, and a cold-blooded murderer to boot. Who's to say she's better'n old Nell?"
"I say it, damn it! Get out, before I throw you out. And you"-he turned toward Dodd-"if you want to keep your post past tomorrow, you'll make certain your doxy is gone without lifting any of the countess's silver, and then you will find a respectable woman to come help. Try next door if you need to. And when the footman gets back from finding my cousin and my valet, post a message to Lady Royce, saying that her goddaughter has arrived."
He did not speak his thoughts, that the countess should have been in London while her godchild was in peril, not leaving him to comfort a delicate female, not abandoning yet another innocent to his or her fate.
If Miss Carville was innocent. He still did not know.
"Tell Lady Royce to come home now."
"I cannot give orders to my mistress!"
"She sent for me. Now send for her. Miss Carville is her responsibility."
Dodd bowed, shoved Nell ahead of him, and ran to do Rex's bidding. "Yes sir, my lord. Right away, Captain, ah, your lordship." Good positions were hard to find. Besides, Viscount Rexford looked like he'd have Dodd's head if his demands were not met, no matter how unreasonable. The butler had heard the war reports as well as the rumors. Everyone had. No one, it seemed, disobeyed his lordship, not ever. Or else. Murder and mayhem flashed from those ice-blue eyes, for certain. Dodd vowed to get the housekeeper back if he had to drag her himself. Yes, and Lady Royce, too.
Once the room was empty of servants, Rex stared at the unmoving form on the bed. "You are Lady Royce's mess," he declared, more for his own sake than the febrile woman's. "Not mine."
But the countess could not come fast enough, and Rex could not walk away or lie to himself, which made it his mess after all.
He repeated Murchison's French blasphemies, then a few of the cavalry's finest curses. The woman was still lying atop the covers, in rags and in need. Damn. He could not leave her like that. He could not wait for a maidservant, either. Murchison was an hour away, at least. Who knew how long before the doctor would arrive? The female was shivering, despite beads of sweat on her forehead. He lit the coals in the room's fireplace.
Oh, lord. He gave up the curses and prayed harder than when he'd found himself facing that party of advance French scouts.
Hell, they were the enemy; Miss Carville was a lady, which was far worse. Rex had never undressed a lady in his life, much less washed one. He looked at the bucket of water, which was cooling, and the towel on the washstand. "Miss Carville? Please, miss, please wake up."