A Season of Ruin (22 page)

“Not sporting at all,” Archie replied in a dangerous voice.

Robyn, still dazed from the blow to his head, turned to see whom Archie was glaring at.

Atherton stood on the street, his chest heaving. His blue eyes, filled with rage, were fixed on Robyn.

Atherton had knocked him to the ground?

“You're behind it, aren't you, Sutherland?” Atherton snarled. He lunged toward Robyn again but his two friends held him back, each with a hand on his arm. Robyn didn't recognize one of them, but the other was Adrian Brougham, Lord Stafford, a friend of Atherton's and a decent enough fellow.

“Stafford?” Robyn bit out.

The young man shook his head. “Apologies, Sutherland. He's . . . not on form tonight. Can you just let it go?”

Robyn could. Not out of any consideration for Atherton, but because he'd now become desperate to get to Lily, and he didn't want to be delayed by Atherton's temper tantrum.

Before he could assure Stafford he'd forget the whole matter, however, Atherton wrenched free of his friends' grip and lunged for Robyn again. “I had her right where I wanted her, and then you got to her, didn't you, Sutherland? You made her change her mind!”

He grabbed Robyn by the throat, but this time Robyn saw him coming and he was ready. He slammed his fists under Atherton's elbows and Atherton's hands dropped away from his neck. Before he could recover, Robyn smashed a fist into his face. Blood spurted from Atherton's nose and splattered all over Robyn's white cravat.

Damn, it was satisfying to feel Atherton's nose crumple under his fist.

The blow should have laid Atherton flat, but he was like a man possessed. He swung a fist at Robyn, aiming for his eye, but he missed and the blow glanced off Robyn's jaw.

Archie, Stafford, and Atherton's other friend stood by, but none of them tried to stop it now, for it had gone from a brawl to a matter of honor. Most of the men who'd gathered to watch Atherton lose his fortune had followed him out of the hell, now eager to see him lose a tooth, or worse.

“He's a big 'un, that one,” said one of them, nodding at Robyn. “Looks a bit dicked in the nob, too. I'll take a wager on 'im.”

A shout went up as men scrambled to lay wagers on the outcome of the fight. The noise swelled to life around him, but Robyn paid no attention. The blood from the gash on his head flowed steadily into his eyes now, obscuring his vision, but he ignored it, his gaze focused on Atherton.

Atherton circled, waiting for an opening. “You said something to her, Sutherland. I know you did. I saw the way you looked at her. You said something to her to make her refuse me.”

Robyn dropped his fists in astonishment. “She
refused
you?”

Right there, in the midst of a brawl, blood streaming down his face, Robyn smiled.

That smile seemed to infuriate Atherton, who took immediate advantage of Robyn's inattention and landed a blow to his ribs that made Robyn's breath seize in his lungs. “You
know damn well she did, for you talked her into it. Want her money for yourself, no doubt.”

Robyn coughed some air into his abused lungs and let out a wheezing laugh. “Atherton, you bloody fool. She doesn't have two farthings to rub together.”

Atherton took a wild swing at Robyn's face, but his fist flew wide. “You're the fool, Sutherland. Do you imagine Lady Chase hasn't dowered her precious granddaughter? Who do you think will inherit all the Chase money when she dies, if not Miss Somerset and her sisters?”

All the blood rushed to Robyn's head then. His ears roared with it. He thought of Lily, so beautiful in every way. Atherton had come so close to having that perfect creature for his own, and all this time he'd wanted Lily
for her money
?

When Robyn thought how close she'd come to marrying the bastard, he wanted to pummel Atherton to the ground and keep pummeling him until he became indistinguishable from the street under their feet.

Archie appeared equally incensed. “You greedy bastard. What need have you for any woman's money? Isn't your own fortune enough for you?”

“It's gone,” Stafford said quietly. “His entire fortune's been lost at the hazard table.”

The heiresses
 . . . it made such perfect sense, Robyn was stunned he hadn't worked it out before now. Atherton had spent most of the season on the heels of one heiress after another because he'd emptied the family coffers.

The roar in Robyn's ears became deafening. “You'd have dragged her into disgrace along with you, wouldn't you, Atherton? Thank God she came to her senses before she agreed to marry you. She deserves far, far better.”

“Better? What, Millicent Chase's daughter? I think not. Why else would I choose to court her? She'd be lucky to have me, penniless or not. Though she is delicious, I'll grant
you that. I confess I regret I won't get the chance to toss up her skirts.”

A red haze clouded Robyn's vision.
He was going to kill Atherton.

He lunged forward with a snarl and seized the neck of Atherton's coat. “Don't
ever
talk about touching her again.”

Robyn's voice had gone soft and deadly, but Atherton was too incensed to hear the menace there. Instead of heeding it, he plunged forward. “Perhaps it's just as well she
did
refuse me, for you've no doubt already had her.”

Robyn froze. “
What did you say?
”

Too late, Atherton realized his danger, but even then he refused to back down. Fueled by drink and fury, he spat, “Only that I've no wish to raise a Sutherland bastard in my house.”

Robyn didn't remember much after that apart from a confused series of sounds: the crack of his fist as it crashed into Atherton's jaw, the man's wheezing cough as he took another blow to the stomach, and finally a hollow grunt and the thud of a body as it hit the street.

When Robyn came to himself again, he stood over Atherton, who lay in a bloody heap on the ground. The men surrounding them shouted in victory or groaned in defeat according to the wagers they'd made, but when Robyn spoke, they all fell silent at once.

“Send round word of your second, Atherton. My man will call on yours tomorrow.”

The fire burned down to cinders in the grate, and still Robyn didn't come home. Lily wrapped her arms around her body to generate some warmth, but the chill of the room had sunk into her bones.

What could keep Robyn out to such a late hour? Visions of Louise Bannister's tight breeches filled Lily's head. She shivered again, but not from the chill in the room this time.

Perhaps she'd best go to bed.

She rose and tried to shake some feeling back into limbs gone numb from sitting so long in the same attitude. She winced as blood rushed back into her feet, then tingled and burned up her legs.

Could a heart grow numb if it languished too long in one's chest?

Lily emerged from the drawing room into the still, dark entryway. Even Rylands, who apparently knew better than to wait up for Robyn, had gone off to bed hours ago. Her
legs continued to twitch in protest as she began to mount the stairs.

She'd reached the fourth step when she heard the door open quietly behind her.

Her heart had not yet gone numb, for it lurched in her chest as she turned, then dropped like a stone into the pit of her stomach.

Robyn stood in the entryway, covered in blood. Lily watched, horror-struck, as a few dark red drops trickled from his battered knuckles to drip onto the white marble floor.

For a moment she couldn't move; she could only stand, her hand over her mouth, frozen with shock. “Oh, dear God.
Robyn
.”

She did move then—she must have, for she felt each stair slap the bottom of her slippers as she dashed back down into the entryway.

Robyn held his hands up in front of him. “It's not as bad as it looks. Most of the blood isn't even mine.”

“Not yours?” Blood seeped steadily from a gash on his forehead. A bruise that put his earlier black eye to shame bloomed on his jaw, and his white cravat was so splattered with red, it looked as if he'd spent his evening in a slaughterhouse. “Is that someone else's blood seeping from the wound on your head, then?”

“Well, no, I suppose
that
is mine, but the blood on my cravat isn't.”

Goodness, men were foolish
. What difference did it make which blood was
his
? “Never mind. It's sufficient that at least some of it is yours. Come with me.”

Robyn raised an eyebrow at her imperious tone, but he didn't offer any resistance. “Yes, ma'am.”

Lily took his arm, intending to lead him to the stillroom to get a closer look at the gash on his forehead, but they'd taken only a step when Robyn's soft gasp of pain brought her to an immediate halt. “Robyn?”

He pressed one of his hands against the left side of his body, over his ribs. “It's nothing to fret over. It's just a bruised rib. Or perhaps it's cracked. It's difficult to tell.”

A cracked rib?
That was far more serious than a cut on the forehead. Lily's heart kicked hard, threatening to crack her own ribs.

She slipped her arm as gently as she could around his waist and urged him to lean against her. “The stillroom won't do for a cracked rib. You need to lie down at once. Lean on me, and I'll help you up the stairs to your bedchamber.”

He tried to disentangle himself from her arm. “Don't be absurd. I'll send you tumbling down the stairs if I lean on you.”

Lily ignored this and eased him toward the stairs. Robyn fussed and protested the entire way, but at length she managed to get him up the stairs, down the hallway, and into his bedchamber.

Once they'd entered, however, she drew to a halt. “Where's your bed?”

Robyn grinned. “Ah. I've had dreams where you demand to be taken to my bed. Of course, in the dreams I can actually move without assistance.”

“Only you could manage to flirt while suffering a cracked rib,” Lily said, even as she felt a warm rush of pleasure at his words. “Your bed, sir?”

He gestured toward an open door on the right. “Through there.”

It seemed to Lily as though Robyn leaned more heavily on her now, and his breathing became labored, so she moved forward as quickly as his injury would allow. He sat on the edge of the bed while she propped up his pillows, then she eased him back against them and helped him lift his feet up. He lay back with a sigh and closed his eyes.

She stood over him, not sure what to do next. His forehead needed tending, and the cuts on his knuckles, as well. Perhaps she'd better call a servant . . .

“Don't you dare call a servant to tend me,” Robyn said, as if he'd read her mind. “The last thing I need is some footman prodding at me with his cold hands.”

“Well, I can't very well leave you here like this!”

He opened one eye. “Why not? I'm fine.”

His dark hair was matted with blood from the cut on his forehead, his jaw had turned an ominous shade of purple, and his knuckles had started to bleed again. “You're
not
fine. You look a perfect disaster. Please don't tell me Lord Pelkey did this to you?”

He opened the other eye. “A disaster? What an unkind thing to say. And no, Pelkey had nothing to do with it.”

Lily crossed her arms over her chest. “How, then?”

He hesitated. “A brawl outside one of the gaming hells.”

Oh, for pity's sake
. He deserved a cracked rib for being foolish enough to brawl. Still, she couldn't simply leave him here with blood trickling into his eyes. She sighed. “I'll help you. Do you have any water?”

Robyn raised himself up on his elbows, but the movement seemed to cost him some effort. “Are your hands cold?”

“Freezing,” she snapped. “Now, the water, if you would?”

He jerked his head in the direction of the window then collapsed onto the pillows again. “Over there. This is
not
how it went in my dream, by the way.”

Lily found the water and a towel on the washstand. She set the bowl down on a table near the bed, then stood over him, her hands on her hips. “Can you sit forward a little? I think you'd feel better if I removed your coat.”

Robyn heaved himself off the pillows with a pained groan. “If I recall, in my dream we
did
tear off our clothes.”

Lily grasped the sleeve of his coat and pulled carefully until his arm came loose, then she leaned closer to slide it across his back and off his other arm. “There. That's much better.”

When she'd finished, he fell back against the pillows again, as if the effort had exhausted him. “Now that I think
on it, it was
me
who tore off
your
clothes. I believe I prefer it that way.”

“I suppose you think I'll remove my clothing to accommodate you?”

Lily felt herself flush as soon as the words left her mouth. Goodness—was
she
flirting with
him
now?

Robyn's eyes gleamed. “Well, I am
very badly
injured.” That dangerous grin lifted one corner of his mouth. “It might distract me from the
terrible, awful
pain I suffer.”

Lily reached for the basin and sat on the edge of the bed. “You told me you were fine not five minutes ago.”

“Yes, well, I'm in far more pain now than I was then, though
that
has little enough to do with my injuries.”

He winced when she touched the wet cloth to the gash on his head.

Lily dabbed at it, then leaned forward to get a closer look. It was an ugly gash, but she didn't think it would need to be sewn closed. She brushed the towel over his forehead until it was reasonably clean, then dipped it in the water again and began to clear some of the blood out of his hair.

She worked steadily for some minutes before she realized Robyn had gone still and quiet. She glanced down at him, half expecting he'd fallen asleep, but his dark eyes were open, watching her.

Lily's breath caught at the look he gave her. “I'm sorry. Am I hurting you?”

He nodded once. His gaze never left her face. “Yes.”

She jerked her hand away, but he caught her by the wrist and pressed her fingers against his cheek. “Don't stop.”

Lily swallowed. “You have cuts on your hand.”

He didn't release her, but moved their joined hands away from his face so he could see. His knuckles were no longer oozing, but they were caked in dried blood. “So I do.”

She withdrew her hand, dipped the towel in the water, and stroked the wet cloth over his knuckles. Robyn closed his eyes again and drew in a deep, slow breath.

Lily studied his face, at once both familiar and utterly new to her. She'd always thought him heartbreakingly handsome, and he was so now, with his long, dark lashes curled on his cheekbones.

She leaned close—she'd never noticed the tiny white scar on his bottom lip.

The tiny imperfections. The cracks in the glaze.

Perhaps that's what love was, then. To see those scars, those imperfections, and to know they were what made a person beautiful.

She loved him.
Bruised, battered, and bloody as he was, she thought him beautiful.

Why didn't he touch her? Did he think her afraid still? She wasn't, not anymore—

No. That was a lie
. She was afraid.

Robyn might care for her, but he'd made her no promises, and yet she, the prim and proper Lily Somerset, had rejected a proposal from the most respectable gentleman in London, only to give her virtue to the wickedest one instead.

This was what she wanted—she knew that now.

Robyn hadn't revealed his heart to her, but he'd helped her to see what lay inside her own, and once she had, everything changed. Giving her heart into his keeping had been the truly terrifying part, but it was done. It felt like a lie to hold back her body when he already held her heart.

She wanted to give him everything.

She was afraid,
but she wasn't a coward anymore.

Lily brought his damaged hand to her mouth and touched her lips to his knuckles. His eyes fluttered under his lids, but he closed them tighter, and she sensed a reluctance in him, as if he believed he dreamed her touch and didn't want to wake.

She kissed each of his fingers in turn. His lips parted, but his eyes remained closed. He let out a faint groan when she slipped one of his fingers into her mouth. His body shifted restlessly on the bed, but still he didn't open his eyes.

“You refused Atherton?” His voice was hoarse.

It didn't occur to her to wonder how he knew. “Yes.”

He opened his eyes at last, and the look that burned in their depths stole her breath. He said nothing more—just watched her with his hot, dark eyes as she loosed the buttons on his waistcoat and spread the silk wide so she could get to the shirt beneath.

His breathing quickened as her fingers fisted in the linen to pull it free of his breeches. She slid one hand against the bare skin of his belly and felt the hard muscles under his smooth skin jump under her fingers.

“Your hands aren't cold,” he murmured. He arched his body just a little, as if seeking her touch.

She teased a finger around his bellybutton. “Well, not anymore.”

Robyn gasped a little at the sensation, but then he caught her hand and moved it away from his body. “This isn't a good idea, Lily.”

Lily sat back and regarded him. Did he think to refuse her? Perhaps he didn't want her anymore . . .

Oh, no.
He did. She had only to look at his parted lips and flushed skin to see it. Had he decided to be noble, then? It would be just like Robyn to refuse to take her virtue the very moment she'd made up her mind to give it to him.

She placed her hand on his chest to feel his heartbeat. It pounded under her palm, and she could see his pulse leap in his neck.

He caught his breath at her touch. “Are you trying to drive me mad?”

Drive him mad? Well, it was one way to overcome his uncharacteristic fit of virtuousness.

Perhaps she did want to drive him just the tiniest bit mad.
Could she?

She gave him an affronted look. “Certainly not, Mr. Sutherland. I'm simply checking you for further injuries.”

She ran her gaze over him. The shirt posed somewhat of
a problem, as she couldn't remove it entirely unless he sat up. Yet she didn't want him to move . . . there was something wicked about having him lie here, stilled for her hands, only half divested of his clothing.

She hiked her skirts to her knees, crawled onto the bed, and lay down on her side, propped up on her elbow next to him.

Robyn gaped at her, shocked. “What in the blazes do you think you're doing?”

Lily had to press her lips together to keep from laughing. “I told you. I'm checking you for injuries. Now, here's a bad one . . .”

She trailed light fingers against his jaw, then pressed her mouth where her fingers had been. She kissed him lightly, then dipped lower to lick his neck. A faint trace of salt and spicy soap met her tongue. She nipped at him with her teeth and felt a deep shudder pass through his body. “Oh, dear. Is it tender there?”