In the Arms of the Heiress (A LADIES UNLACED NOVEL) (9 page)

“Oh.”
Oh.
Charles Cooper was no sort of white knight at all. “Then what can I do? Shall I ring for tea?”

“Do whatever you want. You’re my employer, after all.”

He looked so bleak and miserable in the dim room, the candle guttering with each draft of wind from the uncaulked windows. Louisa would see to getting that fixed.

Someone would still be up in the house—Grace prided herself on round-the-clock service. And if she had to, Louisa could manage herself. She’d spent most of her lonely childhood in the kitchens with the servants. “I’ll rustle up a tea tray. You tend to the fire. Or do you want me to?”

“There are some things I can still do myself, Miss Stratton. But you’re safe from me. Bedding a woman is not one of them.”

Chapter

12

C
harles opened the window wider to clear his head. He estimated he was up high enough in the house so if he threw himself out the rattling window, he’d fall to his death. That wouldn’t do much for Louisa’s reputation, but it was a tempting thought nonetheless. He was sick of being sick, driven mad with dreams of carnage and his complicity in it.

After the injury to his eye, he’d been sent to one of the concentration camps to “tidy” it before it was inspected by members of the do-gooders of the Fawcett Commission. Word had spread that something was seriously amiss in Kitchener’s army, finally reaching Parliament and the public. Somehow he and his ragtag team were supposed to convince the visitors that the brutal conditions of the Boer women and children were not as bad as initially reported.

No. They had been worse. A full quarter of the inmates under his brief tenure died. The simplest hygiene was nonexistent. His own men died as well—more soldiers were felled to disease than battle. Charles had felt as though he was swimming against an impossibly polluted tide, where death by drowning would be a welcome thing.

The clean sea beyond the ledge outside Rosemont beckoned. But again, he couldn’t do that to Louisa. What sort of husband sought to end his life when a new one was just beginning? He felt protective of her in this gilded snake pit, even if their relationship was a sham.

He shuffled to the chair and sat down. He shouldn’t sit here wrapped up in his sheet like a wrinkled Roman emperor. Louisa would return soon with her bloody tea and sympathy and he would have to pretend to be civilized. He’d already behaved like a beast, crushing her under him before he knew who she was.

On the whole, she’d been remarkably calm about it. And naked and soft under that pink silk robe. They had been flesh to flesh, like a true husband and wife, but he’d awakened before he could do too much damage. Not that he was capable anymore—he’d tried a time or two after he got back on British soil. His cock had denied him when presented with a real live lady, not that the women he’d sought comfort with could be described as such. Thank God his hand still worked on those very rare occasions his mind cooperated with his need.

Really, what did he have to live for? He couldn’t fuck, did not want to fight ever again. He was done, washed up at twenty-seven. At least he’d go out in a lark as Maximillian Norwich.

Charles was just rising from the chair when he heard the click of the door to the hall opening behind him. Goodness, service in the old ancestral pile was spectacular. She’d left only a short while ago. He settled back in the chair and waited for the tea and some of Louisa’s bracing conversation.

What he got instead came as a surprise before the dim room darkened completely.

* * *

T
wenty minutes later, Louisa struggled up one of the narrow back stairs with a tea tray. The gleaming white kitchen had been scrubbed clean and was completely deserted—unusual, but then the kitchen staff had worked hard for her homecoming dinner party and deserved the respite. The stove had been slow to relight and her favorite tea hard to find—Cook had put it in a different canister from a year ago. Louisa still thought a drop of brandy in the tea might not go amiss. If the captain did not want to join her out of moral principle, that was all right.

She’d seen enough red bulbous noses, broken veins, and paunches on the Continent. Not all Frenchmen and Austrians and Italians were handsome and debonair. But Charles Cooper did not have the look of a souse. If anything, he was too lean and ascetic. The hair on his head was shorn as any monk’s, and he rarely smiled. There was something very grave about his demeanor that intrigued her.

And she didn’t believe he had no interest in sex. Even if he’d been more or less unconscious when he’d attacked her, his anger had rapidly turned to arousal. She’d seen the paintings and the statues. Had unfortunately seen Sir Richard. Charles Cooper would fit right in to any museum, his lengthening manhood an improvement over those mysteriously attached fig leaves, at least from an educational perspective.

Louisa rounded the last corner that led to their suite. The captain’s bedroom door was open, but no spill of light fell on the carpet. Had he left to go in search of her? Did the foolish man not start a fire first? She was cold herself now in her flimsy robe and couldn’t wait to pour herself a cup of tea.

“Here we go, Maximillian,” she said, pausing in the doorway, as if someone might be around to hear her. “Max?”

A gust of air blasted from an open window straight across the little room. The candle she’d left had gone out, but she could see the bed was empty save for two plump pillows. He must have gone to the sitting room after all. Louisa was tired of balancing the tray and decided to set it on the bed so she wouldn’t have to struggle with closed doors. It was then she heard the faintest rasp coming from the floor.

A prickle of unease took hold of her. She bumped up against the club chair that was no longer angled next to the hearth. It was so damn dark in the room, she was afraid she’d trip. There had been books all over the floor, so she scuttled carefully around the chair. “M-Max?”

A groan. Then her bare foot encountered ice-cold flesh and she gave a little shriek. The captain was lying facedown on the floor in front of the fireplace, still wrapped in his temporary toga. Louisa sank to her knees. Her hand hovered over a shoulder, but she was afraid to touch him after last time. “Charles,” she whispered.

He couldn’t be asleep in this extraordinary position—no one liked sleeping on the floor when a bed was so handy, did they? Though perhaps his soldiering had inured him to discomfort and he actually preferred some hard surface. How odd it would be for the maidservants to find him like this when they lit his fire in the mornings.

She would leave him sprawled out, half on the carpet, half on the hearth tile, but she could shut the window—the poor man would be covered in frost by morning if she didn’t. He might catch his death, and it was much too soon to rid herself of Maximillian Norwich.

Besides, Louisa had never seen a real dead body and had no interest whatsoever in doing so. It was one thing to kill off Max in concept; to do the actual thing to poor Captain Cooper seemed very unsporting.

She rose to tiptoe around him, but his hand shot out and clamped her ankle, pulling her down to his level in an exceedingly graceless tumble. Louisa felt rather like a loaf of braided bread, all twisted around herself. They were eye to eye now, although he hadn’t moved except to blink once as he realized whom he held captive. The bristly carpet nap pressed into her cheek and his hand was like an iron cuff on her leg.

“Not again. Really, Captain, this has got to—”

“Shut. Up. Is there anyone else here?”

“Of course there’s no one else here! I had to make the tea myself. It’s on the bed if you want some. I’ll be happy to pour if you’d only let me up. What peculiar habits you have, lying on the floor like a mastiff. This is most unpleasant.”

They were so close she could see his lips quirk in the gloom. “I daresay. Did you hit me, Louisa?”

“Did I
what
?”

“Hit me. With a brick or a shovel or something equally ‘unpleasant,’ as you might say. Whatever it was, it knocked me off my chair. I only just woke up.”

She squirmed under his hand, but he held her fast. “I—I—of course I didn’t do any such thing! How could you think it of me?”

“Well, you did tell me on the train coming down here that eventually Maximillian Norwich had to die. I thought you might be getting an early start.”

“I’m not really going to kill
you
,” Louisa huffed. “I’m going to kill an imaginary man. And not with a shovel or a brick. He’ll have a death befitting his station, something dignified.” She hadn’t decided Maximillian’s denouement yet, except to rule out train wrecks, mountain climbing, and flower picking. Now that she’d met Charles Cooper, it was impossible that a mere thorn could kill him.

He relaxed his grip, but only just. “Very well. I suppose I’ll have to believe you.”

“Of course you do! I never lie!”

He said nothing, but the silence spoke volumes. Louisa supposed he had a point. What was all of this between them but one gigantic lie? “Someone really hit you?”

“Yes. I think I may need some nursing. How are you at the sight of blood?”

Blood? Was he lying there
bleeding
? It was too dark to tell. “Do get up!” Oh, what if he couldn’t? “I mean,
can
you get up?”

He grunted. “I can try. You’d best light some lamps.”

He released her ankle and she scrambled up. The match safe had fallen to the floor with the books, but she found it and lit the wick of the lamp on the fireside table. Charles was still prone on the floor, his short dark hair encrusted with something darker. “Oh my God.”

“While I’m sure prayer can be effective, I’d prefer some sticking plaster,” he grumbled, hauling himself up on his haunches. He swayed and caught himself on the chair.

“Oh yes! Of course. There must be something in the bathroom. Stay right there.”

“Not going out dancing.” He slumped against the chair. “Dizzy.”

“I’ll send for Dr. Fentress.”

“No!” He winced at the sound of his own voice. “No. No doctors. I’ll be fine. Give me a cup of that tea before you go.”

Louisa poured a cup with shaking hands. “It’s probably gone cold by now.”

“Doesn’t matter.” He took a loud slurp, something Maximillian Norwich would never do even if he had been hit with a brick or a shovel. Maximillian did all things in moderation.

Except in the bedroom. There, he was fiendishly artful, a sleek animal with endless, inventive sensual appetites.

“It’s good. Thank you.”

Louisa hesitated, feeling a swell of some unidentified emotion as she stood over him. The sheet was still mostly around his hips, and his torso was dusky in the lamplight. This was
exactly
how she pictured imaginary Maximillian, and Louisa wanted to examine real Charles further. But the poor man was bleeding, for heaven’s sake. “I’ll get the bandages. And some carbolic.”

He made a face but said nothing, and she stepped into their shared bathing chamber. It was lit by a flickering glass lamp in case of nocturnal need. Louisa turned the wick up and began to methodically search through the drawers of the long dresser set under the windows. She found bars of soap and sponges, embroidered hand towels, face cream, balls of cotton. It wasn’t till she reached the bottom drawer that she found a first aid kit with bandages and scissors and labeled brown bottles. She blessed the staff for their attention to detail, for everything in the dresser was new and neatly arranged. Louisa filled a small basin with warm water and pulled some squares of flannel from the open shelves near the tub.

“Ah. Florence.” Charles Cooper gave her a lopsided grin from the chair. He’d gotten himself back up and was fiddling with the draping around his waist. A drip of blood crept down his neck.

“This is just awful,” she said as she dumped her equipment on the fireside table. “Who would do such a thing to you?”

“Any one of the dinner guests. They struck me as a rum lot,” he said, more cheerful than he had a right to be.

“They’ve all gone home. It’s just the family left.”

“Even worse, you must agree.”

“Don’t tease, Charles. Someone at Rosemont tried to kill you!” She dabbed his head with the wet washrag and heard his swift intake of breath.

“Surely not. Death is so final. Perhaps they meant to warn me off. Send me back to the château so they can get their hands on your money.”

Money. Louisa hoped it wasn’t about that. Human greed knew no boundaries. But somehow she couldn’t picture Aunt Grace whacking Maximillian Norwich in the head before she tried to bribe him tomorrow.

Today, actually. It was after midnight.

Aunt Grace didn’t need her money—she had plenty of her own. Hugh would inherit a fortune, so he didn’t need it, either. Besides, Hugh was in London and not wandering around Rosemont in the middle of the night.

Could one of the servants have done this, perhaps to commit robbery? Louisa looked around the room, but all drawers were shut, and the only mess was the books Charles had knocked over himself in his fevered dream.

“Ow.”

“Sorry. I think it’s clean enough now. The wound is deep but I don’t think it needs stitches. Hold still. This may hurt.” His fingers dug into the arms of the chair while Louisa swabbed his scalp with carbolic. It was the only indication that he felt anything at all as he sat in otherwise rigid control. She stuck the plaster on as best she could, hoping it would stick to the short strands of hair. “There. Good as new.”

“Except for the bloody headache. It never pays to fib. Now I’ve got one in truth.” His accent had roughened, his roots emerging. My goodness, she was alone with an uncouth, half-naked man in a dimly lit bedchamber, and she had no desire to flee.

“Shut the window, why don’t you. I don’t guess my assailant climbed down the drainpipe?”

“I shouldn’t think so. We’re awfully high up. And anyway, your bedroom door was open when I came back from the kitchen.” She fiddled with the clasps of the casement and locked it. “You’d better lock the door to the hall from now on, too.”