Читать книгу Man Of The Mist - Elizabeth Mayne - Страница 11

Chapter Two

The marquess’s valet opened the door of Tullie’s room at Elizabeth’s knock. The valet appeared unflappable as ever as he took the steaming kettle from Elizabeth’s hands. He had a kind glance for the worry knotting her brow as she asked, “How bad is it this time?”

“Not so bad as it would seem, milady. You may speak with His Grace, if you would like. Perhaps you can help keep his howls to a minimum as Corporal Butter removes the bullet.”

Elizabeth didn’t hesitate to attend her brother. Murray women were known for their fortitude. She marched across the chamber and found Tullibardine seated on his barber’s chair.

Four lamps had been placed on the marble-topped commode at his side. He’d been stripped to the waist, and the lamplight made his fair skin seem unnaturally pale. Elizabeth spared a quick glance at his windburned face before looking for the wound that threatened him.

A small, circular hole steadily seeped blood and fluid just below the upthrusting ridge of his collarbone. The wound mutely testified that a bullet had entered at an acute angle. The freckles glazing John’s shoulder were stretched to odd shapes because of internal swelling. Elizabeth thought it was a good thing he’d been hit on the right, being that her brother was irrevocably left-handed.

“Not very pretty, my lord,” Elizabeth announced, withholding her questions about the darkening bruises and knots on his face. It was obvious on close inspection that he’d been involved in an exchange of fisticuffs. Funny, she thought, even the battered twenty-nine-year-old John Murray looked more boyish than the grim-jawed Highlander attending him, though Evan was only twenty-three.

Elizabeth’s eyes reflexively went past Corporal Butter to seek Evan. He’d shed his coat and was in the process of rolling up the sleeves of an immaculate linen shirt. He turned his back to her and stooped to scrub his large hands in a basin of hot water.

The linen strained at the seams across his shoulders, which had widened considerably since the last time Elizabeth had seen Evan. Her gaze followed the long curve of his back, reluctantly noting that he hadn’t gained an ounce of surplus flesh in five years. Maturity had not caused him to let out his belt.

Her mouth tasted drier than ashes, and she tried in vain to moisten it with swallowing. She had as much luck whetting her tongue as she had tamping down the memories that sent her pulse singing and heightened the color staining her cheeks... Evan MacGregor had come home at last.

Elizabeth drew in a shuddering breath and turned to her brother, determined to focus only on him. Amalia grimly handed a glass of amber liquid to Tullie, ordering, “Drink this, my lord.”

“How do you feel, John?” Elizabeth asked, in a shaken voice.

“I’ll live,” Tullie stated matter-of-factly before tossing the contents of the glass down his throat. He coughed deeply, then grimaced. “Get on with it, Butter. Do your worst, before I toss my accounts.”

He turned his face away from the injury, stared balefully at Elizabeth and motioned her closer. “Elizabeth, come shield me from Amalia. She’ll badger me all the way to Traitor’s Gate with her relentless questioning. Come, lass, distract me while MacGregor’s henchman fingers the lead inside me.”

“My lord!” Amalia sputtered, patting his clenched fist solicitously. “You mistake my concern. How can you make light of such a dread injury?”

Elizabeth wanted to roll her eyes. Amalia and Tullie being civil to one another was as rare as sunshine on Ben Nevis in February. Tullie couldn’t stay out of trouble any more than Amalia could mind her own business. Looking him squarely in his now dull eyes, Elizabeth said, “All right. It’s time for truth or consequences. What’s the woman’s name this time?”

Tullie burst into laughter that was quickly squelched by pain. With his good hand, he pinched Elizabeth’s cheek, quipping grimly, “Och, dinna ask such a cheeky thing with Amalia listening. God’s truth, she’d transport me down under, she would, did I divulge the wrong lady’s name.”

“That’s an idea worth entertaining,” Elizabeth bantered. “Imagine the rest our hearts would take if you were out of sight and out of mind for a year or two? You nearly scared my abigail to death, my lord. Throwing rocks at my windows at four in the morning!”

“Och, well...” He grinned sheepishly. “One of my Highlanders suggested we mind the elders and not wake the whole house. Discretion, I believe it’s called.”

Amalia tutted, shook her head and warned Elizabeth, “Don’t encourage any of them.”

“And why not?” Tullie argued, a tad drunkenly. “I’d be in a lot worse shape had I not encountered a few fellow Highlanders this night, I’ll tell you.”

Elizabeth watched as Tullie’s approving and grateful glance went to Evan MacGregor. That brought her own gaze into direct visual contact with Evan’s penetrating eyes again. Caught, she couldn’t have taken her gaze away from his then to save her life.

She felt exposed, like a butterfly in a cold glass case. A thousand dark questions loomed in the depths of Evan’s wintry blue eyes, but he said nothing as he raised a lamp aloft, above Corporal Butter’s adept hands.

A muscle twitched high on Evan’s cheekbone, and then his gaze slid indolently down her exposed throat and lingered on the deeply shadowed crevice between her breasts, crisscrossed by silk. Elizabeth’s hands itched to clench the silk wrapper and draw it tightly closed around her body. His look made her shockingly aware of the night rail she wore in his presence.

Only Evan MacGregor’s eyes had the ability to send shivers raking over her skin, to draw her nipples taut and contract the smooth flesh of her belly.

The sun creases at the corners of Evan’s eyes deepened with pleasure, confirming that he knew the full extent of his effect upon her. An amused twist lifted one corner of his mouth in a wry, mocking smile that made her racing pulse boil, even as she hardened her expression to one of ire and displeasure.

He met her angered glare with his own arrogant challenge, deliberately cocking a brow above his long-lashed, sensual eyes. That look discounted everyone else in the room except her and him. His bold eyes confirmed that only his wants and desires mattered.

“Damnation! Go easy, man!” Tullie swore, jerking his shoulder sharply.

Corporal Butter grated out a curse and lost a pair of long-nosed tweezers. The tool clattered to the floor.

Evan looked back to the serious business at hand. Elizabeth let a whisper of relief escape through her parted lips as Evan bent to retrieve the tool.

“I’ve got two fingers on the bloody ball. Just a wee bit more, Yer Grace, and I’ll have it loose. Give me that.” Butter stuck out his hand for the fallen tool.

Elizabeth blurted out unthinkingly, “You must wash that before it is used again!”

Both officer and soldier-surgeon straightened at the same time, staring at her as though she’d lost her wits. Evan’s arched brow dropped to a harsh line. His expression now said clearly that she should mind her place.

Elizabeth flushed instantly at the effectiveness of his unspoken rebuke, then let out another sigh of relief as Evan handed the bloody tool to Maxtone. He rinsed it in hot soapy water and put it back in Butter’s bloody hand, while Tullie complained in a raw voice, “Balls of fire, Elizabeth! We aren’t diapering babies here!”

Elizabeth gulped. More color stole into her cheeks. How she hated to be the focus of everyone’s censure! She swallowed again. Amalia nudged her furiously, hissing her concern about Tullie’s pain-flecked gray orbs.

“So tell me, my ladies.” Tullie bit off each word, matching his speech to the erratic beating of his heart. “How long have you been in London town?”

“Three days. We’ve just nicely settled in.” Elizabeth realized his request for words was a plea for distraction. It didn’t matter what she or Amalia said.

“Aunt Charlotte came down first and opened the house. Elizabeth and I accompanied Father to Leinster. He stayed over to ride the foxes with Reverend Baird and Uncle Thomas. They should all arrive promptly at noon tomorrow.” Amalia added, for clarity.

“Humph,” John grunted. “You needn’t have reminded me Colonel Graham is due back on the morrow, thank you.” He shot a queer look at MacGregor that Elizabeth couldn’t decipher. Corporal Butter grunted, as only a Highlander could. His “humph” could mean anything.

“There’s no hope this will be healed by morning, is there, Butter?”

“Not a Chinaman’s chance,” Butter told him reprovingly.

“Ah, well, that canna be helped.” Tullibardine sighed. His pained gaze wandered back to Elizabeth. “And what prompts your rare appearance in London, Elizabeth?”

Elizabeth normally needed little prodding to explain her reasons for avoiding the social life in London to her brother. It was no secret that she preferred living the retired life in Scotland, but with Evan MacGregor able to hear every word she uttered, she preferred to keep her own counsel. Not on her life would she mention that her visit to town had been prompted by a wee imp named Robbie.

Consequently, she failed miserably to come up with any sort of answer to her brother’s question. But that didn’t keep her concentrated gaze from straying every other moment to Evan.

On the surface, there wasn’t any wonder about that. Evan MacGregor was so achingly handsome, most ladies would simply have stared until their eyes were sated. The last time Elizabeth saw him, he’d been the most shockingly beautiful seventeen-year-old she’d ever laid eyes upon.

Now, Evan was a man, nearer to twenty-four than twenty-three. A little taller than she remembered, he’d grown into the whipcord strength that had always served him well. She judged his height to be three good inches over Tullie’s six feet. Evan’s hair no longer had the wild, untrimmed look of a Highland lad’s. Close-cropped waves feathered about his noble head, as black as raven’s wings.

Devilishly wicked whiskers, which hadn’t been there before, now emphasized the handsome angularity of his jaw. Elizabeth jerked herself out of another fawning display of childish adoration before she made a complete fool of herself.

She wasn’t a child anymore. Neither was Evan MacGregor. Try as she might, she couldn’t call what had happened between them years ago the actions of impulsive children, either. Grimly Elizabeth forced all memory back into the past. It was best dead and forgotten.

Amalia gasped aloud as a strong spurt of blood shot across Tullibardine’s chest. Fortunately, Evan had angled his body so that Elizabeth couldn’t see the tools Butter pushed in and out of John’s shoulder.

What Elizabeth did see was the amount of color seeping from her brother’s normally ruddy face. Beads of sweat now glazed Tullie’s brow and neck.

Amalia pressed another tot of brandy into John’s left hand. As he gulped that, Elizabeth shot a meaningful look at MacGregor’s back, asking, “Pray tell me, brother dear, the rationale behind your taking a murdering cattle thief and his henchman as your seconds tonight?”

The marquess scowled deeply, making Elizabeth wonder if it was pain that caused his expression, or disapproval of her deliberately disparaging words. “Damn me if I didn’t have the bad luck to get assaulted on my way to White’s, Elizabeth, and felt the need of fellow Highlanders’ sure arms. Bullets are terribly debilitating, don’t you agree?”

“Assaulted!” Amalia declared. “In Saint James?”

“Regrettably so,” Tullie conceded with a gasp. Several moments passed before he forced his voice to continue. “A rather violent group they were, too. The mob did some damage to the club, and other buildings along the way.”

“Whatever for?” Elizabeth couldn’t prevent shock from showing on her face. “A mob, in Saint James?”

Evan MacGregor cast a considering glance at Amalia, then looked levelly at Elizabeth. “’Twas a pack of rabble whose real target was the Prince of Wales. Carlton House was their intended destination, until they ran afoul of the watch on Saint James. That’s where the melee turned into a riot. They overturned several carriages, whose occupants received a sound thrashing. Several shots were fired before the mob finally dispersed. Luckily for His Grace, we Grey Breeks were available to help the Horse Guard put down the riot.”

“There you have it,” Tullie said sloppily, showing the effects of undiluted liquor. But Elizabeth took exception to his slurred words implying it was normal happenstance.

Incensed, Amalia demanded, “Did they take whoever shot you into custody?”

“Well, now, there’s a question I canna answer.” John’s eyes seemed to glaze over with more pain than he was able to override. “Demmed miserable piece of business, is all I have to say. I’d almost fought my way to White’s before the soldiers arrived, but the sight of uniforms and muskets threw another torch under the bloody anarchists.”

“So I am to take it you weren’t involved in a duel this night, Tullie?” Amalia asked, deliberately changing the subject.

John Murray quirked his brow, and laced his reply with a rolling brogue. “Och, forgive me, Amalia, for setting the honor of Scotland back another decade, but I found myself without weapons more damaging than my own two fists. You understand that the king takes a dim view of us Scots tramping about his capital city armed to teeth with dirks, claymores and Doune pistols.”

“A crying shame, milord,” Elizabeth said impudently. “The king should give you a medal for your forbearance and courage. ’Tis a dangerous city, I fear.”

“Not so much as you may be inclined to believe.”

“Got it!” Butter crowed. He straightened all at once, holding the gruesome lead ball between his bloody fingers before John Murray’s astonished eyes.

The coppery stench of fresh blood invaded Elizabeth’s nose, making her want to retch from the taste of it, but a Murray never flinched at the sight, much less the smell, of blood.

“So you have.” The marquess exhaled a deep shudder of relief. “Now, which of you ladies can take the neatest stitch?”

That said, the marquess of Tullibardine promptly fainted dead away.