“I’m going with you,” Finn said.
Rycliff put a hand to the lad’s shoulder. “Not so fast. You’re staying here.”
“Staying here?” Finn’s voice was edged with frustration. “I’m a militia volunteer. You can’t just leave me behind, my lord.”
“I’m assigning you to Summerfield. Fosbury will stay too. Next to Dawes, he’s biggest, and a tavern-keeper’s handy with unconscious men. This is an important duty, Finn. The two of you must guard the captive and—”
“The captive?” Susanna laughed a little. “You make this all sound so melodramatic. Don’t you mean the patient?”
Her husband gave her a dark look.
Susanna threw up her hands. “Far be it from me to ruin your excitement.”
“As I was saying, Finn. You’re to guard the captive and protect Miss Winterbottom.”
“Protect me?” Violet asked. “I’m to stay too?”
Lord Rycliff turned to her. “I must ask it of you. Chances are, he’ll wake. We’ll need someone here who can talk to him. Try to ascertain who he is, where he came from.”
“But how am I to—”
“Be creative.” He cast a glance at the man slumped across her lap. “He likes you. Use that.”
“Use that?” she asked. “What can you mean?”
“Surely you’re not suggesting Violet employ some sort of feminine wiles to earn his trust,” Susanna said.
Rycliff shrugged. A clear admission that yes, that was exactly his suggestion.
Everyone in the room turned to Violet. And stared. She could easily imagine the thoughts running through their minds. Could Violet Winterbottom possibly possess a single feminine wile to employ?
Even if she did possess wiles, she wouldn’t know how to use them. Her best stab at interrogation technique involved earlobe pinching, and look at how that had turned out.
“I’ll sit up with you, Violet,” Susanna said.
“No, you won’t,” Rycliff told his wife. “This day’s been too much exertion already, what with the ball and this excitement. You need to rest.”
“But Bram…”
“But nothing. I’m not risking your health, much less…” The look on his face was stern but loving, and the protective touch he laid to his wife’s belly made his argument perfectly clear. Susanna needed to rest because…
“She’s with child,” Violet whispered to herself.
As the couple shared a tender, knowing look, Violet swelled with happiness for her friend. She felt a touch of envy too. Susanna and Lord Rycliff had, in her observation, the ideal marriage. They understood one another, completely and implicitly. They disagreed and argued openly, demanded a great deal of each other and themselves, and they loved one another through it all. They were partners. Not just in love, but in life.
Violet’s chances of finding that deep affinity looked slimmer than onionskin. There was only one man she’d ever dreamed could know her so well, and respect her as his equal. But she’d been so wrong about him. And ever since The Disappointment, she hadn’t—
The man in her lap stirred, mumbling and latching one arm about her waist.
Violet froze, stunned immobile by the wash of long-forgotten sensations. The sensation of being touched. Of being needed.
Don’t be made a fool again.
“Well, Violet?” Susanna looked at her expectantly.
She shook herself. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Will you feel safe with him?” Susanna indicated the sleeping man in her lap.
Beware, her heart pounded. Beware, beware.
She nodded. “I have Finn and Mr. Fosbury to sit up with me. And the whole house of servants, should we need them.”
And that was how Miss Violet Winterbottom, habitual wallflower, found herself in Sir Lewis Finch’s Egyptian-themed library, keeping vigil with a hobbled youth, a tavern keeper, and an unconscious man who just might be a spy.
A pair of footmen entered, bringing fresh blankets and dry garments. While they tended to the unconscious man, Violet busied herself studying the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Sir Lewis Finch was a celebrated inventor of weaponry and a noted collector of antiquities. His library held all sorts of treasures.
In the end, she selected an illustrated compendium, Birds of England—for she reasoned that she wouldn’t be able to actually read. If she was to sit beside the mysterious, handsome intruder all night, her concentration was bound to be compromised.
Hopefully, it would be the only thing compromised.
By the time the footmen left, the great house had gone quiet. Finn paced back and forth before the window, half-patrolling, half-pouting. Fosbury deposited himself in an armchair near the fire and set about paring his fingernails.
Violet took the chair nearest the sleeping stranger and placed her book on a reading stand. But instead of looking at it, she stared at him. His face had been wiped clean of grime and blood. At last, she could take a good, long look at the man and put her absurd suspicions to rest.
The linen shirt the footmen had given him draped crisply over his shoulders. The collar gaped, revealing his upper chest. She couldn’t help but look. He was tanned and muscled there, as she supposed all farmhands must be. Violet had touched a man’s bare chest, once. But that had been a lean, aristocratic torso—not nearly so rugged and…firm.
Pity about the nose, Sally had opined earlier.
Pity indeed. The man’s nose had clearly been broken, at least once. It had a rugged line to it, almost like a lightning bolt. A significant portion of his left temple and cheek were abraded and red.
Violet could not say that the scrapes and broken nose made him less handsome—and even if they did make him a fraction less handsome, they made him ten times more virile and attractive. What was it about a visible, flesh-and-bone record of violence that made a man so alluring? She couldn’t explain it, but she felt it.
Oh, she felt it.
She swallowed hard. No man had stirred her interest for quite some time. In fact, there was only one man who’d ever made her feel like this—and that man was half a world away.
Or was he?
Violet’s pulse drummed. She dragged her gaze over every strand of his thick, dark hair and every facet of his exquisitely cut cheekbones. She recalled the warm, spice-brown hue of his eyes and the instant affinity she’d felt when they’d locked gazes in the ballroom.
If she looked beyond the injuries and dark scruff of his unshaven jaw, imagined him dressed in finely tailored wool rather than coarse homespun… Dear Lord, the resemblance would be uncanny.