Scandalous Desires (46 page)
Pinkney blinked several times as if working through this logic, and then she smiled. The child really was quite pretty. “Oh, yes, my lady.”
The lady’s maid sat back as if quite confident that they were all out of danger now that everything had been explained.
Isabel twitched aside the curtains to peer through the cracked glass. She wasn’t nearly as sanguine. Many of the streets in St. Giles were narrow and twisting—the reason that her carriage had been traveling so slowly earlier. A mob could move much faster afoot than they. But the mob was beginning to fall away. John Coachman had found a straight stretch of road and was urging the horses into a trot.
Isabel let fall the curtain with a heartfelt sigh of relief.
Thank God.
Half an hour later the carriage was pulling up before her neat town house.
“Bring him inside,” she ordered Harold when he pulled open the doors.
He nodded wearily. “Yes, my lady.”
“And Harold?” Isabel descended the carriage still clutching the sword.
“My lady?”
“Well done. To both you and Tom.” Isabel nodded to Tom.
A shy grin split Harold’s broad face. “Thank you, my lady.”
Isabel permitted herself a small smile before she swept into her town house. Edmund, her dear late husband, had bought Fairmont House for her shortly before he’d died, and had gifted it to her on her twenty-eighth birthday. He’d known that the title and estates would go to a distant cousin and had wanted her properly settled with her own property free of the entail. Isabel had immediately redecorated on moving in four years ago. Now the entry hall was all white marble, with soaring gilded Corinthian columns along the edges emphasizing the height of the room.
“Thank you, Butterman,” Isabel said as she tucked the sword under her arm and pulled off her gloves and hat, handing them to the butler. “I need a bedroom readied immediately.”
Butterman, like all her servants, was impeccably trained. He didn’t even blink an eye at the abrupt order—or the sword she carelessly held. “Yes, my lady. Will the blue room do?”
“Quite.”
Butterman snapped his fingers and a maid went hurrying up the stairs.
Isabel turned and watched as Harry and Tom came in with the Ghost between them.
Butterman raised his eyebrow a fraction of an inch at the sight of the unconscious man, but merely said, “The blue room, Harold, if you please.”
“Yes, sir,” Harold panted.
“If you don’t mind, my lady,” Butterman murmured, “I believe Mrs. Butterman may be of assistance.”
“Yes, thank you. Please send Mrs. Butterman up as quickly as possible.” Isabel followed the footmen up the stairs.
The maids were still turning back the sheets on the bed in the blue room, when the footmen arrived with their burden, but at least the fire on the grate was lit.
Harold hesitated, probably because the Ghost was quite dirty and bloody, but Isabel gestured to the bed. The Ghost groaned as the footmen laid him on the spotless counterpane.
Isabel propped his sword in a corner of the room and hurried to his side. His eyes were closed. His hat had been left in the carriage, but he still wore his mask, though it was askew on his face. Carefully she lifted the thing over his head and was surprised to find underneath a thin black silk scarf covering the upper part of his face from the bridge of his strong nose to his forehead. Two eyeholes had been cut into the material to make a second, thinner mask. She examined the harlequin’s mask in her hand. It was leather and stained black. High arching eyebrows and the curving grotesque nose gave the mask a satyrlike leer. She set it on a table by the bed and looked back at the
Ghost. He lay limp and heavy on the bed. Blood stained his motley leggings above his black jackboots. She bit her lip. Some of the blood looked quite fresh.
“Butterman said ’twas a man injured,” Mrs. Butterman said as she bustled in the room. She went to the bed and stared at the Ghost a moment, hands on hips, before nodding decisively. “Well, nothing for it. We’ll need to undress him, my lady, and find out where the blood’s coming from.”
“Oh, of course,” Isabel said. She reached for the buttons of the Ghost’s fall as Mrs. Butterman began on the doublet.
Behind her, Isabel heard a gasp. “Oh, my lady!”
“What is it, Pinkney?” Isabel frowned as she worked at a stubborn button. Blood had dried on the material, making it stiff.
“ ’Tisn’t proper for you to be doing such work.” Pinkney sounded as scandalized as if Isabel had proposed walking naked in Westminster Cathedral. “He’s a
man
.”
“I assure you I have seen a nude man before,” Isabel said mildly as she peeled back the man’s leggings. Underneath, his smallclothes were soaked in blood. Good God. Could a man lose so much and survive? She began working at the ties to his smallclothes.
“He has bruising on his shoulder and ribs and a few scrapes, but nothing to cause this much blood,” Mrs. Butterman reported as she spread the doublet wide and raised the ghost’s shirt to his armpits.
Isabel glanced up and for a moment froze. His chest was delineated with lean muscles, his nipples brown against his pale skin, black, curling hair spreading between. His belly was hard and ridged, his navel entirely obscured by that same black curling hair. Isabel blinked. She had seen
a man—men, actually—naked, true, but Edmund had been in his sixth decade when he died and had certainly never looked like this. And the few, discreet lovers that she’d taken since Edmund’s death had been aristocrats—men of leisure. They’d hardly had more muscles than she. Her eye caught on the line of hair trailing down from his navel. It disappeared into his smallclothes.
Where her hands were.
Isabel swallowed and untied the garment, a little surprised by the tremble of her fingers, and drew them down his legs. His genitals were revealed, his cock thick and long, even at rest, his bollocks heavy.
“Well,” Mrs. Butterman said, “he certainly looks healthy enough
there
.”
“Oh, my, yes,” Pinkney breathed.
Isabel looked around irritably. She’d not realized the maid had come close enough to see the Ghost. Isabel drew a corner of the counterpane over the Ghost’s loins, feeling protective of the unconscious man.
“Help me take off his boots so we can bare his legs completely,” Isabel told Mrs. Butterman. “If we can’t find the wound there, we’ll have to turn him over.”
But as they stripped his breeches further down his legs a long gash was revealed on the man’s muscled right thigh. Fresh blood oozed and trickled over his leg as the sodden material was pulled away.
“There ’tis,” Mrs. Butterman said. “We could send for the doctor, my lady, but I’ve a fair hand with the needle and thread.”
Isabel nodded. She glanced again at the wound, relieved it was not nearly as bad as she’d feared. “Fetch what you’ll need, please, Mrs. Butterman, and take Pinkney with you
to help. I have the feeling he won’t be much pleased by a doctor.”
Mrs. Butterman hurried out with Pinkney.
Isabel waited, alone in the room save for the Ghost of St. Giles. He was unconscious, but still he was a commanding presence, his big body sprawled upon the dainty bed. Isabel looked at him. He was a man in the prime of his life, strong and athletic, nearly bare to her gaze.
All except his face.
Her hand moved almost without thought. She stretched toward the black silk mask still covering the upper part of his face. Was he handsome? Ugly? Merely ordinary looking?
Her hand began to descend toward the mask.
His flashed up and caught her wrist.
His eyes opened, assessing and quite clearly brown. “Don’t.”
A Preview of
Thief of Shadows
Other Titles by Elizabeth Hoyt
Praise for Elizabeth Hoyt’s Novels
THER TITLES BY
E
LIZABETH
H
OYT
The Raven Prince
The Leopard Prince
The Serpent Prince
To Taste Temptation
To Seduce a Sinner
To Beguile a Beast
To Desire a Devil
Wicked Intentions
Notorious Pleasures
“There’s an enchantment to Hoyt’s stories that makes you believe in the magic of love.”
—RT Book Reviews
ELIZABETH HOYT’S NOVELS
Notorious Pleasures
“Emotionally stunning… The sinfully sensual chemistry Hoyt creates between her shrewd, acid-tongued heroine and her scandalous sexy hero is pure romance.”
—Booklist
“Fans of historical detail will love [
Notorious Pleasures
]… the mysterious happenings provide excitement and suspense.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Incredible, steamy, and erotic… a great historical romance.”
—Fresh Fiction
“4½ Stars! TOP PICK! A magnificently rendered story that not only enchants but enthralls.”
—RT Book Reviews
“Hoyt brings steamy sensuality to the slums of early eighteenth-century London… earthy, richly detailed characterizations and deft historical touches.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Hoyt brings her Georgian-set Legend of the Four Soldiers series to a riveting conclusion… Rich with dangerous intrigue, suffused with desire, and spiked with wit,
To Desire a Devil
is nothing less than brilliant.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“4½ Stars! TOP PICK! The kind of powerfully emotional, sensual romance, tinged with fairy tale that readers have come to expect from this gifted storyteller.”
—RT Book Reviews
“Hoyt’s skills are some of the best in the industry… Sharp dialogue, strong characterization, smart heroines with spines, and yummy tortured heroes… this book is really, really good.”
“Hoyt works her own brand of literary magic… in the exquisitely romantic, superbly sensual third addition to her extraordinary Georgian-set Legend of the Four Soldiers series.”
—Booklist
“4½ Stars! Top Pick! A magical love story that reads like a mystical fable and a very real and highly passionate romance. Hoyt has found a unique niche that highlights both her storytelling abilities and her considerable talents for depth of character and emotion.”
—
RT Book Reviews
“Desert Isle Keeper! Books such as this one are the reason I read romance… Just about as good as it can get.”
“Superbly nuanced historical romance.”
—
Chicago Tribune
“4½ Stars! TOP PICK! Hoyt’s magical fairy-tale romances have won the hearts of readers who adore sizzling sensuality perfectly merged with poignancy.”
—
RT Book Reviews
“Hoyt expertly sifts a generous measure of danger into the latest intriguing addition to her Four Soldiers, Georgian-era series. Her ability to fuse wicked wittiness with sinfully sensual romance is stunning.”
—
Booklist
“Hoyt… is firmly in control of her craft with engaging characters, gripping plot, and clever dialogue.”
—
Publishers Weekly
“4½ Stars! Hoyt’s new series… begins with destruction and ends with glorious love.”
—
RT Book Reviews