The Fortune Hunter (2 page)

“This may hurt,” he murmured. A delicate scent drifted from her tangled hair as he bent closer, but he kept his attention on making sure she wasn't badly hurt. He had no need of another woman, another complication, in his life.

She gave him no answer.

“I'll endeavor to be careful,” Hamilton said.

His fingers probed her narrow wrist. She moaned softly, then clamped her lips closed. Reluctant admiration startled him. She might look as dainty as a soap bubble, but she was able to suffer this pain without screeching as Elinor would have.

Blast Elinor!
He had enough problems right now without her coy smile invading his head.

“Is it broken?” Philip asked. His anxious voice cracked.

“Nothing seems broken.”

Hamilton bent again to peek under her splintered bonnet. Her eyes were closed. Twin tears slid along her cheeks, and she shuddered with silent sobs. Damn! It would be easier if she snarled recriminations at him. He was accustomed to Elinor—and other London ladies raging over the merest slight. This stoicism was unnerving.

Philip reached forward to rearrange the battered bonnet that the nameless woman was wearing. This observation reminded Hamilton that they had no idea what her name was.

“Nerissa Dufresne,” she whispered to his question. She rested the back of her finely boned hand against her forehead. Closing her eyes, she shuddered so hard Hamilton feared she would shatter. “Forgive me, sir. I fear my head is going to refuse to stay on my shoulders.”

“Hamilton, we must get her to a doctor immediately!” gasped Philip.

“No doctor,” she said, her voice gaining some strength. “I shall not be leeched when there is nothing wrong with me but a jumbled brain and a few bruises.”

Hamilton smiled. “You are plucky, but by all means, you must allow us to escort you to your destination, Miss Dufresne.”

“Sir, I can't impose on a stranger,” she answered, trying to focus her eyes on him.

“Forgive me, miss, for failing to introduce you only to the butt of my riding crop.” Hearing his brother's groan at his crude speech, he added, “I am Hamilton Windham. Your servant, Miss Dufresne. And this is my brother Philip.”

“The Viscount of Windham?”

“Does my name mean something to you, Miss Dufresne?”

When she was about to nod her head, Nerissa put her hand up to her bonnet. Her head threatened to fly off and leave her senseless again. She took a deep breath, although nothing could slow the frantic beat of her thudding heart.

“I am familiar with your name, my lord, although, until but a moment past, I was not familiar with you.” Her shoulders quivered, but her voice took on repressive accents as she raised her eyes to meet his slate-grey gaze. “Were you all about in the head to be careering through the field like that? I own that I did not see where you came from, but didn't you see me? Are you foxed? I see no signs of that, but why else would you ride roughshod over me?”

Lord Windham's hands tightened about his riding crop. His eyes burned with silver fire, as he replied in a clipped tone, “Miss Dufresne, you wound me to the very heart. I would never ride down a lady. I was jumping Cirrus, and I failed to see you until we were nearly upon you. You should refrain from lurking in the hedgerow.”

“Lurking? I assure you that I was not
lurking
. I was taking a walk—a quiet walk, I had hoped—when you knocked me heels over head.”

“I saved your life.”

“Which would have been in no danger if you hadn't been so feckless as to leap without determining what might lie beyond. Surely that's the first lesson any rider learns. I … Oh!”

The last became a groan as Nerissa's legs failed her. Strong arms caught her and drew her with gentleness toward a firm body. She was grateful Lord Windham's actions were more refined than his words.

The adderish edge vanished from Lord Windham's voice. “Miss Dufresne, you are in no condition for a dagger-drawing. Save your angry words for a later time when you may pummel my ears with them. For now, Philip and I will escort you home posthaste. You would be wise to retire to your private chambers until you are steady on your feet.”

“You may be right,” she whispered, although unwilling to obey his commands. She was put out of countenance by the thought, for she should owe a duty to this handsome stranger. He could have ridden on, but he had paused to be sure she was safe. To be honest, she could not fault him for the accident, for that was truthfully what it had been.

“Can you stand alone while I toss you up into the saddle?”

“I'm not sure.” Nerissa hated the weakness in her voice, for she was usually in good point. When she considered what might result if she could not tend to her household, she felt more ill. “But I shall try, my lord.”

Lord Windham slowly withdrew his arm from her waist. She was glad he allowed her to hold onto his strong arm until she was sure she was set on her feet. She pressed her hand against the side of her broken bonnet. Her head felt oddly weightless. Closing her eyes helped, for then only darkness spun, not the whole world. She heard Mr. Windham's gasp. She could not reassure the red-haired man. Words were too much for her weakened condition. She had to focus all her strength on trying to remain on her feet.

She wobbled. As his arm swept around her again, she leaned on Lord Windham, not caring that such intimacy was being forced on her when her senses might vanish anew at any moment. She must not surrender to the raw agony rollicking through her in an obscene quadrille.

“Hamilton,” urged the voice she knew belonged to Mr. Windham, “we can't delay. We must get her back to Bath. Help her up, and—”

“How can she ride?” came Lord Windham's impatient voice. “Good God, Philip, she can't stand. Ride to town and get the carriage. The only way we can get her back to Bath with her reputation intact is in it. She can't be seen sitting across my knees as if she was in her infancy.”

“I can get a doctor, and—”

“Just go and get the dashed carriage!” he interrupted again. “We can worry about a doctor later.”

The sound of hoofs disappearing in the distance pierced Nerissa's pain. Grasping onto the even rhythm, she used it to pull herself out of the void. She gasped and clutched at Lord Windham's lapels as he lifted her into his arms.

“What are you doing?” she cried, then wished she had remained silent, for the sound ached within her head.

“Miss Dufresne,” he said in his impatient voice, “I've sent my brother at top speed to get the carriage. We wish to safeguard your reputation. You can't believe I wish to ruin it before the dust of Philip's passage settles to the road again.”

“No, I suppose not.” She looked at the rigid line of his jaw.

She could tell Lord Windham was furious. At her? She had done nothing wrong, but to have the misfortune to be in his way. Her right hand clenched on his wool coat. These dashed lords believed the world was theirs to do with as they pleased. Pity those who got in their way. Her gaze rose along his sternly carved face. She tensed as she was captured by his grey eyes. Seeing exasperation there, she realized it was centered on himself. She chided herself for her unflattering thoughts. Lord Windham was as distressed by this episode as she was. She wondered if he had been out to enjoy the peace of the Bath countryside as she had. Not that it mattered now. The peace was gone, lost in a detonation of pain.

Nerissa was pleased when Lord Windham set her with care in the lush grass beneath a tree on a hillock a short distance from the hedge. The cool shade offered comfort, and she found the quivers of fear fading. She was glad to be away from the hedgerow, although she knew it was unlikely a second rider would come vaulting over it.

When the viscount offered her another drink from the canister of brandy, Nerissa said, “My head is spinning enough already, my lord.”

With a shrug, he took a deep drink and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Mayhap, but you look to be in pain. The brandy will ease that. Take a drink.” He put the bottle on the ground next to her. His eyes narrowed when she did not reach for it.

“You are being most kind, my lord.”

“Fiddle! I'd do the same for any bedraggled kitten brushed by Cirrus's hoofs.”

Nerissa bristled at his curt retort. He
was
high and mighty! “I retract my Spanish coin, my lord. I vow you are a regular ramshackle.”

“What a mull!” he grumbled. Sitting next to her on the hillock, he leaned against the tree. His arms folded over his chest, the motion straining the seams at the shoulders of his coat. “Pray do not take umbrage, Miss Dufresne. I meant you no slight, and I am sure you … in your generosity … meant none to me. I suspect you are not at your best.”

Touching her straw bonnet's cracked brim, she looked away. Heated tears welled in her eyes again. She did not want to weep before this hard-spirited man. She would not! Yet her head ached; her left arm was aflame with pain; and, with every breath, her body remembered her impact on the earth. Too easily she recalled the sight of the horse soaring toward her and the grass clutching at her silk slippers as she tried to flee.

“Forgive me anew,” Lord Windham said in a softer voice. “I do not mean to be uncivil, but I own to being a bit unsettled as well.”

Nerissa looked at him. She had accused
him
of being rude when she was allowing herself to forget he had been a victim of this accident also. “You are right. I'm not at my best.”

“How do you feel?”

“I have no need of you quacking me. I am a bit battered, but that is all.”

“Is your brain about you now?”

When she smiled, her surprise was mirrored in his wide eyes. “The world isn't as skittish as it was.” Her smile faded as pain throbbed along her left wrist. The buttons on her gloves strained against the swelling. She cradled it in her other hand and clenched her teeth. She had not guessed anything that had not been broken could hurt so severely.

“Philip will return in only a few minutes with the carriage. Do you live in Bath?”

“Yes.”

What he thought of her terse answer, she could not guess. Nor did she care. She simply wanted to be home. There she could surrender to the tears pricking the back of her eyes.

“Are you in much pain?” Lord Windham leaned forward to look at her wrist.

Nerissa pulled away, overwhelmed by his strong shoulders that blocked her view of her aching arm. She gasped as she discovered how precarious her hold on her senses was. The sound became a moan as she was swept by new waves of undulating pain. Again the powerful arms surrounded her, but, as he tried to keep her from crumpling to the ground, the viscount's arm brushed her left wrist. Agony enfolded her, sweeping her into darkness.

Chapter Two

“I will be fine,” Nerissa assured Lord Windham as he handed her from the curricle. She looked past him to the welcome façade of her home. Its greyish-brown stone front was as smooth as the walkway in front of it. Pediments topped the door and the first-floor windows. The ground-floor windows and those on the upper floors were devoid of any decoration. A wrought-iron fence connected the railing by the few stone steps to the next house.

“Miss Dufresne, I can—”

“I shall be quite fine,” she said again, not caring that she interrupted the viscount. The rattle of other vehicles along the street nearly drowned out her soft voice. Maybe if she repeated the refrain that she was fine enough times,
she
would believe it.

“Are you sure?” he asked. He kept one foot in the road as he assisted her onto the walkway, but she still had to look up to meet his eyes. No expression marred the marble coolness of his face, and she found it difficult to believe this was the same man who had been so solicitous while they had waited for Mr. Windham to return with the carriage. “You still have very little color in your face. Philip may have been right. Mayhap we should have stopped at the doctor's.”

“I shall be all right once I am inside and am able to rest.” Struggling to smile, she kept her hand under her left wrist. It pounded with continuous pain. She included Mr. Windham in her weak smile. “Thank you so much for bringing me home.”

“I shall help you in if you wish.”

Lord Windham's deep voice drew her eyes back to him. If the situation had been different, she would have enjoyed admiring his strong jaw or trying to decipher the emotions in his volatile eyes. Today, she just wanted to rid her life of him and the pain he had caused.

“That's unnecessary, my lord, but thank you again.”

He tipped his hat and bowed slightly. “As you wish, Miss Dufresne. I bid you a good afternoon. I leave you with the hope that tomorrow will be a less adventuresome day for you.”

“I pray you are correct.”

Nerissa fought to keep her pace even. She tried not to think that anyone looking out of a window on the opposite side of Laura Place would guess Miss Dufresne was out of sorts. She lurched forward to grasp the newel post on the steps as if she had been tippling more than a few swallows of brandy. When Lord Windham offered again to assist her, she struggled to laugh aside his concern. The sound was pathetically feeble.

To be honest, she felt completely corkbrained. Her head was too light. Hoping Lord Windham would believe her, she said, “'Tis nothing but a bit of dizziness.”

Foolishly she looked back as she spoke. Seeing his narrowed eyes and tight lips, she was sure he found her words the skimble-skamble they were. She feared he thought she found his assistance abhorrent. That was not true, but she had no stamina to explain she wanted to escape from Lord Windham and this whole bizarre experience. Then perhaps the debilitating pain would disappear, too.

Nerissa's feet were weighted as she labored to lift each of them to the first riser. Gripping the rail, she was able to climb the few steps to the door without collapsing. Even so, she was cautious as she faced the carriage to bid the gentlemen a good day. She gasped when she discovered Lord Windham standing directly behind her, his hands outstretched to catch her if she had fallen. Her sigh reverberated excruciatingly through her, adding to her annoyance with the viscount who ignored her wishes.