Tiger's Eye (27 page)

When at last she dropped the towel back into the bowl and would have stood up with it, relieved to have it done, he stopped her with a hand sliding around the back of her neck.

“Thank you,” he said softly, his fingers caressing the soft skin at her nape.

Startled, her eyes flew to his and were trapped by the intensity of his gaze. By the softly filtered light of the late afternoon sun slanting through the window, she saw that the golden eyes were actually hazel flecked with gold, with the tiniest hint of emerald green near the pupil. Then he turned his head just enough for a dusty sunbeam to strike his face, and his eyes glowed as golden as metal. Isabella caught her breath, mesmerized by the sheer beauty of them. Had he been a woman, those eyes alone would have been enough to assure his reign as an Incomparable. The rest of his far too considerable male beauty was simply a case of a disproportionately generous Mother Nature heaping more bounty on top of an already ample feast.

“You shouldn’t look at me that way if you don’t mean it, Countess.” Those golden eyes never left her mouth as, dipping his head, he kissed her.

XXXVII

B
efore her lips could do more than flutter under his, there was a knock at the door.

“I’ve brought the sawbones, Ti—uh, Alec,” Hull called through the closed panel.

Alec’s hand fell away from Isabella’s neck, and she got quickly to her feet. Flustered, she forgot about the bowl and barely managed to save its contents from being spilled all over the floor as she stood.

“Steady,” Alec said. And there was the mocking note she had been waiting for.

She supposed it was deserved. After all, it was she who had protested vehemently not more than six hours before at the notion of becoming his mistress. Yet the merest touch of his lips on hers could make her knees turn to jelly, and her hands shake.

Without looking at him again, she opened the door to admit Hull, his wife, who was carrying a covered tray, and an older man in a black suit turned shiny with age whom Isabella assumed was the sawbones.

“Treat ’im gentle, you ’ear, McIver? ’E’s a good friend of mine,” Hull directed jovially, passing a pair of pistols to Alec as casually as he would have handed over a pair of gloves. Alec thrust one in the waistband of his breeches and laid the other on the bedside table.

“Dinner, such as ’tis,” Liddy announced without enthusiasm as she set the tray on the bedside table. She and Hull then left. The aroma of cooked cabbage emanating from the tray was so strong that there was no ignoring it in the closed room. The sawbones, nose wrinkling, paused in the act of unpacking his instruments to request that they go ahead and eat, which they did, with little enthusiasm for the lukewarm boiled cabbage and pork, and the less than fresh bread. Alec barely managed two bites, and those only at Isabella’s urging.

Isabella laid aside her fork when Alec did, and watched with a twinge of sympathy as the doctor went to work on him, poking and prodding and clucking importantly. By the time he had finished his examination, Alec, cursing all doctors with scant regard for this one’s sensibilities, was as grumpy as a rooster who’d had its tail stepped on.

Dr. McIver, pronouncing the wound to be superficial but the blood loss substantial, ordered at least a week of bed rest. Alec was determined to be on the road by the next morning, and said so. The doctor shook his head, prophesying dire consequences if his instructions were not followed to the letter. Alec called him a blood-sucking leech, along with other less flattering terms that would have burned Isabella’s ears had she not already grown somewhat accustomed to Alec’s penchant for colorful language.

Dr. McIver looked outraged at Alec’s invective. Isabella shook her head warningly at him when he opened his mouth to, she feared, reply in kind. Thinking better of it, the doctor contented himself with snapping closed his bag and storming out. Isabella followed him into the hall, shutting the door behind her.

“Well, what is it?” He eyed her up and down, looking thoroughly ruffled.

“Please allow me to apologize for Alec, Dr. McIver. He’s had some unpleasant experiences with medics lately.”

Dr. McIver snorted. “I don’t know what he is to you, but if you’ve a care for yon rude beggar, you’ll keep him abed for at least three or four days. The bullet not only tore off a large patch of his skin, it hit his skull with considerable force. Had the bone not deflected it, he would have been killed outright. If he tries to move about, I cannot say with any certainty what the consequences might be.”

“I will do my best to keep him here, and abed. But he is not a good patient under the best of circumstances.”

The doctor’s expression told her that he had already reached that conclusion on his own.

“Get this down him at night, and sprinkle this on the wound twice a day. If it does not get infected, and if he stays quiet, I’ve no fears for his life. More’s the pity.” This last was muttered as the doctor handed over a brown glass bottle full of a milky fluid, and a smaller, powder-filled vial, which Isabella tucked into her sash.

“Thank you for coming, Doctor.” Isabella reached into Alec’s purse—which she had taken from him without a qualm, just like the shameless hussy she felt herself to be rapidly becoming—and handed the doctor a folded pound note. The doctor accepted the money, nodded, and left. Isabella followed him down the stairs. Now that she was out of Alec’s sight, she had other business to attend to.

The excitement of the cockfight had calmed somewhat, and the taproom was swarming with men. One or two eyed Isabella, but most were too intent on going over the details of the fight and the amount each had won or lost to pay her any mind. Fortunately she did not have to look far to find Hull. He saw her hovering at the door of the taproom and came hurrying over to her.

“Can I get you sommit, miss?”

“There is a message I need to send to London. Could you show me where I might find writing materials, and then spare a lad to deliver it? There’s twenty pounds in it for the messenger.”

“Twenty pounds!” He looked suitably impressed. “I don’t doubt that my boy George’d be glad of the money—and I’ve pen and ink at the bar. I’ll bring ’em up to you, if you like.”

Isabella shook her head. “I’ll use them down here, if you’ve no objection.”

Isabella scribbled her message, sanded it, folded it and sealed it with a drop of wax as quickly as she could.

When she finished writing the direction on it, she handed it to Hull.

“If it is delivered tonight, there’s an extra ten pounds in it for your boy, thirty in all,” she said. “There are instructions to that effect in the note. The messenger will be paid as soon as it’s in the right hands.”

“For thirty pounds, my boy could make it to France and back, much less London.” Hull took the message and squinted at the direction on its back. “He’ll get it done for you, don’t you fear.”

“Thank you, Mr. Hull. You’ve been more than kind.”

She turned to make her way back upstairs, threading through the crowded taproom as quickly and unobtrusively as possible. The last thing she wanted to do was attract attention, but in this she was not successful. One man left his seat and his guffawing cronies to trail after her as she passed.

Isabella was halfway up the stairs before she realized he was behind her. A quick glance showed her a stocky man in a black frock coat and gray frieze breeches who might have been dapper had he been cleaner. But claret spotted his waistcoat, and his neckcloth was grimy, as though it had not been fresh for several days. He was swarthy-skinned, and his features, though not unhandsome, were coarse. Isabella felt a quiver of apprehension as she met bold black eyes, and hurried on up the stairs.

“What’s your hurry, sweeting?” the man called after her, quickening his own pace to match hers. Isabella caught her breath as she realized that he was deliberately following her. She froze him with a glance, and went quickly along the hallway to her room. Fumbling for the key, she was not quite fast enough to elude her pursuer. He caught her by the elbow, and turned her to face him.

“How dare you, sir!” she said, jerking her arm from his hold. He stood frowning at her, his brows twitching together over his beak of a nose.

“I’d swear we’ve met,” he muttered. Ignoring him, Isabella thrust the key into the lock and turned it, intent on stepping inside and putting herself safely beyond his reach.

“Hold,” he said suddenly, reaching out to catch her arm again and turn her forcibly toward him. Isabella gasped, and shrank away. Every instinct urged her to call out to Alec, but she was loathe to disturb him for something that she could, she was sure, handle herself. Besides, Alec was not up to a fight on her behalf at the moment.

“Let me go, please. My husband is within.” She spoke the half lie firmly.

“Who are you?” He completely ignored her words, instead staring intently into her face. “Who are you?”

“My identity is no concern of yours. Pray release my arm before I am forced to summon my husband for assistance.”

“I’ll have your name.” His fingers on her arm tightened cruelly.

“Unhand me. At once, do you hear, or I’ll scream!”

“Will you, indeed?” He loomed closer, crowding her against the wall. What act of violence he intended, Isabella never knew. To her utter relief, just at that moment Alec jerked open the door she had unlocked, and stood scowling at her. As he saw her companion, his scowl changed from the irritable to the dangerous. Bare-chested and barefoot, with a fresh bandage wrapped around his forehead, Alec managed nevertheless to look formidable.

“What the bloody hell is going on out here?” His eyes never left the man who had been menacing Isabella.

“God’s teeth!” the man gasped, his eyes widening as they locked on Alec. “Alec Tyron, the Tiger, here!” His eyes swept back to Isabella. “Of course, I should have tumbled to it at once. The mystery lady.” He paused for a second, then seemed to recollect himself. His eyes slid back to Alec. “I’d heard, of course, that you’d a fresh bird in keeping that was not quite in the common way.”

“John Ball.” Alec’s greeting was cold as stone in winter, and his eyes flicked to the hand that still gripped Isabella’s arm. “ ’Twere I you, I’d unhand the lady at once. Seeing her mishandled sets ill with me.”

“Does it indeed? Then I apologize, of course. To you and to her.”

He removed his hand from Isabella’s arm. At a gesture from Alec, Isabella stepped around him and inside the room. Violence was in the air, and she feared that Alec, injured as he was, stood little chance should this misbegotten encounter degenerate into blows, or worse.

“ ’Tis a good piece from London you are, Tiger.” John Ball’s tone was affable on the surface, but there was an undertone to it that set Isabella’s nerves to quivering with alarm. If ever one man disliked another, John Ball disliked Alec.

“As are you, Ball.” Alec’s voice was infinitely cold.

“One does one’s business where one can.”

“Precisely.”

“Well. I’ll leave you to your labors. From what I’ve seen of them, they look far more enjoyable than mine.”

“Appearances can be misleading.”

“Quite.”

“Quite.”

With that last cryptic exchange Alec shut the door, and turned the key in the lock. Isabella breathed a sigh of relief, then decided she had relaxed too soon. From the stiff set of his wide, bare shoulders, Alec’s temper had not improved during the time she had been belowstairs. The muscles of his back stood out sharply, as if he was keeping himself in check with considerable effort. Stiffening her spine, Isabella prepared herself to face the explosion of wrath she was sure must follow. She was not disappointed. When he turned to face her, leaning back against the door as though he needed its solid strength to remain upright, fury blazed from his eyes.

XXXVIII

“W
here the bloody hell have you been?”

“Don’t you swear at me, Alec Tyron!”

His lips thinned. “I’ll swear if I bloody well want to. You step outside for a quick chat with the bloody sawbones and you vanish for near three-quarters of an hour! I’ve been out of my mind with worry! Do you realize the kind of place this is? The kind of man John Ball is? Hell, if I hadn’t heard you at the door, there’s no telling what he might have done to you! You’re not amongst the bloody nobility here, you know.”

“But you did hear me, so no harm’s done, is there?” She was determined to make light of the incident. “Shouldn’t you be in bed? Dr. McIver left some medicine for you to take.”

“Devil take Dr. McIver, and his bloody medicine! I want to know where you’ve been, and how you came to encounter Ball!”

“Get in bed, and take your medicine like a good boy, and perhaps I’ll tell you.”

She was being deliberately annoying, she knew, but felt he deserved it for his language, to say nothing of his bad temper.

“Isabella …” Alec sounded as if her name was forced out through gritted teeth. His eyes flashed pure temper. But what smote her was his obvious weakness as he leaned back against the door. She had not meant to worry him, nor anger him, nor involve him in an altercation with an uncouth stranger. He had every right to be upset with her, she admitted to herself, although she still took exception to his language.

Sighing, she surrendered her own indignation at his intemperate reception in favor of coaxing him back to bed.

“I will tell you everything, really, and very odd it was, too. But you really should lie down, and take your medicine. Please.”

“I’m not a puling infant for you to mother.”

Isabella made a face at him, and moved toward the bed. She fluffed his pillow and smoothed the sheets, speaking to him over her shoulder.

“You’re acting like an infant, so you mustn’t blame me if I treat you like one.”

She turned to face him, standing beside the bed with her arms crossed over her chest.

“Get into bed, Alec, or I’ll be forced to take stern measures.”

Despite his annoyance, that coaxed the beginnings of a smile from him. “You’re frightening me to death.”