Chapter 19
“Angel! Open the door!” called Dace. “Lizzie, can you open the door?”
“Hush,” his wife called from the other side of the door. “He’s fallen asleep. Don’t wake him up.” A short pause followed. Dace pressed his ear against the door. His wife swore in a peeved whisper, “Drat the man!”
“Which one of us are you dratting, my dear?” Her tone assured him she did not fear for her life or her virtue. Not that she had any real reason to fear Angel Anston, but with the wounded man in an emotionally fragile state, looking for a fight and an easy death, there was no denying he’d dare to ruffle her feathers.
“I can’t reach the key. He has it clasped in one of his hands. His arms are too long.” Her voice rose. “Don’t come in.”
“Are you near the door?” he asked.
“Don’t kick it down. We are on the floor in front of it.”
Molly rushed back up from the kitchen. “There must be a spare key in the housekeeper’s set. Fancy him having one of his good days. If Ma were here, she’d give him a right clatter, make no mistake.”
Dace tried each key until one turned. He swung the door open carefully. His wife knelt on the floor, sitting back on her heels half hidden beneath Angel Anston’s voluminous nightshirt that she had pulled over her head like a tent. It didn’t hide the fact she wore only her chemise and petticoat.
Angel lay with his head on her lap, completely naked from his nipples down. His sex, which he had trapped between his thighs, escaped as he moved and moaned. With a muttered curse, he trapped it with one hand and tried to thrust it down to hide it. The scar around his torso showed fresh blood under the puckered skin.
Molly gave a shriek of horror as Angel tried to hide himself with one hand and remove his nightshirt from Lizzie’s head with the other.
His wife reached out of the safety of her tent to slap Angel’s hand away. “Stop it! I won’t look at it, don’t ask me again!”
Molly rushed to the bed. “I should hope not, what a thing to show a lady. I’ve never seen the like. By Gawd!” She pulled a blanket from the bed as she stumbled over
Lizzie’s shoe.
Dace’s mind refused to question how poor Lizzie’s clothes had been removed in the first place. No man was more modest or more protective of women than Angel.
He swiftly covered the invalid, then knelt on the floor next to his wife, to peer under the cloth covering her head.
“I told him I did not want to see it. Absolutely refused. Why must every man try to show me his wound? I have seen enough wounds to last me a lifetime and will not look to see if anything is near the surface. He needs a surgeon, not me!” She gave a weary sigh and stroked Angel’s hair from his forehead. “He refused to take no for an answer, and then he fell on me when he tried to drag a blanket off the bed to cover himself. I had to hit him when his agony made him bite me by accident.”
Lizzie’s slender gloved fingers stroked through Angel’s hair in a gentle caress that belied her stern words. Some of her tresses had tumbled down her back. A few hairpins stuck through the cloth and hampered poor Angel’s attempt to reclaim his nightshirt.
The softest whisper came from him, “Have to kill me now, Dace. Swords at dusk. In the area, back of the house. Can’t make it to the park. Anyway, might frighten the children.” Angel’s head lay on Lizzie’s lap, a faint smile of triumph hovered on his lips.
“And why do I have to fight you, my friend? What have you done, except be subject to my wife’s strange attentions?” He tried not to let his mind dwell on the fact that his wife wore only her underwear.
What had happened?
“Molly, my love, go and ask my wife’s companion to bring her some clean clothes. Discreetly. Ask to speak to Gladys, don’t send a message.”
Molly flew out of the door to do his bidding.
With great effort, Angel Anston turned on his side. “Is Molly your love?” he asked. At any other time, before Anston had been wounded, that question might have been worth his life.
Lizzie gave a sigh. She stroked on and on as she voiced her annoyance. “Don’t be silly, Molly is like a sister to my husband. You will stop trying to find an excuse to fight him. I forbid it. You are England’s most dangerous swordsman. If you attempt to fight my husband, I shall hit you again.” She bent her head. “It is stifling under here. Could you unpin my hair, Felmont, I am stuck here.”
He removed all the pins for her. “Just a moment. There you are.” Her face was pink, and her hair tumbled about her shoulders in a nimbus of golden brown locks.
She gave him a sad, nervous smile. “He tore my dress by accident.” Her words came out in a rush. “Molly was helping me sew it upstairs when we heard Anston fall out of bed. I assure you, I do not make a habit of visiting men dressed like this.”
“He probably did it on purpose.” Dace gave a smile at Angel’s growl of denial. “You look like a ministering cherubim, dear heart.”
Angel Anston moaned, then held his breath. Lizzie quickly offered him a piece of her petticoat to bite down on. He took it into his mouth, sweat poured from him.
At last the moans stopped. Lizzie straightened her back and eased her shoulders. “If you could hold his head while I stand up. I have a cramp in my leg and if I don’t ease it, there will be two of us moaning.”
Dace slid his hands under Angel’s head. Lizzie slid out backwards. She limped to the bed for a pillow.
“I bit her on the thigh,” whispered Angel. “Hurt her. Not sorry. You have to kill me now. Go and look. Teeth marks.”
Poor Lizzie clutched the pillow to her breast with a wary look on her face. Dace hid his sadness at her fear of him. Not her fear of Angel Anston, but of his own right to view her body, to touch her. After all she had been through, she felt safer with Anston than himself.
Dace drawled lightly to his friend, “Isn’t it your instinct to rescue every bride and war with every husband? You can’t start biting the brides. Got it wrong there, Angel. Can’t start chomping on the brides and still keep challenging the husbands. It will look bad in your obituary. You won’t earn your wings that way.”
Lizzie knelt to place the pillow under Anston’s head. “He bit me by accident. You might have noticed, Felmont, that he is not the least bit angelic. And I believe that he and you have some common ancestor.” She gently touched a red area on the wounded man’s chin. “I hit him to make him let go.”
His wife laced her fingers together on her lap. “A lady does not like to resort to violence, but I had no alternative. He has large strong teeth and I….” Her voice trailed off as she shivered.
“He deserved it. Dastardly thing to do.” Dace went to get a blanket to keep her warm now she was chilled from the cool night air.
She let him wrap her in it, even held his hand in an odd way, half by accident and half reluctant to let go. “He couldn’t help it,” she said with a tremor.
Dace heard Molly’s voice in the hallway.
Gladys bustled in. It did not take her long to see the state her mistress was in. “Come upstairs, my lady. I shall soon have you looking like yourself again. Why, you are wringing wet! I daresay Molly will be so kind as to bring us some hot water.”
Dace could hear her clucking as she led Lizzie upstairs to change her clothes.
“Shall I get the footmen to lift you back into bed?” Dace asked. Stupid question, may as well ask Angel if he’d like to be tortured.
“No, I can manage it, in a while. What do I have to do to your wife to make you kill me? Or don’t you care what happens to her?”
Dace sat on the floor next to his friend. “I care. The thing is, she doesn’t like me, never has. I’ve told you how she was treated. Now she doesn’t want to love anyone, especially not me.”
“Rubbish.” The whisper swept on, “She wept over me—after I bit her. Doesn’t want me to die.” At Dace’s expression, Angel Anston smiled. “Why can’t she love you? I think she is already halfway in love with you.”
Dace cou
ld not believe it. Lizzie love a Felmont? Impossible! But worth spending every fiber of his being in an effort to make a bond of love between them.
“What else did you find out about my wife?” Dace stretched his legs out. “Tell me everything. How on earth do you find out these things? Why does every woman spill her heart and soul to you?”
“I ask questions. I listen to the answers. I sympathize.” Angel managed to make it sound easy. “Your wife wants to dance. She regrets never having danced.”
“Damn, Angel, her mother would only let Lizzie practice with me. She always refused to do it. I tried to force her once and she trembled so much in my arms that I forgot the steps.”
“Where you engaged then?”
“Six months. Never told you she fainted at the engagement celebration, did I?”
“Your wife told me about it.”
“Hellfire! I suppose I should be glad you haven’t run me through.”
“Not your fault, you tried.”
They were still lying on the floor talking when Lizzie appeared in the doorway. Her face was pale. She wore a new gray walking dress with matching gloves. Her hair was neatly tied up, a smart new bonnet shielded her eyes.
“Mr. Anston.” Lizzie nodded regally. “Good day to you, sir.”
“Good-bye,” Angel answered, using as little air as possible.
Dace saw his wife wipe away a tear. She turned and marched blindly away.