* * *
Dace halted at the open bedroom door, wary at the sight that greeted him. Angel Anston knelt on his bed dressed in a nightshirt. He held a sturdy cane in one hand and his belly with the other.
Having to stop his friend from decorating the floorboards with his brains, didn’t trouble Dace. Even the thought that Lizzie had found Angel out of his mind with no one to protect her, didn’t scare him witless. His wife could handle Angel Anston. What scared Dace was why Lizzie had fled in the night, alone, without him. Why had she stomped down the road, away from her outriders, to weep and curse his name?
“Am I interrupting practice, Angel?” Dace asked.
“Finished.” Anston gestured to the place near his pillow where the chair usually stood. It lay several yards away on its side.
“Can’t,” said Dace. “Your weapon is not sheathed. I didn’t survive Bonaparte to have you finish me off. Not when I need your advice.”
“Too tired to kill you.” Anston slid the cane under the bedclothes and lay down carefully. His hands explored his chest, his belly. He lifted his palms to check for blood and found none.
Dace went to retrieve the chair. “Did Molly hit you with it?” he asked, keeping his tone lighter than his mood.
“A rat came at me.” Angel frowned a warning that Dace ignored. He hadn’t survived so long without being able to tell when Angel was in one of his good moods, and not in one of his murderous moods.
Dace asked lightly, “Is that what the cane is for?”
“Yes.” An unholy light played in Angel’s odd-colored eyes.
“Liar.” Dace dragged the chair over to the bed. He fell into it with a weary sigh. He didn’t care if Angel killed him for the insult.
An answering moan rose from under Angel Anston’s bed.
Dace leaned an elbow on the covers. “Hellfire! That is not my wife under there, Angel, is it?” His hands went cold. The walls of the room shifted.
The knowledge that men could faint from a surfeit of emotion when not engaged in deadly warfare almost floored him. That he’d think such a thing of Angel, made him as insane as his friend.
He knew Lizzie had returned to the Folly. He’d followed her long enough to see her safely on the road home surrounded by her outriders, close enough to hear Dickon ask where they were going in the middle of the night and hear the answer.
Angel asked quietly, “If you think it’s your wife, why haven’t you killed me?”
“If my wife is hiding under your bed in the hopes of escaping her fate, why haven’t you killed me?” asked Dace. “Let her watch you do it. I might as well be of some amusement to her.”
“Maybe I put her there.” Angel rubbed his chin as if he could still feel the bruise from his first encounter with Lizzie.
“Never known you to collect women under your bed, is this something new?” The banter helped clear Dace’s head.
It wasn’t a woman under there or Angel would be lying on the floor trying to coax her out, not standing guard with a walking stick so she couldn’t escape. Besides, most women frightened him, which ruled out any virgins or young ladies being placed under the bed for safekeeping.
“Lady Felmont is not here with me, Dace. Why’d you think she’d come here?”
“Because you are the only man who can stop me.”
“What do you want me to stop you from doing?”
“You could talk me out of going after her. Something wicked is brewing in me, Angel. Felmont wicked. Damned if I’m not going to do it. Damned if I do.”
Another moan floated up.
Dace echoed the moan, it was decidedly familiar. Something hit him on the ankle.
“I think your rat just bit me. Shall I kill it for you?”
“I’d prefer to do it myself.”
Dace felt Angel’s fingers ruffle his hair. “What happened?” his friend asked.
“She fled from me. Didn’t want to share the bedroom with me, I think. Lizzie is scared of me.”
“Wrong, wrong, wrong. Scared of herself. Scared to let go. Doesn’t trust.”
“Nor will she, not after what I am going to do.”
“I won’t stop you. I trust you. Do what you must.”
Something smote Dace’s toe. “Who is under the bed, Angel?”
“My father.”
“Tell me it’s not a Felmont. We’ve been through this. They are all dead. Not one of them is old enough to be your father.”
“Liar,” countered Angel.
“How do you know he is your father?” Dace asked.
“Told me so. Said he was looking for his son.” Angel gave a triumphant smile.
“If the rag and bone man came in looking for his son, you wouldn’t think he meant you.” Dace laughed at the idea.
Angel pointed to his nose. “Same. Almost. Will look like that, if I live as long as he has.”
“Cousin Bertram?” called Dace.
“Sweet boy,” floated up from beneath the bed.
“Sorry to break this to you, Angel, but Cousin Bertram has a son. And there is a very good reason he’d be looking for him. Promise you won’t spill the brains of the oldest male in my family, if I haul him out from under there?” he enquired politely.
It never was a good idea to come between Angel and his prey. Wellington had given him the job of keeping his famous swordsman out of trouble, because Dace was the only man to survive a fight with him. Not that Angel had been really trying, he’d been too drunk to see straight, and he never killed innocents.
“Haul away,” said Angel. “You’ll see we’ve got the same nose.”
Dace offered his left hand to the man under the bed. He pulled Bertram Felmont out into daylight and helped him to the chair by the hearth.
“Thank you, Quentin Seraphim.” Bertram Felmont dusted off his frock coat. “If I might trouble you for the return of my walking stick, stolen by your demented friend?”
Dace didn’t mind the use of his name. It seemed petty to quibble about it when kidnapping Lizzie and forcing her to sleep with him was occupying his mind. He was trying to think of a place to keep her away from the rest of the world, until she loved him.
Dace sighed. He was as insane as Angel.
“Give it back, Angel.” Dace edged towards the bed. “He needs it to walk.” At his friend’s mutinous expression, he turned to Bertram Felmont. “I could buy you another. Might be easier to let Angel have it. At least he hasn’t cut your heart out.”
Bertram Felmont shrugged disdainfully. “Who was his mother? The second countess, if I am not mistaken.”
Dace gave him a warning frown. Had Cousin Bertram learned nothing from his encounter with Angel?
Hellfire! Dace saw Angel throw aside the bedclothes to slide out of the bed, one hand grasping the walking stick with deadly intent.
Dace made no attempt to stop him. He raced back to Bertram and clamped a hand over his mouth.
“An innocent question, Angel! Meant no insult, did you, Cousin Bertram?” He wagged the old man’s head in a negative. “Let me tell you, Angel, if this man had been your father, he’d have acknowledged you, treated you well, and posted sovereigns to you under the seal of his letters. He’d have sent you hampers of hothouse produce to your school with cakes for you to share with your friends. He’d have taken an interest in everything you did and shed tears of joy on your return at the end of every term. Isn’t that the truth, dear Cousin Bertram?”
Angel lowered the walking stick. “You’d better let go, he’s going blue in the face.”
Dace released his grip. “His nose got in the way of me holding his mouth shut. Damned inconvenient arrangement.” As the color returned to the old man’s face, he added cheerfully, “I was always jealous of Con. You can’t kill the only Felmont to ever take an interest in his offspring. Why don’t you adopt him, Angel. You could pretend he’s your father. He won’t mind. Would you, Cousin?”
Bertram Felmont’s mouth sneered beneath his long nose. “Bedlam has beds for you bot
h. By the way, dear Quentin Seraphim, my son has not learnt the error of his ways. And as for your wife? Where would she be but at the Folly with her dogs and her servants. Would you care to share my carriage, so much more comfortable than riding.” He searched in his pocket for his snuffbox and offered it to both men with a graceful flourish.
Dace refused. “Filthy habit! Don’t give any to Anston, if he sneezes it might kill him.”
The snuffbox disappeared. Bertram Felmont did not indulge himself. He stared at Angel from a safe distance. “You could be my nephew. You have a look of my brother Edward. He died in ’85 in a duel with the late earl, your supposed father. I believe Edward is your given name?”
“Yes, it is,” replied Angel, in that soft voice men learned to fear.
Cousin Bertram gave the Felmont stare. “Perhaps the earl did not want to forget to whom he owed his son? Do you feel yourself to be a worthy monument to his name?”
“Out, Bertram, out!” Dace grabbed the walking stick from Angel and hustled the old man out of the room. “Angel doesn’t know how to play those games.”
“Surely, now he is family he must learn?” said the old man with a low laugh.
“More likely to turn you into a pin cushion to teach you not to talk like that,” Dace warned. “He’s not quite right in the head.” He called to his friend, “Sorry, Angel, no insult intended.”
“I am too old for a challenge, sweet boy.” Bertram patted Dace’s cheek. “Bring your friend to visit me at the Dower house, when he has recovered.”
“Are you returning today? Tell Lizzie I am searching for her and you have no idea where I am.”
“A sad mistake, dear boy. I go to set the hounds after my son. If he hears Lady Felmont has been abandoned, I fear what he may do. That man in there will kill Consideration if he tries to save dear Cousin Elizabeth from you.”
“You are entirely wrong—I shall kill him. Make no mistake, Bertram.” Dace patted the thin cheek and returned stare for stare. “If Con touches Lizzie, if he forces himself on her, he dies by my hand.”