she complained, then seemed to realize where she was. ‘Oh.’ Her face was a picture. If things had not been so serious, he would have smiled at the combination of feminine embarrassment and the dissipated appearance of the lop-sided bandage. ‘Oh, dear.’
Marcus schooled his face into studious neutrality; she did not need him appearing to laugh at her. ‘Oh, dear, indeed.’
‘I should not be here.’
‘Quite,’ he said, with some emphasis, controlling a quite inappropriate urge to grin. She coloured up. ‘Do you think you can walk or shall I carry you?’
‘I am certain I can walk, thank you,’ she said, her voice suddenly cool. ‘I had better put my own robe on.’
He handed it to her, turning away while she got out of bed. There was a soft sound as his own robe landed on the covers. Marcus turned round to find her pulling on her slippers. ‘Ready?’
‘I can go by myself, thank you.’
‘But your head—’
‘Aches. Probably as much as yours does.’
‘Mine?’
‘I assume you were drinking last night or I would not have ended up in your bed, my lord,’ she said crisply.
‘You asked to stay, Miss Latham.’
‘I had just been hit over the head,’ she retorted. ‘I think I was hardly responsible for my own actions at that point. You, on the other hand, had not been hit on the head. Who are you going to tell about this?’
‘That you spent the night in my bed?’ This was not how he imagined the conversation this morning would go. This was certainly not the clinging, fragile young woman he had been braced to deal with.
‘No.’ The look she sent him was scornful. ‘About the intruder.’
‘No one except my father. Allsop is highly discreet.’
‘Excellent. I shall tell Miriam that I slipped last night and hit my head on the dresser.’
‘And bandaged it yourself without calling her?’ This degree of independent thought was beginning to rile him. Marcus reminded himself that he did not want a fluttering female throwing herself embarrassingly upon his chest and expecting goodness knows what from him. But for some reason cool rationality was decidedly galling. She had spent the night in his arms, for Heaven’s sake! Women usually expressed some appreciation after that experience.
Nell unwound the bandage and lifted the pad cautiously, wincing as it pulled on her hair. ‘I will sponge my head with one of my handkerchiefs; that will be quite gory enough to satisfy her that I doctored myself. And as for managing by myself—why, my lord, I am unused to living in such style and hesitated to disturb the maid at a late hour.’
‘You will rest in bed today.’ Marcus reined in his rising temper and the urge to throw Nell over one shoulder and take her back to her own room before she came out with any more cool, calm, sensible remarks.
‘That sounds more like an order than a suggestion, my lord.’ Nell smiled, obviously fully intending to set his teeth on edge. ‘I have no intention of causing Lady Narborough any concern. I will see you at breakfast.’ She paused at the door. And this time the smile held no touch of acid. ‘Thank you, Marcus, for looking after me last night. You were very gentle.’
And then she was gone, leaving him feeling as if he’d been slapped and then had the weal tenderly kissed better. He looked at the clock. Half past four. The youngest scullery maid would be creeping about soon, riddling the grate in the kitchen range and laying the table for the staff breakfasts. He would go down and have her make him a pot of coffee; somehow he did not think he would get any more sleep this morning.
Lord Narborough looked quite revoltingly alert to his heavy-eyed son when he followed Felling and the laden breakfast tray into his lordship’s room.
‘That will be all, thank you, Felling.’ The earl waited until the valet was out of the room before raising one eyebrow at Marcus. ‘And why have I woken up to find my window broken and your valet in my dressing room?’ He peered more closely. ‘And why are you looking as though you’ve been up most of the night?’
Marcus walked over to the dresser and picked up the length of silken rope. Nell’s nightcap, as plain an object as a Quaker maiden might wear, was lying in the corner. He retrieved it and pushed it into his pocket.
‘You had a visitor last night by way of the wisteria.’ He tossed the rope onto the bed.
‘And there I was, sound asleep after one of your mother’s famous soporific cordials and missing the excitement. I could sleep through a thunderstorm after a dose of that.’ Lord Narborough peered across the room at the small pane of glass. ‘That wouldn’t have made much noise. I might well have slept through it in any case. Who raised the alarm?’
‘Miss Latham happened to be passing, on her way for a midnight ramble in the Long Gallery. Apparently your tales of the house made her restless to explore.’
His father put down his coffee cup with a rattle. ‘Miss Latham confronted the rogue?’
‘In the dark. He knocked her across the room, fortunately just as I was passing on way to my bed. She has a sore head, but nothing more serious, thank God—she is telling Mama that she fell and hit herself. Near enough to the truth, and we don’t want to worry the others.’ Marcus shot his father an assessing glance. He was taking these revelations very well. ‘He had a knife, she thinks.’
‘Had he indeed? For my ribs, do you suppose?’ The earl sounded quite cheerful about the idea.
‘I doubt it. He seemed easily routed for a man on a lethal mission. No, I think his intention was to alarm us, to leave the rope.’ Marcus got up to look out of the window. Through the ancient panes, the garden seemed strangely distorted, just like his thoughts. ‘I thought by moving out of London we would wrong-foot him, but he seems as at home here as on the streets.’
‘If it were just us, we could make it easy for him, lure him in.’ The earl put his tray aside and got out of bed, walking barefoot in his nightshirt to join Marcus at the casement. He studied the broken window. ‘But not with a houseful of women.’
‘I agree. Defence it is then. I’ll speak to the keepers and the gardeners, arrange patrols around the grounds at night.’
‘Doesn’t solve the problem of who and why though.’ His father pulled thoughtfully at his ear lobe.
‘True. We are certain it is connected with the Wardale matter,’ Marcus thought out loud as he went to sit in the armchair, leaving his father to get back into bed with his cup of coffee. ‘We need to think who it might possibly be.’
‘A relative of Wardale is the most obvious,’ the earl said, spooning sugar into the cup. ‘The son, of course. The other two children were girls—I suppose they could have married. The Hebden’s baby son died soon after the murder. His wife, Amanda, married again, some country gentleman. There are stepsons I fancy—but why would any of that family bear a grudge in any case?’
‘I suppose,’ Marcus ventured cautiously, ‘that there is no possibility that Wardale
