Chapter 1

Logan froze, poised over Lady Raphaella on the grass, his mind whirling. He fought his way up through a mist of confusion. The shock had unnerved him, cannoning him back into memories of war. He thought he might be in India, lying on the rich wet earth of the forests, or hiding from an enemy lurking in the thickets. His mind blurred out the English countryside and painted in its stead – the heavy, humid vegetation of the Indian landscape.

He wasn’t in India, though. The danger had passed. His mind snapped back to the present, and he recalled that he was no longer Captain Inverly, but simply Lord Inverly, off duty, and walking around a country estate near York, England. He was also, he realized somewhat belatedly, practically lying atop Lady Raphaella, sister of the Earl of Rumsgate.

“My Lady! Apologies.” He rolled over, feeling his own cheeks heat up with embarrassment. He looked down at her, hoping she could forgive his imposition. She continued to look up at him in horror, and he felt disgruntled for a moment. Was he so unappealing to women that she was disgusted by close bodily contact? He was sure he hadn’t been a few weeks ago in London! There, he’d had to practically fend off female company! He felt put out. She cleared her throat and that told him what was bothering her.

“My Lord! You’re bleeding.”

“What?” Logan looked down at her in utter disbelief. He had felt nothing! He couldn’t be.

Then, as she sat up and reached, tenderly, for his shoulder, he realized that she was right – he could feel a dull, stinging ache coming from the spot. When he touched it, his hand became warm and wet.

“Oh,” he said, blinking at his red hand as if he couldn’t quite understand what he saw. “Yes. You’re right.”

Belatedly, he reached for his handkerchief, wincing as he tried to move the shoulder, to which the feeling seemed to be suddenly flooding back, causing him to realize just how much pain he was in. He gritted his teeth, pressing the cloth square to the wound.

Lady Raphaella looked up at him with her big dark eyes, and his pain subsided under her gaze. She was beautiful, with a soft oval face and those eyes that were so tender, and clear, like a mountain stream. He felt his soul tingle as he stared into their lash-edged depths, as if, for a moment, her heart reached out to connect to his.

Fanciful, Logan, he told himself firmly. Things like that don’t happen. The poor dear is probably terrified of you now, and rightly so – you did throw yourself on top of her, and then appear not to notice a gunshot-wound.

His reputation was certainly not going to make her feel more comfortable. He sat up quickly, feeling mortified.

He made himself smile, not sure what the effect might be. “My Lady. I apologize for the alarm; the danger seems passed now.”

He followed the statement with another attempt on a smile.

“Lord Inverly! You need to see a surgeon at once! We must get you to Lord Westmore. You’ve been shot in his garden, after all!”

Logan’s eyes widened.  This angelic beauty was giving him orders?

“Lady Raphaella, forgive me,” he managed slowly. “I know it is shocking, but I believe – I know the shots were only meant for me, I cannot take this to Lord Westmore. He would be concerned, and I don’t wish to trouble him. He’s the father of a young child,” he added, as if that made any difference to anything.

“He ought to know!” she scolded. “Especially because he has a young child – how can you possibly be sure the shots were only meant for you?”

Logan shut his eyes. He felt her touch like a sudden shock through his body, as she pushed his hands away to press the handkerchief herself. He swallowed hard, ignoring the twitch in his groin when he saw how her small, slender hand touched him with care and tenderness. He couldn’t risk offending the Earl of Rumsgate, and that was all that counted. He wasn’t that close to him, but he’d been part of Westmore’s circle since their Cambridge days, he needed to respect that.

Lady Raphaella was looking at him with a mix of disbelief and righteous anger. He had been rude to her from the moment the shot rang out, and she had done nothing save show him concern.  He coughed. “I cannot inform Westmore about this. He has nothing to do with the shots that were fired at me.”

The shots, he was certain, must have been fired by somebody he had known from his campaigns. He recognized them well – the rapid succession of two bullets, and then the pause before the next. No, this had nothing to do with Westmore, and everything to do with my own mistakes

“I still think he ought to be informed,” she said, more patient now. “If Lady Westmore or the child were to be out here alone, don’t you think they would be…”

“There really no danger to anybody else from this,” Logan said slowly, expression grimly set. He was becoming more aware each second. He winced as she pressed the handkerchief, the firm pressure, and the pain with it, clearing his mind.

“Well – you must at least address the danger to your person!” she said firmly.

He was gazing into her eyes with a mix of surprise and wonder for the third time in one day. “Yes,” he said, nodding slowly. “But I think it best if I do not alert Westmore. I insist on this.” He looked into her fine brown eyes, hoping that she understood his sense of urgency a little.

If Westmore knows, then it won’t be long before the whole countryside knows, and that will drive my killer to strike again soon.

Logan bit his lip, feeling the first real fear since the bullet had grazed his shoulder. How was it possible that, now, after all this time, he had been hunted down? It made no sense!

Why here in Yorkshire of all places?

He wondered if his fear was written on his face. He swallowed hard and tried to compose himself.

“There’s a surgeon in Westmore Village,” he said slowly. “I’ll ride there.”

“No, you will not,” Lady Raphaella said gently. He became aware that she was wrapping the handkerchief around his shoulder, tying it in a firm knot over the wound.

“Sorry?” He frowned, unsure if she had just said that. She was a gentle-looking sort, with a soft face, wavy reddish hair, and brown doe-like eyes. Had she just given him an order?

She lifted an arched brow. “I said you aren’t riding anywhere. Should you even try, this wound will bleed worse – you’ll likely fall off your horse and die in the woods before you get close to Westmore. We’re going to take the coach into town. Together.” Her tone was light, as if she was telling him the history of the knot garden opposite their hiding-place. All the same, it brooked no refusal.

“What?” he repeated, sure that he was lost in a mirage. He must be!

“You can’t ride, and so it stands to reason you must go by coach,” Lady Raphaella said, speaking slowly, as if he were a child. “I’m going to have to come with you, because somebody has to keep an eye on that wound.” She gestured at his shoulder, where the flow of blood was a trickle, his shirtsleeve now sticking to the open wound.

“Yes…” He frowned, his mind still trying to grasp it all.

“We can’t tell anybody else, because they’ll tell Westmore,” she said, frowning at him earnestly. “And you insist that you want to keep it a secret. Is that right?”

Logan nodded firmly, realizing that she was the one speaking sense. He was the one sitting and staring at her dull-eyed.

“Alright, then,” Lady Raphaella said. He was surprised by her brisk manner. “Can you get up? We can take the path over there to the coach house.”

Logan winced and stood up, realizing that he was feeling dizzy. She was right, he had to admit: if he lost much more blood, he was going to collapse, and there was no way he would be able to ride anywhere. He braced himself and sent out a fervent wish to be able to stay upright until they reached the coach.

“Can you walk?” Lady Raphaella asked, and she slipped an arm under his, supporting him. His cheeks flushing red with embarrassment, he nodded hastily.

“I can walk,” he said, and tried to take his weight off her. Unfortunately, his body wasn’t quite as sure about his strength, as his mind was, and he chose that moment to sway back and forth. Feeling annoyed at himself, he gritted his teeth and tried desperately to stay upright.

With Raphaella walking slowly by his side, they reached their destination.

“Mr. Emms? Make ready the carriage, if you please.” Lady Raphaella said calmly, as if she oversaw the whole estate. “We need to go to Westmore urgently.”

“My Lady?” The coachman stared from her to Logan and back, taking in the blood, her calmness, and, Logan doubted not, the pallor of his own face.

“Please, Mr. Emms,” Lady Raphaella insisted. “It’s vital that we get to the surgeon quickly.”

The coachman shrugged unhappily but went off to perform his duties with an efficiency Logan was sure he did not usually practice. While they waited, Raphaella looked up at him.

“It will help if you think of something else, to pass the time,” she said frankly. “We could play a parlor game?”

Logan stared at her in horror. “A parlor game?” He loathed the pretty pastimes of high society – cards seemed silly enough to him, but other games like board games and guessing games he considered the height of folly, especially at a time like this

“What?” Raphaella frowned. “There’s nothing reprehensible about ‘I spy,’ is there, sir?”

Her voice had such an air of innocence about it that Logan had to grin. In the moment of the attack, it seemed as if he had forgotten that she really was a Lady, and not an army nurse. He glanced down at her, allowing himself to notice her full bust, her soft figure.

“No,” he said, feeling that same unrestrained stab of longing as he noticed the soft pallor of her cheeks, her full-lipped frown. “I suppose.” He had been hard on her all morning, he realized guiltily.

“Well, then. I’ll go first,” she said. “I spy something beginning with a ‘c’. What is it?”

Logan shut his eyes, the surreal quality of his life suddenly getting the better of him. He had come to Yorkshire to escape London society, its prying eyes, and the pressure to find a wife – now that he was the Earl of Inverly. And yet, in Yorkshire, he was stuck with a gunshot wound, hiding in a coach-house playing parlor games with the sweetest society lady he’d ever met! It was unbelievable.

“I think it’s…” he began, but shrugged, and then winced with the pain it caused his shoulder.

“It’s a coach! And it’s ready now. Get in,” Lady Raphaella ordered, looking up at him with a mild exasperation on her sweet face.

Chapter 2

Raphaella leaned back in the cramped confines of the coach and tried to forget the fact that she was cramped up on the seat next to a dangerous reprobate. She forcibly reminded herself that she was escorting him to Mr. Brownley before he expired of lost blood.

I’m not doing this for naught else.

She looked up to find the big dark eyes watching her. Her stomach tied itself in knots and she couldn’t hide the flush of warmth flowing from her head to her feet, making her face flush.
It was altogether too easy to believe that she was here of her own interests, and not because her presence was vital and necessary in saving his life. She couldn’t fail to notice the fact that Lord Inverly was extremely handsome, his arm beneath her fingers so hard with muscle and sinew that it could have been stone.

And he’s a fellow with a somewhat challenging reputation. Don’t forget about that.

Her brother had mentioned that Lord Inverly hadn’t exactly lived respectably since his return from service.

He coughed and she jumped, becoming aware again of both his proximity, and her improper thoughts. His body really was far too close to hers, his long legs brushing her knee, his side pressed to her hip.

“How far must we go?” he asked softly.

Raphaella frowned, making herself focus on the present moment, trying to forget her growing worry about Canmure, and what he would say when he discovered her missing from the party. She had no idea how to explain her absence. She didn’t want to think what he’d say if he saw her right now.

“Not half a mile,” she murmured.

“Good,” Lord Inverly said, and she saw his lips lift with a weary smile. “I don’t think I can put up with this damn shoulder much longer. Excuse my swearing,” he added, when she lifted a brow.

“I’m used to it,” she said, and her own lips twisted in a wry smile.

“Oh?” Lord Inverly frowned. “How so?”

Raphaella looked at the floor. She always felt uncomfortable discussing details of her life. She preferred to remain an enigma – rather than to risk being judged. “Ex-military men tend to have a way with words,” she said shyly.

Uncle Carter would swear until my ears went red whenever somebody changed his bandages.

She had helped her veteran uncle until his leg was healed, and he could safely retire to the seaside. Her mind flooded with images from that time in her life, sponging the horrible surface of the cannon wound that had taken his leg.

I worry about him sometimes.

She and Canmure were never in Brighton anymore, where Carter lived in the tiny cottage his accounts could afford.

Since their parents died, Canmure, the new Lord Rumsgate, had taken on the responsibilities of the head of their family. She had been only fifteen at the time. Those responsibilities had included caring for any of the family who were down on their luck, like Uncle Carter. At the time, Canmure had been too busy managing their own estate to pay much attention to a soldier returning from the Peninsular Wars, or to his wounds. He had organized the cottage but left the caring to her.

“I beg your pardon?”

She looked up to find Lord Inverly looking at her with some interest. Her face went red.

“There’s not far to go now,” she said quickly.

“I thank you.”

She felt her cheeks redden an even deeper shade and realized that those words seemed kindlier than any others he had offered up until now. His voice had a pleasing tone and she felt its warmth like a silk scarf. It wrapped around her worries and her fears, making her remember that, reputation or not, she had liked him the moment she met him.

“There it is,” she said, making herself look away from the fine chiseled line of his profile, and out of the window to the left. “That’s the town.”

“It’s small,” Lord Inverly commented. Raphaella wanted to smile.

“It’s made up mostly of Lord Westmore’s tenants,” she said with an arched brow. “There aren’t too many.” The collection of cottages, clustered around a small village church, were plain to see now, as they reached the edge of the estate that gave it its name.

He shook himself, as if to get his own attention back to the present and nodded. “Yes,” he murmured. “I see.”

Raphaella glanced at him, wondering if the blood-loss was making him absent-minded. He was looking at her with a strange expression, almost awestricken. Those brown eyes were touched with a sort of fervent admiration that she had seen leveled at other women, but never at her.

She bit her lip a little sadly and looked out of the window. She had always stayed at home out of predilection, preferring a quiet afternoon or an intimate conversation with a familiar person, to a ball or party full of stranger. She was sure people considered her boring and a little plain. Even Canmure, who was the dearest soul, sometimes looked at her sadly, and she was sure he wondered how he’d make a future for a Lady like her.

The coach had stopped. “We should get out.”

Lord Inverly nodded. He still looked subdued, and she became more certain that his blood loss was critical. She opened the door and jumped down, feeling her ankles ache as she thumped down against the flagstones of the pavement.

“Come on,” she said with a sense of urgency. She held a hand up to him, realizing belatedly that it was blood-soaked. She wondered what the Ton would think of that.

“Yes, Lady Raphaella.”

Lord Inverly took her hand and jumped down, wincing noticeably as his own ankles jarred painfully. With his condition growing ever more severe, it was good to see him react to something. He had been so quiet in the carriage – so strange– that she’d worried she would lose him before they reached their destination.

“Here’s Mr. Brownley’s,” she said, and took his hand to lead him up the steps to the surgeon’s front door. She matched her steps to his slower ones, and then knocked briskly. She was relieved when the soft, earnest face of the village surgeon appeared.

Anything but a stranger, the surgeon was one of the few friends Raphaella had in her circle. She’d met him years ago, when Canmure had brought her to Westmore the first time, and somehow, they had managed to strike up a friendship.

“Mr. Brownley? Lord Inverly here has a critical injury. It needs stitching,” she said, feeling happier in the presence of the bespectacled man. Her senior by ten years at least, he had a reassuring warmth. She felt as if he, more than anybody, could see things from her perspective.

“Oh! Lady Raphaella!” Mr. Brownley grinned. “I never thanked you for that preparation you had sent here – a real boon in the winter for all the tenants. My Lord. Come in,” he added, standing back for Lord Inverly, who looked at her with complete confusion.

Lady Raphaella felt a little flame in her heart as she joined Cassius Brownley in his surgery. Here, she felt utterly at home. The surgery, with its rows of bottles and its scent of camphor and creosote – a disinfectant for the surfaces – was a peaceful place whose rules she understood.

It’s no wonder I always seize the chance to come up here.

She found herself looking over the shelves as the two men conversed quietly, noting the bottles and boxes that she’d had brought here from the family apothecary in London. Canmure indulged this interest of hers, whether he thought it was appropriate for her to show interest in doctoring.

Her attention was brought back to the present moment as the surgeon poured out some disinfectant and then bent to his work.

“So,” Brownley said, reaching for a pad of cotton as he carefully cut away the shoulder of Lord Inverly’s shirt. “You sustained this while out hunting, sir?”

Lord Inverly looked over at her, and Raphaella said nothing, so he nodded. “Yes,” he agreed.

“You must have some friends with poor aim,” Brownley said, making her want to chuckle. She wanted to say something but noticed Lord Inverly had his eyes shut, a pained expression on his face, and she felt instant concern for his suffering.

“Either that or I have very unfortunate enemies,” Lord Inverly said.

Raphaella felt her lips lift, a light laugh rising in her throat, but then it occurred to her that he was serious. She held her peace, wondering just what he knew about the shot that had been fired.

“Mm,” the surgeon murmured, oblivious to the undertone in the phrase that she’d marked. “Here. I will need to stitch it, so I heartily recommend that you bite on this leather belt.”

“I don’t need one. I was in the army,” Lord Inverly said firmly, surprising Raphaella.

“Really?” she asked, her curiosity overwhelming her intentions to remain in the background. She looked down to see Lord Inverly looking up at her, his lips twisted with amusement.

“Yes. I was a captain of the King’s Horse,” he said thinly, and she saw him jump as the surgeon carefully swabbed the site of the wound.

“Oh,” she said politely, her attention being drawn to the procedure the man was busy performing on his lordship’s shoulder, rather than to his words or rank. She knew it was odd – that most ladies and gentlemen of her acquaintance would feel utterly sick at the sight – but she found all such things intriguing.

Maybe caring for Uncle Carter dulled my sensitivity to sights of blood and cuts.

She watched as the surgeon threaded a needle with a length of suture, and then how he pushed the needle through the layers of skin, gently holding the wound shut as he did so.

She noticed Lord Inverly grimace, and she felt a stab of compassion. She wished he had elected to bite on leather – it would make the pain more bearable – and she began to look around to fetch it, but Mr. Brownley was talking to them, and she turned back.

“I’m just going to do two more,” he said carefully, frowning down at his work, as unconcerned as a tailor. “It’s not a big wound, but surprisingly deep. It’s a grand thing the bullet came out again, or I’d have a fine job fishing it out!” He chuckled.

“Just finish,” Lord Inverly hissed, and Raphaella could see the greenish hue to his skin. She wanted to mop his forehead, but she could hear the acid in his words. She knew that it would be better for him if she left him be.

“There,” Mr. Brownley said, his patient’s ire not worrisome to him. He straightened up, cutting off the excess suture. “All done. Now we just need to bandage the thing, and check that it’s not bleeding anymore.”

“It’s my arm, sir,” Lord Inverly said through gritted teeth. “I’ll thank you to refer to it with due respect.”

Raphaella wanted to smile, but at the same time she could see his point. It wasn’t just a thing; it was his arm. Mr. Brownley could be a bit too preoccupied sometimes. Her eyes met Lord Inverly’s.

“I thank you,” Lord Inverly said, as the surgeon stepped away, looking down at his handiwork. Raphaella noticed that Lord Inverly wasn’t looking at Brownley, but at herself.

“Um…” she stammered, her cheeks going pink as she struggled to decide what to say.

 “I’ll bandage it with a bread poultice,” Mr. Brownley said, as if he also was confused by the strange look Lord Inverly was giving her. “And you can see me in a day to have it changed.”

When the work was done. Lord Inverly got hesitatingly to his feet and came to stand beside Raphaella. “Thank you,” he said again. “Now, I think we had best go back. If there’s any need to explain, please allow me to do so.”

She could see the way he was struggling to remain upright and sensed that he would feel more than a little uncomfortable, should anybody try to help. She waited while he braced himself on the surgeon’s shelves, and then looked at her with a grateful smile.

Raphaella felt his guileless eyes as if it was a touch on her skin.  “Let me help,” she offered, and the spell was broken.

“That would be unnecessary,” he said loftily. She bit back a grin, even though she felt also a little empty. His haughtiness returning was, on the one hand, a relief, on the other hand she missed his vulnerability.

She stood back while he walked out of the door and out to the coach. She stayed behind a moment to say farewell and thank her friend, and then slipped out behind him.

Lord Inverly was being decidedly remote, on the coach ride back to the estate. He was looking out of the window and had a small object in his hand. She craned over his shoulder, wondering what it was. When he saw she was looking, he slipped it into his pocket and shot her a glare, then turned back to look out of the window.

She jumped out of the coach when they arrived, and he strode away without a word.

That’s what I get for helping a scoundrel like him, I guess.

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