Smuggler's Lady Read Free Page B

air.
    â€œCan’t say it surprises me,” Walter intoned. “That couple downstairs don’t know their left foot from their right. Beggin’ your pardon, m’lord, but this ain’t no gentleman’s establishment.”
    â€œI’m inclined to agree with you,” his lordship said with some feeling as he rose from the bed and stretched languidly. “It is always possible, of course, that my esteemed Cousin Matthew was no gentleman himself. Although it seems an unlikely eventuality, given his antecedents which, I am assured, were impeccable. Second cousin to the duke, you understand?”
    â€œYes, m’lord,” said Walter woodenly, turning to open a portmanteau resting on the window seat. “I’ll look to your shoulder now, Colonel.”
    â€œI received my furlough six months ago,” Damian snapped, and there was no disguising the note of bitterness in his voice. “I’ve no need for that nomenclature now.” Shrugging out of his nightshirt, he strode to the open window and looked down at the disordered garden. The lean, powerful frame seemed to vibrate with the pent-up need for action, to radiate an impatient energy.
    â€œYou earned it, m’lord, and no wound can take that from you.” Walter spoke with resolute determination. If the colonel snapped his head off, so be it. It wouldn’t be the first time these days and was unlikely to be the last. “If you’d just sit down, m’lord . . .”
    To Walter’s relief, the colonel sat on the window seat without a word although his expression was grim as he readied himself to receive the batman’s ministrations. The soldier’s square hands were incongruously gentle as they moved over the jagged cicatrice carved into Lord Rutherford’s shoulder, and massaged ointment into the stiff muscle and joint. “When d’you think we’ll be moving along then, m’lord?” Walter returned to the original topic in an effort to divert Lord Rutherford from whatever bleak contemplation was responsible for the present grimness. Such attempts at alleviation were usually unsuccessful but must be tried if Lord Rutherford was not to fall victim to another of the black depressions that had dogged him since his service with the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsula had come to such an abrupt end.
    â€œI’m not sure there’s any hurry,” Damian returned. “It’s not as if more intriguing prospects await elsewhere.”
    â€œNo, m’lord.” Walter sighed. “There’s hot water for your shaving on the dresser. If we’re to stay here awhile, I’d best see what can be done to make the place habitable. Not to mention the stables,” he added. “I doubt Saracen’ll recover from the shock in a hurry.”
    Lord Rutherford gave a somewhat mirthless chuckle as he sharpened his razor on the leather strop. “He’s had worse billets, Walter, as have we. Not much worse, I grant you, but I’ve a mind to improve this one. Such abominable neglect offends me.” The image of a slight figure brandishing a small sword flashed unbidden in his mind’s eye, and the peal of melodious laughter, rich in enjoyment, rang again in his ear. Unless his lordship much mistook the matter, he had stumbled upon a most intriguing situation last night. The identity of the stripling smuggler would bear some investigation and, while it was hardly appropriate for the heir to the Duke of Keighley to consort with such a band of rascals, it was an infinitely more appealing prospect than listening to his mother’s fond solicitude and his father’s strictures on the subject of fulfilling the duties of his heir. At some point, Damian supposed, he would take a wife and set up his nursery, but he was still too close to the soldiering that had occupied him to the exclusion of all else since his twentieth year—too close to it, and too bitter at