The Viscount's Counterfeit Wife Read Free Page B

his shoulder, I
came to get you to help me. We’ll need to cut his coat off so we
can stanch the blood. But first, let us move him out of my room,
then, we can call a doctor.”
    “Never!” Foster
blustered. “I say we toss him out onto the street. Gentleman or
not, any man who tries to force himself on a lady deserves nothing
better.”
    “Perhaps, but we have
no way of knowing if that’s what he intended and I won’t put an
unconscious, and possibly innocent...” His ferocious look made her
hesitate, “... maybe not so innocent… man on the street to be
preyed upon by vermin of any kind.”
    “You’re too
kind-hearted, Missy.” He paused. Something had occurred to him.
“‘Sides, if ye summon help, that’ll cause talk.”
    “I never thought of
that.” It was also a good reason for stopping Foster from using his
weapon. “Which is why you can’t shoot him. A second gunshot would
bring the authorities to our door for sure. We’re lucky no one has
come to inquire already.”
    “This is London,
Missy,” Foster sniffed disdainfully, “the big city. No one cares
what happens to his neighbors.” In a doleful voice, he added, “a
man could die and no one would help.”
    He leaned the gun
against the wall and began to remove the intruder’s great coat.
    Tally breathed more
freely and bent to help him. Once they had it off, Foster leaned down
to pull an evil-looking knife from his boot to cut away the man’s
sleeve.
    Shaking her head at how
prepared her retainer was, she said, “First we need to bandage the
wound to stop the blood from dripping all over the carpet. We can’t
afford to replace this beautiful Axminster carpet.”
    Much to her butler’s
dismay, she helped him strip the man’s torso down to the skin.
While Foster went to get some cloths to use as bandages, Tally
remained on her knees beside the unconscious intruder. Her hand
hovered over his smooth, tanned skin, itching to sculpt it, to touch
it. She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed when Foster
returned before she could give in to that impulse.
    “I’ve been
thinking.” She stood and began walking purposefully toward the
door. “Why not just tie his shirt around the wound, for now, and
you can bandage it once we move him into the room across the hall, so
we don’t open it while carrying him there.”
    “You want to put him
in a room!” Foster shouted, as she left to go light a lamp in the
other room. “If ye won’t throw him out,” he continued loudly,
“we can just lock him up in the coal cellar ‘til morning.”
    “I’ll not be
responsible,” she called back, “for any man perishing of gangrene
because I shot him.” No matter who he was, she didn’t believe he
deserved such a fate.
    Besides, she needed to
know why he’d broken in.
    He didn’t look like
any thief she’d ever imagined and she was having a hard time
wrenching her eyes away from his striking features. Using her usual
frame of reference, she searched for some painting he made her think
of, but he resembled none other. Every time she glanced at him, her
artist’s eye was picturing him on canvas.
    No, no ordinary crook
looked like this. Those black eyebrows and high cheek bones. Her gaze
slid down to view his muscled arms and thighs. His body reminded her
of one of Michelangelo’s “ Unfinished
Captives ”. How she longed to capture–
    Heat flooded her face,
her whole body. Here she was wasting time admiring this … this prowler!
    “He’s too heavy for
us to carry.” She yanked a folded blanket from the foot of the bed.
“We’ll use this to pull him across the floor like I do with my
heavier canvases.” She placed the cover alongside him and they
rolled him onto it. “We’ll both stand here and, together, we
should be able to drag him across the hallway.” She indicated the
end of the blanket nearest to the door.
    Before lifting the
blanket, she bent to straighten his head. “Goodness, there’s a
lump on his head the size of