Free The Bachelor's Bargain by Catherine Palmer Page B

Foley?”
    His brother laid a hand on Ruel’s brow. “Be still. The doctor left strict instructions for your rest. Take some more laudanum, why not? It will calm your nerves.”
    Ruel scowled at the small container. “Alex, I do not want laudanum. It puts me into a foul humor, and I cannot think clearly. There is something . . . someone . . .”
    “You are to take two hundred and fifty drops, enough to relax any man. I confess I have had a little myself just to calm my nerves. Come now.”
    His hand started toward Ruel’s mouth. “No, I said!” Knocking the vial to the floor, Ruel let out a growl. “My head feels like a pumpkin! And my shoulder . . . Where is my valet? I should have eaten breakfast long ago. I have things to do today. I have got to find out where . . . to see . . .”
    “If you will not lie down and rest, I shall end up the next Duke of Marston, and by all accounts, that will be a dreadful situation. Father has been ranting all night, storming about the place in high dudgeon.”
    “Father? Why?”
    “No one can find the gamekeeper, of course.”
    “Gamekeeper . . .” Ruel gripped his sheets in his fists as pieces of the puzzle began to grind into place. If only his head would stop pounding.
    Alexander leaned back in his chair and propped a foot on the bed. As if the spike-heeled boots were not enough, the young man wore a blue silk coat and trousers far too tight to be comfortable. Ruel considered tossing out a barb against dandy fashion, but he could not make his befuddled brain or his thick tongue function.
    “Personally, I hold it was a highwayman who shot you,” Alexander said, fingering the white cravat at his neck. “He must have used a rifle for the ball to have traveled so far and so true. He might have had a blunderbuss, but I understand there was only one ball. Can you recall?”
    When Ruel did not answer, he went on. “I shall wager the highwayman knew you would be leaving church Sunday morning, saw that you were afoot, and determined to have your money.”
    “No one robbed me, Alex.”
    “Perhaps the highwayman did not expect you to be armed. It was rather rash of you, I think. Do you always carry a coat pistol, Ruel?”
    “Since America.”
    “I should continue the practice if I were you. I have it on good authority that more than one gentleman is displeased at your return to England. Have you considered that the assassin might not have been the gamekeeper or a highwayman at all? It might have been Barkham. When you were exposed in a dalliance with his wife—”
    “Fiancée.”
    “At any rate, I suspect he has not forgiven you. Wimberley, too, has every reason for hostility. You ruined him, you know. He has not been the same since you took his money.”
    “Won it.”
    “Fairly? He hardly thinks so, and it would be like him to travel from London with a rifle that could shoot right through a man’s arm and a woman’s—”
    “Where is she?” Ruel interrupted, remembering suddenly. He tore back the sheets and surged out of bed. “The woman . . . where is she?”
    Alexander leapt to his feet and grabbed the bellpull. “Brother, do calm yourself. Foley! Come at once.”
    Ruel’s valet hurried across the carpeted floor, closely followed by two footmen. “My lord, calm yourself,” the valet urged. He turned to one of the footmen. “Fetch Mr. Errand.”
    “Stop!” Ruel commanded. He caught the bedpost for support as the three servants stiffened into obedience. Turning to his brother, he grabbed the man’s cravat and pulled Alexander close.
    “Where . . . is . . . she?” he repeated slowly, anger burning each word into the silence of the room.
    “Who?” Alexander asked. “Please, Ruel, you are making no sense at all. Foley, the laudanum!”
    “Two women were with me—where are they now? One of them was wounded.”
    “I cannot say where they are. Honestly, Ruel, you should return to your bed at once.”
    Pushing past his brother, Ruel staggered toward the door.