Free Truly Yours by Bárbara Metzger Page B

soldier.
    He should have waited for morning to find his cousin, or left a message at Daniel’s rooms. He should have posted guards, or stood sentinel himself. He should have—
    Nanny sniffed, then scowled at the odors of cheap ale and fine wine and clucked her tongue. “How much have you been drinking to come up with such a foolish notion? Of course I did not need to fend off Miss Carville. She is a lady, not a criminal. But someone loose in London killed that unfortunate man.” She stepped closer and peered up at Rex. “Did he attack you?”
    “No, we encountered a spot of trouble at a gaming club, that’s all.” Rex touched his swollen nose. “A, um, discussion about the dice used.”
    “It looks broken, which is no more than you deserve, gambling and drinking and brawling, on your first night in London. What will her ladyship think?”
    Rex was about to say he did not give a rap for what the countess thought when Nanny caught sight of the large man standing back in the shadows of the hall. She clucked again. “I should have known. Daniel Stamfield, you always were up to no good. From what my sister tells me, you are no better now than the nasty little boy you always were, getting my lamb into trouble.”
    Instead of taking offense, Daniel laughed and rubbed at his chin. “You always were blind when it came to your favorite. Everyone in Royston knew Rex was the ringleader. You must be the only one who thought he was an angel.”
    “I’ll have you know I still do. Except for the gambling and drinking and brawling, of course.”
    “And Daniel was never little, Nanny,” Rex put in, before he received another scolding.
    “No, and he has never been other than a heathen, either. Is it true what my sister says about the night last month when you escorted Lady Royce to Almack’s?”
    Rex looked back at his cousin in amazement. “You actually went to that pillar of propriety? The place they call the Marriage Mart?”
    “I told you, your mother is a strong woman.”
    Nanny poked at Daniel’s chest, but she was too short and stuck her finger in his stomach, grown soft in London’s clubs and pubs. “She said you scratched your arse right in front of your aunt’s friends and Princess Lieven.”
    “I warned her that all that gossip and sham politeness made me itchy. It always did, but she insisted. Said I had to have outgrown throwing spots like a high-strung debutante. At least she never bludgeoned me into going again.”
    Rex was laughing out loud. The wine at Daniel’s house might have had something to do with his hilarity, but the thought of his bumbling giant of a cousin among the dainty manners at Almack’s cheered him up considerably.
    Daniel muttered, too low for Nanny’s hearing, “Keep laughing if you want your arm broken, too.” To Nanny he said, “I apologized to Aunt Margaret.”
    “A great deal of good that did. Why, my sister said the poor lady decided to leave for Bath the next day, so she did not have to face any of her acquaintances. Which is why she wasn’t in Town to help Miss Carville last week. As for you, Master Jordan, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, getting into a nasty brawl at your age. Why, you are supposed to be an officer and a gentleman, not sowing wild oats. For that matter, you are supposed to be proving Miss Carville’s innocence.”
    Which reminded Rex of why they were all standing in the hall outside the woman’s door. “We have come to see about that very thing, Nanny. Is Miss Carville able to answer a few questions?”
    “At this time of night? I should say not. She is fast asleep.”
    Rex could tell by the red flashes that sweet old Nanny was lying through her false teeth.
    “We’ll just disturb her rest for a moment.”
    Nanny crossed her arms in front of her age-flattened chest and barred the door. “You will not come into a gentlewoman’s bedroom looking like a prizefighter, the one who lost the bout. You will not come into a proper young lady’s