Free The Birth of Blue Satan by Patricia Wynn Page B

know what to do for Monseigneur . ” Philippe raised his face to stare Tom in the eye. “You will assist me, non ? ”
    With a stiff nod and an even stiffer back, Tom mumbled, “Just tell me what to do.”
    Philippe inclined his head before returning to his patient. In this emergency, he seemed willing to overlook the serious offence of a stable servant’s coming into the master’s bedchamber.
    The footman returned with the plaster and water, accompanied by Mrs. Dixon, who said that Sir Harrowby had called for his physician. Then she asked anxiously if Gideon would be able to receive visitors soon.
    “ Mais non! Can you not see that Monseigneur is out of his head with fever! Regard you the blood he has lost!”
    She reacted queerly to the Frenchman’s angry tone. Clearly she had suffered a shock which could not be attributed entirely to the sudden death of the earl no matter how much that had affected them all. She seemed on the point of tears when she said, “Sir Joshua insists upon posing Lord St. Mars some questions.”
    Philippe and Tom exchanged involuntary glances. As Tom felt a new, ill-defined worry stealing over him, Philippe dismissed the housekeeper. “You may tell the gentlemen that milord is very sick—much too sick to be molested with their nonsense. I, Philippe—with the help of this Thomas—will know how best to take care of milord. He is not to be disturbed until I say.”
    “But Sir Joshua said he will not leave the house until he has spoken with my Lord St. Mars!”
    Again, the two servants exchanged uneasy looks. Tom felt a prickling at the base of his neck.
    He growled, “Well, tell ‘im he can wait. But he may have a good long time of it.”
    Mrs. Dixon nodded and retreated without another word. During all this, Philippe had been cleaning St. Mars’s angry wound, scrubbing it with water-soaked linen to remove the unhealthy tissue that had formed around it. Now, from his valet’s closet, he fetched a gallipot with a green salve. Taking a small bit in a spoon, he held it over a candle until it melted. He dipped a tent of linen into this and packed it into the open gash.
    He asked Tom to raise his lordship, so that he might wrap linen strips about his torso to secure the dressing.
    As Tom moved Gideon, he felt the young man’s heat so strongly that he, too, began to sweat. He held the slim, young body against his broad chest, exactly as he had when a younger Gideon had broken his leg, falling off of one of his father’s wilder horses. Tonight, when St. Mars had reached out for him, for one brief second, he had seen that boy again—a boy who needed him. There had been a plea for sympathy in Gideon’s eyes, more for the loss of his father, Tom believed, than for the fever that racked him so mercilessly.
    What would Lord Hawkhurst have said if he had known how miserably he had failed to protect his son? Tom rebuked himself repeatedly to cloak his more unsettling emotions.
    Soon, Mrs. Dixon’s remarks made their way past his anger to fester in his brain. If a justice of the peace insisted on speaking to Lord St. Mars, and refused to leave, he must suspect his lordship of something.
    “I wonder what those gen’lemen wants.”
    Philippe looked up. His sudden motion made Tom realize that he had spoken aloud. “This man who attacked Monseigneur , ” he said, “you saw him, n’est-ce pas ? ”
    Tom frowned. “O’ course I saw him. What’s that got to do with them fellows downstairs?”
    Philippe’s face, normally expressive, appeared unnaturally blank. “When this gentleman you call the justice of the peace came to tell us of milord’s death, he said that milord had wounded the villain who killed him.”
    It took less than a second for Tom to spring to his meaning. He snarled, “His lordship was hurt here in the street! I saw it myself!”
    The valet drew himself up. “Do you think Philippe does not know this? I— moi —who dressed his lordship twice for the ball? Who would know