A Promise by Daylight. Alison DeLaine

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      “Wait here,” he ordered when the coach door opened.

      Dear God. Harris and Sacks had been mistaken. Lord Winston was attending the burial, after all.

      She watched him climb out, clearly in considerably greater pain than when he had climbed in. A footman opened the cemetery gate, but he waved the servant away. Beyond, among the headstones, a group of people was already gathered. A fine mist put a sheen on every stone and blade of grass.

      A woman dressed in black sank into a curtsy the moment he joined them. The duke reached out to stop her and pull her gently upright. Nearby, five children huddled together.

      He ordered five hundred pounds sent this afternoon.

      And now he was here, standing out in the drizzle with his injuries doubtless paining him like the devil, clasping his hands in front of him while a priest spoke at the edge of the grave.

      Millie watched through the coach window. A slow bead of moisture skidded down the outside of the pane. Next to the grave, the widow held a handkerchief to her face.

      When he finally turned back toward the coach, Millie scooted away from the window and opened her medical bag, pretending to be preoccupied with the contents.

      He climbed carefully back into the coach. Settled against the seat. Inhaled deeply. Exhaled. “Sodding, bloody state of affairs,” he muttered as the coach rolled away.

      “My condolences,” she said.

      “I didn’t even know the man.” He stared out at the passing streets as they clattered back toward the house. “He left a widow and five children.” And that upset him. The distress was plain on his face.

      “It was kind of you to think of them today,” she said.

      “Kind.” The word shot from his lips, and his eyes shifted to her. “Kindness never raised the dead, Mr. Germain.”

      “Perhaps not, but it shows them respect, and it comforts the living.” Which he already knew, or he would not have risked his own health to attend.

      “He was an utter stranger. The entire debacle was complete happenstance—matter of timing. He died, I didn’t.” He said it flatly, matter-of-factly.

      But a shiver touched her deep inside. “I see.”

      His hooded gaze said she could not possibly see. And his attention returned to the window.

      The man seated across from her was not the man she’d met yesterday in his bedchamber, surrounded by highflyers.

      “How are your injuries?” she asked.

      “A man is dead, Mr. Germain. My injuries are nothing next to that.”

      “They will be if they fester and leave you dead, as well.”

      “Perhaps that would only be perverse justice.”

      It took a moment to credit his words. “Forgive me,” she ventured slowly. “Of course your own death would put everything to rights.”

      “Mock me again,” he said sharply, looking at her once more, “and you’ll return to Lady Pennington minus your wages.”

      The coach hit an especially deep pothole, and he hissed, squeezing his eyes shut. For a moment she could almost imagine she felt his pain herself.

      “Is there anything I can do that will help?” she said, more gently than she might have.

      Those dark eyes opened, fixing on her with a shadow of pain that no compress could touch. “Are there any medicaments you can prescribe that will undo the past, Mr. Germain?”

      * * *

      IF THERE WERE any such medicaments, she would gladly take them herself.

      After they returned to the house, Millie applied fresh dressings and compresses to his wounds and gave him a concoction to drink, and then there was nothing left to do for him except leave him to rest.

      Downstairs in the library, she scoured the shelves for anything medical, and finally found a French volume about the nervous system that had been published in the past century, tucked in a row of books wedged between bookends formed like a woman’s bottom and thighs.

      She sighed and slipped the volume from the shelf. It was better than nothing.

      For a moment she stared at those bookends, thinking of the man who owned them. If he’d been contemplating pleasures of the flesh this afternoon, he’d given no hint of it.

      All around, the ornate library testified to his decadent mode of living. Here, as in the salon where she’d waited yesterday, the ceilings boasted vast paintings of colorful and illicit love affairs, edged by intricate plasterwork decorated with gold.

      The furnishings were lush, befitting his rank, yet scattered about the room in an almost careless manner that seemed to perfectly reflect the man himself.

      And yet...

      Was it possible the accident truly had affected him? Could this afternoon have marked the first inkling of changes to come?

      Her gaze landed on a Grecian plaque depicting a variety of ancient sex acts. Of course not, Millicent. A man like that doesn’t change.

      And yet, she couldn’t shake the memory of his demeanor in the coach—his troubled eyes, his silence, as if perhaps he truly was grieving the death of a stranger.

      There was no knowing, so she ordered tea, went upstairs and locked herself away in her dressing room to study until he awoke and required her attention again.

      Within two hours’ time, she began to hear noise through the wall. Five minutes more, ten, fifteen, and the noise and laughter coming from His Grace’s suite of rooms had grown to a crescendo.

      She stared at the bookcase. He had company again? So much for the inkling of changes to come.

      She continued trying to read, but concentration became impossible. Plugging her ears only proved distracting. She caught herself clenching her teeth and finally stood up, glaring at the bookcase.

      What she wouldn’t give to march in there and evict the entire lot at pistol point.

      Apparently all that business in the carriage this afternoon was nothing more than self-pity. And to think she’d begun to feel sympathy for him. Well, the sooner that debauched devil of a man recovered from his injuries, the better.

      But not too soon. She needed all the money she could get from him.

      A volley of laughter battered the wall.

      She narrowed her eyes at the bookcase. Perhaps she would go over there. Make a big fuss about his health—more of a fuss than was strictly necessary—and if nothing else, give herself the satisfaction of interfering with his pleasure-seeking.

      She grabbed her medical bag and went to her door, only to hear a knock. She opened it to find Sacks—

      “His СКАЧАТЬ