Page 3 of How to Seduce a Viscount (Wed Within a Year #3)

W hoever she was, she was not going to die, this waif of a girl dressed in trousers.

He wouldn’t allow it. Luce knelt beside her, pushing back her coat, ripping at her shirt to get at the wound.

Dear lord, there was so much blood. It was everywhere, drenching her coat, soaking her shirt.

And she’d been stabbed on his doorstep. Who stabbed waifs on viscounts’ doorsteps in the middle of snowfall at midnight?

No one. But people did stab messengers that sought the Horsemen.

Good God. The message must be important.

If so, why had Grandfather sent her? She was delicate and pale with silvery hair like an angel’s.

And yet she’d managed to skewer two before he’d made it downstairs.

Luce stripped off his cravat and pressed the hasty wadding to the wound, his mind rapidly prioritising his actions. The bleeding had to be stopped. Immediately. She would need stitches. Her care came before his questions.

Luce lifted her in his arms. How had someone this light managed two brute-sized men? He angled her through the door, juggling her in his arms. She moaned in protest. That moan was proof of life. Thank God.

‘You’re safe. I’m taking you inside. We’ll see to your wound,’ he assured her.

One never told a fallen comrade how bad an injury was. The rule was to be positive, to minimise the severity of the situation so that the injured didn’t panic. Luce hoped the slice wasn’t as severe as it looked. Sometimes a wound just bled.

Luce’s servants had been woken by the commotion and had come to see what had happened. Luce issued orders to them as he climbed the stairs with the waif in his arms.

‘Rowley, take the footmen and tie up any of the men outside who are still alive. Put them in the wine cellar. Mrs Hartley, I need hot water and medicinal supplies. Send a maid up, one with a strong stomach.’

He set his household in motion, thankful the girl in his arms was feather-light. He’d not realised how many steps comprised his staircase, or how long the corridor was. Perhaps that was his haste talking. There was little time to lose.

‘In here, my lord.’ A maid scurried past him, holding open the door to a guest room. ‘This chamber has been aired.’ The maid hurried about the room lighting lamps and laying a fire. Luce would have to remember to thank her later for her efficiency in a time of crisis.

Luce laid the silver-haired waif on the bed and pushed aside the tatters of her clothing, getting his first good look at the injury. He sucked in his breath. That wasn’t a slice. It was a gash . Behind him in the room, he could hear the arrival of hot water and supplies.

‘Another pad please.’

The layers of his wadded cravat were soaked through. Someone was beside him, pushing a clean cloth into his hand. He folded it and pressed it to the wound.

‘Shall I send for the doctor?’ the efficient maid—he remembered her name was Rose—asked.

‘Yes, at once.’

Although he held out little hope there would be much help from that quarter. The doctor would be an hour at least in coming, perhaps more with the weather. That assumed the doctor was even at home and not already out braving the elements to deliver a baby or attending to some other medical need.

By the time the doctor arrived, Luce thought grimly, it might not matter.

The injury may resolve itself by then. Either he’d get the situation under control or not.

He didn’t want to think of the ‘or not’.

This slip of a girl had fought three men on his doorstep.

She could not die. Not until he knew who she was and why she’d come.

‘More hot water,’ he barked, his voice rough with his own desperation. ‘Let’s get her cleaned up. Mrs Hartley, prepare a needle for stitching. Rose, be ready with the brandy. And both of you, wash your hands before you touch anything.’

Thank goodness Grandfather had made sure his grandsons knew a few doctoring skills, enough to see them through more than one scrape.

‘A lamp please, Mrs Hartley, when you’re done with that needle.

I need more light.’ He bent to the task of cleansing the gash and prepared to apply stitches.

The waif had beautiful skin, so pale and clear, which made the gash all the more vivid.

A wave of anger surged. How dare someone think to mar the perfection of her with their blade?

‘Keep her still, Rose,’ he snapped gruffly when the waif’s body flinched.

To his patient, he murmured a litany of reassurances as he worked. ‘You’re very brave, my dear. You fended off three men, you can do this.’ He hated the idea he was causing her pain even as he was trying to save her life.

Luce tied off the last stitch and sat back, letting Mrs Hartley wrap yards of bandages about the girl’s midsection. Luce stretched, the muscles of his back and neck taut from the precision of his efforts. But his discomfort was nothing compared to his patient’s.

His patient. The waif. Her . There was more to her than those nondescript labels.

Luce looked down into her sleeping—or was it unconscious—features, his mind a riot of questions.

She had a name, this girl with the silvery hair and pearly skin.

What was it? What had brought her to his doorstep tonight of all nights?

Who were the men who had followed her? Who’d tried to kill her?

Now that the initial crisis had passed, he could put his mind to those questions at last. He washed his hands and stepped out of the room while Mrs Hartley and Rose put her into one of his nightshirts.

Rowley was waiting with a report. ‘There was only the one man alive. He’s in the cellar as you asked, my lord. We’ve posted a guard for when he wakes up.’

‘Excellent.’ Wherever Grandfather had found the staff, he’d done well. ‘I’ll question him in the morning. And the other two?’

‘They’re in the icehouse. Shall I send for the magistrate?’

Those bodies were going to be a problem. The ground was frozen. Digging graves would be hard work, impossible work, for a few days.

‘We’ll need two coffins and the discretion of the undertaker. Perhaps you could pay him without making it seem like a bribe.’ The fewer questions the better. Luce didn’t want to explain to Little Albury why the new viscount had two dead bodies to dispose of. ‘By the way, which two didn’t make it?’

‘The thickset one and the one with the thin face.’

Luce raised a brow in surprise. Those had both been hers. The man he’d dealt with was the one in the cellar. That slip of a girl had taken out two grown men. His admiration for her rose. ‘Was her weapon recovered?’

‘Yes. I brought it up.’ Rowley withdrew the knife and handed it over.

Luce held it up to the light. A stiletto.

It had been cleaned and the blade shone with deadly intent.

She’d taken out two men with this? It was a wicked, sharp blade, to be sure, but it was a civilian’s weapon, not an assassin’s.

He hefted it, feeling the perfection of its weight.

Still, it was exquisitely made and well-balanced.

Stilettos were traditionally offensive weapons for stabbing, hard and swift.

It was impressive that she had the strength for it and the tenacity for it.

Knife work was not for the faint hearted.

It was violent, bloody, up close and personal.

He handed the blade back to Rowley. ‘Thank you. Let everyone know that they’ve done well.

I am pleased with our efforts tonight.’ He needed to get back to his patient although there was nothing more to do for her but wait, watch and hope that his skill had been enough to bring her through.

Even so, it was likely to get worse before it got better.

Inside the room, he pulled up a chair next to the bed and settled in for his vigil. He’d take the first watch. Mrs Hartley had volunteered for the second. The door shut quietly behind him as Rose and Mrs Hartley exited, leaving him alone with this exquisite mystery.

And she was exquisite, now that there was time to appreciate the details of her. At the moment, she looked peaceful in her repose, like a fairy tale princess, with the long waves and curls of her hair fanned across the pillow.

He’d never seen hair—natural hair at any rate—quite that shade. He could see now that he’d been wrong to call it silver. The word did not do it justice.

It was not silver, nor was it blonde, but something beyond.

White-gold perhaps, like Bolivian platinum or the shimmering ice-crystal-white of a snowflake.

It gave her an otherworldly appearance tempered by dark lashes sweeping the pale pearlescence of her cheeks.

Even though she’d lost blood, her skin was naturally pale.

He reached out to stroke her cheek. He told himself it was to check for fever, to see that her skin remained cool, but in truth he simply couldn’t resist. He knew before his hand reached her that touching her skin would be akin to touching silk.

Warm silk, unfortunately. He’d keep a close eye on that. Fever was nothing to take lightly.

‘Who are you?’ he whispered. There was no answer. No fluttering of lashes. She was entirely lost to sleep, to exhaustion.

Luce sifted through the events of the evening and made his own deductions.

She’d travelled on foot. How far? There’d been no horse with her.

She’d arrived only to stand and fight. That she was one of Grandfather’s many messengers seemed plain.

That she carried urgent information worth killing for seemed plain too.

Whoever she was, he knew three things about her—she was beautiful, brave and , despite appearances to the contrary, she was deadly. Perhaps that was what Grandfather saw in her. She was someone people would underestimate, to their detriment.