Page 3 of Master of Games (The Duke Fraternity #4)

CHAPTER TWO

Tabbie grabbed the sides of Ironheart’s face. “Dear lord, please don’t be dead.”

“I am a god among men, but praying to me is hardly necessary.” His gray-green eyes opened to meet hers, his lips tugging at the corners.

Despite her fear, she huffed out a breath. “You’re all right then.”

“Hardly,” his eyes closed again, pain pulling at the edges. “But if anyone can see me through, it’s you.”

“You’ve that much confidence in me?”

“I have a great deal of faith in your stubbornness and tenacity,” he answered. His eyes remained closed, but one corner of his mouth tugged up in an attempt at a smile.

“You are incorrigible.”

“But you still love me?”

Tabbie clucked her tongue even as she wrapped an arm under his shoulders. “All the world loves you, Ironheart. You don’t need my affection.”

“I disagree. There is never enough.” His hand lifted up to cover hers, which belatedly, she realized was resting on his chest.

His fingers closed in around the back of her hand and despite the dire situation, she felt her pulse skip at his touch.

“Oh my goodness, gracious!” Mrs. Banks cried from the stairs.

“Missus Banks,” she said, her head snapping up. “Please gather as many footmen as you can to bring His Grace inside and send one of them to fetch Dr. Merigold as quickly as possible.”

“His Grace?” Mrs. Banks cried, her eyes going wide.

“Quickly,” she replied, knowing that time was of the essence and she’d wasted enough of it.

Mrs. Banks spun on her heel, lifting her skirts as she rushed back into the house.

“See,” Ironheart murmured through pale lips, “I feel better in your care already.”

But Tabbie didn’t answer as she trailed her eyes over his body looking for the cause of all the blood.

She found it, blood oozing in alarming amounts from his arm. “What happened?”

“Shot,” he answered, his fingers sliding across the back of her hand.

“Where?”

“My arm.”

She huffed, even as she smoothed the blood-covered sleeve over his arm. “I can see that. I meant where were you in the country of England that you ended up in Dover, of all places, with a gunshot wound?”

“Kingsdown,” he answered with a sigh.

That told her almost nothing. Part of her wished to ask why he’d been in Kingsdown, but she tried a different line of questioning instead.

“Who shot you?” Her fingers slid up to brush his hair back from his forehead as worry pulled at her gut. She just wanted to keep him talking. If she could do that, perhaps she could keep him alive.

“Whitehouse, of course.”

She gasped. But that meant that the fugitive, Lord Severus Whitehouse, was close.

The villain had hurt Sophie, and then tried to steal her and marry her.

He was the stuff of nightmares. “Will he follow you here?”

“If he were following me, he would have caught me, I wasn’t moving very fast.”

The air hissed from her lungs. Because that made a great deal of sense and she hadn’t meant to be concerned for herself over him. “I’ll have the footmen start a guard duty regardless.”

He patted the back of her hand again even as four footmen descended down the front steps. “That is one of the things I love about you. You always know just how to handle yourself.”

Another little trill of pleasure raced through her. He was a flatterer, whose life might depend on her in this very moment.

Of course, he’d say such things. But deep in her heart, she could confess that his words were…nice. She’d closed herself off to wanting any sort of relationship with anyone but her father.

To be praised, to be needed…it was a lovely moment.

And one that she would do well to forget.

She pushed herself up, standing as the footmen descended the stairs. “Bring him in the house. Put him in the adjoining room next to mine.”

“Yes, my lady,” John, the footman closest to her answered. “And Christian has been dispatched to fetch the doctor.”

She nodded as she pointed down. “It’s his left arm. Lift him carefully. I know you know how to handle an injury, John.”

“I’ll treat him with the utmost care.” Together, the footmen lifted Ironheart, carrying him up the stairs and into the house, a trail of blood dripping as they went.

She followed, noting that Ironheart didn’t make a sound of protest, though it must have hurt terribly.

They carried him up the stairs and into a large bedroom that overlooked the front drive. Gingerly they set him down, placing him carefully in the bed, but she heard him groan, nonetheless.

“Fetch me sheers,” she said to one of the footmen as he settled Ironheart’s left leg into the bed.

“Yes, my lady.”

“Tell me those are for cutting off my clothes and not for putting me out of my misery,” Ironheart said on a long sigh.

“Of course they are for cutting off your clothes.”

“I have to confess, this is not how I pictured taking my clothes off in front of you.”

John coughed, seeming to choke on his own spit. Tabbie didn’t look away from Ironheart as she examined his clothes and the best way to remove them.

“Don’t be a cad,” she tsked as the other footman returned with the sharp metal instrument.

If not for the extra ears, she’d likely add that she doubted he’d considered the proposition of disrobing in front of her at all, and if he had, it was in the way he pictured it with every woman he ever met. Another female to fawn over him.

Gently she approached him with the sheers, still trying to decide how best to get off all his layers of clothing.

Finally, she started with the wounded arm, cutting from the wrist, up the front of the arm so she could gently pull the layers of clothes away from the damaged skin.

She pulled the soaked fabric back to reveal the wound and nearly sighed with relief.

The ball of lead had gone through the flesh and not hit the bone.

“I need a clean cloth to wrap it and put some pressure on the wound,” she called to John.

“Already coming, my lady.”

She kept cutting across his chest, and down the other arm. “It’s a shame to ruin such a fine coat,” she breathed as she worked. Mostly, she was attempting to distract herself from the rippling muscle being revealed underneath.

But her attempt was quickly foiled. “The lead ball already ruined it, and I’m far more concerned about the damage to my skin.”

She worked the sheers right down the middle, peeling back the layers as the hot water and cloth arrived.

Washing as much of the blood off as she could, she wrapped the wound tightly, trying to stop the bleeding.

He grunted through the pain. “I’m sorry,” she winced, touching his bare chest, his skin warm and rough underneath her palm.

“Don’t be sorry.” He let out a long breath, his chest rising and falling under her hand. “I should be the one who apologizes.”

Her heart stuttered again. Because this was not a handsome rake speaking but an endearing man. Drat him and his ability to work his way past her defenses. “It was a bit dull here anyway.” Not completely true, but good enough. “Believe it or not, you saved me from writing a novel.”

His eyes opened and he gave her a soft smile, the kind that crinkled his eyes but did nothing to soften the masculine line of his jaw. “Well in that case, I shall need constant care.”

He was back to his rakish ways, but this time, she didn’t mind so much, and she found herself smiling back as she looked away. “You are incorrigible.”

“I am. It shall take the strongest sort of woman to tame me.”

“Truer words,” she murmured, tying the cloth with more force than she intended.

He sucked in a ragged breath, lifting off the bed.

She immediately froze. “I’m sorry, Ironheart.”

“Might as well call me Caden.”

“Caden?” Something warm slid through her belly.

“My given name,” he answered with a grunt.

Caden Ironheart. It was a nice name for a beautiful man. Too bad his heart was black and hers was frozen. “Family name?”

“No, Tabbie, not an Ironheart name at all.” A darkness laced his words but she didn’t have a chance to ask as the butler appeared in the doorway.

“Doctor Merigold is here.”

“Bring him in,” she answered, straightening away. Caden Ironheart’s secrets would have to remain his own. Right now, she needed to make certain he lived.

* * *

Ironheart looked down at the wound as the doctor examined the flesh. “It’s already healing.”

“Yes,” he answered, even as Tabbie stared at him with confusion.

He’d been shot two days ago. A significant flesh wound, but a flesh wound nonetheless. He’d not have collapsed off his horse if he hadn’t spent the last two days losing the men who’d chased him relentlessly.

But he’d had to shake them first. He couldn’t risk bringing his enemies to Tabbie’s door.

Still, he maybe should have found another way to rest.

He’d not be able to marry Tabbie if he were dead.

And he did intend to marry her. In fact, he’d been making the journey here to propose. A fact she’d been trying to ask about, but he’d avoided, because Tabbie was not going to be a woman easily swayed.

Even her father had warned him of this fact, when Caden asked his permission. And then he’d sent Caden to give convincing Tabbie “his best go.”

It was unorthodox to say the least, that he’d travelled here alone, her father remaining in London and not chaperoning his daughter.

Caden had made sure her father was fine with all of this. “Would you prefer I wait for your return to Dover?”

“No,” her father had waved his hand. “Tabbie stopped being a debutante some time ago and I completely abandoned moderating her behavior not long after. She is her own woman and she damn near broke me when I tried to rein her in.”

Caden had laughed. “That’s what I like about her.”

The marquess cocked his head in consideration. “I can see that. But before you go to my daughter, there is something else you should know.”

He’d paused, one eyebrow lifting as he waited.

“There are…scars.”

He’d seen them, peeking out of the neckline of her gown and the sleeve of her dress. “How extensive?”

“Much of her right arm and the right side of her torso. One of her…” Her father gestured toward his chest. “A bit of her right leg. It’s a miracle her face wasn’t touched.”

He’d been tempted to ask her father how it had happened.

But he didn’t. He’d wait and ask Tabbie herself.

It seemed appropriate for Tabbie to tell him her own story.

“Forgive me, but you don’t seem like a man eager to have his daughter married.

In fact, I do believe you might be trying to frighten me away. ”

The marquess dipped his head, hiding a grimace.

“I am, indeed. My daughter is strong, witty, beautiful beyond measure, with a heart of pure gold. If her strength or her scars are likely to turn your courtship elsewhere, best it happen before she ever knew you considered her hand. She doesn’t need another rejection or more pain. ”

Those words had bounced about his head for the whole of the journey. Had someone hurt her? Because of her scars?

He’d like to murder the person who’d done so. Tabbie had the sort of worth that would make weak men afraid, he knew that.

But to try to destroy such a beautiful spirit…

Perhaps he’d been so deep in thought, he’d missed the fact that he was being followed.

By the time he’d realized, it was too late. Three men had jumped him, making it clear they were Whitehouse’s assassins, sent to remove the scourge of the Duke Fraternity from England and the world.

He could confess that the club, the Duke Fraternity, was not a moral endeavor. The men joined to live their most debaucherous lives. But somehow, they always seemed to find that it was an empty pursuit and settled themselves into domestic lives.

The men who hunted them, however, considered themselves pillars of the moral community while they used their ideals to justify theft and murder.

And Lord Whitehouse had been caught committing nothing less than treason. There was a price on his head, put on him by Ironheart.

He should have known the other man would retaliate quickly and with a great deal of zest.

“Your Grace,” the doctor called his attention back. How long had he gone without speaking. “Why has it taken you so long to seek aid?”

“I…” He looked over at Tabbie and realized that her face looked blurred and a bit stretched. “Are you feeling all right, luv?”

“I’m not your love,” she huffed back. Which meant Tabbie was fine. Maybe it was him…

He blinked his eyes a few times and then…

The world went black.