Damn!She had hurt him. Guilt joined the anxiety in a nauseating mix.
“But what happened?” Mostyn asked as they started up the stairs.
She had her story ready. “I convinced him to go out searching for our villains. They waylaid us not far away and coshed him over the head. He took a fearful knock—see the bruise?”
That was all it took; Mostyn tut-tutted and carried on about the dangers his master never seemed to have a care for, how he’d often warned him that something terrible would one day come of his investigating…and much more in that vein until Penelope was extremely sorry she’d ever thought up such a tale—adding lashings of more guilt to that already swirling through her. She had to bite her tongue against the urge to caustically defend Barnaby; she had to remember her own role in this drama—that of female accomplice seriously concerned for her white knight’s health.
She literally gave thanks when they reached the top of the steep single flight, and could lurch toward, then through, the doorway leading into a sizable room. It took up most of the first floor—a very large bedroom, with a very large bed, plus a small sitting area with a desk and a comfortable armchair angled before the hearth. The fire was cheerily burning, throwing heat and light through the room. A dressing room opened to one side; she glimpsed a bathing chamber beyond.
A pair of tallboys stood against opposing walls, and matching side tables flanked the bed, but it was the bed itself that dominated the room—and fixed her attention.
A four-poster in dark wood with barley-sugar poles, it was hung with figured damask the color of his eyes. The curtains were looped back with tasseled golden cords, revealing a massive expanse of blue satin coverlet, with gold-silk-encased pillows forming a small mountain against the headboard.
In unspoken accord, she and Mostyn teetered toward the bed. Mostyn managed to steer Barnaby—who emitted another dreadful groan—until his back was propped against the nearest pole.
“Miss—if you can steady him there for a moment, I’ll ready the bed.”
Mostyn warily took his hands from Barnaby, then dove for the head of the bed, but before he could grasp the coverlet and drag it down, Barnaby groaned again, and staggered sideways.
“Oh!” Penelope tried desperately to hold him upright—but then he toppled backward, nearly jerking her off her feet and onto the bed with him as he sprawled on his back across the mattress; it was only because she lost her grip on his coat that she managed to stay on her feet.
Eyes still closed, he winced, then moaned. Weakly, he raised a hand to his head.
Penelope dived to catch his hand. “No—don’t touch it. Just lie there and let us get you out of your coat.”
He was either an excellent actor, or he really was in pain—she had no idea which.
Thrown entirely off balance, Mostyn fussed and fretted. Penelope shrugged out of her cloak and laid it aside, then rustled back to the bed. Between them, they managed to ease the heavy overcoat off Barnaby’s shoulders. The coat beneath, one of Shultz’s creations, proved a great deal more difficult to remove; Mostyn had to support Barnaby, holding him upright, while Penelope clambered onto the bed behind him and tugged the tight-fitting garment free.
She shuffled quickly aside as Mostyn let Barnaby back down—to the accompaniment of another excoriating groan.
His waistcoat and cravat were much easier to deal with; she dispensed with those, tugging both free, while Mostyn removed his shoes and stockings.
The instant Mostyn stood again, she snapped, “Fetch some cold water and a cloth.”
Mostyn hesitated, but the quite genuine concern ringing in her voice had him moving to the dressing room door. “I’ll just be a moment.”
Penelope glanced after him; he passed through to the bathing chamber beyond, but with both doors open she didn’t dare ask Barnaby if his head really hurt that much, or if he was acting.
The guilt that he might not be, that she really had coshed him harder than she’d intended, contrarily made it easier, when Mostyn returned, to put the next stage of her plan into action.
Taking the basin from him, she set it on one bedside table, briskly wrung out the cloth, then leaned over Barnaby and applied the compress gently to the reddened patch on his wide forehead. The spot wasn’t that raised or contused; it was probably just as well she was covering it, especially as Mostyn had moved around the bed to light the candelabra on the other bedside table. The candles flared, then steadied, spilling light over Barnaby as he lay sprawled across the bed.
Without looking directly at Mostyn, she said, “You may go.”
It took a moment for her words to penetrate, then he stared at her, stupefied. “I can’t do that! It wouldn’t be proper.”
Slowly, she lifted her gaze and stared—down her nose—at him. “My dear good man.” She’d borrowed both words and tone from Lady Osbaldestone, a lady whose ability to lord it over the opposite sex was legendary; she couldn’t do better than to borrow from a master. “I do hope”—she kept her voice low, yet her tone was incisive—“that you’re not about to suggest there is anythingimproper in my tending to Mr. Adair in his current injured state, especially as it was in response to a request of mine—indeed, in protecting me—that he was injured?”
Mostyn blinked, frowned.
Before he had a chance to gather any wits, she continued in the same, chilly, impossibly superior tone, “I have two adult brothers, and have tended their hurts often enough.” An outright lie; both were much older than she. “I have lived more than twenty-eight years in the haut ton, and never have I heard it sugggested that tending an injured gentleman in a state of incapacitation was in any way considered fast.”
Having lied once, she saw no reason not to compound the sin; Mostyn couldn’t possibly know how old she was.
Returning her attention to her patient—who had remained silent throughout—she struggled to recall useful terms Mrs. Keggs employed in similar situations, which occurred all too frequently at the Foundling House. “It’s very likely he has a concussion.”
Alarm flared in Mostyn’s eyes. “Mulled wine! My mentor always swore by it.” He rushed for the door.
