"She be a murderess, Cap'n."

"She is not convicted yet-only charged. With Lord Royce as her legal counsel, she will be free before the case comes to trial."

His father's name still held sway in the prison, but the guard scratched his head. "I don't know 'bout releasin' her, not even to your custody, pardon, milord. Sir Nigel won't be happy none."

"Sir Nigel…?"

"Aye, the chief prosecutor for the Crown. Sir Nigel Turlowe. He wanted to see the mort hang particular-like, her shootin' a titled swell and all."

Nigel Turlowe, before he was knighted, was the man who had orchestrated Rex's father's downfall and disgrace. That made getting Miss Carville out of prison sweet, besides necessary. "You can tell Sir Nigel for me that the charges must be dropped for insufficient evidence."

The man's jaw gaped open. "But there was witnesses, and the gun."

"The witnesses lied." They always did. "Tell him. And tell him we will bring suit for the mistreatment of the prisoner. We shall start with him, name the warden and the matrons and every blasted guard in this benighted place. If the suit does not work, I will see what my superiors at Whitehall can do. Have you ever heard of a gentleman called the Aide?"

He could tell by the guard's suddenly shaking hands that the Aide's reputation was worse than his own. "If all else fails, I will personally pay a visit to every last one of you bastards. Do you understand?" The knife back in his hand again made his meaning fairly obvious. The guard nodded.

Rex glanced toward the bulge of the leather purse at the man's waist. "I am taking her. Make it right, make it legal, or make peace with your god."

No one stopped Rex as he limped through the halls of the prison carrying his slight burden. Then he was out in the fresh air, headed for his… horse.

Damn. If ever he needed Murchison and his father's coach, this was it. They were an hour outside of London, though. Two hackney drivers sped away, rather than take up a sickly passenger from Newgate.

"Now what?" Rex asked. The woman did not answer. She was so quiet he would have wondered if she still breathed, but he could feel her chest rise and fall even under his uniform jacket, which enfolded her. For how long? He knew he could not stand outside the prison gates waiting for a messenger to fetch Murchison and the carriage. Miss Carville needed help, now, and his bad leg could not support her for so long. So he draped her limp body over his horse's neck until he mounted and gathered her up again, silently apologizing to both the woman and the horse for such rough treatment.

Then he cursed again, turning the horse in a wide circle while he thought. What the devil was he going to do with Miss Amanda Carville now that he had her? He could not take her to the house, where she had-perhaps-shot the owner. If Sir Frederick's household had cared about the chit, she would not have been in such mean accommodations in prison. She'd had no visitors, the guard had said, confirming their belief in her guilt. Rex could not take her to his inn, not with the riffraff there, or the lack of a physician or an apothecary or a decent woman. He could try a hotel in Town, but Lud, he'd be laughed at for trying to bring his filthy, fetid burden into a respectable place. Daniel's lodgings were out of the question, even if he know the location. The girl needed tending, not likely to be found at whatever rough bachelor digs Rex's cousin had claimed. No, Rex had one choice. One blasted, blighted choice: Royce House. Where his mother lived.

Chapter Four


The knocker was off the door, which indicated that the resident was away from home. Good. That meant Rex did not have to face Lady Royce. Not that he never saw her, simply that he saw her as rarely as possible, more often by accident than design. When he was at university, a scholar on a spree, or later, a young man about Town, avoiding encounters was easy. Countesses seldom frequented gaming hells or whorehouses or sporting events. Young bucks and beaux did not attend debutante balls and afternoon teas and musicales unless dragged by their female relations. Lady Royce knew better than to try to drag Rex anywhere. She did send him letters, which he answered politely on his father's orders, and packages while he was in school or with the army. Often there would be warm socks, tins of tea, a coin or a pound note tucked in, so the other lads thought Lady Royce was the best mother in the world.

She was no mother at all. Right now Rex was pleased he did not have to make stilted conversation with the stranger who gave him birth. It was enough that he was here at her bidding, cradling an unconscious convict.

On the other hand-the one holding his coat closed over the young woman's torn gown so he had to kick at the door instead of knocking-with the countess away, who was going to take charge of Miss Carville? He almost dropped her, panicked at the thought that no one was left at the London town house to answer his call. No, the housekeeper would be somewhere, Rex decided, or the cook. There were competent women in most households, experienced with invalids and infants. He kicked at the door again.

Both were away, the butler announced when the man finally opened the door, aghast at the foul sight in the immaculate doorway of his domain: a dusty soldier in shirtsleeves, a filthy urchin in his arms. He sneered.

Rex frowned at the butler's bare feet.

The major domo wrinkled his nose at the stench of horse and worse. Rex raised his eyebrow at the scent of patchouli that wafted from the bewigged butler, but he again demanded a woman to look after Miss Carville.

According to the butler, Dodd, Cook was with the mistress in Bath, as were Lady Royce's dresser, her companion, and the upstairs maid. The housekeeper was visiting her sister in Richmond and the parlor maids were on holiday. So the young female could not be brought into Royce House, no matter who she claimed to be.

"She claims nothing. She is too ill."

"Then she belongs in a hospital, sir." The butler started to shut the door in Rex's face.

Still holding the woman close to his chest despite the cramp in his right shoulder and the trembling in his left forearm, Rex kicked the door fully open with his good leg. He would have kicked the blasted butler if he could have reached. As it was, the man had to leap backward to avoid the heavy door connecting with his bare toes. "I'll call the Watch," Dodd threatened. "We don't allow vagrants and vermin around here. This is a house of nobility. Lady Royce knows only the finest people, not criminals and cutthroats."

"Do you know who I am, you sanctimonious prig?"

The butler curled his lip again. "No one who should be calling on a countess, that is for certain."

"And I wouldn't, had I any choice. Your countess is my mother, confound it!"

The butler's face went pale. His toes curled under his feet as he finally recognized the air of authority under the grime-worse, the likeness to a boy's portraits in the sitting room and the parlor. "I… I do not believe you," he said.

Rex was seeing red. Not just at the lie, but out of anger. Miss Carville could be dying for all he knew, or dead already, while this supercilious servant worried about her presence and his pedigree. And whoever heard of a butler going barefoot? He pushed past the man and headed for the stairs that had to lead up toward the bedchambers. "Find me a female to attend Miss Carville. Now!"

"But… but no one is on duty but a footman, the potboy, and a kitchen drab."

"Get her. And have the boy bring hot water. There is a groom outside holding my horse. Send him for a physician-whichever one Lady Royce uses. The footman can get a message to my man at the Black Dog Inn."

Instead of carrying out Rex's orders, Dodd hurried after the viscount and his burden. Rex stopped at the first door, his leg protesting the climb.

"No, no! That is the countess's own bedroom."

The next one was the earl's, it seemed.

"Has my father ever been here, then?"

"Not that I know of, but I have only been in my lady's employ for six months. Her previous butler retired."

And this one would not last long if Rex had anything to say. According to Dodd, the next door led to her ladyship's companion's room, and the following chamber was being redecorated.

Rex was too tired to care about that lie, and too concerned about getting Miss Carville onto a bed before his arms gave out. Dodd finally rushed ahead to open a smaller room done up with rose-painted wallpaper and roses on the fabric hangings. It was as feminine and frilly as the rooms that stayed closed and clean next to the earl's bedchamber at the Hall.

Rex placed his burden on the bed and removed his coat from around her, then stood back, shrugging into it, waiting for the scullery maid.

The girl took three steps into the room, pointed at the figure lying so still on the bed, and screamed "Murderess!"

"She is an accused murderess," Rex countered, buttoning his uniform coat so he would feel more in command of a situation that was far beyond his ken. "First she is Lady Royce's goddaughter and she is ill."

"Gaol fever!" the maid yelled. She threw her hands in the air and fled, almost knocking the bucket of water out of a wide-eyed boy's hands. Rex grabbed for the bucket as the boy stared at Miss Carville's half-naked body. Rex hastily pulled down the remnants of her skirt to cover her legs.

"You, out!" he bellowed at the boy. "Fetch more water, and some soup if you can find it, or biscuits and tea." Then he once more ordered the butler to send the footman for Murchison, a woman-any woman-and his cousin Daniel, in that order.

"I… I know of a woman nearby. My, ah, sister."

"Get her, man!"

In mere seconds-and mere doors away, obviously the one Dodd claimed was being redecorated-a female staggered into the room. She did not look like Dodd, but the patchouli she must have bathed in did smell like him. Dodd suddenly had his shoes on, Rex noted, but the female did not have her gown fastened. Her face paint was smeared and her lips were swollen. She had a bottle of wine-from the Royce wine cellars, Rex guessed-in her hand while the other hand held the gaping front of her gown over fleshy, flabby breasts.

"You've brought your whore into my mother's house?" Rex shouted at the butler, who was edging toward the doorway. Even Rex, as far from polite society's ways as he could get, knew that was an outrage. "And here, to tend to a lady?"

"Lady, my arse," the female said. "She's nobbut a light skirt from what they say, and a cold-blooded murderer to boot. Who's to say she's better'n old Nell?"

"I say it, damn it! Get out, before I throw you out. And you"-he turned toward Dodd-"if you want to keep your post past tomorrow, you'll make certain your doxy is gone without lifting any of the countess's silver, and then you will find a respectable woman to come help. Try next door if you need to. And when the footman gets back from finding my cousin and my valet, post a message to Lady Royce, saying that her goddaughter has arrived."

He did not speak his thoughts, that the countess should have been in London while her godchild was in peril, not leaving him to comfort a delicate female, not abandoning yet another innocent to his or her fate.

If Miss Carville was innocent. He still did not know.

"Tell Lady Royce to come home now."

"I cannot give orders to my mistress!"

"She sent for me. Now send for her. Miss Carville is her responsibility."

Dodd bowed, shoved Nell ahead of him, and ran to do Rex's bidding. "Yes sir, my lord. Right away, Captain, ah, your lordship." Good positions were hard to find. Besides, Viscount Rexford looked like he'd have Dodd's head if his demands were not met, no matter how unreasonable. The butler had heard the war reports as well as the rumors. Everyone had. No one, it seemed, disobeyed his lordship, not ever. Or else. Murder and mayhem flashed from those ice-blue eyes, for certain. Dodd vowed to get the housekeeper back if he had to drag her himself. Yes, and Lady Royce, too.

Once the room was empty of servants, Rex stared at the unmoving form on the bed. "You are Lady Royce's mess," he declared, more for his own sake than the febrile woman's. "Not mine."

But the countess could not come fast enough, and Rex could not walk away or lie to himself, which made it his mess after all.

He repeated Murchison's French blasphemies, then a few of the cavalry's finest curses. The woman was still lying atop the covers, in rags and in need. Damn. He could not leave her like that. He could not wait for a maidservant, either. Murchison was an hour away, at least. Who knew how long before the doctor would arrive? The female was shivering, despite beads of sweat on her forehead. He lit the coals in the room's fireplace.