‘It aches,’ she admitted ruefully.
She reached up to touch the padding of her wound, and was suddenly, starkly, aware that the half knot she’d tied had slipped undone, exposing the full waterfall frill of her ridiculous nightgown. Phoebe flushed furiously. It wasn’t exactly indecent, it was the sort of nightgown her mother would wear with lace enough for an army of bedspreads, but it was still the sort of situation that most polite society would consider ruinous.
‘I beg your pardon, my lord!’ she apologised, fumbling with her good arm. ‘I thought everyone would be abed at this hour.’
He was before her in a second, and looking at her in a way that she was sure Fred would callroguish.
‘But of course, and everything is twice as challenging with an injury. Why don’t you let me help you?’ He murmured with a new, disarming smile.
Phoebe had never in her life been quite so close to a half-dressed gentleman, let alone one quite so golden, and felt every protest dissolve at the back of her throat as he reached towards her. She could feel his warm breath on her exposed skin, glimpse flecks of gold in his jade eyes, and sense the intent behind his smile. She sucked in a tight breath, her head clouding with a thousand different thoughts and feelings. None of this could be real. She should be halfway to London with Effie and Flora by now, not protecting her virtue from some dubious rake.
‘Although it seems such a shame to hide this pretty nightgown,’ he added, his eyes darkening suggestively.
All at once everything seemed to slow, and Phoebe was aware only of the beat of her heart overriding every logical, self-preserving thought. She opened her mouth and willed something clever to come out, but all she could see were his eyelids lowering, and a look on his face that quickened her own breath.
As though in a dream, she watched his lips part and fingers drop to brush the cotton bodice of her nightgown. She gasped at his touch, which set a million tiny candles alight across her fickle body, and knew then that the question in his eyes somehow matched the delicious rise of something from the pit of her stomach, that this was fast turning into what Fred would calla situation.
Which had to be exactly what the viscount intended.
It was the only thought she needed for a second rise within her – much like the one that had seen her banished to her bedchamber for a week for landing Tom Bilch, the butcher’s boy, a right leveller. She still thought it wildly unfair when he’d been the one to call her ahornswoggler, but that was beside the point. The viscount was a cad!
Instinctively, Phoebe brought up her good fist in a cross-body punch that would have impressed any one of the Bilch boys, and let it crash into the side of his jaw, watching in delight as his wolfish smile was replaced with shock, pain and finally, fury, as he stumbled backwards. She grinned in momentary jubilation, and then an eruption of fiery pain engulfed her right side.
‘Ohh!’ she gasped, holding her shoulder and running towards him.
She had no desire to stay in the same room, let alone get any closer, but she’d spotted his glass of iced brandy beside the armchair, and right now it was all she could think about.
In a breath, she’d snatched up the glass and pressed it directly against her fiery wound. The relief was instant, and she exhaled heavily.
‘Do you need it?’ she asked stiffly, noting the viscount’s reddening chin with satisfaction.
She’d dealt him a ringer, but he deserved it.
‘Yes,’ he growled, grabbing the glass and tossing back the contents in one gulp.
She stared, watching the muscles tense in his neck, and sensing she’d hurt his pride far more than his face.
‘Who the devil are you?!’ he added, massaging his jaw as he flicked the stopper from the brandy decanter.
‘AndI’vethe drinking problem?’ Phoebe muttered, eyeing his movements warily.
‘As least I don’t prey on respectable customers, in respectable premises, with a ring of scoundrels and scallywags!’ he retorted, refilling the glass. ‘And don’t even bother trying to defend yourself! You were wearing the worst disguise I’ve ever seen! Did no one ever tell you that no self-respecting gentleman would ever touch a brown leather hat, no matter how bourgeois?!’
Phoebe stared, her brief moment of sympathy replaced with a rise of simmering heat that resembled one of the twins’ ambitious experiments.
‘Prey upon customers?’ she repeated. ‘Worst disguise you’ve ever seen? Ring of scoundrels and scallywags?!’
The viscount looked her up and down, scowling.
‘I speak as I find,’ he returned artically. ‘Why else would a young, unaccompanied female be gallivanting around the countryside in the company of rogues – and dressed like a tallyman to boot!’
His eyes narrowed to slits.
‘In my experience, a chit like you has only one ware to sell!’
Phoebe felt a flare of anger reach through to the roots of her unbrushed hair. She was starkly aware of how wild and dishevelled she looked, and how her shoulder felt as though it was newly afire, but it didn’t give him the right to insult her so abominably.
‘Is that why you brought me here?’ she demanded, ‘because you thought … you thought I was a …a bit of muslin?’
