“I almost killed you.” Charlotte had muttered the words over and over on the journey home, but it wasn’t until Mosely had gone downstairs to send for a doctor that Charlotte looked John in the eyes as she said it.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he responded, wincing as his jaw protested the movement.
He’d known from the start how dangerous their game had been. Charlotte was naïve and optimistic, and that she had even thought to attempt cheating in a gaming hell meant that John hadn’t done a sufficient job preparing her for what they were going to do.
He’d seen enough of this part of society to know that a beating had always been a possibility. Hell, they were lucky it hadn’t been worse.
“Of course it’s my fault. If I hadn’t cheated, you wouldn’t be here.”
He tried to raise a hand so he could wipe away the damp tear tracks on her cheeks, but the movement felt like a knife to the ribs, so he satisfied himself with taking hold of her hand, which sat on the bedcovers next to him, and squeezing it.
“You may have cheated, but I’d been counting cards all week. That’s probablywhyBrunel’s men were watching the table so closely. I am every bit as much to blame as you.”
By agreeing to her madcap scheme, he’d put her in an immense amount of danger. Wilde was right not to trust John with his sister. John had been a selfish fool to let the events of tonight happen.
Her grip tightened on his. “I will make this right. Whatever I must do to fix this, I will.”
“No.” John spoke as loudly as he could with his broken ribs. “You are not to go anywhere near them again. Do you understand? And you’re not to leave the house without an escort—a footman who knows his way around a weapon.”
She cocked her head. “Because our footmen are all highly proficient with knives.”
Her teasing sarcasm did nothing to lessen his panic. She was headstrong, stubborn, and possessed of the belief that she could solve anything. Her positivity had brightened up his life, but it was also what was going to get her hurt if she took on the gambling den proprietor and his men on her own.
“I mean it, Charlotte. You are not to approach them in any manner.”
There was a rap at the bedroom door. Mosely stuck his head in. “The doctor is here to see you, my lord.”
Charlotte gently tucked the blanket around John’s chest. “What would you like me to do?”
John looked at this woman who’d set her own life upside down in order to help the people she cared about. Who’d risked everything for him and for her brother and who would continue to do so if she had half the opportunity.
“Just stay with me.”
***
Charlotte crept home with the dawn. The sawbones had assured her that John would be fine—his kidneys were bruised, his ribs and nose were broken, and the gash on his head had needed stitches, but he seemed to have escaped a concussion or any other serious injury. He would be in pain, but he would live.
She lay next to him, waiting until his breathing was soft and even with sleep before she snuck out through the garden. She was exhausted, and all she wanted was to change out of this too-tight, too-low-cut, too-bright dress that had seemed so much fun at first and now just seemed like a bad talisman.
With any luck, none of the servants would realize that she hadn’t entered through the front door since leaving for the ball the night before.
Luck was no longer on her side.
“Where have you been?”
She whirled to face Edward, wrapping her arms around herself to ensure the coat she was wearing did not gape and give the game away.
“It was a crush,” she said. “Everyone who was anyone was there. Even the king. I’m only just getting home.”
“You were not there when I sent for you.” Beneath the anger in his voice was something else, something she rarely heard from him. Fear. His hair looked as though he’d been running his hands through it all night. Every inch of him was taut.
She took a step forward, placing a hand on his arm. “Brother, relax. I’m fine. I hopped from party to party tonight. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you that was my plan.”
Her words had no calming impact on him. If anything, he was more angry. “William is home,” Edward said. “But you knew that already.”
Charlotte’s stomach dropped. The look of wrath on Ned’s face was not a look that he’d ever directed at her.
No, the only time she’d ever seen him this furious, the only time he’d looked so betrayed, had been the night Fiona was arrested—the night Edward had banished William from the house and enlisted him in the army.
