He took a sip. The stuff was wretched. He spat it back into the glass, sputtering as the small amount he had managed to swallow burned down his throat.
“Christ.” Disgust colored Sutton’s voice as he frowned. “Everyone always loves a flash of lightning.”
He coughed, catching his breath as Caro moved nearer and patted him gently on the back, as if to ease his suffering.
“Seems I don’t,” he croaked.
“Ain’t surprising.” Sutton’s lip curled as he reclaimed the glass. “I’d drink it myself, but your spittle is swimming in it.”
His bloody throat was still burning. “Apologies.”
That was a decisive answer. The man he was now didnotlike gin. No more of that swill, thank you.
Sutton returned the glass to the sideboard before turning back to them, taking a sip of his own drink and swallowing it with a calm that bespoke a man who was more than familiar with the drink. “Now, then. You’ve a lot to answer for. Best get around to it as I don’t ’ave all day. My sister tells me she’s been keeping you in her chamber.”
He noted that, like Caro, Jasper Sutton seemed to have an interesting pattern of speech. Part smooth, part rough, East End. The accent was familiar. So, too, the streets. He felt certain he was no stranger to the rookeries.
“She has not been staying with me,” he hastened to reassure Jasper Sutton. “She selflessly surrendered her bed when she found me bleeding and ready to cock up my toes in the street. I owe her my life.”
“So she’s told me as well.” Sutton scowled. “Caro is our healer. Soft heart, that one. Any man who dares crush it will be crushed by me.”
Damnation.Thoughts of the kisses they had shared earlier rose in his mind, and he had no doubt Jasper Sutton could read the guilt etched on his face. Even now, as they faced her brother together, Caro at his side, the desire he felt for her was burning steady and bright within him. It could neither be tamed nor doused.
It was the only thing he did feel which he knew was true.
The rest, these fragments of memory which could have been dreams or pieces of his past…he knew not what they meant. Truth and falsehood had blended. The past ceased to exist. All he had was here. Now.
Her.
“I’ll not crush it,” he said roughly, meaning every word.
Caro was an angel. His angel. She had saved him. Nothing she could do would lessen his opinion of her.
Sutton eyed him, as if he did not dare trust him. “See that you don’t, sir. Now, our Caro has saved you and kept you a secret as she nursed you back to health. But she tells me you aren’t happy being treated like a king. Is that true?”
There was undeniable menace lacing the man’s words.
“Jasper,” Caro chastised. “I never said that, and you know it.”
Sutton drained the rest of his glass and stared at them both, unrepentant. “Might as well’ve done.”
“I want to earn my keep for staying here, and I would like to leave Caro’s chamber so it is restored to her. Do you have a room I might rent?” he asked.
“Earn your keep?” Sutton laughed grimly. “Caro, is it? Sister, I’ll thank you to keep your distance from ’im like a lady.”
Caro stiffened and took a hasty step away. He mourned the loss of her touch and nearness both.
“Jasper, he wants to work for The Sinner’s Palace. He’ll do anything.”
“He’ll do nothing,” her brother countered, unsmiling, before pinning a glare back upon him. “See ’ere, sir. Someone wanted you dead. More than one someone, if the injuries you had are an indication. I’ve been keeping you in my hell. What do you suppose that means for me, when your enemies find out Jasper Sutton’s been hiding you?”
The man’s question sank its claws into him.
What did it mean, indeed? All this time, he had been so consumed by trying to remember the man he had been, by regaining his strength and healing, and by thoughts of Caro, that he had spent precious little of his efforts on fretting over the reason he had been attacked. He had told himself it was likely a footpad. But Jasper Sutton’s words had him wondering anew. If someone had been truly trying to kill him, and if that someone discovered he had not died in the attack, it stood to reason that the unknown foe would return. And that danger would follow.
“I would never put Caro or any of you at risk.” He winced as he realized he had once more referred to her in familiar terms before her disapproving brother.
“If you don’t want to bring peril here to The Sinner’s Palace, where we’ve done nothing but protect you and stitch your hide back together, then you’ll stay where you are,” Sutton said.
