“Woof!”
“Somehow, I knew you’d say that.” She stepped through the door, wincing as the floorboards creaked under her feet, and peeked down the first corridor she came to.
“Woof!”
“I’mgoing, dash it.” She crept forward, her heart thumping, afraid every moment someone would leap out at her and demand to know what she was doing, invading their home.
It was dark, as well, but there was a faint glow of lamplight at the end of the hallway. As she drew closer, she could just make out the low murmur of voices.
Oh, thank goodness.
Someonewashere, they weren’t dead, and the last thing she wanted was to be caught sneaking down their hallway. She backed toward the front door, clicking her tongue at Lucifer to follow, but just when she was mere steps from the safety of the garden he shot past her, the click of his toenails against the bare floor deafening in the surrounding silence.
“Lucifer, no!” She hissed, but it was too late. He scampered down the hallway without so much as a backward glance, his fluffy tail wagging madly, and vanished.
ChapterTwo
“Prestwick? Can you hear me? Wake up, man. Is this how you treat your guests?”
Fingers snapped beside Kit’s ear, and he unpeeled his eyelids to find an identical pair of dark-haired gentlemen hovering over him, their pale faces swimming before his eyes—
No, wait. There was just one gentleman. It only looked as if there were two. He blinked, but the smirking face continued to weave and bob with such nauseating violence, a flood of bile rushed into his throat. “Darby? Is that you?”
“Of course, it’s me. Who else would it be?”
Who, indeed? Whenever he woke with a throbbing head and bloody eyes, Darby tended to be somewhere in the vicinity. “Stay still, will you? You’re making me dizzy.”
“I rather think that’s the fault of the bottle of port you drank.”
“Port? Nonsense. I never drank a bottle of port.” Kit struggled upright in his chair, outraged, and something slid from under his arm and fell to the floor with a thud. He squinted at it over the arm of the chair.
It was an empty bottle of port. “Or perhaps I did.”
“I assure you, you did.” Darby collapsed into a nearby chair, falling into an undignified sprawl. “I watched you do it, and I tell you, Prestwick, I’ve never seen a more disgusting display of drunkenness in my life.”
“I find that difficult to believe, unless you don’t have any looking glasses in your house.”
Darby chortled. “That’s the spirit, Prestwick.”
Why was his hair so sticky? He rubbed his hand over the matted locks, and his fingers came away streaked with… “Good Lord, is that blood? Am Ibleeding?”
Darby raised his head from the back of the chair, squinted at Kit, then collapsed back into his sprawl with a shrug. “Only a little. There was a bit of a mishap with some broken glass, I’m afraid. I daresay you’ll live.”
“That remains to be seen.” Kit rubbed a hand over his eyes, blinking, and peered around him. Where the devil was he?
Wherever it was, they had dreadful wallpaper. Good God, were those meant to be cabbage roses? They did look like cabbages, but without a hint of the rose about them. They were rather frightening, really, yet familiar, all the same. He’d certainly seen them before, only he couldn’t quite recall...
Oh, yes. He was at the cottage. That washisdreadful wallpaper. He was in his own study, and a good thing, as it would save him the trouble of struggling to find his way home.
“Do come here, Fanny,” Darby drawled. “It appears Prestwick is alive after all.”
Was he? That was a relief, but had Darby saidFanny? Because the last bloody thing he wanted right now was—
“My dear Prestwick, I’ve missed you dreadfully!”
A high-pitched shriek of laughter exploded near his left ear. He slapped his hand over it, turned to Darby and hissed, “What the devil is she doing here?”
“I, ah, I might have mentioned you’d returned to London when I saw her earlier this evening.” Darby winced. “I beg your pardon, Prestwick.”
