Wicked Intentions

TEMPERANCE TURNED BACK from the cupboard with the jar of salve in her hands. She tried not to wince at the sight of Lord Caire’s wound. Blood painted his shoulder and trailed in trickles down to his wrist, startlingly crimson against his white skin. Fresh blood dripped down his chest from where they’d reopened the wound when they removed his shirt. Her eyes followed the bloody trail helplessly, down over his surprisingly muscled chest, lightly sprinkled with black hair, over the shocking brown of his nude nipple, to a line of black hair that began at his navel and disappeared into the waistband of his breeches.

Good Lord.

Her eyes snapped up hastily and she turned her back, attempting to remember what she had been doing. There was a jar of healing salve in her hands. His wound. Right. She had to clean and dress it.

Temperance swallowed and bustled to the table with the jar of salve, and caught sight of Winter glaring at the aristocrat. She looked swiftly between the men, her eyes narrowed. Winter had resumed an aspect of patient innocence while Lord Caire returned her stare, his wide mouth quirked, a devilish gleam of amusement in his eyes. Had he seen her ogling his bare body?

Oh, bother. Now was not the time to be embarrassed by missish nerves.

Temperance drew a calming breath, carefully keeping her gaze focused away from Lord Caire’s mesmerizing chest. “Would you like some wine, my lord? This procedure may be painful.”

“Please. I wouldn’t want to grow faint.” His words were innocent, but the tone held irony.

She reproved him with a look even as Winter got up to fetch their only bottle of wine, hoarded and saved for a special occasion. Well, physicking a lord in their kitchen was certainly special.

Temperance found a clean rag in the rag bag and moistened it with the hot water. She turned determinedly to Lord Caire. Winter had returned and uncorked the wine. He poured a cup and handed it to Lord Caire. She dabbed at the blood around the wound as he took a mouthful of wine. Lord Caire’s skin was warm and smooth. He stiffened beneath her fingers and set the wineglass down abruptly. She darted a glance at his face. He was staring straight ahead, his eyes glazed.

“Am I hurting you?” she asked in concern. She hadn’t even touched the wound yet, but some people were more sensitive to pain than others. Perhaps he hadn’t been jesting about growing faint.

There was a pause, almost as if he hadn’t heard her, and then he blinked. “No. I’m not in pain.”

His voice was cold, all humor gone from his eyes. Something was wrong, but she couldn’t tell what.

Temperance turned her attention back to the wound. She had a strange feeling that he was keeping himself from shoving her away only by a great effort. She pressed the cloth over the wound itself, half expecting that he would react violently. Instead he seemed to unbend a little at the pain.

How odd.

She raised the cloth and examined the cleaned wound. It was only a few inches across, but it was obviously more deep than wide. Fresh blood seeped steadily and the edges gaped.

“I’ll need to sew this shut,” she said, looking up.

He was so close, his face only inches from hers. She could see a small muscle twitching next to his mouth, the involuntary movement in sharp contrast to the rest of his still countenance. Something lurked, deep at the back of his bright blue eyes. Something that looked like suffering.

Temperance drew in her breath with shock.

“I’ll get your kit,” Winter said from across the table.

Temperance jerked her head up. Her brother was already rising from the table, his expression serene. Had he not noticed the pain in Lord Caire’s eyes? Or the look they’d exchanged?

Evidently not.

She released her breath, rummaging in the rag bag to give her hands something to do. They were trembling. She’d sewed up innumerable small cuts, tended scrapes and bumps and fevers, but she’d never caused the kind of pain that marked Lord Caire’s eyes. She wasn’t even sure she could continue.

“Just do it,” Lord Caire murmured.

She looked at him, startled. Had he somehow read her thoughts?

He was watching her, his expression wary. “Just sew me up quickly and I’ll leave.”

She glanced across the room, but Winter was still searching a cupboard for her kit. She looked back at Lord Caire. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

His wide mouth twitched, but it was hard to tell if it was a wince or a smile. “I assure you, Mrs. Dews, that whatever you do, it cannot make my pain worse.”

She stared at him and knew that the pain he spoke of had nothing to do with the wound in his shoulder. What had…?

“Everything is in order, I believe,” Winter said, setting her kit on the table. “Temperance?”

“Yes?” She looked up, smiling blindly. “Yes, thank you, brother.”

He glanced suspiciously between her and Lord Caire, but took his seat again without comment.

Temperance breathed a sigh of relief. The last thing she needed was Winter questioning her now. She opened her kit, a small tin box where she kept large needles, catgut, a fine, pointed pair of tweezers, scissors, and other implements useful for repairing small children who fell down quite often. She was glad to see that her fingers no longer shook.

Threading a sturdy needle, she turned to Lord Caire’s shoulder and pinched the edges of the wound together. She placed the first stitch. Children often had to be held down when she did this. Some screamed or wept or grew hysterical, but Lord Caire was obviously made of sterner stuff. He drew a breath as she pierced his skin, but made no other indication that she was hurting him. In fact, he seemed more relaxed now than he had when she was wiping the wound clean.

But she couldn’t think of that right now. Temperance leaned a little closer, making sure her stitches were small, neat, and firm. They needed to hold the flesh together so it would heal properly, but stitches badly placed could make a scar more misshapen.

She breathed a sigh of relief as she cut the catgut on the last one.

“There. Almost done,” she murmured, as much to herself as to the man she tended.

He made no comment, sitting as still as a statue as she opened the small jar of greasy salve. But when she dabbed the salve on his wound—lightly, with one finger—he shuddered. She snatched her hand away, startled, and her gaze flew to his face.

His brow shone with sweat. “Finish it.”

She hesitated, but she could hardly leave the wound undressed. Biting her lip, she spread the salve as swiftly as possible, aware that his breathing had quickened. She drew a large piece of old cloth from the rag bag and folded it into a pad, then began winding a long length about his chest. This required that she lean close to him, wrapping her arms about his torso. Lord Caire drew in a breath and seemed to hold it, turning his face away as if her proximity revolted him.

His obvious distress should’ve dulled her own body’s reaction to his nearness, but it did not. The warmth of his skin, the pulse that beat at the side of his neck, even his male odor all combined to arouse her old demons. Temperance was trembling again by the time she tied the bandage off.

The minute she turned away, Lord Caire was up and out of his chair. “Thank you, Mrs. Dews.”

She stared. “But your shirt—”

“Is a rag now for your bag.” He grimaced as he swung his cloak over his naked shoulders and grabbed his tricorne. “As are my waistcoat and coat. Again, Mrs. Dews, I thank you and bid you good night. Mr. Makepeace.”

He nodded briefly to them both before striding to the back door.

Temperance straightened, an odd panic in her throat. Surely he wasn’t going to journey home in the dark? “You’re wounded, my lord, and alone. Perhaps you should consider spending the night with us here?”

He pivoted, his black cape swirling about his legs, and touched the tip of his black walking stick to the brim of his hat. She noticed for the first time that the silver head of his cane was worked into the shape of a perched hawk. “Your concern is flattering, madam, but I do assure you that I can make it home to my own bed safely.”

And with that he was gone.

Temperance let out a sigh, feeling oddly deflated.

That is, until Winter slowly turned in his chair, making it creak. “I think I need an explanation, sister, as to how you came to know the infamous Lord Caire.”

HE WAS A creature of the night, unfit for the company of humans.

The gloom of the St. Giles night enveloped Lazarus as he strode rapidly away from Maiden Lane and Mrs. Dews’s innocent little home for children. He was no more suited to that place than a falcon was a dovecote. He leapt over the stinking channel that ran down the middle of the street and turned down another smaller lane, heading west. What must she think of him, a wretched twisted animal that couldn’t even stand the touch of his own kind? A shadow moved in a doorway ahead and he charged toward it, welcoming the possibility of violence. But the shadow separated from the darkness about it, and a slight figure fled away into the night.

Lazarus slowed his steps to a walk again, cursing the missed opportunity for distraction. He felt a trickle of moisture tickle his side—he’d reopened the wound with his exertion. But that wasn’t why he looked for diversion.

He was hard and throbbing and had been ever since Mrs. Dews had touched his bare skin with her slim, pale hands. Her touch had brought not only desperate mental pain, but also an erotic lust so intense that it lasted into the coldness of the night. He laughed silently. The little martyr would no doubt be disgusted if she knew what she’d done to him. She’d be even more appalled if she knew his preferred method for easing such bodily urges. If the blood wasn’t soaking into his breeches, he’d find a female amenable to his demands. He’d take his selection to some rooms nearby and…

The image of his last lover pushed itself into his head. Marie. Marie was dead, her body torn into a grotesque pile of offal. She’d been murdered in the rooms he’d rented for her here in St. Giles. The place had been at her insistence, and at the time—two years ago now—he hadn’t thought much about the location beyond the fact that it was rather inconvenient for himself. But now it was evident that St. Giles held the key to her murder. It wasn’t only because of his wound that he didn’t take the time to relieve the lust Mrs. Dews had engendered—he’d been targeted tonight. The assassin with the leather nose patch had been at Mother Heart’s-Ease’s last night. Perhaps he’d merely been a footpad intent on a purse, but Lazarus didn’t think so.

Someone didn’t want him to find Marie’s murderer.

“YOU KNOW LORD Caire?” Temperance stared at her brother.

He arched a brow. “I may be a mere schoolmaster, sister, but even I hear the gossip in St. Giles.”

“Oh.” She looked down at her hands as she automatically cleaned and put away her needle and scissors. Her mind had gone completely blank except for the thought that everyone seemed to have heard of Lord Caire save herself.

Winter sighed and got up. He crossed to a cupboard and took down two glasses. They were fragile things that had once belonged to their mother, two of what had originally been a set of six. He brought them to the table and carefully poured two small glasses of the red wine.

Then he sat and took a sip, closing his eyes as he swallowed. He tilted back his head, the lines about his mouth deepening. “This wine is atrocious. I’m surprised Lord Caire didn’t dash it against the wall.”

Temperance reached for her own glass and tasted, the sweet, acidic liquid warming her belly. The wine might be cheap, but she didn’t care. She’d always thought it a funny quirk that Winter, the most ascetic of men usually, should be picky about wine.

“Will you tell me where you met the infamous Lord Caire?” Winter asked quietly, his eyes still closed.

She sighed. “He came to visit me two nights ago.”

His eyes opened then. “Here?”