Stephanie Laurens: All About Love

A small hand touched his shoulder. A warm, feminine-soft presence leaned near.

“Everything will be all right in a moment.” Her tone was low and soothing. “Just let me check your head.”

She was hovering over him; his senses had returned enough to tell him she wasn’t as old as he’d thought. The realization gave him the strength to lift his lids, albeit only a fraction.

She saw and smiled encouragingly, brushing back the lock of hair that had fallen across his brow.

The pain in his head evaporated. Opening his eyes further, Lucifer drank in the details of her face. She was not a girl, but she would still qualify as a young lady. Somewhere in her early twenties, yet her face held more character, more strength and blatant determination than was common for her years. He noted it, but it was not that that held him, that captured his awareness to the exclusion of the debilitating pain in his head.

Her brown eyes were large, wide, and filled with concern-with an open empathy that reached past his cynical shields and touched him. Those lovely eyes were framed by a wide forehead and delicately arched brows, by dark hair, almost as dark as his, cut short to curve about her head like a sleek helmet. Her nose was straight, her chin tapered, her lips…

The sudden surge of sensual thoughts and impulses for once didn’t sit well: Horatio was dead. He let his lids fall.

“You’ll feel much better directly,” she promised, “once we move you to a more comfortable bed.”

Behind her, Juggs snorted. “Aye-he’s that sort of gentleman, I’d wager. A murderer and the other, too.”

Lucifer ignored Juggs. The lady knew he was no murderer, and she now had the upper hand. Her fingers slid through his hair, carefully feeling around his wound. He tensed, then bit back a groan when she gingerly probed.

“See?” She pressed aside his hair so the air touched his wound. “He’s been hit on the back of the head with something-some weapon.”

Juggs harrumphed. “P’rhaps he hit his head on that table in the Manor drawing room when he swooned.”

“Juggs! You know as well as I do this wound is too severe for that.”

Eyes closed, Lucifer breathed shallowly. Pain was rolling over him in sickening waves. In desperation, he conjured the image of the lady’s face, struggled to concentrate on that and hold the pain at bay. Her throat had been slender, graceful. That augered well for the rest of her. She’d mentioned a bed- He broke off that train of thought, once again disconcerted by its direction.

“ ’Ere, let me see,” Juggs grudgingly said.

A heavy hand touched Lucifer’s skull-his head exploded with pain.

“Papa, this man is seriously injured.”

His guardian angel’s voice drew Lucifer back to the living. He had no idea how much time had elapsed since last he’d been with them.

“He’s been hit very violently on the back of the head. Juggs has seen the wound, too.”

“Hmm.” Heavier footsteps approached. “That right, Juggs?”

A new voice, deep, cultured, but tinged with the local county accent-Lucifer wondered just who “Papa” was.

“Aye. Looks like he’s been coshed good and proper.” Juggs-the clod-was still with them.

“The wound’s on the back of his skull, you say?”

“Yes-here.” Lucifer felt the lady’s fingers part his hair. “But don’t touch.” “Papa” thankfully didn’t. “It seems very sensitive-he regained consciousness for a moment, but fainted when Juggs touched his head.”

“Hardly surprising. That’s quite a blow he’s taken. Administered with that old halberd of Horatio’s by the look of it. Hemmings said he found it beside this gentleman. Given the thing’s weight, it’s a wonder he isn’t dead.”

Letting his hair fall, the lady stated, “So it’s obvious he’s not the murderer.”

“Not with that wound and the halberd lying beside him. Looks like the murderer hid behind the door and coshed him when he discovered the body. Mrs. Hemmings swears the thing couldn’t have fallen on its own. Seems clear enough. So we’ll just have to wait and see what this gentleman can tell us once he regains his senses.”

Precious little, Lucifer mentally answered.

“Well, he’s not going to get better lying in this cell.” The lady’s voice had developed a decisive note.

“Indeed not. Can’t understand what Bristleford was about, thinking this fellow was the murderer who’d swooned at the sight of blood.”

Swooned at the sight of blood? If he’d been able, Lucifer would have snorted derisively, but he still couldn’t speak or move. The pain in his head was just waiting for a chance to bludgeon him into unconsciousness. The most he could do was lie still and listen, and learn all he could. While the lady held sway, he was safe-she seemed to have taken his best interests to heart.

“I thought Bristleford said he had the knife in ‘is fist.”

That came from Juggs, of course.

“Papa” snorted. “Self-defense. Had a moment’s warning the murderer was behind him and grabbed the only weapon to hand. Not much use against a halberd, unfortunately. No-it was obvious someone had found the body and turned it over. Can’t see the murderer bothering-it wasn’t as if Horatio would have been carrying any valuables in his nightshirt.”

“So this man is innocent,” the lady reiterated. “We really should move him to the Grange.”

“I’ll ride back and send the carriage,” “Papa” replied.

“I’ll wait here. Tell Gladys to pile as many cushions and pillows as she can into the carriage, and…”

The lady’s words faded as she moved away; Lucifer stopped trying to listen. She’d said she’d stay by him. It sounded like the Grange was “Papa’s” residence, so presumably she lived there, too. He hoped she did. He wanted to see more of her once the pain had gone. The pain in his head, and the pain around his heart.

Horatio had been a very dear friend-how dear he hadn’t realized until now, now that he was gone. He touched on his grief, but was too weak to deal with it. Shifting his mind away, he tried to find some way past the pain, but it seemed to feed on the effort.

So he simply lay there and waited.

He heard the lady return; others were with her. What followed wasn’t pleasant. Luckily, he wasn’t far removed from unconsciousness; he was only dimly aware of being lifted. He expected to feel the jolting of a carriage; if he did, the sensation didn’t make it past the pain.

Then he was on a bed, being undressed. His senses flickered weakly, registering that there were two women present; from their hands and voices, they were both older than his guardian angel. He would have helped them if he could, but even that was beyond him. They fussed and insisted on pulling a nightshirt over his head, being inordinately careful of his injured skull.

They made him comfortable in soft pillows and sweet-smelling sheets, then they left him in blessed peace.

Phyllida looked in on her patient as soon as Gladys, their housekeeper, reported that he was settled.

Miss Sweet, her old governess, sat tatting in a chair by the window. “He’s resting quietly,” Sweetie mouthed.

Phyllida nodded and went to the bed. They’d left him sprawled on his stomach to spare his sore head. He was much larger than she’d realized-the broad expanse of his shoulders and chest, the long lines of his back, the even longer length of his legs-his body dominated the bed. He wasn’t, perhaps, the largest man she’d seen, but she suspected he should have been the most vital. Instead, a sullen heaviness invested his limbs, a weighted tension quite unlike relaxation. She peered at his face; the section she could see was pale, still starkly handsome but stony, lacking all sense of life. The lips that should have held the hint of a wicked smile were compressed to a thin line.