Alaric dared open one eye against the afternoon sun to look up at her. She seemed to be staring at a hangdog-looking man just within his field of vision and he did not have the slightest inclination to get a better look at the unshaven lout so he peered up at her instead. He decided dreamily he had no great interest in anyone else with her to fix his gaze on instead and managed to forget how much his head ached for a lovely moment.
She had a sharply determined chin to add an edge to her oval face. It rescued her from mere prettiness and pushed her towards a fugitive sort of beauty. So much of her compelling attraction lay in her moods and expression that he had to wonder how she would go on in his exclusive circle of almost friends. No doubt Marianne would be fascinating and full of life and spirit if she chose to let her true nature out in public, but quiet and avoiding the limelight if she did not. What a conundrum of a woman she was and of course he had met lovelier women and even managed to bed one or two of them, but they would all fade to insignificance next to her.
That lovely mouth of hers was too generous for classical beauty and her nose a little too pert, but even in a room full of accredited beauties he would still find her compelling and the rest all but invisible. Her face had a unique charm that made her beauty lifelong instead of a fleetingly perfect thing made of youth and beauty and a generous hand from Mother Nature.
He also liked the fact her honey-gold curls were coming down again, despite all the pins she must have skewered into it to pin the heavy weight under that ugly cap. Why on earth did she keep trying to turn herself into a quiz when a man would have to be blind or daft not to see the intense blue of her intelligent gaze and the kissable softness of her lips? ‘Impossible,’ he murmured to argue with her cap and maybe his wits had gone begging after all.
‘I will have an accounting for this later,’ Yelverton was saying grimly to the silent men even Alaric could practically hear shuffling their feet and longing to get away from the man’s best officer’s glare.
Alaric did not have the slightest inclination to watch Yelverton instead of his sister and work out exactly what had happened. He lay here and was glad that Marianne had not transferred all her attention to her brother as she shook her head at him and shrugged to say she had no idea what he was talking about. ‘Impossible what?’ she asked him as everyone else was occupied with who had done what and why and it did not matter a jot as he lay still and admired the rich brown and gold and even the odd red light in her hair.
‘Do you think we dare move him, Marianne?’ Yelverton interrupted them and from the sound of his voice he was much closer now.
Alaric bit back a protest. He was likely to faint again if they even tried it and that would be the final humiliation, but he could hardly say so without sounding feeble.
‘We must keep his head still and he is covered in bruises and has a swollen ankle to consider although luckily I do not think it is broken. We managed to cut his boot off before it swelled up too badly and I dare say a cold compress would make it feel a lot more comfortable once we can get him to bed and put one on it.’
‘At last, something to look forward to,’ Alaric murmured and heard her chuckle very softly.
He felt stupidly elated to share even a moment of irony with her, but dreaded losing any dignity he had left if they tried to help him up and he lost consciousness again or cast up his accounts. He wished he could snap his fingers and be out of this bright sunlight for a while before he need set out for Broadley again, though. Juno’s hand tightened on his good one as if his flinch at the idea of his hurts being disturbed pained her.
‘Perhaps you would like to pass out while we get you inside, Stratford,’ Darius Yelverton loomed over him to say half-seriously and Alaric longed for the strength to plant him a facer.
‘I think I hate you,’ he muttered when the man was close enough to peer into his eyes as if checking them for dust motes.
‘I know you do right now,’ the man joked and grinned at Alaric as if he understood him all too well.
Chapter Six
It galled him to oblige Yelverton, but Alaric woke up hours or maybe even days later in the feather bed he had been dreaming about earlier. Except this time it felt lonely in here and there was a wary sort of silence around him. He lay still and thought about the world and his place in it and concluded it felt like night-time. He must have been out of his senses for a long time, then. He was quite happy for it to have been days if that got him closer to the end of this weakness and the pain trundling through his battered body like a bullock cart now he was awake again. He shifted against the summer-scented sheets he was fantasising about earlier and bit back a groan.
Keep still, then, man, he reasoned impatiently and tried to track down the pain.
He needed to find out if it was safe to move any of his aching body without a humiliating scream. If he stayed still, he only ached all over, but he knew real pain was lying in wait like a grinning demon carrying a pitchfork to prod him with. He tried to shift his arm, but his wrist shot a burning pain
