To Desire a Devil (Legend of the Four Soldiers #4)(43)

“There’s nothing obvious about it,” he growled, eyeing the remains of Jeremy’s legs beneath the covers. “I’ve known men who’ve lost their legs but not their—”

“Don’t be disgusting!” She was shouting now, but it was completely out of her control. How dare he? What kind of woman did he think her? He’d humiliated her!

Behind her, Jeremy was making choking sounds, and she turned swiftly, alarmed.

He was trying to hold back big belly laughs and not succeeding very well.

“Oh, not you, too,” she said, thoroughly exasperated, even as she poured him a glass of water.

“Thank you, dear,” Jeremy said. “And I’m sorry. At this moment, I feel that I should apologize for my entire sex.”

“You should,” she grumbled. “You’re rotten to the core, all of you.”

“Yes, I know,” he said humbly. “You’re simply a saint to put up with us at all. But I have a boon to ask of you, dearest.”

“What is it?” she asked, not very graciously.

“Would you mind terribly going and seeing to Putley’s ruffled feathers? I know it’s a tiresome chore, but I’d rather not have him tattling to my parents about this matter.”

“Oh, all right.” She glared at Lord Hope. “But I’ll have to leave you here with him.”

“I know.” Jeremy adopted an angelic expression that didn’t fool her for a moment. “I’d rather hoped to have a chat with the viscount.”

“Humph,” she said. She stepped up to Lord Hope until they were nearly chin to chin—although she had to tilt hers quite far up—and poked him in the chest with her forefinger.

“Ow,” said Lord Hope.

“If you lay a single finger on him,” she hissed into his face, “or overexcite him in any way, I’ll tear that silly earring right out of your ear.”

Behind her, Jeremy went into peals of laughter, but she didn’t bother glancing at him again. She slammed the door behind her and stomped off in search of Putley.

Men!

REYNAUD RUBBED THE spot where Miss Corning had attempted to drill her forefinger through his breastbone. “I apologize.”

“’Tisn’t me who needs the apology,” the man in the bed said, still laughing. “I’ll give you a hint—her favorite flowers are lily of the valley.”

“Are they?” Reynaud eyed the door speculatively. He hadn’t brought a woman flowers in eons, but the situation might very well call for the formal English method of suing for peace from a lady. At the moment, though, he had other matters to settle. He turned back to the man in the bed. “Battle wounds?”

“Blown off by cannon fire at Emsdorf on the Continent,” Oates said. His color was unnaturally high, as if he was feverish. “Back in sixty.”

Reynaud nodded. He strolled to the table littered with medicine bottles of all shapes and sizes. There wasn’t a medicine in the world that could put a man’s legs back on once lost. “Did she tell you I was with the Twenty-eighth Regiment of Foot in the Colonies?”

“She did.” He laid his head back against the pillow as if exhausted. “I was in the Fifteenth Light Dragoons. Much more dashing than a foot soldier—until, of course, one gets shot off one’s horse.”

“Battle is never as romantic as one thinks,” Reynaud said.

He remembered well his boyish romanticism of the army. It had died fast on the reality of rotten food, incompetent officers, and boredom. His first skirmish had destroyed what little illusion still survived.

“Our regiment was newly formed,” Oates said, “and we hadn’t yet seen action. Many of the men were London tailors who’d been on strike and had to join. We never stood a chance.”

“You were defeated there?”

Oates smiled bitterly. “Oh, no. We won the day. One hundred and twenty-five men killed in my regiment alone, over a hundred horses dead, but we won the battle. I went down in our second charge.”

“I’m sorry.”

Oates shrugged. “You know as well as I the wages of war—perhaps more so than I.”

“I won’t debate the matter. I came for something else entirely.” Reynaud sat in the chair that was beside the bed. “What are you to her?”

The other man arched his brows as if amused. “I’m Jeremy Oates, by the way.”

There was nothing for it but to stick out his hand. “Reynaud St. Aubyn.”

Oates took his hand and shook it, looking in his eyes as if searching for something. His fingers were as thin as twigs. “Pleased to meet you.” The odd thing was he sounded sincere.

Reynaud took back his hand. “My question?”

Oates half smiled, his eyes closing as he lay against the pillows. “Childhood friends. I played hide-and-seek with her in my family’s sitting room, helped her with her geography lessons, escorted her to her first ball.”

Reynaud felt a jolt somewhere in the region of his breastbone at the other man’s words. Perhaps it was the lingering aftereffects of that sharp poke, but he rather thought it might be jealousy instead.

Jealousy. He’d never felt the emotion before.

True, he’d been enraged this morning to learn that Miss Corning had already left to visit her mysterious beau. He’d come here at once with the intent to confront them and thrash the other man if necessary, but he hadn’t stopped to examine his emotions. Mine, his instinct had said, and so he’d acted on it without thought. The realization now that his reaction was emotional was an unwelcome shock.