A Rogue by Night Read online

  “He’s merely fainted because he came in here bleeding like a stuck pig.” Katherine put her fingers beneath Matthew’s chin, searching for his pulse, relieved to find that it still beat steadily beneath her touch. She withdrew her hand. “Which is why I told him to sit down before he fell down.”

  “Brothers,” came a voice by her ear, “rarely do what they’re told. At least that’s what my sisters tell me.”

  Katherine started, not having heard Strathmore crouch beside her.

  “Bullet or blade?” he asked almost conversationally.

  “Both,” she said with a frown, not taking her eyes off Matthew.

  The baron leaned forward, his long, graceful fingers sliding over Matthew’s scalp in sure movements, searching, Katherine surmised, for any lumps that he might have suffered in the fall.

  The baron has incredible hands, she thought. They were not the hands of a soft, pampered peer, but the capable hands of a man used to working. Hands that were used to soothe and discover and communicate— She averted her eyes. She should not be noticing a baron’s hands while her brother languished insentient and bleeding in a pile at her feet.

  Those hands had stopped, and he pushed the wool farther away from Matthew’s shoulder. “Ah. Yes, I see the exit wound now. He was lucky. Minimal damage, more bruising to the muscle than anything else, I think. This the only bullet wound?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mmm. And the laceration? That is on his back, then?”

  “Yes.” She couldn’t really see Strathmore’s face, his thick, dark hair falling carelessly over his ears and concealing his features. She tried not to notice his nearness or the warmth she could feel from his body.

  “Has it been sutured?”

  “Not yet.” Katherine studied the back of his head. The baron wasn’t asking the obvious questions. Like how her brother had come to be shot and wounded. Or why Katherine had greeted him at the door with a leveled gun. He hadn’t asked any question that wasn’t clinical in nature. He hadn’t even expressed surprise or dismay or disapproval. She really didn’t understand this man at all.

  And she didn’t like what she didn’t understand.

  The baron rocked back on his heels and pushed himself to his feet. “Well, then, let’s get him back up on the table so we can get his laceration sutured, shall we? I need to examine the severity of the wound.”

  Well. The baron might not be asking the expected questions, but he was certainly giving the expected orders.

  “You don’t have to do anything, my lord,” Katherine said coolly. “I can assure you that my brother is in good hands under my care.” She had lost count of the number of times that a physician or a surgeon—a male physician or surgeon—had inserted himself into a situation, dismissing her and her talents amid a fog of condescension. That was not about to happen here. Not when it came to her own brother.

  She got to her feet and turned to face the baron in the light for the first time.

  Her mouth went dry.

  Viewed from a distance, he had struck her as attractive. Standing as close as he was in the soft light, Katherine realized he was not merely attractive—he was striking. He was long-limbed and lean, his simple clothes doing nothing to hide the strong lines of his body. His hair was a rich mahogany, pushed carelessly away from a face crafted of impeccable angles—sharp cheekbones, a straight nose, a strong jaw. His eyes were dark beneath his brow, and they were watching her without expression.

  Her insides did a slow, horrifying somersault, and she could feel a flush start to creep into her cheeks. No wonder he had women hanging on his every word. At another time in her life, a time long past, perhaps she might have been one of them.

  “Doctor is fine,” the baron said.

  “I’m sorry?” Katherine had lost her train of thought.

  “My title, I find, is more of a hindrance than a help when I’m attending my patients.”

  “He’s not your patient, my lord.” Whatever unwanted and unwelcome reaction she had just suffered was instantly cured by a healthy dose of irritation. “He’s mine.”

  Strathmore held her eyes for a moment longer before looking down at her brother. “Of course.”

  Katherine blinked. He wasn’t going to argue?

  “Though perhaps you might need help getting him up?”

  She blinked again, wary of his motivations. The Lord Doctor was being far too reasonable and agreeable. But he was also right. Her father, still hovering with the lantern, didn’t have the strength to lift such a deadweight. And alone, neither did she. Matthew was not a small man.

  “Yes, thank you.” She swallowed her pride with effort and tried to sound at least a little gracious. “I would appreciate it.”

  Strathmore nodded and bent, carefully pulling the table away. As he heaved it upright, Matthew groaned, and his eyes fluttered open. He stared up at the ceiling with an expression of dazed confusion before his eyes found Katherine.

  “You fell over,” she said before he could speak.

  Matthew winced and raised his head.

  “You really should have listened to your sister,” Strathmore added as he settled the heavy, wide table back in place.

  “Hayward,” Matthew grunted, and let his head fall back. “You don’t need to take her side. I’ve had a trying night. Have a little sympathy.”

  From the far side of the table, her father barked out a laugh, and the shadows from the lantern light danced off the walls.

  Katherine scowled. She did not see the humor. And was everyone in her family on familiar terms with the Lord Doctor? Something that they’d failed entirely to mention?

  The baron straightened from the table. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like I’ve been bloody well shot.” Matthew grimaced and struggled to push himself to his good side. “Help me up.”

  Strathmore glanced at Katherine. “You take a side, I’ll take the other. We’ll try not to do any more damage than what’s already been done.”

  Katherine sighed and did as she was instructed because to argue for the sake of argument was petty and ridiculous. Between them, they helped Matthew to his feet and eased him back onto the table so that he was once again lying facedown. A sheen of sweat had broken out on Matthew’s forehead, and he hissed in pain as he moved.

  “Well, that is a bit of a mess.” Strathmore bent slightly to peer at her brother’s upper back.

  “I’ve been told.” Matthew rested his forehead on the table.

  “A jealous husband, was it?” The baron sounded amused now. “Didn’t get out that window fast enough?”

  “Something like that,” Matthew mumbled.

  Katherine eyed Strathmore. He seemed happy to accept Matthew’s nonanswer answer.

  “Well, are you going to fix him up, lass, or are you going to stare at the doctor all night?” Her father laughed again, though it quickly dissolved into another round of coughing.

  Katherine would have been incensed had she not been so worried about the sound of his chest.

  “Why don’t you come sit back down by the hearth, Mr. Wright?” the baron asked easily. He glanced at Katherine in question, and she gave him a curt but grateful nod.

  She busied herself retrieving the basin of water and the clean towels she had set aside earlier, though she watched Strathmore out of the corner of her eye the entire time. The Lord Doctor took the lantern from her father and hung it back up on its hook in the ceiling. He was now settling her father back in his chair, tucking his blanket around him with an endearing gentleness that made her heart turn over. She could hear the baron murmuring something to her father, and though she couldn’t make out the words, she saw her father nod his head a few times.

  Are you going to stare at the doctor all night?

  Katherine snatched up her suture kit, turning away from Strathmore. She wasn’t going to stare at him at all. Because the Lord Doctor was not endearing. He was unwanted.

  She set to cleaning up the new blood that had leaked from Mat
thew’s wound and fetched the bottle of brandy from the sideboard behind her. Smuggled French brandy. Ironic that she should be using it on wounds earned in acquisition of the damn stuff.

  She returned to the table, stuffing towels along the edge of Matthew’s torso before opening the bottle. “This might sting a bit,” was all the warning she gave to her brother before she poured half the contents over his wounds.

  Matthew jerked and choked, his hands gripping the edge of the table so hard his knuckles were white. A loud string of curses exploded.

  “You could have given him more warning.”

  Katherine almost dropped the bottle. She hadn’t heard Strathmore approach her side. Again.

  “Better to just have done with it,” she said as her brother cursed under her touch. “Better, too, if he never had cause for me to do it in the first place,” she said more loudly.

  Matthew groaned.

  She poured a measure of liquor into a cup and dropped her needles in, wiping her hands on the brandy-soaked towels. “You don’t have to stay,” she said to the baron without looking at him.

  “I’ve nowhere else to be.” He reached for the brandy bottle. She could hear him inhale. “Good stuff, this,” he said with a note of approval. “Cases of this sell for a bloody fortune in London.”

  That was exactly the problem. And that was also why Strathmore wasn’t endearing. Because comments like that encouraged her brother and, for that matter, her father. Convinced them that their fortunes could be found in contraband.

  The brandy wasn’t good stuff at all, any more than the tobacco or the tea or the silk was.

  Because one day, they were going to get her family killed.

  Chapter 2

  Harland Hayward leaned against the near wall, sipping brandy and watching Miss Katherine Wright bend to her task. Her every movement was sure and steady, each suture done with efficient precision. A healer was how her father had described her, but Harland had seen experienced surgeons who had far less skill than what he was observing now. He would have intervened if she hadn’t been up to the task, but as it was, Miss Katherine Wright was impressing him.

  And not just with her surgical prowess. She seemed damn well fearless. A modern-day Valkyrie, who looked just as capable of handling the rifle she’d leveled at him in defense of her family as she did with her sutures. A woman who, in the face of both threat and calamity, simply did what needed to be done. It seemed that it was not only the men in the Wright family who possessed nerves of steel, though he supposed that shouldn’t be a surprise, given that she’d grown up the daughter of one of the most intrepid smugglers in Kent.

  Harland shifted, and Miss Wright glanced up at him. There were shadows of worry and fatigue beneath her eyes, and her expression was suspicious and resentful. He met her gaze and took another sip of his brandy, offering neither comment nor reaction, even as he felt a peculiar sensation wind through his veins. Something deeper than mere awareness and attraction. Something that he hadn’t felt in a very long time. Something that he had thought long extinguished.

  Miss Wright returned her attention to her task, though Harland continued to study her. Her hair, pulled back in an untidy braid, was light like her brother’s, but its hue put him more in mind of champagne than honey. She had a generous mouth that he suspected smiled often in better circumstances and a scattering of freckles over the bridge of a straight nose. Her eyes were remarkable and startling—the color of a tropical sea—with an undeniable intelligence that blazed from their depths.

  Miss Wright would be classically beautiful in a ball gown, Harland reflected, her fair hair adorned with pearls, a smile pasted on her pretty face, a fan fluttering coyly in her hand. Society matrons who measured value by appearance would nod in approval. Men who did the same would do a whole lot more than merely nod.

  But dressed as she was now in a nondescript gray dress and a bloodstained apron, her hair disheveled, her mouth set in a grim line, a suture needle balanced in her fingers, she certainly wasn’t classically beautiful. Or even pretty.

  She was stunning.

  Another wave of anticipatory sensation gripped Harland, and he downed the rest of his brandy, welcoming the burn as the liquor slid down his throat. He had pursued these sorts of feelings before, when he was young and foolish, and it had led to nothing but silent heartbreak and vociferous humiliation. He was much older and wiser now. He could recognize the threat when it arose and smother it entirely.

  He set his glass aside with more force than was necessary, earning him another suspicious, resentful glare from Katherine Wright. Harland wondered how much she had been told about what had happened tonight. Clearly, Matthew would have provided her at least a moderately accurate account, given his injuries. He had a bullet hole high in the muscle of his shoulder for God’s sake, and it was not from climbing out a lover’s window.

  It was reassuring, however, that since he had arrived, both Matthew and Paul Wright had remained decisively silent about the actual events that resulted in Matthew’s injury. It meant that they still believed Harland to be nothing but what he presented himself as—a doctor concerned for the well-being of his patient. A doctor who was often called to strange places at strange times and asked no questions. A doctor who could move easily and invisibly about the harbor and the coasts and the vessels that came into port because medical help was always a wanted commodity.

  The perfect cloak to keep his role in the network of smugglers up and down this Kentish coastline concealed.

  It wasn’t that Harland doubted Matthew and Paul’s discretion, but even under extreme duress, one could not tell what one did not know. He was counting on the fact that Katherine Wright was equally unaware of his involvement. She might have grown up among smugglers, but Harland knew she had been gone from Dover for a long time. Long enough that her allegiances might have changed. And while she would be loyal to her family, it would be folly to simply assume that loyalty would be extended beyond the familial boundaries should the worst happen and Harland be exposed for more than just a simple doctor.

  He was relieved that it had only been brandy that was to have been moved tonight and not—

  “I can’t quite figure out how it was that you knew Matthew was injured, my lord.” Miss Wright’s words broke the silence with no warning. She didn’t look up but her unabated suspicion hung heavy in the space between them.

  “Ran into Hervey Baker on the road,” Harland replied easily. He’d thought she’d have asked that question sooner. His answer was, in fact, not a lie. Hervey Baker had been one of the men who had helped carry Matthew here. And it was always better to tell a version of the truth whenever possible.

  “On the road?” The words were skeptical. “Where you just happened to be riding? In the dead of night? When a storm is threatening?”

  “Kate,” Matthew admonished, sounding annoyed.

  “It’s all right. Your sister asks reasonable questions.”

  Matthew scoffed. “It’s rude, not reasonable.”

  “And I don’t really care, Matt.” Miss Wright reached for her scissor. “Why were you really out tonight, my lord?”

  “Croup,” Harland said. It was his standard answer. A doctor, after all, got called out for all manners of ailments in all manners of weather. No one ever wanted further details about common croup or common children or a combination of those two things.

  “Who?”

  No one except Katherine Wright, it seemed. “Who what?” he stalled.

  “Who had croup?” She snipped the end of her thread and put her needle aside.

  “The tinker’s daughter.” There had, of course, been no tinker, but he needed a transient patient whose existence could not be proven or disproven. “They were camped on the side of town.”

  “I see.” She bent over Matthew’s back, critically examining her work.

  Harland had no idea if she believed him or not.

  “Are you done with your torture, Kate?” Matthew sounded exhausted.
r />   “Yes. How does it feel?”

  “Like my bloody back is on fire.” He groaned and gingerly pushed himself up, swinging his legs over the side of the table. “Give me the damn brandy, Hayward.” He held out his hand.

  Miss Wright made a sound of disapproval.

  Harland retrieved the bottle and passed it to Matthew.

  “You need to rest,” Harland told him as he watched Matthew take a healthy swig. “No riding, no swimming, no strenuous physical work for at least a week. Probably two.” Outside, a distant thunder rumbled.

  Matthew rolled his eyes, though the effect was marred by a grimace at the end. “I’m not an old woman.”

  “True. You are, however, a man in possession of a bullet wound and four dozen very expertly executed stitches. And if you want them to heal, you shall not undo all of your sister’s hard work.”

  Harland glanced at Miss Wright to find her staring at him. She looked away almost immediately and started gathering the blood-soaked towels. A few drops of rain splattered against the cottage window, and the thunder outside increased in volume.

  Harland retrieved the brandy bottle from the patient. “You should have that arm in a sling so long as it doesn’t catch your stitches around back. Your shoulder—”

  “Stop.” Miss Wright’s voice was sharp. “Listen.”

  Harland’s blood ran cold. The thunder that had accompanied the rain was not thunder at all, but the sound of many hooves bearing down on the cottage.

  “Goddammit,” Matthew swore under his breath, looking around him frantically.

  Harland followed his gaze, taking in the bowls of pink water, the stained towels, and bloodied curtain still lying forgotten on the floor. The sound of approaching hooves was now accompanied by a shout. Soldiers, no doubt, and Harland cursed himself for not being more vigilant.

  From the sound that was steadily building and the vibrations now rumbling through the ground, he guessed they had less than a minute before someone barged through that door in the name of the king, wanting nothing more than to arrest and make an example of someone guilty of smuggling.