Married to the Rogue (Season of Scandal #3) - Mary Lancaster Page 0,33

down with force on his head.

Before Deborah could even think, her hand had closed around the neck of a bottle from an open crate. She almost flew at the immediate threat. There was a shout, but only as she crashed the bottle onto his head did she realize the other man could still shoot Christopher, but perhaps the surprise could…

She stared into his startled eyes as her victim sank to the floor. Then, although she had seen nobody touch him, the other gunman wobbled, and to her amazement, Christopher whipped around and caught him around the waist, murmuring, “There, I’ve got you. Sit down before you fall, you idiot. And give me the gun before you kill someone.”

The words caught at her in panic. It seemed Christopher wasn’t about to die, but the man she had hit was lying on his face in a puddle of brandy and glass. She sank to her knees beside him.

“Oh, no,” she said in fright. “Have I killed him?”

“Him?” the other gunman, now disarmed, said breathlessly as Christopher lowered him to the floor against the wall. “God, no, he has a much harder skull than that. Though if you could pick him out of the glass, Chris, before he wakes and cuts himself to pieces, I’m sure he’d be grateful.”

Christopher came to the fallen man’s other side without a word.

“I’m afraid he’s rather heavy,” said the man who seemed to know Christopher.

Christopher grunted, lifted the man by the shoulders, and heaved him up, dragging him over beside the other before brushing glass out of his hair and off his clothes.

Deborah could only stare. Rather to her surprise, Christopher came back to her, bent, and took her hand, raising her to her feet.

“Mind the glass,” he said gently.

She swallowed. “What the devil is going on?”

“Good question,” Christopher agreed. “But first, do you know where the bandages and medicine are kept?”

“Of course I do, but—”

“Aren’t you going to introduce us, Chris?” his acquaintance interrupted. “And then tell me what the devil you’re all doing here?”

“What I’m doing here?” Christopher repeated, staring. He shrugged and sighed. “Deborah, my cousin Rupert Halland. Rupert, my wife, Deborah.”

Rupert? The cousin who had killed someone in a duel and had supposedly fled the country?

“Wife?” Rupert exclaimed, startled. “Good God.” He let out a laugh. “Who’d have thought it?”

“It’s my house,” Christopher went on, “and we’re living here. What’s your excuse?”

Before Rupert could answer, two other men strode in from the yard, one saying peremptorily, “Where are you, man? Do we have to do this all oursel—” He broke off, staring. Dudley, Lord Bilston.

“Dudley,” Christopher said amiably.

Dudley actually stamped his foot. “Damnation, Chris, will you stay in one place? How am I meant to get anything done with you—and your wife!—floating around here as if…”

“As if we own the place?” Christopher suggested.

But Dudley seemed to have lost interest and was scowling at the groaning figure of the huge man who seemed to be coming around and was trying to lift his head. “What’s the matter with him? Come to that, why the devil is Rupert sitting on his—”

“Because he’s shot,” Christopher said calmly. “Did you not know?”

Without a word, Deborah ran upstairs to the kitchen, into the housekeeper’s room, and found the medicine box which Mrs. Dawson had shown her only yesterday. Pausing only to check that there were bandages as well as the usual salves, she fetched a bowl of water from the kitchen pump and rushed back down again.

By then, Christopher and Dudley had wrestled the wounded man out of his coat, and Christopher was examining the blood-soaked arm.

“I can’t see anything for blood,” Christopher said irritably.

“Sorry,” Rupert said. “I did try to be shot cleanly, but some things…”

“Who shot you?” Deborah demanded, kneeling at his side when Christopher made space for her.

“Excise men,” was the shameless reply.

“And here I thought you’d come back to help me shift all this,” Dudley said.

“No point, now,” Rupert said as Deborah began to cut away the makeshift bandage and shirt sleeve.

“Yes, there is,” she said severely. “I don’t want smuggled goods in the cellar, and Christopher is a member of Parliament.”

“I don’t see what that has to say to anything.” Rupert smiled at her when she glanced up, alarmingly like Christopher. “We deliver to lots of members of Parliament.”

Deborah concentrated on washing off the blood until she could see the wound. She had never dealt with a firearm injury before.

Christopher reached past her and examined it more closely. “The ball’s gone straight through