The Consolation Prize (Brides of Karadok #3) - Alice Coldbreath Page 0,78
the least you can do is try and emulate her!”
Rose stood wringing her hands and looking stricken, but Janet immediately ran for the doorway that led to the kitchen.
“She’ll tell everyone,” Una agonized, as Armand set her down on the bench and knelt beside her. “Armand, go after her—”
“It little signifies,” he shushed her. “Stop fretting.”
At that point, Una noticed with horror that a trickle of blood was on Abelard’s muzzle. “He’s hurt my dog!” she burst out angrily, scooping him up in his arms, comforting him. “He must have kicked him in the face! Oh, Abelard!”
They both turned their heads sharply when they heard footsteps approaching. Seconds later, a grim-faced Otho marched in the man who had accosted her outside. Una gasped, felt her color drain, and sat up straighter. He looked a villain, even now her fear had receded into cold anger.
Armand groaned. “What the hells are you doing here, Fulcher?” he demanded, standing up. “And what the devil do you mean by frightening the wits out of my wife?”
*
Una was not reconciled to Fulcher’s presence at their supper table that evening, until she saw his bloodied cuff, and the fact he’d ripped some fabric away from his sleeve to bind what was clearly a wound.
“Did Abelard bite you?” she blurted in astonishment, breaking her cold silence.
Fulcher sniffed and held up the affected hand. “Bite me?” he said in aggrieved accents. “I should say he nearly tore my fingers clean off!”
Armand snorted. “He’d be hard-pressed to fit even one of your fat fingers in his tiny mouth.”
“My fingers ain’t fat!” Fulcher objected, looking offended. Una noticed with horror just how black his fingernails were. She hoped Abelard would not suffer any ill effects.
“Valiant Abelard!” Rose said loudly from the other end of the table. “He certainly deserves the bones this night, instead of the stockpot.” Otho sent her a stern look and she returned crestfallen to her meal.
Una picked up a large piece of beef off her plate and passed it down to where the little dog was leaning against her ankles. He smacked his lips and tucked in at once. Now she knew Armand’s strange acquaintance had not assaulted her dog, she could let her frosty manner drop, though she still thought he looked a thoroughly bad lot.
She let her eyes wander over him with a sort of fascinated horror. That awful hat, which he still wore on his head at such a rakish angle. A bit of bedraggled feather hung from the top of it, somehow making its appearance even worse. Under the layers of grime and grease, it must once have been brightly colored, she thought, and then let out a gasp, for she recognized it!
Surely, that was the hat she made Armand for a wedding gift to match his burgundy and gold suit! Her eyes widened as she stared and then turned slowly to look at Armand’s profile. He was tucking into his meal, and quite oblivious to her scrutiny. This must have been the man who Armand had left her on that second night to meet with. She recalled that Armand had returned from the encounter with a cut lip and a grazed face. And without his hat.
Her gaze narrowed. What sort of acquaintance, she pondered, would steal a man’s hat? Could it have been he that had attacked Armand? She dismissed the idea almost as soon as it occurred to her. Mr. Fulcher was so much spindlier in build that the idea seemed absurd. Armand had said it was thieves with cudgels who had wanted to rob him. But assuredly, this Fulcher had stolen his hat.
“Are you staying long in the area, Mr. Fulcher?” Una roused herself to ask. He stopped chewing and a wary look entered his eye.
“As to that, I really couldn’t say as yet, Your—,” he broke off his words. “My lady,” he said with exaggerated stress, and then sent her a leering wink. Una saw Otho stiffen and send him a glare, but Armand seemed entirely unruffled.
She cleared her throat. “You have business that brought you to Derring?”
“You could say that, in a manner of speaking,” he said with a forced casualness that made the hairs on the back of Una’s neck rise with foreboding. She had heard men speak in such tones before. He spoke with the studied indifference of a man who utters a veiled threat. Or that of the blackmailer. But what could he possibly be hoping to blackmail them with, she wondered?