himself on his ability to manage that temper. To hold his emotions close, like a card player who never revealed his hand.
Even when he’d dueled with Fred so many weeks before, St. Clare had kept a tight leash on his emotions. He’d been cold and calculating. Never once permitting the anger—the hatred—that roiled within him to melt through the glacial exterior he’d forged for himself.
Until tonight.
“Acqua, signore.” Enzo brought a porcelain basin from the dressing room, placing it on a low table near the bed. Water sloshed over the rim. “E un panno.”
St. Clare wet the proffered cloth and used it to clean his wound, rinsing the blood away over the basin until the water was tinted red with it. “Portami una bottiglia di brandy.”
Enzo obediently fetched a bottle of brandy from the sitting room and brought it back to him.
Uncorking it with his teeth, St. Clare poured a liberal amount over his wound. He may as well have doused it with liquid fire. It burned like the dickens. He clenched his jaw against the pain. “Blast Burton-Smythe to hell and back,” he muttered wrathfully.
“Stupido inglese,” Enzo echoed in sympathy. He craned his head. “Ago e filo?”
St. Clare angled his arm to examine his wound. The bullet had taken a chunk out of him. It wouldn’t be easy to stitch it back together, but he supposed it was worth a try. “Sì,” he said. “And Enzo? Try and find a sharper needle than the one you used in Rome.”
Enzo flashed a grin before disappearing once again into the dressing room.
This wouldn’t be the first time he’d sewn his master back together. After an Italian street brawl several years ago, he’d rather ruthlessly stitched a gash on St. Clare’s shoulder using what could only be described as the dullest needle in Christendom. At the time, St. Clare had considered it a just punishment for his own bad judgment.
Tonight, however, he was in no mood for additional pain.
He took a long drink from the bottle of brandy.
And then another.
By the time Enzo began to sew him up, St. Clare had half a bottle in him. And by the time Enzo finished, St. Clare had half a bottle more.
He sat down in a chair for Enzo to pull off his boots. “I’ll have to send word to my grandfather. Puoi consegnarlo a Grosvenor Square.”
Allendale had known St. Clare was leaving the Parkhursts’ ball early, but he hadn’t known why. There’d been no chance for a private word. No opportunity for anything save a glaring look of disapproval from his grandfather, silently indicting him for abandoning Miss Steele in the middle of supper.
St. Clare would have to think of something to tell him. An excuse his grandfather would deem acceptable. But to what end?
He didn’t know anymore.
Everything had changed since returning to England. Since that fateful moment Margaret Honeywell had walked into that darkened library and fainted into his arms.
Recalling the way she’d looked tonight in the glow of the carriage lamps, his temper once again threatened to get the better of him.
Fred had torn her dress. Good lord, he’d been in the process of forcing himself on her when St. Clare had ambushed them on the road. If he hadn’t arrived when he had…
It didn’t bear thinking of.
He ran a hand over his face. “Fetch me ink and paper.”
Enzo brought him his writing implements and St. Clare dashed off a short message to his grandfather:
Spending the night at Grillon’s. Can’t be helped. Will explain tomorrow.
After dispatching Enzo with the note, St. Clare lay down upon his bed, one arm draped over his brow. His eyes fell shut. He might even have drifted off awhile, for when next he opened them, it was to the sound of someone rapping softly, but rather insistently, at the door.
He roused himself with a groan. His arm was stiff. A bone-deep ache that threatened swelling and fever. He’d have to clean it again, and soon. Either that or summon a doctor to do the job.
St. Clare prayed it wouldn’t come to that.
He wasn’t anxious for anyone else to discover he’d been shot. The last thing he needed was Fred realizing that it wasn’t some random highwayman he’d encountered on the road.
Rising from his bed, shirtless, St. Clare tugged on a silk banyan over his breeches and went to the door. “It’s half two in the morning,” he muttered as he opened it. “This had better be…” The words dissolved on his lips.