screaming servants,” Rohan said in a mild voice that held a note of steel. “Would someone please smother that girl?”
The maid was still screeching about a ghost, and the housekeeper made quick work of her with a harsh slap and an even harsher reprimand.
“Thank you, Madame Bonnard. And could you please tell me why my guest is wandering around the house in rags when I had assumed she’d been properly seen to? Is this the way I wish to have my guests treated? And where is her sister, scrubbing floors in the kitchen?” To a stranger his voice might sound almost genial, but the servants looked uniformly terrified.
He was behind her, still holding her up, and since her feet weren’t working she couldn’t turn and look at him. “It’s not their fault,” she said, and she almost didn’t recognize her own voice. It was raw from the fire, raw from tears, both shed and unshed. “Someone needs to see to Nanny Maude. She’s dead.” The words were so short, so harsh that she couldn’t stand it anymore. She needed to disappear into the darkness, to pull the shadows around her. “I need to sleep…”
And then the blessed darkness folded down around her, and she opened her arms and embraced it.
He caught her as she fell, and when several footmen rushed to assist him he snapped at them like a caged tiger. The thought would have amused him if he weren’t in such a cold, towering rage. He had a tendency to keep his temper and to view things with a distant amusement. But at the moment he would have happily seen all his incompetent servants whipped and turned out into the streets.
This was the third time tonight he’d had to scoop her up in his arms, and the thought of how much she would have hated it brought a smile to his lips. As far as he was concerned she could swoon all she wanted—he was more than happy for an excuse to put his hands on her.
Madame Bonnard had the temerity to approach him. “I will send two of the maids to see to her woman. I am sorry, monseigneur, I had no idea she hadn’t been properly seen to. I promise you, I will dismiss those responsible.”
“And will you dismiss yourself, madame?” He said in a silky voice. “I’m taking her to the green bedroom. I will require hot water, enough for a bath, some clean clothes and some French brandy.”
“Sir, should she be having brandy when she’s fainted?” Madame Bonnard was foolish enough to ask.
“The brandy is for me, you idiot,” he said in his most amiable voice. The one he used before he destroyed someone.
The servants immediately scattered in every direction. His way was lit to the green room, and lights were placed all around the elegant bedchamber. The first pails of hot water appeared almost before he’d set her down on the high bed, and a moment later Madame Bonnard read his mind and presented him with a basin and a cloth. Perhaps he might let her live after all.
He took the wet cloth and began to clean the soot from Elinor’s face. There were salt trails of tears there, which oddly surprised him. She was such an Amazon, he didn’t expect her to ever cry or show weakness, even at the loss of her mother. That old bitch was well and truly gone, and he could only view that circumstance with relief. The glowering nurse/housekeeper he could have dealt with—after all, he’d managed to fend off Mrs. Clarke’s efforts to reform him for all these many years—and for Elinor’s sake he was sorry she was dead. It was too much a burden for one night.
He was gentle with the cloth. The filth was on her clothes, down her neck, and he unfastened her chemise as he absently ordered the footmen from the room. “My lord,” Mrs. Bonnard began, scandalized. “Let me do that.”
He looked up at her. “How long have you served me, Madame Bonnard?”
She flushed. “Seven years, my lord.”
“And did anything ever give you the impression that I wasn’t entirely capable of undressing young ladies on my own?”
“No, Monsieur le Comte,” she said. “It wasn’t your capability I was questioning. It was the young lady’s feelings on the matter.”
His housekeeper was treading dangerously close to disaster. “Ah, Bonnard,” he said in a silken voice. “You remind me of my better self. Unfortunately, I have no interest in listening to that part of me,