Chapter One
Covent Garden, London, 1820
Blood seeped from the wound in Damian Wycliff’s thigh as he lay slumped in a dank alley off Drury Lane. The blade had pierced his breeches, had sunk deep into his now burning flesh. A crimson pool soaked the beige buckskin. Had he not broken at least two fingers, had he been able to see out of his swollen left eye, he might have untied his cravat and used it as a tourniquet.
Damnation!
A man wanted to die clamped between the soft thighs of his mistress. A man wanted to die alongside his comrades whilst fighting for king and country, not alone and slouched against a wall reeking of vomit and piss.
A curse vile enough to make a vicar faint burst from his lips.
If he discovered his father was to blame for the vicious attack, there’d be hell to pay. The Marquis of Blackbeck would do anything to prove a point, to teach his bastard son a lesson.
But there were other enemies.
Had Lord Cockram sought retribution for Damian winning the fool’s Berkshire estate in a game of whist? Had Damian’s lover, Mrs Sidwell, punished him for giving the woman her congé? Once he discovered the identity of the person who’d paid the four men to beat him to a pulp, Damian would have his revenge—assuming he didn’t bleed to death on the pavement.
Hoping to capture someone’s attention, he whistled loudly. But only a randy buck or a drunken sot wandered into a dark alley in the dead of night. If he could just send word to his coachman, Cutler. The fellow possessed the skill of a seamstress when working with a needle and thread. It wouldn’t be the first wound he’d sewn. It wouldn’t be the last.
Depleted of energy after the violent brawl—and after the rampant activities with the actress used as bait—he lacked the strength to stand. The crimson pool continued to spread, saturating the material stuck to his thigh.
What a blasted inconvenience!
“For the love of God, can anyone hear me?”
His cry for help echoed in the narrow passageway though no one answered his desperate plea. Had the blackguards not robbed him of everything except for the one item he truly valued, he might have bribed a gullible passerby.
Despite being an unrepentant sinner, he tugged at his shirt, forced his fingers through the gap in the fine lawn and grasped the gold cross hanging around his neck.
“Mother, if you are watching from your heavenly plane, do something to save your errant son.” The words lacked conviction, for he did not believe that the power of love could work miracles.
He did not believe in the power of love at all.
As his life drained from his body, he lay back on the damp cobbles and gave himself over to fate. Carriages rolled past on the street beyond. Distant voices filled his head: laughter, taunts and mocking jeers. Some real. Some imagined.
The clip of footsteps reached his ears—a devil’s cruel trick to torment him.
But then a woman appeared, dressed in nothing but a white chemise, a red shawl drawn tightly around her shoulders, her ebony hair tied in a single braid. She crouched at his side, frowned and tutted as she scanned the length of his body before her gaze narrowed on the cross gripped between his bloodstained fingers.
Had she come merely to rob him, too?
“Can you walk?” she asked with some impatience. The panic in her voice highlighted a fear for her own safety, not his.
Damian opened his mouth to speak but found it impossible to form a word. A fuzzy sensation sent his world spinning. Nausea made him retch.
“The door to my lodgings is but ten feet away, sir.” The woman’s head shot left then right. Her breathing came in rapid pants. “Can you make it there, do you think?” Her dainty hand came to rest gently on his cheek. Then she slapped him. Hard. “Sir, can you hear me?”
Damian mumbled in response lest he receive another beating.