Truly a Wife (Free Fellows League 4)

“Our sentiments exactly,” Griff told him.

Jarrod frowned.

“But, as you can see, Daniel isn’t here yet,” Courtland added. “We spent the past quarter hour waiting for both of you.”

“I apologize for being late,” Jarrod said. “But something unexpected came up, and it couldn’t be helped. And I did send word to His Grace,” he nodded toward Griff, “that I had been unavoidably detained. I take it that Sussex didn’t send word.”

Griff shook his head. He and Sussex were the highest-ranking Free Fellows, but Jarrod was the leader of the group, and the two dukes deferred to his leadership. “Not yet.”

“You haven’t seen him?”

“Not since last night,” Griff explained. “And I only saw him briefly from across the room last night. By the time I made it through the crush to where I’d seen him standing, he was gone.” He turned to Jonathan. “Barclay saw him, too.”

“So he made it back safely.” Jarrod heaved a sigh of relief. He hated sending the sitting Duke of Sussex on secret missions, because there would be hell to pay and a million questions to answer if anything happened to him.

“Didn’t you see him when he delivered the dispatch pouches?” Barclay asked.

Jarrod shook his head. “Henderson accepted the pouches in my stead.” Although Jarrod preferred to accept the dispatches himself, that wasn’t always possible, and Henderson, his butler, was entrusted with the duty. The Free Fellows delivered the pouches to Jarrod as soon after returning from a mission as they could, to allow as much time as possible for the deciphering before Jarrod turned the information over to men at Whitehall, so it wasn’t unusual for Jarrod to get the dispatches before he met with the Free Fellow who’d collected them. He looked at his colleagues. “I assumed Sussex arrived home safely because I received the dispatches, but I’d prefer confirmation from Sussex himself or one of you.”

Griff nodded. “We know he made it back to town. So, you can rest easily on that account.”

“Then where is he?” Jarrod asked, pinning each of them with a look.

“Unless he escorted a lady home from the party and decided to stay overnight or simply overslept, we’ve no idea,” Barclay answered.

“We need to get an idea,” Jarrod told them. “I’ve a very full schedule this morning, with personal matters that demand my immediate attention and meetings at the War Office in a few hours with men who require the most accurate and current information we can give them on the French movements along the coast.” He finished his coffee and set the empty cup in its saucer on the silver tray. “Let’s see if we can find our errant King Arthur before eleven of the clock this morning. There’s no point in meeting without him.”

“Where do you suggest we begin?” Courtland asked.

“Anywhere but Madam Theodora’s,” Jarrod replied.

Puzzled, Barclay asked, “Why not?”

Madam Theodora’s was the Free Fellows’ preferred house of pleasure. If Sussex were with a woman, they would most likely find him at Madam Theo’s—unless he’d made a private arrangement with a lady of the ton … And if that were the case, he could be anywhere in London.

“Because that’s where I’m going to look,” Jarrod answered. “I’ll see you all here at the usual time this afternoon.”

“Well,” Colin drawled as Jarrod left the room. “Merlin’s personal matter must be urgent.” He looked at the others. “You heard him. It’s time we discovered what’s become of our King Arthur.”

Chapter Eleven

“Whatever this is that I am, it is a little flesh

and breath, and the ruling part.”

—Marcus Aurelius, A.D. 121–180

Daniel awoke to a piercing light penetrating his eyelids. He opened his eyes a fraction. Sunlight streamed in the window, bathing the ceiling and the walls of the room where he lay listening to the pounding beat of a thousand angry, discordant drummers echoing inside his head in a pink and white light. He blinked against the bright light and found that even that slight movement sent daggers flying into his brain.

Squeezing his eyes shut, Daniel attempted to shield them with his forearm, only to discover that raising his arm was impossible.

His left shoulder and arm were pressed against the mattress, held in place by a heavy weight, and the tingling pins-and-needles sensation in that part of his body told him the circulation had been constricted for quite some time. Restoring the circulation to his left arm and shoulder would be agony, so Daniel attempted to shield his eyes with his right arm instead. But using his right arm was more painful than moving his left. He aborted the attempt as the movement ignited a firestorm of aggravated nerve endings along his side that made his breath catch in his throat and brought involuntary tears to his eyes.

A flash flood of anxiety coursed through him at the knowledge that both of his arms had been rendered useless. Ignoring a nauseating jolt of pain, Daniel raised his head an inch or so from the pillow, glanced down and realized the weight pinning his left arm and shoulder to the bed was caused by the head nestled upon his shoulder and the long slender arm draped across his stomach.

Daniel wondered, for a brief moment, if the French coast watch or the British Navy frigate had succeeded in blowing the Mademoiselle out of the water, if he was lying beneath what remained of one or more of his crew. For the last thing he remembered was exhorting the crew of the Mademoiselle to row for all they were worth in an effort to avoid the rifle balls coming at them from English and French sides of the Channel.

But the arm lying across his stomach was slim and pale and appeared more female than male. Daniel hazarded another glance. The effort cost him, but he had his answer. He sank back against the pillow, secure in the knowledge that the head on his shoulder and the arm draped across his body were decidedly female and still attached to their owner.