Talk of the Ton (Free Fellows League 5)

India leaned over the fallen eunuch and carefully pulled a long red silk cord from the pocket of his caftan. “Will this do?”

“It’s perfect.” Jonathan took the cord from her, then rolled the giant onto his stomach and secured his hands behind him. He glanced around for something with which to tie his legs, and India came to the rescue once again. She untied the flowered brocade belt at Mustafa’s massive waist, tugged it free, and handed it to Jonathan.

Jonathan grinned at her. “Thank you, my lady.”

“You’re very welcome, my lord.”

Their eyes met.

“You’re quick on your feet,” Lord Barclay complimented her as he tied the belt around Mustafa’s ankles. “And you’ve a talent for improvising. You’d do well at Gentleman Jackson’s.” He looped the excess length through the bindings he’d just tied before pulling it up and tying it to the silk cord securing Mustafa’s arms. When he’d finished trussing Mustafa like a stuffed Christmas goose, Jonathan gave Lady India another grin, then rolled the huge man onto his back where Mustafa’s massive bulk would prevent him from working the bindings on his hands and feet and would prevent him from moving at all, because by morning the giant Saracen’s arms and legs would be completely, painfully numb. “If you were a man—”

“I am wearing trousers. . . .” she ventured, warming to his praise.

“That you are,” Jonathan agreed. “But you still couldn’t gain admittance—even wearing trousers—for no one would ever mistake you for a man.”

“A pity.” India glanced down at Mustafa and sighed. “For I think I might enjoy hitting something.”

“I see no reason why you shouldn’t . . . enjoy it . . .” he told her, “so long there’s no harm done. . . .”

India waited until Lord Barclay finished tying Mustafa, then motioned for him to follow her into the kitchen. She set the lamp in the center of the table and gestured toward a kitchen chair. “Sit down,” she instructed. “You’re bleeding.”

Jonathan gave her an odd look. “Yes,” he managed finally. “When one spends several minutes with an angry giant holding a knife to one’s throat, bleeding usually plays a part in the outcome.”

India scanned the tidy kitchen. “There must be something here that you can use to attend to your wounds.”

“Thank you,” he said. Jonathan had expected her to offer to tend to his wounds. He had expected her to produce a basin of water, a salve or an ointment of some sort, and fresh linen to wash away the blood, but Lady India Burton surprised him once again by standing in the center of the kitchen, staring at him.

She held up her hands in a helpless gesture. “I’m not sure what you require. Or where to find it.”

Jonathan winced, hissing through clenched teeth, as he reached up to untie his cravat. “A mirror would be nice,” he told her. “A basin of water. Fresh linen and . . .” He looked up to find her still frozen in place. “I’ve everything except a basin of water in my saddle pouch. On the floor,” he said. “In there.” He unwrapped the length of his cravat from around his neck and frowned at the amount of blood staining it, then unfastened his collar and nodded toward the back door. “I dropped it when your knife-wielding giant accosted me.”

The mention of Mustafa spurred her into action. India left the kitchen and returned moments later with Jonathan’s leather saddle pouch. She set it on the table within his reach, then retreated a few steps.

“More light,” he suggested, shrugging out of his coat before unbuttoning his waistcoat and opening the front of his shirt in order to reach the blood trickling down his col larbone.

“Oh.” India leaned across the table, stretching to turn the wick of the lamp up higher.

Jonathan sucked in a breath, and the lower part of his anatomy tightened in response when he realized that she did, indeed, have a precious gem affixed in her navel. A blue sapphire. Jonathan stared in fascination at the perfectly faceted blue sapphire adorning Lady India Burton’s smooth, flat stomach. Lowering his gaze, Jonathan surreptitiously studied the sapphire’s unique setting and did his best to solve the riddle of what kept it in place.

“Water,” Jonathan requested suddenly, swallowing the lump in his throat and shifting his position on the chair in an effort to relieve the unwanted and increasingly insistent ache in his groin.

“Of course.” India turned away and began to bustle around the cottage.

After what seemed an extraordinarily long time, she produced a blue basin filled with water. Her hands shook as she set it on the table, and Jonathan reached up and caught hold of her arm, gently wrapping his fingers around the delicate bones of her wrist.

She froze, inhaling sharply, as his thumb brushed the place where the blue lines of her veins beneath the pale skin of her inner wrist exposed the beat of her heart.

The feel of his hand on her arm, the feel of his fingers on her wrist, the feel of his thumb pressed against her pulse sent shivers up and down India’s spine.

Jonathan felt it, too, and quickly let go of her, more disturbed than he’d like to admit. “I’m not quite sure what you said to Mustafa,” he remarked, attempting normal conversation as he opened his bag and removed his shaving mirror, a bar of bay-scented soap, a length of toweling, a carefully folded shirt, and fresh cravat. “But it did nothing to improve his mood.” He set his shaving mirror on the table, angling it so he could see the assortment of cuts Mustafa had inflicted, then dipped a corner of the towel into the basin of water before rubbing it across the bar of soap and diligently applying it to the cut behind his ear, along the line of his jaw, and on his neck.

“I told him that he couldn’t kill you.”

Jonathan blew out a breath, whistling through his teeth as the soap stung badly enough to bring a sheen of tears to his eyes. “I’m delighted to hear it,” he managed through clenched teeth. “May I ask what you said that changed his mind?”

“I told him that you weren’t a thief or assassin, but the personal emissary of the English king.” India hoped Lord Davies wouldn’t mind being replaced by the king, but invoking her savior’s name didn’t sound nearly as powerful or as impressive as invoking the sovereign’s name—despite the fact that Lord Davies, the extremely wealthy owner of a fleet of merchant ships, had recently been elevated to the ranks of the aristocracy. “Sent by the king and my grandfather to escort me to London and that if any harm came to you, the king, like the sultan, would consider it a grievous insult and hold Mustafa personally responsible.”

“That might be hard for His Majesty to do, since His Majesty’s madness has him currently confined to a house in Queen’s Square under his doctors’ care.”