Page 10 of The Lady Makes Her Mark

Worse and worse.

She recalled Lord Ryland’s stubborn insistence, last spring, in seeing her home, when she had been perfectly content to hail a cab—and when her “home” was the last place she’d wanted him to see.

After that day—and the cartoons she’d drawn of him—how could he possibly imagine they were . . .

“Friends?” she echoed, intending to convey her skepticism at such a description.

But when pushed from between clenched teeth and parched lips, the word came out sounding . . . uncertain. Confused.

“Don’t you remember me?” A laugh, dry as dust. With it, he somehow managed to convey both incredulity and self-deprecation. “That is, I—I felt certain you would . . .” Now a pleading note edged his words, and in her astonishment, she could not resist another glance at him. “I’d swear that a moment ago, I saw a flash of recognition in your eyes.”

His own eyes were dark, searching, and more than a little desperate. She had to dip her chin to avoid the intensity of his gaze.

The gesture seemed to persuade him he’d been wrong. He paused, evidently gathering his wits, before continuing in a calmer voice. “I suppose it’s not to be wondered at, after that blow to the head.” The bed shifted again as he rose, though he did not release her hand. “Ryland, at your service.”

Then she felt his breath on her knuckles and realized he was bowing over her hand. The sort of utterly ridiculous, mock chivalrous nonsense one might expect of a rogue.

So she supposed it was no great surprise she found herself, in her present weakened state, ever so slightly charmed.

She shut her eyes again, though an outline of the image remained etched on her eyelids for a moment. The fire behind him had limned his figure in gold.

He had a better profile than she remembered from that awkward ride across Town. One might be almost tempted to describe it as handsome.

Doubtless, that impulse was merely an effect of the flattering firelight and her own addled vision.

“And you,” he went on, releasing her hand. “. . .Well, perhaps it would be easier to show you.”

He was gone before she could explain or protest.

In his absence, she took stock of matters as best she could:

1. No matter how badly her head hurt . . . or her wrist . . . or any other part of her body . . . if what Lord Ryland had said was true, she was lucky to be alive.

2. But she was alive in a bed in the home of the one man in London with whom she had the misfortune of a prior acquaintance.

3. That prior acquaintance seemed to have behaved with propriety so far, but she was certain he hid a devilish nature. She counted herself lucky to be still dressed, though the missing shoes might pose an obstacle to her escape.

4. And speaking of escape . . . the accident had befallen her because she had been hurrying, he’d said. To something? Or away from something? It must have been something big and important enough to make her careless. But what?

He returned before she had a prayer of answering that question. In one hand, he clutched a sheaf of papers, and in the other, a valise. Her valise. Whatever her destination, she’d packed a bag . . .

“When the, uh, the accident happened, you must have been carrying this.” He lifted the battered satchel and deposited it at the foot of the bed. “And you had an artist’s traveling case too. It didn’t fare well against the cobblestones, I’m afraid. These sketches are all that survived,” he explained, rather sheepishly, as he started to hand them to her, then paused. “Unless you require your spectacles for this?”

“My—spectacles?” She reached up as if expecting to find them still on her nose. If she had thought of them at all, she would have assumed—hoped might be the better word—they had been lost during the accident. Otherwise, the plain glasses lenses might have aroused his suspicions. “No. I, um, I see close up well enough without them.”

“Good,” he said, handing over the pictures, though still with a hint of reluctance. “Because they’re broken too.”

Relieved, she began to shuffle through what he’d given her and soon lighted on a sketch of him in a less than flattering pose.

The sort of pose in which she’d always drawn him, since that day she’d first seen him and chosen him for her model of a typical nobleman, roguish to the core but trying to trick Society by donning the air of a staid and stuffy gentleman of virtue.

Suddenly, she understood what had motivated the question about her spectacles. He must wonder whether the keen eye behind these sketches had seen through his straitlaced front.

When she tilted her chin upward, as if comparing him to his likeness, he cleared his throat and snatched up two or three of the pieces she’d laid aside.

“You—you’re an artist, as you can see,” he said, nervously placing them on top of the sketch she was holding uppermost, the picture of him. “Of no small ability. You illustrate a periodical called Mrs. Goode’s Magazine for Misses, under the name ‘Miss C.’ We met, once, because of it.” He gave a grudging nod toward the papers, acknowledging the picture of him. “But I’m afraid I can’t offer much more in the way of enlightenment.”

“Enlightenment?” she echoed.