He breathed deeply in resignation. ‘If you will allow me to rest for a few hours, Marcus, Lisette and I will accompany you back to London later today—’
‘I am not going to London—’
‘I think that might be for the best, Christian.’
Lisette and the Duke of Worthing spoke at the same time, the one to protest the idea, the other to agree to it.
Lisette gave the Duke of Worthing a disapproving frown before stepping back into the bedchamber to glare at Christian Seaton. ‘I do not wish to go to London, and you cannot travel anywhere in your present condition!’
He gave a weary shrug. ‘I believe I must.’
‘You will undo all of my efforts to prevent your wound from becoming inflamed if you attempt to do so,’ Lisette maintained stubbornly as she came to stand beside the bed.
Christian looked up at her ruefully. ‘I would have thought such discomfort might please you, considering the names you called me a short time ago?’
Lisette blushed at the memory of some of the names she had called him in temper. Not wholly undeserved, but still...
She raised her chin. ‘You have deceived me,’ she stated. ‘Nor does your duplicity have anything to do with this present conversation.’
‘No?’
‘No!’ she snapped impatiently. ‘I have spent the past twenty-four hours ensuring that you have every opportunity to recover from your wound.’
‘And, if I am not mistaken, just minutes ago you consigned me to the devil—’
‘Much as I am enjoying this exchange,’ Marcus Wilding cut in drily, ‘I do not see that it is achieving much.’
‘Oh, do be quiet, Marcus!’
Lisette continued to glare at the Duke of Worthing. ‘Christian—His Grace, received a bullet wound to his thigh only two nights ago. The voyage to England was madness, this—travelling to London today—would be even more so.’
Christian felt Marcus’s gaze on him as Lisette spoke. ‘You really were shot...?’
He grimaced. ‘A trifle—’
‘The bullet passed straight through the flesh of your thigh,’ Lisette contradicted impatiently.
‘Julianna is going to be most displeased.’ Marcus gave a wince. ‘I assured her you would be in no danger during your visit to France.’
‘That was rather reckless of you, Marcus,’ Christian Seaton drawled.
The other man shrugged. ‘I did not want her to worry in her condition.’
‘Even so...’
‘When you two gentlemen have quite finished!’ Lisette frowned her frustration at them both. ‘Thank you,’ she bit out when she once again had the attention of both gentlemen. ‘You are not going anywhere today,’ she informed Christian. ‘And neither are you,’ she instructed the other man. ‘If Christian must go to London, then it will have to be tomorrow, after he has rested today and had a night’s sleep, and you will have to accompany him. I am sure, for the sake of her brother’s health, that your duchess will not mind your absence for one night.’
‘Oh, I don’t know about that—’
‘I should give it up, if I were you, Marcus,’ Christian advised as he saw the implacability of Lisette’s expression. ‘When Mademoiselle Lisette takes on that particular mutinous expression, I have found it is in everyone’s interest not to argue with her!’
Marcus’s eyebrows shot up into his hairline.
Not surprisingly; Marcus was well aware that Christian’s outwardly charming disposition hid a will of steel. It must be something of a surprise to the other man to learn that Christian appeared to have more than met his match in ‘Mademoiselle Lisette’.
It had come as something of a surprise to Christian, after his assumption that first evening that she was a shy innocent.
‘And while I am “resting and sleeping”, what will you be doing...?’ He now eyed Lisette guardedly.