An English Lord's Love Affair

Chapter 8.2. Wild And Dangerous

   After breakfast into order to avoid giving her secret away, Charlotte excused herself to hide her stolen breakfast in the Chinese vase in the hall and to take a walk in the rambling garden. Without realizing it she found herself standing beneath the scene of her latest crime, her own bedchamber window. The thought of Benedic hiding inside her room sent her into a fresh panic. Prisoner or not, she had to get rid of him.

   How precisely was she to bring this about? He needed help. Yet he had forbidden her to fetch a physician, and she could hardly sneak one upstairs without alerting the entire house, if not the village. She considered the wisdom of asking her uncle's advice. But to do so would risk ruining the viscount's plans for revenge, breaking her word to him. Better to get him back on his feet and out of her life.

   She turned in hesitation toward the stables. Perhaps she should go to the apothecary's. But a scandalous young lady asking for a salve to treat a stab wound would definitely arouse suspicion. There was little time to waste. She had to exorcise the ghost who had taken over her life.

   "Good mornin', Lady Charlotte," the undergroom said politely as he noticed her at the door. "Would you like to take an early ride today?"

   Charlotte stirred from her trance. The brawny young man was diligently currying Paulina's chestnut gelding. She drew a breath and remembered the angry gash the animal had received a week or so ago from kicking at the fence. The horse's hind leg had healed beautifully.

   "What was that stuff you put on her leg when she got hurt, Tommy?"

   "A salve of herbs and oils I buy every year from the gypsies, my lady."

   She watched him a few seconds longer. "It certainly appears to have worked."

   "'Tain't nothing better. I used it myself when I got cut up in a box fight at the fair." He wiped his cheek with his sinewy forearm, motioning with the currycomb to earthenware jar and green bottle on the rough shelf above. "The ointment and that tonic there'll fix about anything, I reckon."

   Charlotte stared in fascination at the dark glass bottle. She wondered if she dare. Had Benedic left her with any other choice? Did the arrogant man actually believe that having escaped death once, he could continue to do so?

   She waited several minutes until Tommy went out into the paddock before helping herself to his gypsy cures. Her mouth was dry as she returned to the house and retrieved the hidden meal from the vase. If anyone asked why she was in possession of breakfast sausages and a disgusting Romany potion, she supposed she could say that she had found a wounded animal and wanted to save it.

   It was not, after all, that far from the truth. Benedic Farningham was as wild and dangerous as any untamed animal she would ever encounter.

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