Truly Yours Read Online Free PDF Page A

a drink of cordial. “You are not faking this spell, are you, damn it, just to manipulate me into doing your bidding?”
    Still coughing, the earl shook his head no.
    “Say it, by Jupiter. Say you are truly too weak to go to London yourself.”
    “I . . . I am too weak in body . . . and in courage. Truly.”
    “Truly,” Rex echoed, defeated.
    Then the earl threw back his son’s words. “Bravery is your preserve, recall? Although no one would know it by the way you are acting.”
    Rex limped back to the mantel. “You think I am a coward for not taking up a life of indolence and indulgence?”
    “I think you are hiding here, yes. But I am not asking you to become a wastrel, nor to set yourself up as a Bow Street investigator. I merely ask you, on behalf of an old friend, to speak to the young lady, to listen and discover if she actually is guilty. That is all.”
    “Unless she is innocent, in which case I will have to stay in London long enough to destroy the Crown’s case against her.”
    “You said yourself she is likely guilty. Sir Frederick Hawley was a blackguard by all accounts, and it was a mere matter of time before someone took his measure.”
    “Someone took his life, dash it.” Rex ran his hand over the scar on his cheek. “Send funds for a competent barrister, then, who can argue that Miss—what did you say she was called?—acted in self-defense.”
    “I cannot. My . . . friend asked me to see to it personally.”
    Rex knew that deuced few of his father’s friends had stood by him. “Who the devil is this old friend, anyway, that you cannot simply say no?”
    “Miss Carville’s godparent. Your mother.”
    Rex threw his glass, the handblown, hand-etched crystal, into the fireplace.
     
Hell, London. Rex sat back against the seat of his father’s carriage, trying to ease the blinding pain that was already holding his head in a vise grip, and he was not halfway there. Every innkeeper, every livery stable owner, every serving girl along the way had lied to him. Every purveyor of foodstuffs or cattle or sex was trying to sell him inferior quality at superior prices because of the crest on his father’s coach. Even the offers from the tavern wenches were lies, for he could read the disgust in their eyes when they noticed his limp and his scar. Oh, they would still take his coin for a hasty tumble, and another if they promised not to speak, but the welcoming smile was a lie. So he kept his coins—including the ones he had learned to offer doxies to keep them from feigning orgasm, so his own pleasure was not ruined by that particular, inconveniently timed falsehood. Why, if half those lusty fellows who considered themselves such great lovers— aye, and half the married men, too—could only know the truth, their ballocks would burn in shame.
    So Rex did not accept the offers of companionship, although a brief interlude of mindless pleasure would have given his thoughts a needed rest. Hell, he did not need company; he had Murchison. His father’s valet caught Rex’s glance and silently handed over a clay jug of ale, mixed with a headache powder. Of course he was silent, for Murchison never spoke. He wrote notes when he had to, or used hand gestures. He did not hear, either, the earl insisted, although Rex had always misdoubted the small, bald man’s disabilities, for Murchison was too knowing for a supposedly deaf man, always providing precisely what was needed, which was why his father had insisted Rex take the valet along.
    “You cannot go about the way you look now,” Lord Royce had declared, curling his lip at Rex’s disarray.
    “I have absolutely no intention of going about, as you say.” The last thing Rex was prepared to do was reenter society.
    “You will be calling on a lady, even if she is in prison. She deserves your respect.”
    “Perhaps you want me to wear satin knee breeches to call on your murderess at Newgate? Or my dress uniform?” Officially, Rex was still on sick leave,