A loud report was followed by the shattering of glass. The window of her chamber fell to the floor in a thousand pieces. Something whisked past her shoulder, leaving a stinging sensation in its wake. Bits of plaster ceiling and dust rained down from overhead.
Her arm was wet. Wet and burning. Tickling. Something was sticky and warm on her flesh. She pressed a hand to the sleeve of her gown, her fingers finding it torn and ragged. More wetness greeted her fingertips.
In shock, she examined her fingers.
They were dripping with scarlet.
Blood. Her own.
Dear God, she had been shot.
A scream tore from her throat.
Her vision turned dark around the edges. She felt hot, then cold. The prickle of perspiration broke out on her forehead. And then her knees went weak. The door to her chamber burst open, and the faint sound of a deep voice calling her name reached her.
But it was too late.
Her world went black.
Devil was accustomed to all manner of violence. Knife attacks, gunshot wounds, fires. The only constant in the rookeries was that anything could happen at any time, and a man was never truly safe. He was always prepared, even in his sleep.
But the gunshots fired into his half brother’s Mayfair townhome?
He had not been expecting them.
Dom and Lady Adele were not at home this morning, having both gone to The Devil’s Spawn, leaving Devil to the work of beginning his new plan of protecting the townhome and its occupants. One moment, he was instructing his men on where they were to be stationed, and the next, the unmistakable sound of shots being fired erupted from the street. He was running before the shattering glass and the scream. Heart thundering in his chest, he plowed through the door of Lady Evangeline’s chamber.
One of the windows was shattered, shards glittering all over the floor as the window dressings blew in the wind. She was on the floor in a heap of cream-colored skirts and crimson blood.
Devil was on his knees at her side in an instant. The sleeve of her gown was torn, covered in red. Her fingers were coated, her face pale. But her breathing was steady, her bosom rising and falling. He wasted no time in lifting her in his arms and carrying her from the chamber, lest there was any further danger. Such a tiny thing she was, light as a bird in his arms. She felt like something fragile and delicate, fashioned of porcelain rather than human flesh. But she was all too real, capable of being harmed. Her blood spilled.
Fuck.
He needed to assess the extent of her wounds.
His men caught up to him in the hall.
“Get to the street,” he barked at them as he carried a limp Lady Evangeline toward his chamber. “Find the bastard responsible for this!”
They hurried to do his bidding. He stalked down the hall to the guest chamber he had been given and shouldered his way through the door. Lady Evangeline was coming to in his arms, groaning. He laid her on his bed, taking care not to jostle her.
Golden lashes fluttered. Gently, he brushed the curls framing her face aside. Her eyes opened, wide, brown pools. The color was returning to her cheeks. All good signs.
“Where are you injured?” he asked, assessing her bleeding wound.
Through the ruined fabric, he detected what appeared to be a long line on her upper arm.
“Just…my arm. I think.” She blinked, then struggled to sit up.
He kept her still by flattening his palm over her unwounded shoulder. “No moving.”
He needed to make certain she was not bleeding anywhere else. It was possible a lone bullet had grazed her and that was the extent of the damage. But he had also seen men with bullets lodged in their backs who had been in shock and hadn’t realized they had been wounded.
Devil tore off the remainder of her sleeve and pressed it lightly to her wound, staying the blood flow. She inhaled sharply, her body tensing at the pain. Anger sliced through him. Someone had dared to shoot through the window of Dom’s home in the midst of fancy Mayfair. And Lady Evangeline had been injured. Someone intended to do her harm. And Devil had failed to protect her.
“Do you have pain anywhere else?” he asked her, his voice more gruff than he intended.
He was bloody furious. Furious at the unknown enemy who had hurt her, furious at himself for not preventing it from happening.
“No.” She shifted again, trying to sit up.
Once more, he flattened his hand against her collarbone, preventing her from moving. “Stay still. I need to make certain you aren’t hurt anywhere else.”
“Where did you bring me?” she demanded, some of her queenly ice returning. “I cannot be alone with you in a bedchamber, Mr. Winter.”
Milady was back.
He released his pressure on her wound and made a cursory search of her person, ignoring her outrage. She’d been shot, damn it.
“What are you doing, sir?” she asked as he flipped up her skirts.
He had a brief glimpse at the paradise beneath her petticoats. Petite legs encased in stockings, curved thighs.
No wounds, so he settled her gown back into place. “Checking you for signs of injury.”
“I told you my only wound is my arm.” She wriggled, as if trying to escape him.
But he possessed more strength in his pinky finger than she did in her entire body. Keeping her where he wanted her proved no challenge. “Stop talking.”
“You are incredibly rude, sir!”
He ignored her, making quick work of checking her everywhere he could before returning his attention to her sole wound. She had been fortunate. If the bullet had lodged within her arm…
No, he would not think of that now.
The bleeding had already slowed, but there was the possibility she would need to be stitched up. His half sister Genevieve was a wonder with the needle. The wound would also require cleaning. He wondered if Dom had any whisky in this wealthy nib house of his.
“Stay here,” he ordered her. “Wait for me.”
Then he stalked off in search of supplies, aid, and answers.
He had issued his command to her as if she were a dog.
Even in pain, her wounded arm throbbing, Evie had no intention of doing Devil Winter’s bidding. He could go back to Hades where he belonged. Besides, was he not meant to be guarding her? And yet, during his supposed watch, someone had fired a bullet through her window.
And she was bleeding. Wounded. Part of her still felt as if it had all been a nightmare, and that any moment she would wake to find herself beneath the counterpane. But the pain radiating from her arm reminded her the predicament in which she found herself helplessly mired was all too real. As did her surroundings.
The arrogant oaf had carried her to a guest chamber she suspected was his.
Which meant…she was on his bed. The bed where he had slept last night. And his hands had been on her. He had looked beneath her gown and petticoats. He had taken shocking liberties with her person.
Lord Denton would not be pleased if he discovered, she had no doubt.
Evie slid from the bed, clutching her torn sleeve to the wound lest she bleed everywhere. The blood on her hand, already drying, made her feel as if her head were too light for her body. It also made the room swirl a bit around the edges as she swayed toward the door.
She had scarcely made it to the threshold when a loud growl, accompanied by the thud of large footsteps, told her that her unwanted bodyguard had returned.
“Damn it, I told you to wait.”