Page 67 of The Number of Love
“Don’t you go a step closer or I’ll—”
“This is between me and—”
“I don’t know who you are, you idiot, but when you go around punching a man who was just shot, it becomesmybusiness.”
Drake drew in a breath, rather experimentally, and slid his hand to his injury. He couldn’t detect any fresh blood. The blighter had landed his fist on the side opposite the wound. That was something. Perhaps it would be only pain and not a reopening that would set him back another week or two.
“He probably deserved to get shot if he goes around interfering with everyone else like he did with—”
A solidwhackdrew Drake’s attention from the street just in time to see Camden stagger back and Red’s fist recoiling from where it had met with the idiot’s jaw.
Apparently Drake had a bodyguard. And apparently he needed one.
His next breath still hurt, but not quite as much as the previous. He forced himself to sit up a little bit straighter. Camden wasn’t taking a return swing at Red, anyway, just glaring at Drake as if his eyes were flamethrowers.
That told him quite a bit, really. Drake tried to smile, though it felt more like a grimace. “You know, Cam, we civilized people usually greet old chums with a ‘hello’ rather than a fist.”
Camden pushed Red away and dabbed at the corner of his mouth, still staring at Drake. “You ought to have stayed out of it. It’s no concern of yours if I rot in prison or am executed.”
Had Hall told him Drake was the one who’d suggested he recruit him? That was a bit surprising. But apparently so, as otherwise Camden couldn’t possibly have made the connection. “I didn’t do itfor you.” His smile emerged a little surer this time. “I did it for your mother. Don’t you remember when I kept you from getting expelled when we were twelve? She sent me biscuits every week for a year.”
Camden’s laugh could better be termed a breath. But his shoulders sagged, and the flames shooting from his eyes died down to coals. Stepping around Red—who probably would have lunged at him again if Drake hadn’t given him a little shake of the head—Camden fell onto the bench beside him. “She’ll probably start a campaign for you to be knighted for this.”
“Then I’ll practice answering toSir Drake, because once your mother sets her mind to a thing, it’s all but guaranteed.”
There, a hint of a smile. Just a hint of one, in one corner of Camden’s mouth. But it sure beat a fist.
Camden sighed and rubbed a hand over his jaw, which was reddening. “You were shot?”
“Only a bit.”
“Only abit?” Red, looking just as irritated with Drake now as he was with Camden, stepped forward, glowering. “You nearly died, and you are nowhere near ready to be on your feet out here. What were you thinking coming outside on your own?”
Camden sent Red one of the smirks that had landed him in the headmaster’s office at least once a week in their school days. “You know, Elton, you seem to have got cheated on the nursemaid front. She isn’t pretty at all.”
Red’s fingers curled into fists again. “Are you spoiling for another fight, you—”
“Yes. He is.” Drake held up a hand to keep Red that crucial step away. “Kindly don’t oblige him.”
Camden only glanced briefly at Drake, but the glance was directed at his abdomen, which he hadn’t yet convinced his hand to release. Camden pursed his lips. “That’s not the side I hit, is it?”
Drake forced his spine a little straighter. “Luckily not or I’d be on the ground instead of a bench.”
Camden swallowed. He wouldn’t apologize—he never did. But he nodded and said, “I’ll owe you one.”
And a favor from Phillip Camden was worth more than an apology from any other man anyway. Drake grinned as best he could. “Excellent. I shall be sure to collect at the most inconvenient moment possible.”
Camden produced a smile too. A fleeting one, soon gone. “I think your nursemaid would like you to get back inside now, Elton. She looks ready to cluck at any moment.”
Red looked ready to take another swing at him, more like.
Drake cleared his throat and hoped Red had the sense not to rise to the bait. He motioned him forward. “Could you give me a hand up, Holmes?” He usually would have tried to regain his feet without help, but if Red was busy supporting him, he wouldn’t be able to engage with Camden again.
Red stepped forward without taking his wary gaze off Camden and hooked a hand under Drake’s elbow.
Shocking was the fact that Camden hooked one under his other and helped get him back to his feet, somehow managing the act with a look on his face that denied he was doing it to be kind. Camden didn’t believe in ever being caught in an act of kindness.
Drake directed his thanks only toward Red, who was muttering something about the apparent dangers of choosing the wrong sorts of friends and leaning down to retrieve the cane Drake must have let fall in the scuffle.
