by Edith Layton
*
Time, the surgeon said, time, the surgeon promised would answer all the questions modern medicine could not. “We’ll know how serious it is in time,” he’d said, for though the ball was out, and the broad bone it had lodged against still whole, for the fellow who’d loaded the ball into the gun had mercifully not notched it beforehand so that it would splinter into a dozen deadly shards on impact, still only “if the fever leaves and he does well will we know more,” he’d proclaimed, though Francesca couldn’t see what more there was to know beyond discovering if he’d ever come back to them. For this third day, after one spent in drugged sleep and another passed in unnatural, restless dreams, he slept on still and spoke now and again in a language she didn’t know to people who weren’t there.
“Querida, por favor, dame un poco de agua,” he said now, and Francesca looked from his flushed face to Julian’s drawn and white one, for the viscount hadn’t left his side, except to wash and eat and catch an odd hour of sleep, she knew, for he relieved her after those times.
“He asks for water again,” Julian said wearily.
“Who is ‘Querida’?” she dared ask at last, jealous of the lovely lady with the beautiful name he kept calling to.
“It only means ‘dear,’ and is only a light term of endearment. He was wounded once, in the Peninsula, and I expect he believes he is back there again now.”
“Hello, Julian, how are you, my dear Francesca?” the tall, slender long-nosed gentleman said softly as he came in the bedroom door, stripping off his driving gloves. He stopped then and looked down at Arden. “Oh, how are the mighty fallen,” he murmured. “I was hoping I was mistold or it was exaggerated, all the way here,” he mused, never taking his brilliant dark blue stare from the man on the bed.
“Warwick!” Julian said with sudden gladness sparking like lightning across the shadows in his handsome face, “But Susannah…” he protested as he looked at his newly arrived friend. “I sent word, but never thought you’d come.”
“Susannah is well, and well rid of me, for she says she’s had enough doting to last her through another confinement, and begged me to see to Arden, to get some surcease and time to herself at last as well as to aid him. She delivered my heirs the night you left, friends, yes—two—lavish lady that she is. A handsome young gent to fill my shoes and a pretty little sister to tell him how to go about it. And as the house is brimming now, since they arrived early and so we must engage a wet nurse as well as nurses—aren’t these details enchanting?—I ambled along to see what a pest of myself I could be here, at yet another bedside.”
But then the duke stopped jesting, although the joke had never reached so far as his eyes, and he’d never taken those eyes from the bed. “How goes he?” he said then, softly.
“Who knows?” Julian replied.
“You might ask me,” a faint rumble of a voice said querulously.
They grouped around the bed and looked down into the exhausted face that wore a faint triumphant grin.
“You must always have the last word, mustn’t you, my Lion?” Warwick asked, shaking his head as he took his friend’s hand.
“You bring out the worst in me, Duke,” Arden answered, his white teeth bright against the rusty stubble that had begun to cover his jaw, looking like a weary pirate as he smiled up at them. “Be sure to invite him to my wake, please, Fancy, so that I can come back to lift a glass with him.”
“What? Leaving so soon after you’ve arrived again?” Warwick asked.
“Have I returned?” Arden replied, and then wincing as he tried to sit up, he nodded. “Aye, I have.”
“We’ll leave you to get some sleep,” Julian said at once.
“Oh, I believe I’ve had enough,” Arden said, attempting to rise again, grimacing as he failed, and then putting up a hand to forestall Julian’s objections. “Don’t fret, nurse, I learn quickly, I’ll be still. But not sleeping, not just yet, for I’ve a mystery to solve or I’ll never be able to sleep easy again. I must know who came for me, you know.”
“I imagine whoever it was isn’t sleeping too easy neither, my gentle friend.” Warwick laughed. “I’d think anyone who aimed for you and missed would be a trifle…restless now. But don’t worry, we’ll aid and comfort you in every way we can.”
“In every way you may,” Arden carefully corrected him. “I don’t wish to share my sickbed, you know.”
“Selfish beast,” Julian muttered, and the gentlemen all laughed.
But Francesca didn’t, and it was as if Arden heard the absence of her laughter louder than he’d heard the rest.
“And you will stay on here with me, please, Francesca,” Arden said softly, and as her spirits rose and a great smile began to appear on her face, he added, “nor will you set foot without this door, I think, until we have the rogue in hand. Then, and only then, you may leave.”
Her smile faltered and she cast her gaze down, looking so troubled that Arden frowned and searched his blurred mind for something consoling, but not misleading, to say.
“Very officious for a man we can easily take advantage of now, don’t you think?” Warwick asked Julian lightly, looking a different question at him with one thin dark slightly raised brow.
“Well, I don’t know,” Julian replied, nodding slightly, as Arden continued to gaze at Francesca. “I think we might ask a few more fellows in to sit on him, even so, but then, if you like, I’d be glad to help take advantage of him with you. So for now, since we’re about six strong men short, if you don’t mind, Arden, you may plot, or plan, or read a book, or ask Francesca to dance, if you wish. But I,” he said on a huge yawn, “having actually for the first time in my life sat up with a sick friend for several nights, am for bed at last, thank you.”
“Yes,” Warwick agreed, “for it may be dawn to you, Arden, dear beautiful dreamer, but I rode for the better part of a day to get here, and having left at dawn, I feel rather like a centaur now, the bottom part, that is. I’ll see you in the morning, my Lion. Francesca,” he said on a sketch of a bow, and then put his arm about Julian’s shoulder and went to the door with him.
“But wait! Ah…yes,” Arden said, gathering his wits together, for it seemed he was, as his friends had guessed, still wearier than he knew. “Tell me, the twins, how are they?… Lord, who are they? And whom do they resemble?”
“The girl, poor thing,” Warwick said sadly, turning round to show his grieved expression, “looks like an angel, fair and blond as my lovely bride, but just like her deprived momma, she’s got the same lack—hardly any nose to speak of at all, poor little mite.”
“Perhaps it will grow,” Julian said sympathetically, as Arden grinned.
“Not much hope of that”—Warwick shook his head with a wonderful show of regret—“for her taller, darker brother, who came into the world a half-hour sooner, entered nose-first, thank heaven, like his papa. A great, lovely appendage he has already.” He sighed gratefully.
“Ah, Warwick, bragging about your appendages again,” Julian chided him, and laughing, after apologizing to Francesca, who was trying mightily not to smile, they left the room together.
“You did well,” Arden said to her after they’d gone. “Getting me here, ordering everyone about—my kind dictator. Come stand here, next to me, as you did these past days, for I saw you, you know, even if I couldn’t reach out of myself to tell you so. Yes,” he said as she came to his side again, “just so.” He took her hand, and closed his eyes. “Embarrassing,” he rumbled “to make a fine renunciation speech and then fall in a faint at your lady’s feet.”
She heard the “your lady” and stored it up before she answered him carefully, weighting each word so as not to distress him or herself.
“I worried for you, Arden,” she whispered, “although I didn’t dare say it aloud, but I did so worry that I might lose you—before and after your fine speech,” and then she grew very still, for she’d said it, at last, however subtly, just as she’d promised herself she would if he sur
vived through the long days and nights as she’d watched his struggle for a purchase on life again.
He was silent, and she thought he might have drifted to sleep, when he murmured, “Foolish chit. Only the good die young, you know.”
But he’d not argued about the other part of what she’d said, so she only smiled, and held his hand the tighter, until his even breathing told her he was at last in a healthy, healing slumber, and she dared hope his slight smile as he slept told her more.
She stayed a moment to watch him, feeling oddly self-conscious now as she hadn’t during the past days, because now she knew those amberine eyes could open and actually see and know her and recognize all the emotions he might surmise in her face. Odd, she thought, how powerful he looked now that she knew he was himself again. She remembered the shock of seeing how diminished and vulnerable he’d seemed when they’d brought him here senseless, for all his size, and for all his size that was when he’d frightened her the most since the day she’d met him. For she’d been terrified as she’d hovered at this bedside begging every deity she could remember for favor as she waited for the heat to leave his restless, turning brow, for the swelling to fade from that grotesque violation that marred the clear tanned skin on his muscular back, for strength to return to those inert limbs, and awareness to dawn so wit and charm could animate those closed, craggy features again to make them more exciting than any man’s she’d ever seen.
He was no beauty as Julian Dylan was, nor so elegant as his friend Warwick, not light and winning as Harry Devlin had been, nor as facile and insincere as her papa. No, he was big and complex and unique and different, her Arden Lyons. When he’d laid in this bed so close and yet so entirely gone from her, she’d realized that all she’d ever wanted in a man was gone then too. Then she’d been surprised at the depth of her feelings, but no longer. She accepted the rush of fierce protectiveness she felt even as she gazed down at him now. For his size meant nothing; she’d seen how quickly life could be taken from the most robust of men. And his size was as nothing to the measure of her emotions for him. Whatever he’d done, he’d never done a cruelty—that she was convinced of. Whatever he’d been was as nothing to what he was now and could be. And no matter what he planned, or what chanced next, however they parted, or for however long, while she lived he was hers, and would always be; she knew that now.
And yet when his eyelids flickered, if only at some bothersome moment in a passing dream, she caught her breath, and fled the room, lest he open his eyes to fathom what she now knew before she could conceal it decently, and so pity her, or worse, deny her yet again.
*
Two days later, against doctor’s orders but for the sake of domestic tranquility and everyone else’s sanity, the first visitor Arden summoned to his bedside came to call. After long years in the Duke of Peterstow’s employ, his long-suffering London butler didn’t so much as blink at the apparition which presented itself, hat in hand, at the front door, but to go so far as to announce him as a “gentleman” was more than he could suffer. “Mr. Sam Towers,” was all he said on the best-repressed shudder as he eyed the visitor’s finery—a snug mustard jacket, accompanied by canary pantaloons, tan topboots, and an extraordinary striped violently green waistcoat with gold buttons.
But Mr. Lyons said he thought his visitor looked fine as fivepence, straight off, and the duke and the viscount also nodded complete approval with perfectly straight faces, and Francesca rose up to greet him with great warmth, leaving only the butler and Roxanne to stand amazed.
As soon as the butler had left, Sam Towers spoke up, ignoring the compliment on his splendor. He faced the huge gentleman clad in a silken robe, propped up on a bank of pillows upon the bed, and looked him straight in the eyes.
“It wasn’t me, Lion,” he said. “My word, it wasn’t me.”
“I know,” Arden answered.
“Because,” his visitor went on, eager to have the thing out and said, “if I was vexed with you, Lion, I’d do you, certain, but back-shooting ain’t never my way.”
The ladies might not have been comforted by this reasoning, but the gentlemen all took it in the spirit in which it was offered.
“I know it well, Sam,” Arden said, “and never thought it was you for a moment. In fact, I have you to thank for your quick action in getting me here to my sawbones.”
“Didn’t have a choice.” Sam grinned, sliding a look to Francesca. “Your lady would have done for me if I didn’t hop to it.”
“True,” Arden laughed, but then looked at Sam keenly, and for all the big man had lost flesh in his recent illness, so that the strong bones in his face showed hard and clear, his eyes were as bright as ever and perhaps even more piercing by the way they dominated his face now. “But now, of course, I need your help again.”
“I reckoned”—Sam nodded back—“and I ain’t been dozing. I nosed it about, but didn’t need to, it’s all anybody’s been talking about, Lion. You got friends, man.” Sam shook his head. “I knew you was respected, but I didn’t know how much. People owe you, Lion, ’n everyone wants to pay up. If we knew who it was, he’d a been served up on a plate to you already, depend on it. The word is he’s a stranger.”
“But a clever man would hire a stranger to do dogs’ work,” Arden mused.
“Aye, I been there and back ahead o’ you,” Sam agreed, “and I’m looking ’n listening, ’n soon’s I hear, you will, my word on’t.”
“Your word is good enough for me,” Arden replied, and this praise caused Sam Towers’ thin, pale face to light up like a boy’s and he flushed in his pleasure as he said in an impassioned whisper, “Anytime, Lion, anytime you want in again, like I said, ’t would be an honor.”
And then, refusing food or drink, and backing away as he would from his king, Sam Towers promised word as soon as he had it, and bowing, left them.
“Sam told me no more than I expected,” Arden commented after his visitor had left and the company sat in silence, thinking of what they’d heard, “but I expect more from others, and as I can’t go to them because of my officious jailers, I must have them come to me until I know the score. No man has more than a pair of eyes and ears, but I’ve access to a city full of sniffing noses, and I’ll need to interview them. And some of them are…ah, exceptional, for all they’ll come here in all their finery and on their highest manners. So I think it best, Duke, if I remove to Stephen’s Hotel again now, for it won’t do to let the trail grow cold.”
“If you really think so, I’d think it best you remove to Bedlam, Lion,” Warwick said pleasantly. “Is it my reputation or my silver you worry about? I am a duke now, as you never allow me to forget, as well as embarrassingly rich. So though it grieves me to say it, knowing the standards of the ton, I believe the only way I could ruin my reputation now would be to paint myself purple and waltz nude into Almack’s. And at that, I might set a style, money and title being wonderful guarantees of acceptability. And as to the safety of my silverplate, I doubt any of your guests would so much as pick up a pin they thought you’d a care for. So, in fact, lodging you here will ensure my home being burglar-proof for the next sixty years, I’d think. If you attempt to leave me now, dear Lion,” Warwick summed up sweetly, “I’ll shoot you in the back again myself.”
Arden nodded. “Are you thinking of a career in politics now, your grace? You’ve got a most persuasive tongue. I’ll stay then, since I don’t care for more perforations in my pelt. But as for the ladies—I only let Francesca stay because she knew Sam, but from now on, ladies, from intimate knowledge of some of the players who’ll be presented here, I think it best we deal you out of this game.”
Roxanne shrugged, and was about to say it was no treat she was being denied, but Francesca’s glowing cheek had grown pallid at his words, and now she spoke up, shy but determined, struggling for the right words so as not to seem too forward, troubled because she was aware that too-careful consideration might make her seem backward.
“If it’s my sensib
ilities that you worry for, Arden, I remind you that I am my father’s daughter. If it’s my personal safety you’re concerned with, I’d think they’d have to shoot you dead to harm me with you here…but then again, as the duke says, with you here I doubt they’d dare so much as look at me crosswise. Anyway,” she said in a rush, remembering her recent success with persuasion and that the sweetest reason had succeeded best with a threat within, “I’m curious, and so I can’t promise that I won’t listen, at the door if you ban me.”
“Oh, marvelous,” Julian crowed.
“You’ve been keeping bad company, my child,” Warwick chided her, as enormously tickled by her threat as he was by the way she expressed it in her rough, low little voice.
Arden looked amazingly pleased, so he sighed, and shrugged until he realized such gestures were beyond him until his bandages came off, and so managed a truly pained expression as he said helplessly, “So, see then, how I am coerced. It’s a terrible thing to be at other people’s mercy.”