The Captain and the Wallflower

by Lyn Stone

The carriage halted and Trent bolted out. Two footmen joined him at the carriage door and Grace saw them half lift Caine from the interior. She ran forward. “Is it true? Was he shot?”

  Trent nodded, his gaze still on Caine as the men carried him. “He wouldn’t stay abed as Ackers ordered. The ride was too much. Now he’s fevered and weak.”

  “Bring him upstairs,” she ordered, running ahead of them to prepare. “Mrs. Bowden, Mrs. Oliver! Come quickly! Bring the medicines!” she shouted from the vestibule. Now was no time for decorum. Her captain needed care.

  Late into the night Grace tended Caine, bathing his face, arms and chest with cold cloths and dosing him with feverfew and willow-bark tea. He was out of his head with fever.

  The men had undressed him and covered him decently before leaving him in her care. Grace had ordered them out, along with Mrs. Oliver, ignoring the woman’s protests that an unmarried lady should not attend a grown man’s sickbed.

  Doing so was in no way proper and Grace knew it, but she was to be the man’s wife, after all. She had more knowledge of tending the ill than all of them together. And she was, given Caine’s present inability to give orders, the ranking member of the household.

  She held his head as he drank the willow-bark tea Mrs. Oliver brought up. “We will need more,” Grace told her. “Prepare yarrow, as well. The receipt is in the medicine book. I will ring for you when I need it.”

  When the woman left, Grace removed the sheet that covered Caine. She recalled everything her father had recommended for a fever resulting from a wound, and all that she had read about it in his books.

  The fever was natural, occurring with almost every injury of any consequence, but she could not let it grow so hot as to do damage of its own. He would not die from this, she thought, unless left untended. She silently thanked her father for all those valuable lessons and the freedom he had given her curiosity.

  She determined to remain detached from the feelings generated by her first sight of Caine’s unclothed form. There were scars he had never mentioned that few people would ever see but her. Those were probably nothing compared to the ugly ones imposed on his soul by things he must have seen in the war.

  Every comment since, every look askance at the evidence of his last battle must dredge up the pain of it all. This man had suffered too much. “Poor lamb,” she whispered as she bathed his body to cool it.

  He was a well-made man, strong and vital. She knew he would recover. And he would be hers. Eventually she would lie with him, feel the strength and warmth of his embrace. The very thought created a fever inside her that nearly rivaled his. Could she make him want her as she wanted him?

  She shook off the salacious thoughts and sighed at her foolishness. He would be mortified if he knew of it and so would she if he woke up and found her looking at him.

  For hours, Grace tended him diligently, then finally he began to sweat. When he groaned and shivered with cold, she wrapped him again in the sheet, added blankets and sat beside him as he slept.

  Trent knocked and entered the room around midnight. “Let me sit with him awhile, Grace. You look done in.”

  “No,” she said absently. “I’m well enough.”

  “Harrell spoke to me about your guest and I released Neville from your makeshift jail.”

  “Was that wise?” Grace asked.

  “It’s all right. He’s returning to London in something of a snit. Neville’s no longer a suspect. He has been helping us and insisted on coming immediately when he heard that Caine had been wounded and was unable to protect you. Said it was his duty as family to stand in for his cousin.”

  “So you and Caine do not believe he could be involved in the attempts?” Grace turned to see Trent shake his head. “Well, he will get no apology from me until I know for certain he’s innocent!”

  Trent stood at the foot of the bed, his gaze fastened on Caine. “Is he improving?”

  “The fever has broken, but he’s exhausted by it and his sleep is deep. I must keep him cool.”

  “Here, let me.” He took the cloth from her, dipped and wrung it out, then placed it on Caine’s brow. “I owe him my life, Grace. Trust me to tend him awhile.” He shot her a crooked smile. “Sorry, I realize you never offered me the privilege of dropping the courtesy. Do you mind?”

  She sighed, flapped a hand and sat down heavily in the armchair by the window. “You might as well. I suppose we are to be constantly in each other’s company.”

  “You don’t like me, do you, Grace?”

  She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. She did not want to have a conversation at all and certainly not about this, but unless she left the room, it could hardly be avoided. “I like you very well, Lord Trent.”

  “Just Trent, please. And yes, I daresay we will see much of one another in future. I hope to be your friend, as well as Caine’s.”

  “Then answer me this, friend. You have never approved of my marriage to him,” Grace said. “Why is that?”

  Trent met her gaze steadfastly. “I objected to his choosing you on impulse, almost without thought, so I believed. But since? Well, I now believe you are perfect for him in every way.”

  Grace wasn’t sure he was sincere, but at the moment, hardly cared one way or the other, she was so tired. “Fine then. See if you can get him to drink more of that tea, will you?”

  “What’s in it?” Trent asked as he raised Caine’s head and lifted the cup to his lips.

  “Yarrow,” she explained, too fashed to feel much other than impatience. “It rids a body of impurities and helps to fight off a return of the fever.”

  He gave a little grunt of a laugh. “I read once that yarrow’s a witch’s brew, used as a love charm.”

  “Ask him how loving he feels when he wakes and is calling for the chamber pot ever quarter hour,” she retorted. An indelicate statement, she knew, but did not care in the least. She was exhausted and in no mood to be teased. “I’ll leave him to you then.”

  “As well you should.”

  They settled into an uncomfortable silence for some minutes. Then he turned to her, keeping his voice low as he spoke. “Grace, do you know Wardfelton’s factor?”

  She was not surprised he had changed the topic from bodily functions. Though she would have preferred not to talk at all, she answered. “His solicitor? Yes. Mr. Sorenson. I met him a number of times. He was often at the house the first year I came. Less later on, I think, but I hadn’t the run of the place then, so I’m not certain. Why? Do you suspect him of conspiring with my uncle in some way?”

  Trent busied himself with the cloth, wringing it out and laying it again on Caine’s brow. “I wonder if this Sorenson might have embezzled your inheritance and feared he’d be found out when the marriage settlement was arranged. That’s the only motive he would have for getting rid of either of you. Of course, that could be Wardfelton’s reason, as well. Could be either of them or they could be in collusion.”

  Grace sat up straighter and tried to clear her head. “My uncle told me often that I had no funds left to me. He could be right. I doubt my father had much personal wealth when he died, since he was a country doctor and hadn’t many well-to-do patients. Whatever he had after he inherited was probably allied with the title and property that went next to my uncle.”

  “We shall see,” Trent told her. “Meanwhile, you needn’t worry. This place is proof against any threat at the moment and we will see it stays so until you and Caine are married. Then he will have the authority to sort out anything that has to do with your inheritance.”

  Grace thought about that. “Morleigh will own me then,” sh
e muttered to herself. “But he has promised me a certain freedom.”

  Trent laughed softly. “Straining at the bit already? What sort of wife will you be, I wonder.”

  “Perhaps an absent or an invisible one, a name on the marriage lines to satisfy his lordship’s decree. That is what Caine was after when he chose me, was it not?” That sounded bitter to her own ears, and was in fact how she felt.

  “Ah, but if I know you, you will never settle for that,” Trent said.

  Grace frowned and crossed her arms over her chest and closed her eyes, dismissing the topic and Trent. No, she would not settle for it. She wanted the captain and she would have him.

  *

  “He doesn’t want to see you,” Trent said as he met Grace in the corridor outside the sickroom the next morning. He had finally convinced her to go to bed and rest and now she was returning after a few hours of sleep. Then he clarified, “Rather, he doesn’t want you to see him.”

  “But that’s absurd! I spent most of the night in there. I’ve already seen him.” More of him than anyone realized, Grace thought with a huff. “How am I to tend him if he won’t let me in?”

  Trent pointed to the stairs. “He had me send for the village doctor. That’s probably him coming up now.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “With his lancet and bowl, no doubt. Or leeches.”

  “No!” She knew the man. He had been summoned by Mr. Harrell after John Coachman was shot. He was an apothecary, as well as a surgeon, and seemed competent enough for one of that ilk, but he was no physician. She trusted Caine’s treatment to no one but herself.

  Grace tried to push past Trent, but he held her back. She had the irresistible urge to stamp on his foot. “I will not let Caine be bled!”

  “Simmer down,” he insisted. “I won’t allow it, I promise. The wound needs to be looked at, Grace. So go, have your breakfast and leave him to the doctor and me. Caine’s surly now that he’s lucid and you don’t want to go in there.”

  “But I have to—”

  “Grace?” Trent patted her shoulders as his hands rested there. “Humor me, please. Caine’s somewhat indisposed and a female attending him would not be the thing at all.”

  “Oh.” She felt her face heat. It was one thing to bandy about indelicate matters at midnight in a sickroom when feeling too exhausted for propriety, quite another to speak openly of them in the bright light of day.

  The village doctor reached the top of the stairs and gave them a nod as he approached.

  “Well, then…” She backed out of Trent’s grasp and straightened her skirts with a nervous gesture. “Call me if I am needed.”

  “On the instant, trust me.”

  She watched uneasily as he ushered the doctor into Caine’s bedchamber and closed the door behind them. For a few moments, she stood there listening, heard the muffled sound of Caine’s angry protests and smiled. He sounded strong enough to fend off lancets and leeches on his own.

  Filled with a sense of satisfaction that she had done the best she could for him, Grace went downstairs to see how the household had been faring without her direction.

  For two days, she kept busy with the duties she had assumed, she sewed on her trousseau, she collected herbs and flowers from the gardens. And periodically, she attempted to gain access to the patient.

  Caine was having none of it. He obviously did not want her to see him as he was, just as Trent declared. She wondered if he realized that she had seen him in a much more vulnerable state and felt embarrassed to face her.

  She admitted that if the situation were reversed, she would probably feel the same. Still, she could not resist pushing, always unsuccessfully, for a brief visit. She quite missed Caine and was somewhat miffed that he was not missing her.

  On the afternoon of his third day at Wildenhurst, Grace was just coming down for tea when the butler met her at the foot of the stairs. “An unfamiliar coach and four approaches, my lady,” Mr. Judd informed her. “Mr. Harrell and the lads are at the ready.”

  Grace nodded. “If the visitors offer no threat, show them to the drawing room. I will be there directly.”

  She hurried back upstairs and went straight to Caine’s room to fetch Trent. When she knocked, he opened the door immediately and blocked her view of the interior.

  His dishabille surprised her. Trent was usually dressed to the nines wherever she saw him. Today, he appeared exhausted and unkempt in rolled-up sleeves and his shirt gaping open at the neck. “Sorry, his nibs still won’t see you, Grace. Perhaps later in the day.”

  “It’s you I wanted. Someone’s coming to visit, in a coach and four, no less. Will you greet them with me? I fear it might be my uncle.”

  Caine piped up, ostensibly from the bed. “Trent! Send one of the lads to help me dress.”

  “You stay exactly where you are!” Trent ordered over his shoulder. “Give me a moment,” he said to Grace. “Do not go down without me.”

  She agreed. He had to don his neckcloth, coat and, she hoped, a loaded pistol.

  Her stomach tightened with a knot of apprehension. It would be very like Wardfelton to barge in unannounced, demanding she return with him, especially if he thought Caine was still in London. Or if he knew Caine was wounded. That would mean that he…

  A sudden commotion and voices in the vestibule downstairs demanded attention. Grace peeked over the railing.

  “How is he, I say? Someone get that gel here with answers! Judd, step lively, man. Go find her!”

  Trent ran down the corridor and took Grace’s arm. “Come, that’s his lordship’s bellow. Hurry down before he bursts a vein. What the hell is the old rascal doing here, I wonder?”

  “Apparently he’s come to see after Caine! We should have sent word.”

  “God, yes. I forgot,” Trent whispered. “He’ll be furious we haven’t.” They reached the curve in the stairs and saw the earl glaring up at them. “Rest easy, milord. Your heir is alive and well.”

  “You there,” he said with a curt nod to Grace. “Is my nephew abed then?”

  She dropped a curtsy. “He is, sir, but recovering nicely. Your rooms are ready for you, as usual. You must be exhausted after such a long journey.”

  “Yes, yes. Damned annoying,” he admitted gruffly, leaning heavily on his countess’s arm. “Not at all the thing, is it, Bewley? Haring about like we used to.”

  “No, dear,” Lady Hadley murmured. She smiled rather vacantly at Grace. “We came early for the wedding. There is still to be one?”

  Grace wasn’t altogether certain there would be, but she nodded. “I believe so, ma’am. Would you like to go up to your rooms now? I’ll send someone to lay a fire.”

  “Nonsense!” barked the earl. “Not cold enough to waste wood.”

  “A fire would take the chill off, Haddie,” the countess said. “A nice pot of tea, too. And biscuits.”

  Trent had gone forward to assist the earl. “Mr. Judd and I will help you up, sir.”

  “Hmmph. Damned nuisance this. Used to bound up steps like a leaping buck. I could still do it if I took the notion.” He issued a rumbling cough and slung one arm around Trent’s neck. Judd took the other, relieving the countess, and they lifted his legs to carry him.

  Grace watched their awkward ascent, then looked to Lady Hadley. “Is the earl getting on better these days?”

  “Yes, it seems so,” the countess said with a heavy sigh. “Dr. Ackers is to follow later today.”

  “Good news. He can see to the captain’s wound when he comes.”

  Lady Hadley didn’t remark any further.

  “Come, take my arm,” Grace offered. “We’ll go up to
gether and I’ll send Jane down for your tea while Mr. Judd lays a fire for you.”

  “You’re a sweet girl, Belinda,” the lady said.

  Grace smiled. “It’s Grace, ma’am. Remember? Belinda…declined.”

  “Oh, yes, of course. Declined.” A soft chuckle. “The pretty one.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Grace sighed and held the countess’s arm as they slowly climbed up the stairs. “She was the pretty one.”

  “Aunt Hadley!”

  Grace looked up. Caine stood beside the newel post at the first-floor landing, frowning at his aunt. He was barefoot, wearing a belted banyan over a wrinkled linen shirt and dark trousers. His hair was sleep tousled and he badly needed a shave. She felt the maddest urge to hug him.

  “It’s all right, Caine,” she said with a slight shake of her head. “We have everything in hand. You should go back to bed.”

  “Darling boy!” his aunt cooed, “You look a fright! We so hoped to find you well of your ague! Are you fevered?”

  He sighed and accepted the woman’s embrace when she gained the landing and reached out. “No fever, Aunt Hadley. I’m feeling fine.” He peered at Grace over the woman’s shoulder and mouthed the words, “I’m so sorry.”

  “Her ladyship is probably tired.” Grace smiled at him as she passed by them, unable to resist touching his sleeve. “See her to her chamber, then, if you’re up to it. I’ll find Jane to tend her.”

  She wondered if anyone had told the Hadleys the truth about Caine’s having been shot. More likely, the countess only imagined he had the ague rather than believe anyone would fire a gun at her nephew.

  Grace wished to heaven the wedding were over and everyone but Caine would leave for London. Perhaps she was more like the countess than she realized in trying to deny unpleasantness.

  Chapter Twelve

  The afternoon had taken its toll on Grace. The Hadleys’ arrival had further stirred the household, already in a state of flurry and worry due to Caine’s wounded presence. Then Dr. Ackers had come from London to tend the earl, eager to have a private conversation with Grace about her father’s patients and Withering’s research.