A Gentleman Always Remembers
Page 21
“How is she feeling?” Eve asked, moving quietly up beside Lily.
“She’s very feverish. She’s been sleeping most of the time I’ve been here. Betsy has looked in on her all morning, as well as taking care of the maids upstairs who are sick. So I sent her down to get something to eat and a bit of rest. When she comes back Mr. Carr and I are going to visit with Monsieur Leveque to keep his spirits up.”
“Thank you, dear.”
“I don’t mind. I’m just worried about Cam.” Lily cast a glance over at her sister, her forehead knitting. “She’s never sick. I don’t remember when I’ve ever seen her this way.”
“I’m sure she will recover. Camellia is a strong young woman—healthy and strong-willed. It would take more than measles to defeat her.”
Lily smiled. “I know. She’ll feel better soon.”
“Of course I will,” said a scratchy voice from the bed, and both of them turned to look at Camellia, whose eyes were open. She smiled weakly.
“Oh, Cam, are you feeling better?” Lily asked.
“I’m not any worse. But my throat hurts something awful.”
Lily poured her a glass of water from the pitcher beside her bed and helped Camellia sip from it.
“Stupid,” Camellia said. “I feel so weak. Why is it so hot in here?”
“It’s you, silly,” Lily told her. “You’re hot, not the room.”
There was a shriek in the corridor outside, followed by a crash. Lily darted to the door and opened it, followed by Eve. The maid Betsy stood outside, a tray on the floor before her, along with a small earthenware jug, which somehow was miraculously not broken but was turned on its side, spilling out a pale liquid.
“Who’re you!” Betsy was saying as they opened the door. She was facing a young man who appeared equally as frightened as the maid. “What’re you doing here?” Betsy whirled as the door opened, and her face registered relief. “Mrs. Hawthorne. Miss Bascombe. I found this stranger in the hall. I’m terribly sorry. It gave me a turn.”
She squatted and began to clean up the mess on the floor.
“But I’m Gordon,” the young man was saying, almost pleadingly. “I’ve been here before.” He turned to Eve and Lily, and his face creased with puzzlement. “I say, do I know you?”
The young man was dressed all in black except for a white shirt and the snowy cravat at his neck. His brown hair was carefully tousled, and a curl fell artfully forward onto his forehead.
Lily gazed back at him with great interest. “I think I know you,” she told him. “Aren’t you that man who was with Sir Royce when we met him? Only you were dressed very differently. You probably don’t remember; you were drunk as a wheelbarrow. We are cousins, aren’t we?”
The young man blushed and cast a mortified glance at Eve. “Beg pardon, ma’am.”
“Lily, that is the sort of thing young ladies don’t announce to the world.”
“But it’s just us,” Lily replied mildly. “I wouldn’t say so to a stranger. But I was the one who saw him in his cups, and he was the one who was inebriated, so we both know about it already. You are the only one who didn’t, and you won’t get all high in the instep over it, will you?”
“No, but I fear your—cousin, is it?—might not be accustomed to your way of speaking.” Eve looked toward the young man.
“I’m sorry. I should introduce you, shouldn’t I?” Lily said. “Eve, this is Gordon—only I don’t know your last name. You’re Aunt Euphronia’s son, aren’t you? Or is it Aunt Phyllida?”
“Mr. Gordon Harrington, ma’am.” The young man executed a bow. “At your service.” To Lily he added, “I am Lady Euphronia Harrington’s son.”
“I thought so.”
“It’s the dandy,” Camellia offered from inside her room.
Gordon looked startled and moved closer to the door, peering into the room.
“He’s the fop. The one who knew that silly man who kicked Pirate.” Camellia pushed herself higher in her bed.
Gordon’s eyebrows went up. “Kicked a pirate? I’m sure I don’t know anyone . . .”
“No, not a pirate. Pirate the dog.”
“Ah.” He looked more confused than ever, but before he could speak a door opened down the hall, and Neville Carr started toward them.
Carr stopped at the sight of the group in the hall. He stared at them for a moment, then his eyes opened wide, and he exclaimed, “Good Gad! Gordy? Is that you?”
Gordon whirled, his face flooding with relief. “Carr! I’m devilish glad to see you. What’s going on here? No one answered the door, so I finally just came in, and there were no servants about until that maid screamed when she saw me. Then, of course, I met you ladies—” He offered an apologetic smile to Eve and Lily, with a wary glance toward Camellia in the darkened room. “But I’m afraid I don’t know you, either, though, of course, if you are my cousins, I am very glad to meet you.” He swung back toward Neville. “Did you know that there’s a Frenchman in a room down the hall?”
“I did,” Neville allowed, sauntering toward them.
“He came here in a balloon and broke his leg,” Lily offered.
“Ah, I see,” Gordon replied faintly, eyeing his cousin as if he thought she might be half mad.
Neville chuckled. “It’s the truth, my dear fellow.” He joined the group and leaned his head into the room. “How are you, Miss Camellia?”
“It’s terribly hot in here,” Camellia told him.
“Yes, dear, and you should try to sleep,” Eve said. “We’re going to leave you alone now. Betsy . . .” She turned toward the maid, still crouched on the floor. “As soon as that’s done would you sit with Miss Camellia?”
Eve closed Camellia’s door. “Why don’t we repair to the drawing room? Lily, you can ring for tea.”
“What’s happened?” Gordon asked again as they trooped down the stairs to the drawing room. “Where is everyone? Is that girl sick?”
“Miss Camellia Bascombe? Yes, she has the measles, I’m afraid.”
“The measles!” Gordon’s eyes threatened to pop from his head. “Good Lord. Well. Oh dear.”
“Have you ever had the measles, Gordon?” Neville asked.
“I don’t know.” The young man looked distinctly nervous. “I’d have to ask my mother. But I surely—I must have.”
“Mm. One hopes.”
When they had settled in the drawing room and Lily had rung for tea, Neville turned to Gordon, saying, “What’s happened to you, lad? It’s no wonder the maid didn’t recognize you. I barely knew you myself.”
“I haven’t changed that much,” Gordon replied somewhat defensively. “The girl must be new.”
“She’s been here for years. She told me,” Lily informed him. “Didn’t you recognize her?”
Gordon looked at her oddly. “Well, no. But . . . she’s a servant.”
Lily gazed back at him blankly.
“Sorry, Gordy,” Neville drawled. “I’m afraid Miss Bascombe has not been an aristocrat long enough to understand the difference between a person and a servant.” Eve smothered a chuckle, but Gordon merely looked at Neville with such blankness that Neville sighed and said, “Never mind.”
“You do look quite different,” Lily told him. “You were wearing a yellow jacket before and lilac-and-white striped pan—I mean, inexpressibles.” She cast an apologetic glance toward Eve.
“Indeed. Has someone died?” Neville added, running an eye down the young man’s somber attire. “Or perhaps you turned Quaker.”
“No, of course not. I’m just—well, I haven’t the time for such frippery anymore. That was just schoolboy foolishness. Merely color to mask the personal tragedy.” He looked downward, his face falling into lines of sorrow.
The other three regarded him blankly for a moment, then Lily said, “What tragedy? I thought you said no one had died.”
“They haven’t,” Gordon replied a little impatiently. “I meant, you know, the tragedy of life in general. Man is here and
then gone in an instant, a brief spark. No more.”
“Indeed.” Neville’s lips twitched at the corner. “Like Byron.”
“Exactly. Genius snuffed out before its time. I wrote an ode to his struggle last week.”
“You are writing poetry, then?” Neville laid his hand across his mouth in a contemplative pose.
“Oh yes, it has been veritably pouring out of me the last few weeks. Ever since I discovered my talent.”
“I see. And how did that happen?”
“Why, I knew it as soon as I met my muse.”
“Ah.” Neville nodded sagely.
“Miss Emily Pargetter.”
“Not Jasper Pargetter’s sister?”
Gordon nodded eagerly. “Yes! Is she not the most divine creature? She opened my eyes to the world I had been missing.”
“Read poetry to you, did she? Tried that with me one time, but I ran.”
“I tried to myself,” Gordon confided. “But I couldn’t; Langton was blocking my way. Then she started reading, and I looked at her entrancing countenance, and I realized how wrong I had been all my life. How foolishly I had frittered away my days on trivialities.”
What Neville might have replied to this statement was lost, for at that moment Fitz strode into the room. “Ah, there you are. Hope you’ve rung for tea. I’ve just been down at the estate manager’s. Poor devil, he’s come down with it, too—” He came to a halt, finally noticing Gordon. “The devil!”
“Hallo, Fitz.” Gordon rose to his feet.
Fitz stared at him for a moment, then asked, “Good Lord, did someone die?”
“Just what I thought,” Neville told him. “But it seems our Gordon has turned serious. He’s eschewed the foibles and fripperies of life.”
“Well . . .” Fitz carefully avoided glancing at Neville. “You’re, um, going to study for the clergy?”
Neville made a strangled noise.
“No, he’s fallen in love and decided to become a poet,” Lily explained helpfully.
“Naturally.” Fitz glanced around. “I think something stronger than tea is in order. Neville?”
“My exact thoughts.”
The tea was brought, as well as alcohol. Apparently Gordon’s new approach to life did not include avoiding alcohol, for he joined the other men in a glass of sherry.
“I’m surprised you’re here at Willowmere if you’ve taken a fancy to a young lady in London,” Fitz told his cousin.
Gordon blushed. “It isn’t just a fancy, Cousin Fitz.”
“She’s his muse,” Neville added. “Isn’t that right, Gordon?”
“Yes, of course,” Gordon agreed, pleased at the other man’s ready understanding.
“Even more reason to stay in London, I’d think,” Fitz commented.
Gordon shifted uneasily. “Well, that is . . .”
“Told your mother about her, did you?” Fitz guessed.
“Good Gad, man, of course not! I’m not mad, you know.”
Fitz shrugged. “I thought she might have refused to let you marry the girl, so you were turning to Oliver for help.”
“Stewkesbury?” The young man looked only slightly less terrified than he had at the mention of his mother. “No. No.”
“Well, he isn’t here, at any rate.”
“I know,” Gordon blurted out. “I saw him in London the other day.”
Fitz’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Did he send you here?”
“I didn’t speak to him.” Gordon looked at Fitz as if he’d lost his mind. “I just saw him. He was turned away, thank heavens, so I went the other direction.”
“I see. So you decided to come to Willowmere because my brother wasn’t here.”
“Exactly.”
Fitz nodded but did not pursue the matter. After a few more minutes of chat Neville offered to show Gordon to a bedchamber, and Lily quickly volunteered to help. Eve did not bother to try to circumvent it; ushering Cousin Gordon about was scarcely conducive to dalliance.
“We’ll introduce you to Monsieur Leveque, as well,” Neville offered, clapping Gordon on the back as they left the room. “He’s French; no doubt he’ll be quite knowledgeable about love and poetry.”
As they heard the others’ steps recede down the corridor, Fitz leaned forward in his chair, bracing his elbows on his knees and dropping his head to his hands. “I have been cursed.”
Eve chuckled. “Is he really that bad?”
“You don’t know Gordon,” he told her darkly. “There’s some reason he’s here. He bolted as soon as he saw Oliver was in town. He’s probably in the basket. His mother keeps him on a short rope—easy to see why. He’s perfectly bird-witted, always has been. But the result is that he comes to me or Royce when he’s run off his legs. I’d give him the money simply to be rid of him, but now he’s been exposed to the measles, and you will tell me I can’t let him loose on the world.”
“You know you wouldn’t even if I didn’t tell you that.” Eve smiled.
Fitz looked at her, and the irritation seemed to fall away. He smiled and went to sit beside her, taking her hands in his. “What an idiot I am, wasting time talking about Gordon. I have been thinking about you all day, wanting to see you.” He raised her hands to his lips and pressed a fervent kiss upon them.
Desire stirred in Eve. She had been thinking about him, too, remembering his kisses, the way he had touched her, the passion that seemed to melt her very bones. Now the yearning that had lain barely beneath the surface all day sprang to life. She wanted, quite badly, for him to kiss her.
She let out a soft sigh. He kissed her hands again, then turned them over to press his lips against each palm.
“I don’t think this is very discreet,” Eve murmured.
“I know. But I cannot help myself.” With a soft groan he pulled her up and over onto his lap. Cupping his hand behind Eve’s neck, he kissed her thoroughly.
It was some time later that Fitz finally raised his head. “Bloody hell. We cannot do this.”
He set her away from him and rose to his feet, walking several paces away. Eve laced her hands in her lap to hide their trembling and watched him. She suspected that everything she felt must show in her face. But at least they were a decent distance apart if someone should happen to walk in on them.
Fitz swung around to face her, his face tight, jaw set. “This blasted illness has thrown everything into disarray. And now Gordon’s here.”
“Does that matter so much?”
“It changes everything. Last night we needed to be discreet, but if we slipped up it wouldn’t be disastrous. I can trust Neville’s discretion, and Lily and Camellia are loyal to the extreme. They’d never reveal something that would hurt you. I trust the servants, too, and in any case they are up here, not in London, which is where silence is essential. But Gordon! He’s not a bad fellow, but he has little sense; he’s one of the last people I would trust with any sort of damaging knowledge. I fear if he suspected something it would be all over the city before we returned. No, with Gordon here we have to be absolutely perfect.” Fitz sighed. “I fear there’s nothing else for it. As long as my dratted cousin is here we must not . . . be together.”
Eve was surprised at the way her heart fell inside her. It would be no different from the way she had been living before last night, after all. It should not matter so. Yet now that she had discovered such happiness, she found herself most reluctant to set it aside.
“I suppose it’s for the best,” she said, struggling to hide her disappointment. “It will be difficult enough to chaperone Lily and Neville the next few days, with all we have to do. It’s better if we are not distracted by our own, um, indiscretion.”
“It was not an ‘indiscretion.’” Fitz strode across the room and leaned down, bracing his hands on either arm of Eve’s chair and looking straight into her eyes. “That is far too tepid a word for what happened between us last night. And when Gordon is gone, I promise you, there are going to be many more nights like it.”
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Chapter 15
The following day Eve was kept even busier. Two more of the kitchen servants and a downstairs maid fell ill. Eve set Betsy solely to tending the sick servants, and she spent most of the day taking care of Camellia, leaving her bedside only to consult on household matters with the cook and the butler. Lily relieved her several times throughout the day and also took it upon herself to look in on the Frenchman now and then.
“I tried to talk to Cousin Gordon, too,” she told Eve. “But he is an odd fellow. He keeps spouting the most peculiar things, which makes Neville laugh, but really, they are quite foolish. He goes on and on about poetry, so I thought he might like to read something, but when I offered to lend him a book, he looked as if I had handed him a snake.”
“I think your cousin is less into reading than feeling.”
“And he made Monsieur Leveque so angry yesterday that the man threw a cup at him.”
“Oh dear. What did he do to enrage Monsieur Leveque?”
“I wasn’t really listening too well, for it was deadly dull. Cousin Gordon was talking about soaring above the clouds—you know, in some poetical sort of way, and Monsieur Leveque thought he must be interested in actually sailing in the air. So he started talking about balloons and wind currents and, oh, all sorts of things I can’t remember. I can quite understand why Cousin Gordon found it boring, but then, of all the silly things to do, he told Monsieur Leveque that he was talking about the ‘flight of the soul, not tossing about in a balloon.’ And Monsieur Leveque told him that Gordon had no soul if that was what he thought about flying in a balloon. Then Gordon said that balloons were not important in the whole scheme of things.”
Eve could not help but giggle. “I am surprised Monsieur Leveque threw nothing more than a cup.”
“He could not reach anything else, or I’m sure he would have. I was very sorry Cam missed it.” She turned to look at her sister, sleeping on the bed, and her forehead knotted in worry. “Is she all right, do you think?”
“I believe she is better today, though she’s covered in spots worse than ever. But her fever seems down, and she’s sleeping more peacefully. If she wakes up and frets, there’s a soothing lotion to put on her spots.”