by Deana James
"Oh, Larne, Larne!" Mrs. Felders's shrill hysteria dinned in the ears of the four people working over the Earl of Larnaervon.
"Millard, shut that woman up!" snapped Piers as he bent over the old man who as yet displayed no signs of stirring.
But when the butler reached for her, her cries of anguish changed to screams of rage. "You all want him dead. I'm not leaving his side. Never. Never. Take your hands off me."
Millard grasped her by the shoulders.
"No! No! He needs me. That bitch! Bead-rattler! She caused every bit of this. Brought it on. Upset the routine of this house, changed the food. It's just his stomach. It's been bothering him." She twisted in the man's grasp and sought to fly at Vivian, who steadfastly ignored her as she bathed the earl's sunken temples with brandy. "Don't touch him."
She pulled away from the butler and grasped Piers's arm. "I know you don't like me, but I-I care about him. Don't let her near him. She'll kill him if she gets the chance."
Millard finally managed to get a good grip on the hysterical woman and swing her around. He pushed her toward the door that had been thrown open by the kitchen maid who had been alarmed by the noise.
"No! Ow!"
Pushing Mrs. Felders screaming through the door, Millard followed her out. The door slammed behind them.
"Summon his valet," Piers said to the footman, and the man left on the run.
A dribble of fluid ran down the side of the earl's mouth, and Vivian wiped it away with her handkerchief. Her touch was tender.
"Is he swallowing any?"
She shook her head no.
"We have to get him to bed," Piers said when the footman returned accompanied by the valet. Together the three men lifted the limp body while Vivian supported the earl's head in her hands. The somber procession mounted the stairs to the earl's bedroom. When his body was stretched on the bed, Piers took Vivian's arm and pulled her to the door.
Taking her shoulders in his hands, he drew her close. "Go on to your room."
Her expression mutinous, she took his hand in hers and wrote the word "Help."
He kissed her forehead. "Thank you, but none of us can really help him. We'll get him undressed and make him comfortable. There's no real nursing to be done until the doctor has seen him. I’ll send someone immediately, but the doctor won't be here until morning. We’ll handle what needs to be done tonight."
He glanced over his shoulder at the valet and footman hovering over his father's still body. "He's so still. It doesn't look good."
Her eyes reflecting her sympathy, she pressed her hand to his cheek.
He turned his mouth into her palm and kissed it. "Thank you."
As she walked down the hall, he turned back into the room. "I didn't realize he was ill."
The valet looked up, his face grave. "I think he's had some kind of fit, milord. He's been very worried about you."
"Larne?" Piers stared down at the still figure. It barely seemed to breathe. "Not Larne."
The valet shrugged. "If you say so, sir."
Suddenly, the earl made a guttural noise. Unintelligible words poured from his mouth. The crippled body arched up and twisted wildly. One arm thrashed knocking the footman back from the bed.
All three men sprang upon him to keep him from throwing himself to the floor.
Chapter 23
The Earl of Larnaervon was sick to death.
"He awoke an hour ago as if he were waking up in the morning. Only he doesn't recognize me," Mackery, the valet, reported to Piers and Vivian. "He just lies there on his back barely breathing. His left eye doesn't move, but his right wanders around the room. He doesn't find anything he knows."
Vivian wrote a question. "Does he seem to hear?"
The valet nodded. "His eye moved in my direction when I spoke to him."
"Can he use his hands?"
"His right hand and arm stray around, but his left is stiff."
"Who's with him now?" Piers asked.
Mackery hesitated. "Watkins. But Mrs. Felders wants to come in."
"No," came the viscount's instant reply.
Vivian caught him by the arm. "Yes," she wrote. "Let her stay. She must talk to him constantly. Tell her to talk about everything. Hold his hand."
The valet looked skeptical. Mrs. Felders had gone to the bedside, weeping and praying fervently. The earl had gazed at her in a puzzled, tired way. Then his attention had wandered. The housekeeper had caught up his paralyzed left hand, pressed it to her mouth, and then burst into hysterical tears.
Thinking the earl would not want such a display, the valet had dragged her away from the bed and pushed her out the door, despite the housekeeper's curses and struggles. Now the viscountess was saying to let back in. With the expression of one who had been hard-used, he looked at Piers.
"Do as she says. She's the nurse."
"Feed him," Vivian wrote as an afterthought. "Talk to him. Move his legs and arms."
When the valet had gone, Piers took her in his arms and pressed his lips to her forehead. "What would this family do without you?"
************************************
"You have a visitor, milady. A Mr. Barnstaple requests a private interview with you."
Vivian raised her eyebrows. The earl had said that he would take over the management of the Marleigh properties. She had been in no position to object. In fact. she would not have objected. Rowling's betrayal had been a very near thing. Had the earl not sent Beddoes to abduct her, she would undoubtedly be locked away in some private institution for the rest of her life.
"I have no wish to see him," she wrote.
Millard bowed and went away but returned almost immediately. "He is most insistent, ma'am. He says he's come all the way from London to apologize and make rettitution." The butler hesitated. "He seems like a nice enough old man and very tired."
Vivian let out her breath on a sigh. Picking up her pad and pencil, she allowed Millard to usher her into the newly cleaned and refurbished parlor where a fire was kept lighted during the daylight hours.
"My dear Miss Marleigh." Worthing Barnstaple was indeed an old man. His portly belly sagged and his florid complexion was mottled around his sagging jowls. Still he stood six foot six and though his hands shook they were warm and engulfing.
She nodded frostily as she freed her hands from his moist grasp.
He drew back his pudgy fingers. "My dear Vivian, if I may call you by your first name?"
She pulled out her notepad. "Of course, Worthing."
He frowned and cleared his throat. "That is, I have always looked on you as a daughter."
"Rowling handled my business."
He ran a finger around inside his neck cloth. "We’ll, that's not entirely correct. It is true that my late partner August Rowling did most of the paper work required to keep the estate up to date, but I had much to say about its administration."
"Roderick Rowling was stealing money," Vivian wrote underscoring the word "stealing."
"And has left the firm. In fact, he has been discharged from the firm that his father founded with me." Barnstaple pulled a huge handkerchief from the pocket of his old-fashioned knee breeches and wiped his face. "When I received the letters from the Earl of Larnaervon, your estimable father-in-law, and from his solicitor, I was aghast. I took young Rowling to task immediately. He hemmed and hawed, but at last admitted all."
"Prosecution!"
Barnstaple's already florid complexion darkened until his jowls turned reddish-purple. "He lost his job with his father's firm, Vivian. Surely the shame and embarrassment, not to speak of loss of income, are harsh enough."
His voice trailed away as Vivian began to write, her pencil stabbing at the paper. "Theft of funds, unlawful detention, attempted kidnapping. He drugged me."
Barnstaple sank down in a chair that creaked beneath his weight. "My dear Vivian—”
She shot him a murderous look.
"—Miss Marleigh."
"Lady Polwycke!" she un
derscored.
"Yes. Lady Polwycke." He tried again offering an ingratiating smile. "Perhaps you are right, but I didn't think you would wish to testify. The scandal after all."
"His scandal."
-We’ll—”
"What did you come here for?"
He looked around him desperately. "I came to speak to you in private."
She looked around them in withering mockery.
"1 was given to understand that this-um-marriage was not to your liking."
She started to rise.
"Wait! Wait. I beg you." He wiped his sweating face again. "I was given to understand that this was a desperate measure on your part. On the part of a gentle lady"—he leaned forward to pat her hand where it poised over her pad—”who was offered no real choice."
She wrote again and thrust the paper viciously into his hand. "I chose."
"In a manner of speaking. Your land and your money have been transferred from one unsavory connection to another. Is that not the way of it?" He leaned forward to whisper his last question only a few inches from her ear.
She shrugged. "My husband is Viscount Polwycke."
“My dear lady, a good solicitor could make a case for declaring the marriage to have been made under duress. A legal separation could be arranged. You could return to your own home. Your own lands could be managed by a firm that is, ahem, familiar with them."
She drew away from his stale, fishy breath. She could not believe the man's presumption. However, curious, she wrote, "Sebastian Dawlish?"
"That blackguard will be banned from polite society if I have anything to say about it."
"Barnstaple and Rowling supported his legal guardianship," she wrote.
"We’ll, yes. But believe me I had no idea- He seemed unexceptionable. His family—”
She held up her hand. When his flow of explanations stopped, she began to write. "I will never consider engaging Barnstaple and Rowling again."
He was reading over her shoulder. His voice broke as he began to plead. "My dear lady, we will do everything in our power to make up for our mistake. I understand that you were looking forward to a London debut before your illness. This can be arranged. It can all be arranged. I personally will handle every stage of the delicate negotiations."
She shook her head, her smile rueful. "I do not choose to leave my husband."
"But his reputation is most unsavory," he hissed.
Vivian rose and crossed to the door. Opening it, she signaled to Millard, who waited in the hall at a discreet distance.
Barnstaple had risen, too. His pleading manner became nasty. "Your innocence does you credit, but you're making a terrible mistake. It could even be fatal. Don't forget the earl's wife died just recently. A woman in her prime."
Vivian stared at him without comprehending.
He caught her by the elbow and snarled in her ear. "You don't know that her death was from natural causes. These are desperate men."
She jerked her arm away from him. Again the awful frustration. Words boiled in her mind. Blistered her tongue. She opened her mouth, framed them, but nothing came out. She clenched her fists, then slashed her hands across her body.
Barnstaple smiled unctuously. "My dear young lady, above all else you need a spokesperson."
"And she has one in me." Piers strolled down the stairs.
The solicitor gasped and jumped guiltily. He rubbed his sweaty palms on his handkerchief and held out his hand. "I take it you are the Viscount Polwycke."
Piers locked his hands behind him. "Yes."
With a nervous laugh Barnstaple returned to crumpling his handkerchief. "I have been Miss Marleigh's solicitor since she was born. I have always looked after her best interests."
“Was it in her best interest that she be locked away from her home for over a year?"
“I—She was ill."
"For—a—year." Each word was evenly spaced and accusatory.
Barnstaple tried to put his arm around Vivian. "This poor girl—”
She hit him in his portly belly. The breath exploded from his mouth as he staggered back.
With a hoot of laughter Piers vaulted down the stairs and caught her around the waist before she could hit the man again. "Millard!" he called, "Help the man on with his coat. I suggest, Barnstaple, that you be on your way.”
The portly man rocked back and forth, his hand on his belly. "You've made a bad mistake, Vivian," he insisted. "I forgive you because you've been too protected. You don't understand the way of things."
His unctuous forgiveness further infuriated Vivian. Baring her teeth, she clutched at Piers's hands and tried to pry them away from her middle. Her feet slipped out from under her and she kicked at Barnstaple.
"Better get out while you can," Piers called. "I can't hold her much longer. Bad shoulder, you know." His grin spread across his face. "Spitfire," he whispered in Vivian's ear. "Hellcat. Vixen."
Millard pushed Barnstaple's hat and coat into his hands and shoved him out the door.
Piers released Vivian who swung round on him, her fists clenched. He pointed over her shoulder. "He went that way."
She clenched her fists and shook them in front of his face.
"I take it that he made you angry."
She gaped at him, then reached for her pad and pencil. She had left them in the parlor. Suddenly, her frustration boiled over. She burst into tears.
"Here. Here." He gathered her into his arms and held her tight until she stopped crying. "I know. I know. You want to say all the things inside you and you can't."
In her heart, she knew he was coming to understand her better than any other single person in the world. Consequently, she held onto him for dear life. Finally the weeping stopped. She patted the lapels of his coat where she had wet it with her tears, and looked up at him. Her eyes were drowned aquamarines begging his pardon for her outburst.
He kissed her on the forehead and the mouth. His kiss warmed and deepened. Her hands slipped up around his neck. A shudder went through him. He turned her in his arms and led her toward the stairs. "Come up and lie down for a few minutes," he suggested softly. "I promise you'll forget all about this."
************************************
Caleb Pross presented himself to Piers during the first week after the earl's attack. "I have the honor to be your father's man of business. I would hope that you would engage me to be yours," he added hopefully. "However that may be, I believe we should go over certain affairs. It is always wisest to be prepared in these cases."
Piers shook his head. "Perhaps you are not aware, Mr. Pross, that Larne and I do not have a warm relationship."
The solicitor nodded impassively. "Nevertheless, you are your father's heir. The will of which I am in possession leaves everything to you. Indeed, this entire estate is entailed to you. Therefore—”
"As you wish, but he may not be pleased."
"Who will tell him?" Pross allowed himself the tiny suggestion of a smile. "If he recovers, you will merely pretend that your ignorance remains absolute. I will continue as before." He waited a moment. "Now, as I was about to say, your father had already begun the accounting of your estate. I have only preliminary figures at this time, but Sebastian Dawlish, your wife's cousin, seems to have been a surprisingly good administrator of the business interests of Stone Glenn. Everything seems in good order, nothing missing."
"I'm not surprised. His plan was to live there after the true owner, my wife, had been locked away forever," Piers rejoined bitterly.
"I had heard that to be the case." Pross hesitated. 'When will you wish to take possession?"
Piers glanced around him uncertainly. "I had planned to take my wife there in the spring-say the middle of April. Now, with Larne's illness, I cannot be sure."
"Of course. Of course. Duties are pulling at you. However, rest assured that our firm will handle everything at Stone Glenn with unparalleled efficiency."
Embarrassed color tinging his cheeks, the viscount clear
ed his throat. "I may need funds from Stone Glenn to operate this estate."
Pross's eyes narrowed. He cleared his throat noisily. "You have more than sufficient funds available here."
"I beg your pardon."
"Your father is a very wealthy man, milord. This is one of the most prosperous estates in the south of England."
Again Piers glanced around him-at the dim, dusty room, the rotting carpet beneath their feet, the books with blue mold on the spines, the inkwell black with tarnish, the desktop scarred and stained. "Pull the other one."
The solicitor smiled gently. "I suggest, milord, that you sit down and go over the books yourself. You will find much to interest you."
Piers shook his head dazedly.
The solicitor mistook his movement for negation. "As you wish, milord. However, I should like to make an observation. In my business I have seen many men who have lost their fortunes and remade them. I have noticed that they behave in one of two ways."
The viscount waited, his shoulders tensed, his breath still in his chest.
"Some happy ones treat their wealth as a thing of the moment and throw it about carelessly, confident that since they have regained it once, they can regain it again and again. Others-a most unhappy lot, I might add—clutch every farthing to them, amassing more substance and more, piling it away as a dike against another flood. They become very reluctant to lay out for even the most basic creature comforts."