by Diana Quincy
Sunny quieted, feeling miserable all over, his body one big ache. Jarvis worked diligently, placing his tube contraption at various places on Sunny’s chest, stomach, and back. Anne waited at the foot of the bed, her arms crossed, concern stamped on her elegant face. When Jarvis was finished, he returned the listening tube to his doctor’s bag, with a quiet “hmm.”
“What is it?” Sunny demanded. “What are you hmming about?”
“I don’t believe you need a doctor, Your Grace.”
“What is it then?” Anne asked.
“The devil I don’t,” Sunny said at the same time. “If this is what they taught you at that physicians’ college of yours, I clearly wasted my money in sending you there. I feel like shite.”
“Yes, I’m sure you do.” Tom closed his doctor’s bag. “You are exhibiting all of the signs of a common enough ailment. However, it is not a malady that requires a doctor’s care.”
“Then what in Hades is it?”
Amusement glimmered in Tom’s eye. “A broken heart.”
Sunny glared at the doctor. “Shut up and be serious.”
“Ah,” Anne said. “That makes sense.”
“I am most serious,” Tom said to Sunny. “I understand Miss Finch has removed herself from the premises.”
“At my request.” Sunny placed the back of his hand over his eyes to block out the light, as well as his tiresome companions. “She’s a lying, deceitful piece of baggage, and I don’t want her anywhere near the children.”
“I see,” Tom said. “I understood from Miss Finch that the two of you were no longer at each other’s throats and that all was harmonious in the household.”
“She seems like a lovely woman,” Anne’s voice put in.
Sunny shifted his arm, uncovering one eye so he could peer at Jarvis. “The nanny told you that?”
“She did. I received a note from her just last week.”
Possessiveness flared in Sunny’s gut. “Why would she feel the need to inform you of the state of our…my…household? Were you still pursuing her?” If he was, Sunny would pummel the man here and now and enjoy doing so.
“Calm yourself. It was nothing of the sort. We’ve remained friends. My continuing interest in Miss Finch is not in the least bit romantic. It quickly became clear to me that she was besotted with you and you with her.”
“She told you that?” Hope kindled in his chest, but Sunny quickly smothered it. He’d never again be foolish enough to believe anything the deceitful nanny said. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.”
“You say you told her to leave. You separated her from the children?” The disapproval in Tom’s tone was clear. “She’s very devoted to them.”
“They’re my blood. They belong with me. And Finch is not to be trusted.” He waved an impatient hand. “In any case, that’s beside the point. I’m clearly ill, and you need to give me something to ease the pain.”
“Only time will ease the sort of anguish you’re experiencing at the moment,” Tom said.
“Cease with your nonsense. There is no such thing as a broken heart.”
“Literally, perhaps not. But my professional opinion is that the pain you are experiencing is a direct result of your break with Miss Finch. I have suspected for some time now that you and Miss Finch have developed a bond of a deeply personal nature. Simply put, you are heartsick.”
“That’s completely ridiculous. I’ve gone through many women before…the nanny.” He couldn’t bear to say her name.
Anne came around to the side of his bed. “None that you loved and let into your heart.”
Sunny groaned. “I don’t mean to be vulgar with you, Anne, but I have been close, very close, with many, many women.”
Tom stiffened. “Mind your tongue around my sister.”
“Shut the hell up.” Sunny sat up, ready for a fight. He’d had quite enough of Tom’s smug manner and know-it-all ways. “She’s my sister, too.”
“Then maybe it is well past time you started treating her as such.”
“Sod off. Maybe it’s time you stopped resenting me for being our father’s heir.” Tom might be the old duke’s firstborn but Sunny, younger by two years, was the son to whom the title, social standing, and riches had gone. “It’s not my fault the old bastard was actually wed to my mother at the moment of my birth.”
Flushed, Tom took a menacing step toward Sunny. “Insult my mother, and I will thrash you like the sniveling spoiled brat of a little brother that you are.”
“That’s quite enough.” Anne strategically placed herself between her two half brothers. “I’m certain Adam meant no disrespect to your mother.”
“Bloody hell.” Sunny pressed his palms hard against his gritty eyes. “I like his mother rather more than I ever cared for my own.”
Tom’s mother was a laughing, lighthearted woman who’d been seduced by the old duke after one drunken evening in the tavern where she’d worked. While pregnant with Tom, she’d wed an innkeeper and the union, which produced no other children, seemed a happy one. Mrs. Jarvis had always been kind to Sunny, offering a meal or ale on the few occasions he’d managed to sneak out to play with the village children or wandered into the inn.
“Adam has been very generous with us,” Anne said to Tom.
Sunny’s elder brother let out a derogatory huff. “With his money, perhaps.”
Sunny stared at him. “What else is there?” Ungrateful sod.
“Stop it, Tom,” Anne said firmly. “He does the best he can.”
Sunny swung his head in her direction. “What do you mean by that?”
“What we are both saying,” she responded in a gentle manner, “is that you’ve been generous financially, but you’ve held yourself apart in all other ways.”
Tom grabbed hold of his doctor’s bag, making as if ready to depart. “That’s probably because we’re just his father’s bastards. God knows there are plenty of those around.”
Sunny had no idea how many children his father had sired on the wrong side of the blanket. The very thought of it made him ill. The pounding in his head worsened. “Are you going to give me something for my head or not?”
“Not. Because the source of your pain is emotional, not physical.”
“What rot.” Weary of arguing, his headache worsening, Sunny propped his elbow on his thigh and cradled his pulsating head in one hand. “If you aren’t going to be of any use, just get out.”
Anne put a sympathetic hand to his arm. It felt comforting, which surprised Sunny. Physical touch unrelated to sex no longer seemed abhorrent. The children seem to have cured him of that. Since Finch’s departure, he’d grown used to their earnest little hugs. He shook his head with disgust. He really was going soft.
He looked up at his sister. “Who’s looking after the girls?”
“They’re having a music lesson. As I was saying,” she continued, undeterred by his interruption, “Miss Finch and the children are the first people in your life you’ve allowed yourself to become emotionally attached to. I mean no disrespect to your parents but they were not, shall we say, particularly demonstrative.”
“I’ll say,” Tom chimed in. “They were about as loving as automatons.”
“The old duke was a heartless bastard, and the duchess as remote as a Pacific island,” Sunny said impatiently. “I fail to see how any of this is relevant to my current malady.”
“What Anne and I are attempting to get through that thick skull of yours,” Tom explained, “is that although you’ve bedded every doxy, strumpet, and willing widow in Town, those interactions were purely physical, like eating a meal for nourishment or relieving yourself to rid your body of waste. But that was not the case with Miss Finch.”
“Indeed.” Anne nodded. “What you had with Miss Finch is unlike any other interaction in your experience.”
“What rot.” But even as he dismissed their ludicrous theory, memories of making love with Isabel flooded his memory and warmed his blood.
His chest had never felt so full, and he’d never known such tenderness or the feeling of belonging to something much larger than himself or even the dukedom as when he’d laid with her. The physical sensations had certainly been immensely satisfying, but it was the accompanying emotion—the full engagement of his body, mind, and heart—that had elevated the coupling beyond anything he’d ever experienced before.
Was it really possible that he suffered from heartache?
“Bloody hell.” He flopped back against his bed pillows. “Even when she’s absent, the harridan is making my life a living nightmare.”
“Welcome to the love game, brother.” Tom smirked. “It’s not for the hen-hearted. Frankly, I’ve never believed you were man enough for it.”
Sunny put a pillow over his head to shut them both out, eager to be alone in his misery. “Go to the devil. Brother.”
Chapter 25
It was close to dawn when Sunny finally nodded off to sleep after a mostly restless night; he was soon awakened by the sound of creaking floorboards.
“Cousin Adam?” Prudie’s small voice came out of the darkness. “Are you sleeping?”
“I was.” He knew now to speak to the child in the gentlest of tones. He dragged his leaden body up into a sitting position, rubbing his eyes until his sight adjusted in the darkness. Prudie was a small shadow at the foot of his bed. “What is it, sweeting?”
“Can I sleep with you?”
“What’s wrong with your bed?”
“Izzy always lets me sleep with her when I’m feeling afraid.”
He held out his arms, and she climbed onto the bed and folded her diminutive form into his embrace. He held her tightly, his heart feeling too big for his chest. She smelled of the soap Isabel used for the children and of sleep and sweet innocence. “What is making you fearful?”
She snuggled closer into his chest. “When is Izzy coming back?”
“I do not know.” The question pierced his heart. How long could he continue to lie to the children?
“She never left us before.”
“I’m certain she has a good reason.”
That seemed to satisfy the child. “She’ll come back soon. I know she will.” His lungs constricted at the profound innocence of children. Patience and Prudie had placed all of their trust in him. It would never occur to them that he was responsible for depriving them of the person they loved the most in the world.
Prudie climbed off his lap and burrowed under his covers. He reclined next to her and wasn’t surprised when she snuggled up against him. He tucked the bedclothes around the child and listened to her shallow inhales deepen into long breaths. Isabel, who had often slept with the children, would be missing the sweet heaven of moments like this.
Yet anger chased away any sympathy he might feel for Isabel and her anguish at being separated from the children. She’d sought to do the same to him without giving a thought to how that might affect him.
Besides, he knew the nanny well enough to comprehend that she’d plant herself at Curtis’s vicarage once Sunny’s godly cousin took custody of the children. Gilpin had informed him that Winchester and Denbury were recommending that Curtis become the children’s guardian. Finch’s separation from Patience and Prudence would be for a few weeks at most. His would last a lifetime.
Yet the truth was that Patience and Prudie needed Isabel more than they needed Sunny. He was just someone who had passed into their lives and could soon pass out of it again if things went badly at the hearing. The thought of losing the girls, of being left alone again, made him feel as though someone had taken an ax to his midsection.
He hated Isabel for bringing this disaster upon him and his house. But the children needed her and, for once in his life, he would put someone else’s needs ahead of his own.
It was time to locate Isabel and bring her home.
* * *
—
“What do you mean you can’t find her?” Sunny stared down the Bow Street Runner he’d hired to locate Isabel.
He’d engaged the man a fortnight ago and found him waiting when he’d arrived home from a hack in the park to ride off his nerves. Eager to hear the runner’s report, Sunny stepped into the nearest door, which led to the cavernous Blue Parlor with its clusters of blue velvet patterned chairs and sofas adorned with scarlet pillows.
The runner, a burly man of medium height whose eyes rounded as he took in the priceless masterpieces stacked one atop the other up the wallpapered walls, clasped his hands behind his back. “Miss Finch appears to have disappeared without a trace.”
“Surely there is somewhere else you can look.”
“There is precious little to lead us to her. No one in London seems to be acquainted with the woman, except for a Mrs. Harvey Drummond of Duke Street.”
“Yes, Miss Finch was once employed by the Drummonds.” Or so she’d claimed.
“She also visited there regularly once she accompanied your wards to London.”
“She went to the Drummonds? Why?” Perhaps she’d visited the Drummond children on their holidays from school. Isabel had certainly become attached to Patience and Prudence. Maybe she had the same affection for the Drummond boys.
“She visited Mrs. Drummond.”
“Did she? Perhaps it was a courtesy visit to her former employer.”
“My understanding is that Miss Finch visited Mrs. Drummond regularly on her Sunday afternoons off. They seem to have a long-standing friendship.”
“Perhaps they are sheltering her.”
“That does not appear to be the case. The Drummond servants have not seen Miss Finch of late.”
A thought came to him. “Did you check Plymouth? You’ll recall I informed you that her family hails from there. Surely someone in Plymouth knows what became of her.”
“About that, Your Grace, are you certain this Miss Finch hails from Plymouth?”
“Yes, she told me so herself.” When the runner remained silent, Sunny cursed. “Bloody hell. She was untruthful about that.” He wondered what else the blasted female had lied to him about.
The runner nodded. “No one in Plymouth knows of Miss Finch. As a matter of fact, the only people by the name of Finch are a family of cobblers, and they’ve never heard of her.”
Sunny suppressed a curse. Another dead end. Isabel, who possessed the breeding and elegance required of a duchess, had certainly not come from a family of cobblers.
“Would you like me to keep looking, Your Grace?”
“Yes, dammit. And don’t stop until you find her.” Sunny paused to think. “Try Cornwall. She was employed by my uncle Abel and retreated there once before.” Maybe she’d run to his uncle again.
“Very good, sir.”
After the runner departed, Sunny sank into the nearest velvet sofa in one of the salon’s numerous sitting areas. Frustration roiled his insides. Where the devil had Isabel gone? Perhaps she was already at the vicarage with Cousin Curtis, awaiting the girls’ eventual arrival.
“Is Isabel lost?” a small voice asked from behind him.
His scalp tingled when he looked over his shoulder to find Patience watching him with grave eyes. “What are you doing in here, sweeting?”
“Prudie and I are playing hide-and-seek.” Pale faced, she stood very still. Patience never stood still. “Is Isabel lost?” she repeated.
His stomach dropped even farther when Prudie slipped out from behind the curtain on the far side of the room and came toward them, her silver Fairfax eyes huge and round. “Where’s Isabel?”
Patience’s voice trembled. “Did she get lost while she was visiting her aunt?”
“She doesn’t love us anymore.” A heartbroken sob eru
pted from Prudie’s throat. “That’s why she left. No one ever keeps us.”
Sunny winced. “That isn’t true. Come here, both of you.” He lifted Patience from behind the sofa and sat her next to him while Prudie climbed into his lap. “The truth is Isabel loves the two of you more than anything else in the entire world.”
Tears ran down Prudie’s face. “Then why isn’t she here?”
Patience’s eyes watered. “It’s because we made her angry, isn’t it?”
“No, you are both perfect, and Finch would rather lose an arm than leave either of you.” He tugged them both closer to him. “The truth is that it’s my fault Isabel is gone.”
“Why?” Patience rubbed her nose with the back of her little hand. “What did you do?”
“She did something that made me angry.” He forced the words out. He couldn’t allow the girls to think Isabel had willingly abandoned them. “So I told her to leave.”
Prudie stared up at him with serious eyes. “Why did you do that?”
“I was angry. I made a very bad mistake, but now I am doing everything I can to rectify it.”
“Are you sure you can find her?” Prudie asked.
“I swear to you that I am trying my very hardest, and when I do find her, I intend to convince Finch to come back to you.”
Prudie’s mouth trembled. “But what if you can’t find her? We’ll be all alone.”
Sunny pressed a kiss against the child’s cool forehead. “You’ll never be alone as long as I live. I will always look after you.”
“Forever and ever?” Patience asked.
“Forever and ever. You have my word.”
“I love living with you, Cousin Adam.” Prudie snuggled closer to Sunny. “But I want to live with Izzy, too. Do you think you can make her come back?”
“Of course he can!” Patience brightened. “He’s a duke. He can make anything happen. Can’t you?” she said to him.