by Ella Edon
Jerome was battling with the urge to smile or stare at her in horror. How could she have allowed herself to get like this? It was quite unbefitting of a lady and if she dared to return to the ball in such a manner, she would embarrass herself and her entire family.
“I assume you wish to leave this place, then?” he asked patiently. “Allow me to escort you to the foyer. Perhaps the butler will be able to assist you further.”
He reached out to her and she instantly shied away. She squinted at him again. “Are you not the butler?”
“Not that I know of, no.”’
His slightly playful tone only served to confuse her even further. A look of distrust passed over her face before she pulled herself up to her full height, lifting her chin. It seemed as if she was trying to look down her nose, but her eyes couldn’t focus. “That is quite all right,” she stated primly. “I believe I should be able to find my way. Wilmer is quite a smart steed. He will find me if I whistle for him.”
This time, Jerome couldn’t hold back his smile. “Wilmer is the name of your horse?”
“Yes, it is.” She was looking around again. Jerome realized that she was holding a fist tightly to her side. “Quite the fastest horse in all of England, I assure you. He will have me home in no time. I cannot be here a second longer or else…”
“Or else what?”
A look passed over her face, one that had Jerome’s smile slipping. She looked instantly frightened, horrified by whatever thought had occurred to her. But then, in a second, she was back to her unusually disoriented self. “Have you not fetched my horse yet?” she demanded to know when she looked back at him.
“I thought you had planned to whistle for him yourself,” he reminded her.
She blinked. “Ah. Yes. You are correct.”
Jerome watched as she puckered her pink lips and blew gently. She was clearly trying to whistle, but all that came out was a soft whooshing sound before she gave up. “Enough of this.” She threw up her hands. “I will go in search of him instead.”
Louisa took one step forward before her legs gave out beneath her. Jerome was quick to move. He rushed in to close the space between them, wrapping his arms around her mid-section before she dropped to the ground. Her gentle scent, something akin to lavender, instantly wrapped around him. One hand clutched the front of his shirt while the other lay limply by her side, still in a tight fist.
“Are you all right?” he asked her, looking down at her flushed cheeks.
She had looked quite dazed a moment ago, but now, there seemed to be some sort of recognition in her eyes. “Mr. Cooper?” she squeaked.
“Ah, so you remember me now.” She was very light, but still he said, “Do you think you can stand?”
Before the words were fully out his mouth, her eyes fluttered. Louisa sagged against him, her eyes drifting shut. A soft breath brushed his chin as she seemed to slip into sleep, making him sigh.
“Now is not the time to sleep, Miss Louisa,” he said, but she made no response. Her face went slack, her breathing deep. Jerome sighed again. He shifted her body in his arms and heard something thud to the ground.
Looking down, he saw that it was a small vial. Her hand was now loose, her fingers hanging. The vial was mostly empty, but when he picked it up, Jerome recognized it instantly. Laudanum. He looked back at Louisa’s sleeping face, realizing that she was not drunk from wine, but had indulged in too much of the drug.
Something ran through him at the thought. Perhaps he was overthinking. Perhaps she’d only grown to enjoy the laudanum too much and could not handle herself around it, as sad a thought as that was. But her earlier words, when it had seemed as if she was desperate to leave the manor, made him wonder if perhaps there had been another reason.
Whatever it was, it had nothing to do with him. What he should be doing is searching for a suitable wife, but he was stuck caring for a sleeping lady resting against him. Gripping the vial in his hand, he swept his arm under her knees and cradled her against his chest.
The moment he held her up, a voice rang through the hallway, “What do you think you are doing?”
Jerome recognized the Duke of Rutherford’s voice instantly—and sighed.
With Louisa in his arms, he turned to face the duke, seeing that Charlotte was there with him. Charlotte picked up her skirts and hurried over to him, her eyes on Louisa, while her husband stalked forward from behind.
“Is she all right?” Charlotte asked, worried. “What happened to her?”
“She is only asleep,” Jerome said. He could feel the weighty gaze of the duke before him, but he ignored it for now. “I came upon her right here and she fell asleep on her feet. I caught her before she could fall.”
“Is that so?” the duke spoke up. Disbelief tinged his voice just as much as it filled his eyes. “That is quite the excuse. To think we came out here to search for her and we find her in your arms.”
“Unlike you, Your Grace,” Jerome said in a simple tone, “I am not trying to scare other suitors away from Miss Louisa by putting her in a compromising position.”
The duke’s eyes narrowed into slits, but Jerome didn’t care. He remembered the day vividly when the duke and Charlotte had been found in an embrace. It had forced them to announce their intention to marry, effectively cutting Jerome out of the picture for good.
Jerome wasn’t bothered by the past any longer, but he could tell that the duke didn’t like him. It might be because of Jerome’s courtship of Charlotte. The animosity he felt from the duke may stem from some odd breed of jealousy, though Jerome couldn’t fathom why. He was the one who married her in the end, after all.
“Oh, look at her cheeks.” Either Charlotte was unaware of the tension between the two men, or she was more concerned for her sister. She pressed the back of her hand on Louisa’s cheek.
“We should take her to a bed to rest,” Jerome suggested. “Standing out in this hallway does her no good.”
Charlotte looked up at him and nodded. She still looked as lovely as she did when they’d first met, even though she’d just recently borne a daughter. Her slender finger pointed back down the hallway Louisa had come. “Follow me,” she said.
Jerome did so easily, very aware of the eyes that were burning into his back as the duke trailed behind. He could ignore it when he focused on the woman in his arms. Her words continued to play in his mind, and he kept a tight hold on the vial. Somehow, he doubted Charlotte and the duke were aware of the lady’s habit.
They walked in silence, the noise from the ball fading in the distance. Soon enough, Charlotte stopped at heavy oak doors, glancing over her shoulder at her sister before pushing it open. Jerome stepped into the bedchamber without stopping, heading swiftly to the bed. There, he gently laid Louisa over the covers, watching as her head tilted to the side and she shifted, laying a hand over her stomach. She took a deep breath and released it, settling in.
Charlotte seemed to have released her own pent-up breath, though the worry still lingered in her eyes. “Perhaps I should stay here,” she said. “To keep watch over her.”
The duke came to her side, sliding a hand around her waist. Jerome wondered how much of that gesture was for his benefit. “I can take care of our guests if you do. Or perhaps I could end the ball early. It has already gone on for some time.”
“Mother will have my head if I dare to do that,” Charlotte said with a shake of her head. “And then Louisa’s right after, if she learns what happened.” Charlotte shook her head again. “It is Selina’s night. I should be there. I’m certain Louisa will be fine.”
She looked at Jerome at that and he nodded instantly. He didn’t know much about laudanum, but he didn’t think she would be any worse for wear. At least, not until she woke up. “I agree,” he told her. “She should be fine. But if you are still worried, perhaps you can have a maid keep watch over her.”
Charlotte swallowed, nodding, though he had a feeling it was mostly to herself. The duke stared at his wife as he
waited for her to come to a decision, while Jerome kept his eyes on Louisa. Her steady breathing, her crease-free forehead. She was at peace now from whatever seemed to be bothering her earlier.
Finally, without a word, Charlotte turned and made her way to the door. Jerome saw that as his cue as well and followed her out. Once the door was closed behind the duke, Charlotte looked up at him. “Thank you for taking care of her, Mr. Cooper. Perhaps had it been another man, it would have caused a scandal.”
“It is you who trusted my word, Your Grace,” Jerome said. He bowed dutifully. “Now, I shall be returning to the ball.”
He walked off without waiting for a response. After all that had just happened, a bit of a distraction was needed. A reminder, in truth. To focus on the reason he was here, rather than the woman he’d left behind in the bedchamber.
But as his thoughts continued to drift toward Louisa for the remainder of the night, Jerome realized that he’d undertaken another incredibly difficult task.
Chapter Five
That night, Louisa dreamed for the first time in years. A fitful dream it was, filled with flashing images of her past. Things she’d tried for years to forget, but that still haunted her to this day.
A single touch from a man she did not want to speak to, a man she’d thought she’d gotten rid of. That was all it took for the dreams to come back, for her to slip in and out of consciousness. She would awake in the middle of the night, sweating, grasping for something. Her laudanum, perhaps. And then she would fall back asleep and those dreams would take hold once more, ripping her to shreds.
It was only when a familiar face showed up that she relaxed, that the dream transformed from a nightmare, to something far less terrifying. Strong arms holding her upright, keeping her from slipping into despair. Someone she recognized, with a thick head of brown hair and hazel eyes. Someone who had held her last night and she had not flinched away from.
Louisa slowly opened her eyes. Outside, she could hear the twitter of birds. Inside, she could hear the movement of someone in her room, a room that was certainly not hers. She ran her gaze over the ornate ceiling, trying and failing to ascertain if she had fallen asleep in one of the other bedchambers in Warwick Manor.
The dream lingered in the back of her mind. Louisa tried to ignore it, to focus on something other than the faint sheen of sweat sticking her hair to her skin, and the fact that she was still in the gown from last night’s ball.
Gingerly, she sat up. A girl poking around the fireplace on the other end of the room didn’t notice Louisa’s movement. She hummed lowly, lighting the fire within. Then she moved on to the armoire to the left of the room, still completely unaware of the fact that Louisa was awake.
“Where am I?” Louisa croaked. Those two words were enough to send a slice of pain through her head and she winced, holding her hand to her temple.
The girl gasped and whirled to face her. “My Lady, you are awake.”
“Are you new?” Louisa tried to soften her tone, but it didn’t help the mounting headache spreading throughout her skull. “I do not recognize you.”
“I—”
“That is because she does not belong to Warwick Manor.”
Louisa turned to the sound of Charlotte’s voice. She was standing by the threshold of the bedchamber, maids pouring in behind her. They all bore buckets of steaming water.
Louisa blinked in bemusement. “What are you doing here so early?” she asked.
Charlotte sighed. She looked over at the girl, who still seemed to be frozen to the spot, and nodded. The girl scurried out of the room. Charlotte approached the bed, sitting on the ottoman at the very end of it. “It seems you do not remember what happened last night,” she said.
Louisa frowned. Tidbits of last night’s ball floated into her mind, but she couldn’t focus on it. Not with that headache steadily growing worse.
“Heavens, look at you,” Charlotte went on. Her tone was sharp, a mixture of worry and something else. In fact, she sounded a lot like their mother whenever she was about to scold Louisa. “Were you so displeased with having to attend the ball that you thought drinking an exorbitant amount of wine would help you?”
“Wine?” Louisa echoed. She ran her hands through her hair, only to find it knotted.
Charlotte shook her head. “I am having the maids prepare a bath for you. Then you may have your breakfast, if you feel up for it. It seems you are in some pain after last night, which I can certainly imagine. You are quite lucky no one else noticed you.”
“I love you dearly, Charlotte, I truly do. But I do wish you would be a little more forthcoming with what you are trying to say.”
“It certainly doesn’t feel like you love me when I am this angry with you. Goodness, what if it had not been Mr. Cooper? Do you know what might have happened then?”
Louisa blinked. Mr. Cooper…?
And then it came rushing back to her. The ball. The glass of wine. The Marquess of Myrtlebury and the way he’d nearly touched her.
Her vial. And the man who had found her in such a disoriented state.
Louisa’s jaw fell. She stared at her sister with wide eyes, as if she would provide all the answers to the questions that were rapidly filling her mind. But she knew that was impossible. Charlotte knew nothing about her trauma, knew nothing about the fact that she loathed the very thought of touching another man. Charlotte would not think twice about a man lifting Louisa into his arms even though it should have sent her kicking and screaming.
So why hadn’t it?
“I’ll have the maids prepare tea for you,” Charlotte said, coming to a stand. “You seem quite out of it. Perhaps I am being a bit too harsh on you.”
“If that is what you deem harsh, then my nephew has quite an easy life ahead of him,” Louisa murmured, hardly able to lift her eyes from the bed covers.
Charlotte released a frustrated breath. “And there she is. To think that I was worried about you for a moment. I nearly had the physician fetched because I thought you were sure to be suffering when you awoke.”
“I’m not,” Louisa said, absently shaking her head. At least, not in the manner you think.
She was hardly aware of the headache now, focused as she was on the memory that arose from Charlotte’s words. Mr. Jerome Cooper’s face swam before her mind’s eye, the humor and concern flickering in his eyes. And then, the hallway around them had swayed and she’d landed in his arms. Louisa remembered feeling safe. She remembered thinking that she shouldn’t feel that way, that every touch she’d gotten from another man had always felt oddly sexual and frightening. But for some reason, she didn’t get that impression from Jerome.
Was it because I was far too tired and drugged to realize? I must have fallen asleep right afterwards because I hardly remember anything.
Charlotte’s voice brought her back. “When you are ready, come down and have breakfast with us. Kenneth is also worried about you and I’m sure you would like to see Edward.”
Louisa sighed heavily, flopping backward onto the bed with her arms spread wide. She winced at the throbbing pain that shot through her head. “That sweet little boy has the power to cure anything.”
“Yes, yes, but if you want to see him, please do not tarry up here and worry me further.”
Louisa’s response to that was to simply wave her hand. She listened to Charlotte’s sigh, could picture her fixing her spectacles on her face in consternation before she headed out the door. The maids had already stopped coming in as well, the bath set. When Louisa sat back up, she noticed that an older maid stood by the door, waiting patiently for her.
Louisa groaned as she sat up. The maid hurried over to her and proceeded to pry the gown from her body until she was fully naked. Then she led the way to the wooden tub sitting behind the folding screen opposite the bed. The stinging heat of the water was not enough to rid her of the embarrassment and befuddlement of last night. If anything, the peace and silence it afforded her only served to open her mind to it.
Had he seen the vial? She hadn’t gotten the chance to check if she’d had it hidden within her gown. Or had she gotten rid of it before she’d met with Jerome in the hallway? The haziness of her memory after being in such a state had never truly bothered her until this moment. Not until now, when someone might have caught her. And her sister’s old suitor, too. She couldn’t think of a worse person.
Louisa sighed, resting her head on the edge of the tub. The headache was beginning to slip away, but in its place came such acute annoyance that she didn’t know what to do with herself. She’d never really liked Jerome. She’d always found him a bit boring and quite unsuited for her sister’s company. She’d never hidden her thoughts from Charlotte, hoping she would marry someone who didn’t simply want her for their father’s title. Louisa had been glad that Charlotte had married Kenneth in the end, because she couldn’t fathom having a man like that as her brother-in-law.