Victoria firmed her lips together primly. “I did it for his own good.”
“I don’t expect he’s going to see it that way. Especially not after the rock he took to the back of his head yesterday. Poor Spence. You have to admit he’s had a rough twenty-four hours. I’m not certain he’s going to survive this little jaunt to America. Or, if he does, we’ll be returning him to England a gibbering idiot in a wheeled chair.”
As he moved away from Spencer and scooted over to Loyal, repeating the same examinations he’d performed on his cousin, Victoria sank to her knees at Spencer’s side and took one of his large, square-palmed, warm hands in hers and raised it to her cheek. “Oh, Edward, it was awful. I thought I’d killed him. And I was so afraid he’d killed Loyal and would be made to pay with his own life.”
“A dastardly thought. But, disaster averted, my dear, as this one will be fine, as well—” Apparently done with his quick examination, Edward pivoted to look at her and caught her nuzzling Spencer’s hand. His gaze locked with hers, and he smiled approvingly. “You were prepared to lie for Spence if this other man were a goner, weren’t you?”
Suddenly shy, Victoria resettled Spencer’s hand at his side. “Yes, I most certainly was. Why do you think I wanted everyone else out of this room except you?”
The earl chuckled. “So we could concoct a plausible story between us?”
She nodded. “Yes. And so you could help me convince Spencer he had to go along with it.”
“Not so easily done, I’m afraid, so it’s just as well it won’t be necessary to lie. But what are we going to do now that Mr. Atherton is so obviously and obnoxiously going to live?” Edward favored Victoria with a conspiratorial leer. “Shall we kill him ourselves?”
“Edward!”
He held both hands up as if in surrender. “Merely jesting. But I do think I’d better have him gone before Spencer comes around fully and finishes the man off. I’ll get Giddens to help me get Spence upstairs. He proved helpful yesterday out in the alley. And then he and Zebediah—that chatty black fellow who, by the way, told me he is deeply in love with someone named Ruby—can see to getting Mr. Atherton home, as well as whatever his means of conveyance was for getting here. I will leave it up to you to tell them where that is.”
“They know where Loyal lives. But he’s not going to forgive this, Edward. Loyal, I mean. I know him. He’s going to make further trouble, even if this was his fault. He won’t let it go.”
Edward raised an eyebrow. “Really? Well, let him try his worst. In the meantime, we’ll dig defensive ditches and amass a cache of flower vases. Then, when he attacks, we’ll set you on him, my dear. I’ll hand you flower vase after flower vase to lob ferociously at him.” Victoria tsked and raised her chin. “No, no, now don’t dissemble. You do make a rather formidable foe. The evidence is all around us. Rest assured, too, present evidence to the contrary, so does your husband. He will take very good care of you, if you will only allow him to stay conscious long enough to do so.”
* * *
Spencer woke up to find himself in a bed that seemed familiar to him. His senses told him he was not dressed, except for a nightshirt, and was under the cover of a soft cotton sheet. Where the—? A warm breeze wafted across him, bringing to his nose a mélange of scents redolent with sweet flowers, the tang of a river, and the earthy scent of rich, moist earth. Outside somewhere, a cheerfully raised voice, heavy with a Southern accent, called out to someone and then laughed. Savannah.
Wanting to look out the open window, he turned his head to the left … and made his temple throb hideously. He mouthed an oath and held very still, grimacing. Desperate to get past the pain, he focused on the long gray shadows bleeding down the wall and guessed it was late afternoon.
Spencer put all the clues together. He was in bed, undressed, in the late afternoon, and his head hurt like hell. Was he doomed to spend his life repeating this happenstance over and over? Would he eternally wake up to find it was late afternoon? He slowly turned his head to his right, continuing his harangue. And would he be in bed with his head hurting like a son of a—
“Victoria.” Though he was startled by her silent presence, his voice held nothing of that emotion. Just a croak of a sound that told him his mouth was dry.
Victoria sat primly in a chair pulled up beside his bed. She’d been reading and now quickly closed her book in her lap. She leaned forward, her expression one of relief and concern. “You’re awake at last. Would you like some water?”
Spencer thought back to yesterday and the last glass of water she’d brought him and then to how everything in his life was repeating itself. And here he was … helplessly lying in bed, completely at her mercy. “No.”
Her blue eyes bright with good will, her mahogany curls swinging about her shoulders, she made as if to get up from her chair. “It’s no trouble, really.”
“Not for you it isn’t.” Spencer smiled, hoping it conveyed the sarcasm he meant it to. “However, I don’t wish to have my private parts doused at just this moment, if you don’t mind.”
“Oh. I see.” A bit deflated in expression, she sat back down and stared at him … and waited.
“What happened to me, Victoria?” His head pounded with each echoing word that ricocheted around inside his apparently empty head. “I seem to recall everything—who I am, where I am—but that one detail.”
“Well, that’s good,” she said brightly … too brightly, perhaps.
Suspicious, Spencer raised an eyebrow, but at great cost to a thumping vein in his forehead. “No, it isn’t good. What happened to me?”
“You fell,” she said abruptly.
“I fell?” Spencer cried—pain shot through his entire head, wringing a cry from him. The lesson learned was that one must not raise one’s voice. “I fell?” he repeated softly. “From where, Victoria? Atop the house?”
“Don’t be silly.”
“I do not, I assure you, madam, feel the least bit silly.”
She sobered. “Your head was hit.”
“When I fell?”
“Yes.”
“Why did I fall and what hit it?”
She said nothing. Just sniffed and looked around the room, anywhere but at him.
“Victoria?” He waited until she resettled her attention on him. “Every word I utter right now acts as a sharp knife gouging at my brain. Do we understand each other?”
“Yes.” Hers was a long-suffering sigh. She put her closed book on the bed, folded her hands primly in her lap and smiled at him.
“And so…?”
She exhaled sharply. “I hit you over the head with a rather substantial vase of flowers—”
“You … what?”
“Yes. Downstairs in the front parlor because you were hitting Loyal Atherton—”
“He’s the man who was—”
“Kissing me, yes. But what you don’t know is I hate the man—”
“Is he who I think he is, Victoria?”
“Yes. I hate him.”
“You’ve said. But it didn’t look to me like you do.”
Victoria firmed her lips together. “Spencer, I thought you said that talking made your head hurt like someone was stabbing your brain with knives.”
“It does.”
“Then quit interrupting me, please. It’s very rude. You asked me what happened, and I am trying my best to tell you.”
Spencer eyed her sardonically. Just like a woman. He was the bruised and battered one lying abed because of her, yet he was supposed to apologize to her. “I’m sorry,” he said dutifully.
She inclined her head graciously. “Thank you. Now, where was I?”
He couldn’t recall. Oh, hell. She’ll start all over now. Think, man. “Ah. You were kissing a man you hate.”
She bristled at this. “I most certainly was not, sir. He was kissing me, but not very successfully, I don’t mind telling you. He took me by surprise and very much against my will, and then you barged in—”
&nbs
p; “I do not barge into rooms, madam. I enter.”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “I’m sorry. You entered and obviously, as anyone would, misunderstood what you were seeing and charged in—do not interrupt me; you charged in—and grabbed Loyal and I was afraid you would kill him and hang for it and I couldn’t allow that and you wouldn’t listen to me, so I had no choice. I had to get you to stop.” She paused … “I broke that vase of flowers over your head for your own good. Even Edward says so.”
“Edward would. But you will forgive me, won’t you, if I don’t thank you for acting so quickly on my behalf until I have lasted two days in a row in Savannah without ending up in bed and beat to hell?”
Looking hesitant, to Spencer’s eye, Victoria picked at something apparently stuck to the bedding and said, “You’ve been here—I mean in America—for four days now, Spencer.”
Confusion reigned. “Four days?” Then, slowly, realization dawned. “Then I’ve been unconscious … how long?”
“Two days. Your … accident happened two days ago. But you’ve been in and out of wakefulness, actually, which Dr. Hollis said was a good sign.”
“I don’t remember any of that, but I’m glad I proved him right.”
Victoria smiled—a quick, fleeting thing. “He’s rarely wrong. Would you like that water now?”
“No.” Spencer tipped his tongue out to wet his lips—
“See there?” Victoria pointed to his mouth. “You are thirsty. I’m getting you a glass of water. And I promise not to toss it on your … privates.” Before Spencer could protest, she jumped up from her chair and, her red plaid silk skirts flying, she slipped around the foot of the bed to make her way over to a small dresser situated next to the open window.
Spencer painfully turned his head to watch her. Because he knew she couldn’t see him, he drank in the sight of her. Her shoulders were slim and narrow, her waist so impossibly tiny for a woman three months gone with child. With her back to him and her body masking her movements, he heard the sound of water being poured into a glass and couldn’t resist saying: “You’re not putting any poison in that, are you?”
She turned around, apparently not offended, a simple glass of water held in her hand. “No. We’re all out just now. Perhaps tomorrow. I’m expecting a delivery.” She walked over to the bed, held the glass out to him, seemed to realize how difficult it would be for him to drink lying flat, and pulled the glass back. “Can you sit up? Do you need me to help you? Or I can get Hornsby. He’s just downstairs in the kitchen having his supper. I told him I would sit with you until he came back—”
“I can sit up by myself. I’m not an invalid.” Flattening his palms against the mattress, Spencer pushed himself up—the room spun sickeningly. Close to passing out, he groaned and flopped back against the pillows, breathing shallowly and breaking out in a cold sweat.
“Spencer! Are you all right?” Victoria thumped the glass down on the nightstand and quickly sat on the side of the bed, leaning toward him and resting her hand on his chest. “Look at you—you’re in a sweat. Why, I can feel your heart beating so hard you’d think it’d wear itself out and just stop at any moment, you poor man.”
Spencer stared at her. “Please don’t say things like that. I fear you can cause them to happen.”
The expression on her lovely oval face pulled down at the eyes and mouth, and she stood abruptly, accusingly. “You think me evil. And after all I’ve done to save your life.”
“Save it? By all appearances, madam, you very nearly took it.”
That, apparently, was the last straw for her. She stormed around to the end of the bed. Spencer could barely raise his hand to get her to stop. As his weak gesture had no effect, he flopped his hand back down to the bed. Victoria retrieved her book, held it close to her chest and, head held high, the very picture of the injured heroine, said: “I will go now. I never wish to inflict my presence where it is not wanted. And clearly it is not wanted here. Hornsby will be up shortly to attend you, sir. Good day to you.”
And with that, she paraded out of the room and, not so very gently, closed the door after her. But then she reopened it immediately and poked her head in. “I forgot to tell you that we’re the honored guests two nights from now at River’s End for a barbecue. However, because it is such a long drive and my parents would like some time alone with us before their other guests arrive, we will be leaving for there tomorrow and will be staying for as many as three nights. I am hoping, of course, that by tomorrow morning you can be up and around, so we can see if you are strong enough to attend. If not, I will have to break my mother’s heart—and she is already upset by the ruination of her figurine collection—and ruin all her plans for the barbecue by telling her you are under the weather, sir. And another thing, they know nothing about this baby or the letter I received or your fight with Loyal Atherton, so please do not bring any of those topics up. Oh, and too, if you will remember, while we are there, we are a loving couple.”
Spencer took a moment to assimilate all of that information. He had many questions and he understood everything, except the concept of a barbecue. But he wanted to get back to the “loving couple” statement. “Indeed? A loving couple? Well, then, I will make every endeavor to play my part.”
“Thank you.” Like a turtle—a particularly fetching turtle—retreating into the safety of its shell, Victoria pulled her head back, obviously getting ready to close the door again.
“Wait.” He admitted it: He didn’t want her to go. “I assume you will play your part, too, and sleep in the same bed as me while we are there?” It greatly pleased him to see her eyes widen with surprise. “Ah. So you hadn’t thought that all the way through to its logical conclusion, I see.” She said nothing. “Well, Victoria? Will you play your part as the loving wife?”
“Of course I will,” she snapped, her finely arched eyebrows now riding low over her sky-blue eyes. “I did it in London, and I can do it here, too.”
“Touché, madam.” He tried not to be insulted that she had to pretend to love him. It was irrational, he knew, so he blamed his head injury for its selective yearnings and imperfect memories. “In future, however, please do not accept invitations for me or us without first consulting me or Mr. Milton.”
His statement had been calculated to raise her ire and get her back in the room. Indeed, Victoria opened the door more fully and crossed the threshold. “I will not consult Mr. Milton. He does not get to say yea or nay to my wishes”—Spencer suppressed a smile at how she suddenly sounded like an imperious duchess—“and I could hardly consult you in this instance, your being unconscious. So I sent a note back with my mother’s messenger saying we accepted. They are my parents, and I didn’t feel you’d say no, even had you been conscious. If you’ll remember, we left River’s End under rather strained circumstances, and they are trying to make up for that by celebrating our marriage with their friends and colleagues. So this is very important to them, and to me, and I’m hoping I can count on you to behave while we’re there.”
Her entire speech had been remarkable, and he had enjoyed watching her for every word of it, but that last bit took him by surprise. “My behavior has not been called into question, madam, since I was five years old.” He thought a moment. “Twenty-five years old, at any rate. But what would you have done had I not awakened today, Victoria? Dragged me along unconscious?”
“Certainly not. I would have made our excuses.” So she would have stayed here with him; this warmed Spencer out of all proportion with her simple words. “However, remember they do not know about your, ah, injuries or the circumstances that caused them. And I think it best that they don’t.”
“Why? Because you’re the one who caused this last one?” He just couldn’t resist teasing her, and it surprised him that he couldn’t.
That stubborn chin of hers came up a notch. “I did what I had to do under difficult circumstances you helped cause.”
“I helped cause, madam?”
“Yes.
You attacked Loyal Atherton—”
“He was kissing you.”
“We’ve had this discussion. Now, I was saying my parents have no idea why I am really here—”
“Neither do I.”
She looked suddenly guilty. “Oh. That’s right. Well, it’s neither here nor there at the moment—”
“I think it’s here and now, actually. At this moment.” Spencer fought waves of dizziness as he tried to sit up—
“No, Spencer, don’t try to sit up. You’re still too— Oh, for heaven’s sake. I swan … men.” She rushed to his bedside, tossed her book down, and, making a show of her irritation with him, assisted him … ineffectually … by pulling on his arm, moving pillows around and fluffing them behind him. “I hardly think you’re in any shape to hear— Oh, I’m not even supposed to tell you. Or anyone. It’s too dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” Spencer thought he would pass out from the painful throbbing at his temples. He felt hot and clammy and mad as hell. “Victoria, listen to me. What is dangerous? You must tell me. Has that Mr. Atherton paid another visit or made threats?”
“No, of course not. But I received another—” She recoiled as if she’d seen a ghost. Closing her eyes momentarily, she put her fingers to her temple. Then she focused on Spencer. “I’m sorry, I have to go. I’ll have someone get Hornsby.”
She made a sudden move away from the bed, but Spencer grabbed her wrist and captured her startled attention. “You’re not going anywhere. What did you receive? Another what? Another letter?”
Tears welled in Victoria’s eyes. “I don’t know what to do, Spencer. One moment I think I should tell you, and the next I’m too afraid to involve you.” She easily pulled her arm out of his weakening grip and turned and fled the room, closing the door behind her.
Alone now, a virtual invalid who could not even reach the glass of water so tantalizingly close to his head; a man who could not seem to conduct one simple conversation with his wife without it ending in a battle of wills or tears or injured feelings or talk of divorce; a man who most likely would, inside of a week, given the frequency and severity of his head injuries, be a drooling idiot or dead, Spencer absolutely gave up. Defeated, he stared up at the ceiling and asked it: “What in hell is going on around here?”
To Make a Marriage Page 18