A Wicked Pursuit

by Isabella Bradford

  Mrs. Patton scowled and looked to Sir Randolph for reinforcement—reinforcement that did not come.

  “Please, if Miss Augusta would be so kind as to assist,” Sir Randolph said, swallowing his pride for the sake of his fashionable practice. “While my first concern is for his lordship’s health, I wouldn’t wish to offend either his lordship or His Grace. I desire only to be amenable to his lordship’s wishes.”

  Reluctantly Mrs. Patton handed the cup with the draft to Gus. Harry had won again, but even this minor drama had exhausted him, and laudanum or not, he was already struggling to stay awake.

  “Wait,” he said, shaking his head as Gus held the draft for him. He reached for her free hand, linking his fingers into hers so she couldn’t escape.

  “I—I want you to know that I am happy you are here,” he said, exhaustion turning the words clumsy on his tongue. Damnation, why did this keep happening when he’d important things to tell her? Why couldn’t he focus? “I’m—I’m glad you came back, and I do not wish you to leave. There.”

  She smiled, a quirky, tight-lipped little smile. “There, my lord?”

  Could she really be teasing him as he’d teased her earlier, or were his fever-addled wits playing tricks on him?

  “Here,” he said as firmly as he could. “Stay here. You bring me luck, and I—I need luck.”

  “Then luck you shall have,” she said softly, holding the glass to his lips. “Because when you wake again, I’ll be here still.”

  “Miss Augusta?”

  Gus hung on the edge of her dreams, not yet ready to wake, and burrowed back against the pillow and away from the gentleman’s voice that was rudely trying to wake her.

  “Miss Augusta, if you please,” the gentleman said again, and reluctantly Gus turned toward him and opened her eyes. It took her a moment to remember that she wasn’t in her own bed, but sleeping curled beneath a shawl in an old-fashioned wing chair that had been pulled beside Lord Hargreave’s bed. The gentleman’s voice belonged to his lordship’s surgeon, and when she opened her eyes Sir Randolph’s long, serious face beneath his elaborate wig was gazing directly at her.

  “Miss Augusta,” he said softly as soon as he was certain she was awake. “There has been a change in Lord Hargreave’s condition, and I thought you would wish to know of it.”

  Her heart racing, Gus threw off the shawl at once and rushed to the side of the bed. He’d been so sick already that she dreaded the thought of him having worsened.

  But as soon as she leaned over him, she saw that the change was only for the good. His face was relaxed, his forehead dry and no longer sheened with sweat, his breathing deep and regular.

  “His lordship’s fever broke during the night,” Sir Randolph said, keeping his voice low. “I believe when he wakes and we dress his leg, we shall see an improvement there as well.”

  “Do you believe him out of danger?” she asked anxiously.

  Sir Randolph smiled. “If his lordship continues in this state through this evening, then I will be willing to pronounce him so, Miss Augusta.”

  Gus pressed her hands to her cheeks, overwhelmed. She hadn’t realized how much she’d been fearing the worst until this moment. The earl wasn’t out of danger yet, and he’d have a long recovery before he could hope to regain even a fraction of the use of his leg. He’d lost a great deal of weight while he’d been ill, and his face beneath his dark beard was gaunt, his cheeks hollowed. Gus suspected he’d lost much of his strength with it, more than he likely realized. In her experience, gentlemen made particularly poor convalescents, and she pitied whomever would be overseeing the earl for the next months.

  “If he progresses today as I expect,” Sir Randolph continued, “then I shall cease my imposition on your hospitality, Miss Augusta, and return to London. Mr. Leslie can look after him from here on, and I’ve already summoned him for a final consultation before I leave. I’ve other patients clamoring for my return.”

  “I would imagine so,” Gus said, still watching the sleeping earl. “Will you be taking his lordship back with you?”

  “Oh, good heavens, no,” the surgeon said, drawing back a fraction as if from something distasteful. “I would not recommend moving his lordship for some weeks, even months to come. A long journey by carriage would quite kill him at present. There is no question of that. No, Miss Augusta, I fear he must be your father’s guest for some time longer.”

  “We shall welcome his company,” Gus said, her thoughts racing ahead to the basic logistics of such a grand houseguest for a lengthy stay.

  “I should imagine your sister will enjoy it,” Sir Randolph said, smiling slyly. “There’s no better way for a pretty lady to win a gentleman’s heart than to nurse him winsomely back to health.”

  Gus smiled, too, only because it was expected. But then, she knew what Sir Randolph didn’t: that after the single disastrous visit to Lord Hargreave’s bedside, Julia had refused to return. Nor had she shown any wish to discuss his health or circumstances, no matter how Papa had pressed her.

  To be sure, Gus herself had spent so much time at Lord Hargreave’s bedside over the last days that she wasn’t exactly sure what Julia had been doing or saying, but from Papa’s ill humor on the subject, it had been easy enough for Gus to guess. Privately she felt sorry for his lordship for having Julia turn so skittish and squeamish and ignoring him as she had. Julia was her sister, but to Gus her actions just didn’t seem right.

  Still, there was no real reason for Gus to think of his lordship as anything other than her sister’s future husband. Everyone else did. Nothing had changed. His lordship might babble in his fever-dreams about how Gus was his lucky angel, but his heart still belonged to her beautiful sister.

  All of which was why, when Sir Randolph began speaking of how Julia would be so pleased to look after the earl, Gus realized that her sister should also be informed of his lordship’s improvement.

  “Excuse me, Sir Randolph,” she said, “but I’m going to share this excellent news with my sister and my father now.”

  With a final look at the sleeping earl, she left the room and hurried down the long hall to the wing with the family’s bedchambers. She wouldn’t be gone long, intending to return before he woke.

  It was still early in the morning, and the house was just starting to rouse for the day. The parlor maids were beginning to open the curtains and sweep the hearths, and the aroma of Papa’s black coffee came drifting from his bedchamber. Gus expected to find Julia still in bed and dawdling over her breakfast tray, or perhaps sitting at her dressing table to have her hair brushed and arranged for the day.

  What she didn’t expect, however, was to find Papa raging and swearing and crashing about like a caged bull in Julia’s pink-and-white bedchamber. The bed was unmade, and clothes and hats and stockings and shoes were strewn about the room, as if tossed aside in great haste. An open trunk stood near the wardrobe, half packed with more clothes; none of the disarray made sense.

  “Gus!” Papa exclaimed as soon as she appeared in the doorway. “Thank God you’re here. What do you know of this? What has your fool of a sister done now?”

  He was standing in the center of the room, red-faced and waving a letter in his hand. He was still wearing his paisley dressing gown, his nightcap shoved back on the crown of his head. Footmen and maidservants stood guiltily around him, as if they were somehow to blame for whatever had happened.

  “I don’t know anything yet, Papa,” Gus said, using her calmest voice to try to settle him. “You must tell me first. Where is Julia?”

  “She’s bolted,” he said. “Run back to London like the cowardly brat that she is. Look, she even admits it.”

  Gus plucked the letter from his waving hand. It was indeed from Julia, written in her loopy, schoolgirl’s hand. She’d done exactly as Papa had said, and fled to London.

  The letter was very long, and filled with the overwrought phrases that Julia had doubtless borrowed from one of her favorite romantic novels: She was racke
d with Purest Agony, her Tender & Fluttering heart Tormented because of the unspeakable & cruel suffering of her Noble Beloved, until she could bear this Terrible Tedium No Longer, & must seek Succor & Relief elsewhere to preserve & restore Herself. Her sanctuary from all this dreadful Agony would be Aunt Abigail’s luxurious house on Portman Square, from which she likely intended to soothe herself with a fresh round of balls and parties.

  “Do you know when she left?” Gus asked as she scanned the letter.

  “Hours ago,” Papa said with gloomy imprecision. “That damned rogue Tom was her accomplice, taking her and her maid in the chaise, and it’s the last time he’ll ever show his face in my stable. I’ll see him charged with stealing my daughter and my horse—”

  “You’ll do nothing of the sort, Papa,” Gus said firmly. “You know poor Tom had no choice, not with Julia. She can be very persuasive.”

  “She can be very wicked, the little baggage.” Papa dropped heavily into a nearby armchair and pulled off his nightcap in disgust. “Wicked and faithless! Look at that driveling letter she left. All she considers is herself, and scarce a word about Hargreave.”

  Gus sighed. Everything he said was true, but what mattered more was trying to salvage the situation before it was too late.

  “Did Julia leave his lordship a letter, too?” she asked, praying her sister hadn’t.

  “Not that I’ve found,” Papa said, “and thank the Heavens she didn’t. Think of it, Gus, think of it. Here she has her chance at a dukedom, and what does she do? She throws it to the winds because she’s too damned impatient to wait for Hargreave to recover! What man would want her after that?”

  “You must go after her, Papa,” Gus said, striving to remain calm herself. As he said, this could be disastrous for Julia. It would be bad enough if fashionable London learned that she’d simply refused an offer of marriage from Lord Hargreave. But to have her abandon him, broken and unconscious and injured in the process of proposing, would be far worse, and make her the talk of the town for all the wrong reasons. “You must catch her before she reaches London.”

  “Oh, I’ll catch her, I will,” Papa said, rising to his feet with fresh determination. “I’ll catch her, and she’ll be sorry I did, the selfish little wretch, and then I’ll—”

  “Go dress now, Papa,” she said firmly, taking him by the arm and steering him through the door. “Don’t squander any more time talking. I’ll ask William to go with you, and to have the horses ready.”

  Papa nodded. “William’s a steady lad, not like that black dog Tom, stealing my daughter—”

  “Papa, now,” Gus urged. “You must go after her now.”

  “I’m going, Gus,” Papa said, charging off in a fury of fresh outrage. “You’ll see. I’ll have your sister back home by supper.”

  Gus turned back to the little circle of servants, still waiting expectantly for her to address them. Papa so trusted the staff that he thought nothing of speaking freely—even rashly—before them, leaving it to Gus to offer the words of caution.

  “You’ve all heard what my sister has done,” she said, her hands clasped before her, “and how the viscount is doing his best to rectify her impetuous actions. In the meantime, I trust you will not share this—this confidence with any outside the abbey, especially the attendants or servants of Sir Randolph Peterson and Mr. Leslie. My sister’s future happiness, and therefore the happiness of this entire household, rest upon your discretion. Is that clear?”

  They murmured their agreement in unison, and Gus could only hope they meant it, and—better—that they could do it. Julia’s impulsiveness was so scandalous that even the most loyal servants would be hard-pressed to keep it to themselves. Quickly she gave orders to have her sister’s rooms put to rights, and for horses to be readied for her father and the head groom William. Then, at last, she hurried back to the other end of the house where, with any luck, Lord Hargreave would still be blissfully asleep and unaware.

  But any luck of the favorable kind seemed to have fled from her. Even before she reached the earl’s room, she could hear that for the second time this morning she would have to confront an angry male.

  For the first morning in a week, the curtains at the windows were drawn and the large corner room was filled with sunlight. It was the abbey’s best bedchamber, the one reserved for visitors of rank, with yellow dragon-patterned silk hangings and coverings on the mahogany chairs, and well-polished brasses on the tallboy that gleamed in the sun. In the center of the room was the large mahogany bedstead, also hung in yellow Chinese silk, and sitting beneath the elaborate cornice and canopy like some exotic potentate was Lord Hargreave.

  No, not like an exotic potentate, but an angry one. He was leaning against the mounded pillows, his black hair wild and tousled above his equally black beard, and his blue eyes clear and sharp. Standing beside his bed were Sir Randolph and his assistant, the unhappy targets of his wrath; if he truly had been an exotic potentate, it was clear he would have ordered both of them executed on the spot.

  “Where the devil have you been?” Lord Hargreave demanded, glaring at Gus. “You promised you would stay with me, Miss Augusta. Obviously, you did not.”

  She stopped abruptly, drawing herself up straight and clasping her hands before her waist.

  “Good morning, my lord,” she said with as much serenity as she could marshal. “I had another matter of importance requiring my attention.”

  He raised his dark brows with surprise at her explanation. “How in blazes could anything else be more important than keeping your word to me?”

  “It was, my lord,” she said, with no intention of explaining further. Thanks to her father, she’d an entire lifetime’s practice of dealing with irascible, illogical males. Although the earl was an astonishingly handsome example, he really wasn’t that different. She knew better than to lapse into a quarrel with him, a quarrel that would accomplish nothing. Distraction, plus a touch of flattery, would work much better.

  She smiled. “I am so glad to see how much improved you are, my lord. You are looking much more like your old self on this sunny day.”

  He glanced impatiently at the windows, as if to remind himself of what exactly a sunny day might be.

  “You did not know my old self, Miss Augusta, if you can find any such a resemblance,” he said. “I am weak and wasted, a husk of what I once was. Here, see for yourself.”

  He thrust his arm out toward her and shoved up the sleeve of his nightshirt to above the elbow. To Gus’s eyes, his bare arm looked well muscled and manly—exceptionally manly, if she was honest, and quite manly enough to make her cheeks grow warm at the display of it like this.

  “Look at this,” he said with disgust, making a fist to flex the muscles against the small linen bandage that marked his last bloodletting. “I’ve lost so much flesh, I’m weak as a kitten.”

  “You exaggerate, my lord,” she said, refusing to commiserate the way he so obviously wanted. “You must still possess the strength of a full-grown cat.”

  He smiled quickly at that, clearly not expecting it from her.

  “Make that at least a tom,” he said, dropping his arm. “And a cantankerous stable-variety tom at that.”

  “I would not argue, my lord,” she said seriously. “A tomcat seems most appropriate.”

  “Yes,” he said, his eyes gleaming in an appropriately predatory way. “But if I am ever to recover to a full tigerish strength, I must eat, and yet these imbeciles here refuse to send to the kitchens for a fit meal.”

  “I am not refusing you sustenance, my lord,” Sir Randolph said. His expression was so pained that Gus suspected he could not wait to be on his way to London and those other, less challenging patients. “I am simply urging caution in it. You must eat lightly for the next few days, or risk inflaming the humors and causing the fever to return. A broth made of beef or poultry, a plain panada—”

  “A panada?” his lordship asked suspiciously. “What in blazes is that?”

  “It�
��s a simple, restorative dish,” Gus said, even as she knew there’d be no way to make panada sound appetizing. “Plain bread is boiled together with milk until it becomes a kind of pudding. With a little honey or sugar for sweetening, it’s—”

  “It’s wretched pap meant for infants, not grown men,” the earl declared. “Do you want me to remain an invalid, Peterson, so you might claim a bigger fee? Is that why you’ll only give me invalid’s food?”

  “I wish nothing of the sort, my lord,” Sir Randolph exclaimed. “My sole aim is to see you restored to health and purpose. You have already shown remarkable improvement, sufficient for me to return to London.”

  “I’ll be following you soon enough,” Lord Hargreave said. “I cannot remain buried here in Norfolk for much longer, or I’ll expire from boredom.”

  “No, you will not, my lord,” the surgeon said firmly. “You must remain here in this bed for at least another five weeks in order for the bones to heal themselves. Travel is absolutely out of the question. You would risk dislodging the setting bones, and putting yourself in danger again of losing the leg.”

  The earl swore, long, loudly, and colorfully. “But I cannot stay here, Peterson! Not for five more weeks!”

  “You will, my lord,” Sir Randolph said, righteous and stern. “Instead of using such oaths before this lady, you would do far better to throw yourself on her mercy and her hospitality, for you will have need of both for your recovery.”

  The earl glared at Gus as if all of this were somehow her fault. “Is this true, Miss Augusta? Must I remain here as a prisoner in this wretched room for five more weeks?”

  Gus frowned; she could not help it, despite her best intentions. Hearing him dismiss the abbey’s finest guest room as wretched hurt both her family pride and the pride she took in running the household.

  “If you care for your leg, my lord, you’ll follow Sir Randolph’s orders,” she said tartly. “Of course you may continue as my family’s guest as long as you wish, and as our guest, I’ll see that you receive every comfort.”