“Yes, they’re dry. How do you feel?”
She was no longer dizzy, thank God. She silently queried her body, from her rib to her head. It wasn’t too bad, just light throbbing in both places. She did feel a bit heavy, perhaps on the dull side, and that was odd, but it wasn’t bad enough to say anything about. “I’m fine, but I don’t want to go back to London, unless it’s just to leave you there with Brewster and make certain I’m on the road to Folkstone.”
“Not likely,” he said, giving more attention to the wrinkles in his coat than to her very serious statement.
She didn’t think it was very likely either, but still, he could have perhaps explained, apologized, even smiled at her again. She watched him walk to her and drop her clothes onto the straw.
“Get dressed. I’ll see to Durban and Brewster. They’re probably thirsty.”
She was fastening her breeches when he came back into the barn. “The sun’s brighter than a woman’s smile when her lover gives her a diamond necklace.”
“I’ve never heard it put quite that way.”
“I’m sometimes a poet,” he said. He narrowed his eyes and looked at her closely from toe to head. “You look like a wreck.”
“So do you.”
“Yes, I suppose neither of us would be welcome in a London drawing room. On the other hand, my face isn’t a mess of blue and green and yellow bruises like yours is. Let’s go get something to eat. There must be a town nearby with an inn.”
The Corpulent Goose was the premier inn in the market town of Grindle-Abbott. Set in a small yard surrounded by oak trees and a little stable, it faced the town square on High Street. The Corpulent Goose was at least three centuries old and looked every decade of it, but still somehow managed to retain a touch of bygone elegance, what with its slate roof that sloped sharply and dozens of small diamond-paned windows that were sparkling clean.
The taproom was very small, holding only four square wooden tables with benches so old they looked worm-eaten.
A man with a huge belly that was covered with a stained apron came to their table and bellowed, “Wot be fer ye lads?”
“Something to eat, please,” Gray said, “for my brother and me.”
“A lot of something, please,” she said, her voice as deep as she could make it.
“Yer a purty little pullet, ain’t ye?” the innkeeper said, as he rubbed his belly with a huge hand. “Even with yer face all bruised up.”
“I’m not a little pullet. I’m just a little rooster.”
The innkeeper eyed them both and said, “Ye both look like ye slept in yer clothes. Wot did ye do to yer face, little un? Yer brother here belt ye a good un?”
“My brother fell afoul of a door,” Gray said. “Actually we did sleep in our clothes. Food, please. A lot of it. My brother’s a growing boy.”
“Aye, don’t flap yer feet.” He looked at her again, frowning. “Ye’d best pray Mrs. Harbottle’s good food will ’elp yer little brother grow up straight, but I don’t think so. Aye, I know. I’ll bring one of me Millie’s roasted pork knivers, that’ll help the lad if anything will.”
“Thank you, sir,” she said.
Gray saw that she was staring after the innkeeper. “What is it?”
“I’ve just never before seen a man quite like that one. He was very familiar. What did he mean that the pork knivers would make me grow straight? I have excellent posture.”
“I don’t believe we should visit that subject. The aunts wouldn’t approve. Actually I don’t know if the aunts would themselves understand, so just forget the straight business.
“Now, do you want me to tell the innkeeper that I’m a baron and that he should bow, slinging that huge belly low, to show me proper respect, and then charge me twice as much?”
She laughed. “Oh, no, I’m sure he couldn’t keep his balance. Oh, goodness, do we have enough money to pay for the food?”
“If you don’t eat too much, we should be fine.”
“That’s good—you look too dirty and wrinkled to be a baron.” She giggled behind her hand, a very white hand with long slender fingers. Gray saw another man who was drinking a glass of ale in the corner look up, his nose twitching, sniffing out that sound.
“Be quiet,” he said, leaning toward her. “Boys don’t giggle. They particularly don’t giggle behind their hands with their eyes all wicked. Keep your head down and your mouth shut.”
Actually, he thought, just one look at that face of hers and no man worth his salt would for an instant think she was male.
The innkeeper brought a platter of baked chicken, a single pork kniver for the purty little rooster, an entire loaf of bread, still hot from the oven, and two large glasses of ale. She fell on the chicken before the ostler had taken two steps away from their table.
“Oh, goodness, it’s the best chicken I’ve ever tasted in my life,” she said after she’d dropped a breast bone on her plate. “Indeed, I never had a clue that chicken could be so delicious. Is that thick leathery-looking thing a pork kniver? I’ve never seen one before.” She gently hefted the slab of pork off her plate and onto his. “If I have to eat this to grow straight, I think I prefer taking my chances.”
He laughed, picked up his fork, and dispatched the pork kniver in half a dozen bites. “I just realized that I was ready to take a bite out of that table leg,” he said. He followed the kniver with half the chicken. When he saw her take a long drink of ale, then swipe her hand across her mouth, he laughed. He couldn’t help it.
“If you weren’t so damned pretty, I would believe you a boy. The mouth swipe was well done.”
“I watched Remie do that once after he’d kissed an upstairs maid and heard Quincy coming. Remie’s very manly, you know. I decided that mouth swiping after drinking was just the thing to make me more believable in my rooster role.”
“Well, just don’t drink too much of that ale. It’s got fists. You’ve already drunk most of that glass. Do I see crossed eyes?”
“Naturally not.” She was feeling just the slightest bit dizzy, perhaps a bit light-headed, perhaps almost like she was going to fall in a wrinkled lump onto the taproom floor. She got her strength back when she saw there was still a single heel of bread left. She snatched it up before he could draw a bead on it himself.
Gray sat back in his chair, his hands folded over his belly. “That was quite excellent. Now, are you full yet? It’s time we got back to London. Perhaps on the way you’ll be so kind as to tell me who you are and why you’re the aunts’ valet, Jack—their valet, Mad Jack, to be exact. If you’ve still got a taste for talk, you can tell me why you felt you needed to steal Durban and why you were planning to return to Folkstone.”
She sat as still as the man three tables away who was still staring at her, his head cocked to the side.
“If you don’t tell me, why, then, I’ll just let the aunts know that the game’s up. Then I’ll have Quincy find Sir Henry Wallace-Stanford.”
“Oh, no,” she said. “Oh, please, no, Gray. You wouldn’t do that.” Then she blinked at him, tilted her head to one side, opened her mouth, and closed it. She fell forward, her nose hitting a thigh bone in the middle of her dinner plate.
Gray looked up at the dark-timbered eaves of the taproom. “Why me?” he asked no one in particular.
She wasn’t drunk. She was ill, and he was scared to death—and furious. He’d done his best by her, even fed her until her breeches’ buttons probably were ready to pop, and she’d had the gall to get ill. She was roasting with fever, limp as her breeches, which were now folded neatly over the back of a chair that looked to be older than the aunts.
Gray watched the little man straighten. His name was Dr. Hyde, and he was Jack’s size and completely bald. He was also clean, which was a good sign. Gray had been relieved no end when Harbottle, the innkeeper, had brought him up. “My lord,” said Dr. H
yde, who recognized a lord when he saw one, since he himself was the second son of a baronet, “the girl—yes, I know this is a girl despite the ridiculous clothing—she’s indeed ill, as anyone can see.” He raised a small, narrow, very clean hand when Gray opened his mouth. “No, I don’t need to know anything about either of you. She’s got the fever. It’s evident she was in the elements. It was a heavy rainstorm last night.”
“We were on our way to London.”
“If you want her to remain alive, you won’t go anywhere,” Dr. Hyde said. He placed his palm on her forehead again, then slipped his hand beneath the blankets to lay it over her breast. He closed his eyes and was quiet for a good minute. Finally, he looked up and said, “She should survive this if you keep her very warm and pour water down her throat, else she’ll just shrivel up and she’ll die, my lord. Now, here’s a tonic for her. It’s good for many things, a fever among them. I’ll return this evening. If she suddenly worsens, have Harbottle send for me.” Dr. Hyde cleared his throat. It took Gray a moment to realize that he wanted money. He pulled out a wad of notes from his waistcoat pocket. It wasn’t all that big a wad. He paid the doctor, not moving until the little man had let himself out of the bedchamber—the best bedchamber in his inn, Mr. Harbottle had told Gray when he’d followed him upstairs, carrying an unconscious Jack over his shoulder, since she was a little rooster and thus couldn’t be carried in his arms.
Gray cursed and nearly ran from the bedchamber, calling out when he saw Dr. Hyde at the end of the hall, “Dr. Hyde, the boy is my younger brother, Jack. I ask that you not forget that. It’s very important.”
Dr. Hyde frowned down his very thin nose, then slowly nodded.
Gray was cursing again an hour later when Jack shot up in bed, looked straight at him, and said, “If I don’t get Georgie, he’ll realize that he can use her against me, and I don’t know what he’ll do.”
Then she simply collapsed back onto the bed, her eyes closed, the fever hard on her now.
She was shivering violently. He took off his wrinkled clothes and climbed in beside her. Her chemise was damp. He managed to get it off her without ripping it, then pulled her tightly against him. He rubbed his hands up and down her back, over her hips, as far down the back of her legs as he could reach.
He said quietly, hoping that at some level she could hear him, “Come on now, Jack, you’re ill and that’s all right, but for just a little while. I’m getting you all warmed up, and soon you’ll be sweating like a mistress I once enjoyed who hated the summer heat because she sweated and she thought it would revolt me. Can you begin to imagine anything more silly than that? No one could, at least no man could. Come now, breathe more slowly, stay close to me. Yes, that’s it.”
He thought he’d die of heat prostration when, suddenly, without warning, she lurched up again and yelled, “I can say ‘damn,’ I can. It’s not a really bad word. Mrs. Gilroy says it under her breath when Mr. Gilroy eats garlic and then tries to kiss her. It’s a better word than ‘turnips.’ No, don’t make me eat those horrible turnips. Oh, goodness, it’s hot in here.” And she flung off the covers, pushed herself away from him, and jumped up from the bed.
He stared at the naked girl just standing there, staring down at him, her expression blank as a slate, her dark blond hair tangled wildly around her face. She was very nicely knit together, and had breasts made for a man’s mouth and his hands, although which part of himself a man would select first would be hard to decide. Damnation, he couldn’t think like this. She ran to the long, narrow window and flung it open. She leaned out, breathing in the fresh, crisp air. He looked at a white backside and a stretch of long legs that nearly made him swallow his tongue. A man’s mouth or a man’s hands—tough decision.
“No, Jack. Good God, you’re buck naked and leaning out the window. No, don’t wave.” He pulled her away from that open window, relieved that no one on the ground below had yet noticed her, and towed her back to the bed. “Come on now, you’re ill, Jack. You’ve got to keep warm.”
“I am warm, you fool,” she said, even her breath hot against his bare flesh. “I’m burning up. Flames are near my skin. Oh, goodness. Where are some scissors? I want to cut off this dreadful hair.”
She started pulling on her hair. Then she groaned and collapsed forward, her face against his belly. He gently eased her onto her back, then straightened over her.
“All right, I’ll try to cool you down.” He was stymied for a moment, then eyed the basin of cool water beside the bed. He wet her chemise, since he didn’t have anything else, and began to wipe her down. He would swear that when that cool, damp chemise stroked over her, she stretched and purred just like Eleanor.
He kept rubbing her with the damp cloth until finally she opened her eyes, smiled up at him, and said, “That’s very nice.” Her head fell to the side.
“Oh, no,” he said, bringing her head up into the crook of his elbow. “You’ve got to drink some water.” He got nearly a full glass down her before she fell completely slack against him.
He felt utter panic, then saw that this time she was asleep, not unconscious. He eased her back onto the bed and brought the covers to her chin, spreading her hair out in a halo around her head. Then he rose and dressed in his ravaged clothes. He felt her forehead again. She was cool to the touch. Thank God. She was asleep.
He quickly left the bedchamber.
7
THE RAIN slammed against the narrow windows in the bedchamber. The windows rattled when lightning followed by a crash of thunder shook the table beside the bed. It was a god-awful day, dreary, cold, and gray. And there was nothing for him to do except wait. He wasn’t all that patient. It was a chore for him not to pace a hole through the very old rag rug that covered the oak floor.
At some deep level she was aware of the drumming rain. Hours later, it was the absence of that rhythmic rain that woke her. She lay there, aware finally that things had changed, but she didn’t know what exactly had happened. She thought she was back in the barn again when she saw the sun shining hard through the panes of the window, right in her face.
She was with some fat bird. A fat bird? Where? No, that wasn’t right. She was at the Corpulent Goose inn. She sighed deeply, pleased to have gotten that cobweb cleared out of her brain.
She was here with the baron, with Gray. That was a nice name. He’d never told her his name. She’d heard the aunts speak of him. But she remembered that smile of his, all white-toothed and wicked, that smile that could flatten a female, and she smiled now herself, thinking of it.
He wasn’t here. Oh, goodness, had he left her? Had he dusted his hands of her, taken Durban and Brewster and gone back to London?
It hurt now to smile and, she discovered, to swallow. She was thirsty. She was more than thirsty, she was close to dying of thirst. She saw a pitcher of water on a small table beside the bed. She had to have that water—she had to. Then she’d worry about Gray deserting her.
Gray opened the bedchamber door to see her flailing wildly in an effort not to fall out of bed. She didn’t make it. He didn’t either. She crashed to the floor, blankets and sheets twisted around her.
He cursed as he came down to his knees over her.
“Turnips,” she said, sounding like the creaky gate in Maude’s rose garden. “My mother will make you eat turnips.”
He grinned at her. “Good, you didn’t break your neck.” He scooped her and all the covers up and put her back on the bed. Everything was a mess.
“I was trying to reach the water.”
“Hold still.” Soon she was attacking a glass of water the way he’d attacked that delicious pork kniver. She drank a full glass, then fell back, just a bit of water dribbling down her chin. He flicked the water away with his finger.
She eyed him, then eyed him some more. “You’re not wrinkled. You look very much a baron today.”
“No more wrinkles. Squire Leo
n took pity on me.” He stopped then. “You’re awake and you’re making sense. I’ve become used to a moaning, sweaty girl who occasionally squeaks or sings nasty ditties or tells me about a frog she once had named Fred or how her older cousin used to throw her in a pond on the first day of May every year.”
“Poor Fred. A Frenchman got him, I know it. He was visiting in the neighborhood—the Frenchman, not Fred. Fred lived in the neighborhood. I knew the Frenchman was a guest at Gorkin Manor. He must have seen Fred, and it was all over. Fred was gone.” She coughed. “My voice feels all rusty. It doesn’t hurt that much right now, but it’s still strange. May I have some more water?”
After drinking another glass, she said, “I really told you about Fred?”
“Yes. Where’s your cousin?” He lightly stroked his fingertips over her cheek, a healthy color now, which relieved him enormously.
“Bernard died in the Peninsula three years ago.”
“I’m sorry. Now, do you remember when we came to the inn?”
“This morning. We came late morning and we were starving. I remember the pork kniver that you ate without offering me a single bite.”
“As I recall, you tried to eat all the chicken and disdained the kniver. At least you passed out after you’d eaten and not before. Now, you’re not quite right about the time. Actually, that happened four days ago. I was very worried about you, Jack. Even the local vicar was here, praying over you. Dr. Hyde told Squire Leon about the two of us, told him I was a peer, for God’s sake, and Squire Leon came to visit, took one look at the abysmal state I was in, and offered me clothes. His wife left clothes for you. Yes, everyone appears to know that you’re a female, including Mr. Harbottle. I suppose it was just too meaty a tale for Dr. Hyde not to pass on to his neighbors. It’s not really that important.
The Sherbrooke Series Novels 1-5 Page 107