“Now, you’ve drunk two glasses of water. You’re looking desperate. Let me get you the chamber pot.”
He left her to herself for a good three minutes before fear that she would fall on her face again drove him back into the bedchamber. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding the blankets over her, staring hard at her toes. They were nice toes. An appallingly clear image of himself nibbling those toes flashed through his mind. He cleared his throat.
“The squire’s wife, Betty, left you a nightgown. I’ll put it on you right after you’ve had a bath. What do you think?”
“A bath?” she scratched her leg, then touched the thick, oily braid. She nearly shouted, she was so excited. But once he had her sitting in the deep tub, the water just covering her breasts, she didn’t have the strength to balance herself. She slid directly down and nearly drowned herself.
“You’re weak,” he said matter-of-factly, his hands under her arms, pulling her up. “That’s perfectly natural. You just keep yourself sitting up, yes, that’s it, hang on to the sides, and I’ll wash your hair for you.”
She was trembling, her lips nearly blue, when finally she was clean, from her toes to her head, and he had wrapped her in towels. She sat bundled in the single chair, watching Susie, the maid, change the bed. When Susie was finished, she curtsied and said, “Shall I comb out your hair, my lady?”
Her hair was nearly dry before she realized what Susie had called her. Oh, dear, she thought, but it was a half-hearted oh, dear because she was simply too tired to care. She was only vaguely aware of Gray putting her into a nightgown and lifting her into bed. He smoothed the nightgown over her legs and tucked her between those delicious, sweet-smelling fresh linens. She felt his warm hand lightly stroking her wrist as she sank into a pleasant stupor.
“Come on, Jack, open your eyes. You can do it. Can you smell the chicken soup Mrs. Harbottle made just for you? Yes, that’s right. Breathe in deeply. Now open your mouth. Good. Just a little bite at first.”
He kept spooning in the soup until she simply couldn’t hold another bite. He set the bowl aside and leaned back in the chair, crossing his arms over his chest.
She stretched beneath the covers. “I’m alive and I feel clean. It’s wonderful.”
“Yes.” He remembered each and every inch of her, since he’d been diligent, not missing a single patch of her with that washing cloth. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to wipe that picture out of his mind and not succeeding to any great extent, and said easily, “You’ve got a lot of hair. I don’t recall ever having washed a girl’s hair before. It’s still not quite dry. Try not to move your head.”
“Can I have some water?”
After she’d drunk her fill, he laid her back down and sat in his chair again, leaning forward, his hands clasped between his knees. “A lot has happened in the past four days,” he said, watching her carefully. “I sent a messenger to London with a letter to Mathilda and Maude. He waited for them to write me a response.”
She closed her eyes against the enormity of life. “Do they ever want to see me again?”
“Oh, yes, you’re still their little lambkin. As you can imagine, they as well as my entire household were frantic when I unexpectedly disappeared, evidently taking both Durban and Brewster with me. Naturally the aunts had to spill to Quincy that Jack the valet wasn’t Jack at all. Unfortunately, by the time they worked themselves up to the sticking point, Quincy had already notified all of my friends, not just one or two. No, he’d notified at least a dozen, inquiring if they knew where I’d gone to.
“Then Sir Henry Wallace-Stanford came back, nearly ran over Quincy, and was met by the manly Remie, who properly set him back out on the street. While Remie was manhandling Sir Henry, a good friend of mine, Ryder Sherbrooke, came along and was quickly told by Quincy that I was missing and that this man was trying to steal into the house for some nefarious purpose.” Gray paused a moment, smiling as he pictured the scene, and said, “Ryder then proceeded to pound him into the ground.
“Ryder was there when my letter to Quincy arrived.” Gray looked down at his fingernails. They were clean and well buffed. “Ryder will be coming here to escort us back. I expect him anytime now. There was nothing I could do to prevent it. But we don’t have to worry about Ryder. He’ll not say a word to hurt me. Since you’re with me, you’ll not be hurt either.”
She was giving him a bitter look that made him angry. He hadn’t done a damn thing, and here she was looking all wounded. Now that expressive face of hers was drifting toward desperation. “All because I stole Durban,” she said, looking at the ceiling. “What will I do now?”
He sat forward, groped beneath the pile of blankets to find her hand, and pulled it out. He held her fingers, feeling how dry her skin was, and frowned. “We need some cream. Illness does strange things to our bodies. Your skin feels like a dry leaf. This isn’t good. I’ll take care of it.”
He didn’t say another word, just got up and left the bedchamber immediately. She lay there because she didn’t have the strength to lift her own dry hand. Where had he gone? What was he going to take care of? Everything was a mess. There was indeed life waiting outside this bedchamber, and she didn’t like it.
Where had he gone, damn him? She didn’t say the curse aloud, just thought it. It surprised her that when she’d even thought the ‘damn,’ she’d tasted turnips. Her mother had a lot to answer for.
When Gray came back, he was carrying a small jar. “Hold still,” he said and began smoothing cream into her hand. He shoved up the arm of her nightgown and rubbed the cream into her forearm, then up to her shoulder. “That feels better,” he said, then moved to her other arm. He rubbed slowly; he was thorough. “Now your face.”
When he’d finished to his satisfaction, he set the jar beside the water carafe, sat down, and leaned forward, his hands clasped. He said, “Who’s Georgie?”
She said, “You’re not a bad man, are you? The aunts were wrong to even consider for a moment that you weren’t honorable. You’re not at all like your father. Was he really bad?”
“Yes, I already told you. He was a nightmare. He’s dead. I’m not at all like him. Enough of your attempts to distract me. If you don’t think you can trust me now, then you’re a blockhead. Tell me, Winifrede, who’s Georgie?”
“My little sister.”
“You were riding toward Folkstone to visit your little sister?”
“I was going to take her away from my stepfather. I must protect her.”
“Because he’ll finally think of her and use her as leverage against you?”
“How did you know that?”
“You were delirious. You said that.”
She fell silent. She wouldn’t look at him. He was so irritated, he nearly threw the pitcher against the wall. He rose and began to pace. The clothing Squire Leon had given him fit him well enough. Actually, she thought, looking toward him, the trousers were black and tight. He looked quite fit, no fat on him that she could see, and he was a good deal taller than she was. It was difficult to tell how tall he was, since she was lying flat on her back. Squire Leon’s waistcoat was also black, not terribly stylish, but she thought that with the full-sleeved white shirt he looked quite dashing. His black boots were his own, she assumed, and his attempts to clean them hadn’t been terribly successful. Yes, Gray was a man of many nice aspects.
What else had she spewed out when she’d been out of her head? Had she told him about little Tommy Lathbridge putting his hand on her leg when she was six years old and he was seven? Then she’d put her hand on Tommy’s leg, and he was so mortified he hadn’t spoken to her for a month.
She sighed. Life was here in the room with her, and he was trying to shove it down her throat. There was no hope for it. She either trusted him or she didn’t. He’d saved her life. On the other hand, if he hadn’t stopped her, she would have—would have wh
at? Ridden to Bath before she’d realized she was going the wrong direction?
She cleared her throat and spit it out. “You saved my life. Thank you. I’ll be ready to leave in another day, surely not longer. I’m young and usually very well—not even colds bring me down. Will you loan me some money? Will you loan me Durban? Will you just forget all this happened? Please?”
“Is Sir Henry Wallace-Stanford your father?”
She’d given it her best. It had been worth a try. “No,” she said.
He walked to the bed, leaned down with a hand on either side of her head, and said not an inch from her mouth, “You will stop this lunacy. You have already compromised me beyond redemption. You are such a provincial twit that you don’t realize what you’ve done, not just to yourself but also to me. On top of all of that, you won’t even trust me to help you. Damn your eyes, Jack, I did save your bloody life. Trust me, tell me all of it, or I’ll throw you out that bloody window.”
“The window’s too narrow. I’d never fit.”
“You would now. You’re as skinny as that bedpost.” He stood up. “Ryder Sherbrooke’s older brother Douglas is the earl of Northcliffe. He and his family are also in London. While Ryder comes flying to my assistance, Douglas will see to it that all my friends know that I’m still alive and stop looking for me. He will protect the aunts and my home.”
Why had he spit all that out? None of it made any difference. There was a knock on the bedchamber door. “It’s either Mr. Harbottle, wanting to increase the cost of this room, or Susie, come to straighten the room, or Ryder, come to save me, not realizing that it won’t matter, that it’s already too late.”
It wasn’t Ryder Sherbrooke. It was Ryder’s younger sister, Sinjun, who was married to Colin Kinross, the Scottish earl of Ashburnham.
He’d known Sinjun since she was fifteen and he an ancient nineteen and a friend of the other Sherbrooke brother, Tysen, now a vicar and so righteous and pompous that his brothers continually regaled him with their most wicked tales. To test his character, Ryder said. To determine if he was really so nauseatingly upright, Douglas said. As for Sinjun, Gray remembered that she would just shake her head at Tysen and laugh.
Sinjun at fifteen had been tall and lanky with straggly hair and the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen. That girl was long gone. She was now twenty-two, still tall, but now quite beautiful. Those Sherbrooke blue eyes of hers shone brilliantly in the dim corridor light as she threw her arms around Gray and said, “What have you gotten yourself into now, sir? Tell me whom I’m to shoot, or what dragon I’m to slay for you.
“Ryder just found a little girl who’d been tossed into the streets by her father who was trying to find a man who wanted a child. It’s difficult to believe there are such wicked people, but Ryder says it’s all too common. He took her back to Brandon House, to Jane.”
Gray said to Jack, “Ryder Sherbrooke rescues children from appalling situations and takes them to Brandon House, a beautiful brand-new house that sits very close to his own in the Cotswolds. He takes care of them, sees to their futures. He usually has about fifteen children there at any one time.”
Sinjun interrupted him. “Who’s this? Goodness, Gray, is this the young lady who isn’t really the valet Jack? She looks all green about the gills. What have you done to her? Move aside and I’ll see to her.”
Gray moved aside. Sinjun was only four years his junior and a major force of nature.
“Where is Colin?” Gray asked, trailing Sinjun into the bedchamber and closing the door.
“He was being a perfect pain in the—well, never mind that. He’s more nervous than the chickens get when I’m practicing with my bow and arrow in the apple orchard. It’s absurd, Gray. I’m just pregnant—a very common thing, particularly among women—and you’d think I was afflicted with some strange and nasty disease. I left him in London to drive himself mad for a change.”
Gray closed his eyes. “You mean you simply walked out on Colin? You didn’t say anything at all to him?”
“I left him a very sweet letter,” she said. “Now, enough of that. Let me see to Jack.”
“You’re pregnant? That’s wonderful, Sinjun! Congratulations.” Gray hugged her, then lightly tapped his fingertips on her chin. “You didn’t ride like a bedlamite to get here, did you?”
“Not at all. I brought a carriage.” She just smiled up at him, then moved to the bed. She stared down at Jack the valet for a long moment, then sat on the edge of the bed.
She leaned forward and peered very closely into Jack’s eyes.
“I’m really all right.”
“You’re less green now than you were a minute ago. Yes, you’re going to be fine, thank God. Did Gray nurse you? Of course he did, there’s no one else. I’ve known Gray forever. He’s never nursed me, but I would imagine he’s quite capable.”
“It’s his fault that I got sick. He wouldn’t let me take Durban.”
“What a selfish lout. Shame on him. Who’s Durban?”
“I’m not a lout,” Gray said. “Durban’s my horse, not hers.”
“Believe me,” Sinjun said to Jack, ignoring him. “Gray’s not at all selfish. He must have had an excellent reason not to lend Durban to you. He is wonderful, you know. You can believe me about this.” She lightly laid her palm on Jack’s forehead. “You feel nice and cool. When did you last drink some water? It doesn’t matter. Here, drink some more. You’re also clean. Did Gray bathe you? He never bathed me either, but again I’ll wager he’s quite good at it. Gray is thorough. He’s conscientious.”
“Don’t forget to repeat how wonderful I am,” Gray said, torn between amusement and irritation and, yes, a dollop of embarrassment as well.
“Your skin also feels healthy and soft. Hmmm, that’s lucky for you.”
“Gray rubbed cream all over me.”
“He noticed your skin was dry? He rubbed you with cream? What a thoughtful thing for him to do.”
He saw that Jack didn’t stand a chance. No one did with Sinjun. Jack drank the entire glass of water that Sinjun held for her. Gray wanted to laugh. While Ryder would have coddled Jack and let her complain and whine, Sinjun simply rolled over her. Was he really wonderful? And thoughtful?
“Sinjun,” he said to a bewildered, silent Jack, “is but one of the Sherbrooke siblings. Just wait until you meet Ryder and Douglas. Incidentally, Sinjun, how is Vicar Tysen?”
“He and that appallingly proper Melinda Beatrice—that’s his wife”—she added to Jack—“are working on their third child. Three! They’ve only been married just three years. Can you believe that? Douglas and Ryder torment him, tell him that God surely can’t approve of all the carnal appetite he’s displaying.” Sinjun Kinross paused a moment, her brow furrowed, her Sherbrooke blue eyes gone dark with intensity.
“As I told you, I brought a carriage, Gray. Actually, it’s your town carriage. When Jack is strong enough, we’ll go back to London.”
“I’m strong enough right now. This very minute. I’ve never been called Jack before a week and a half ago.”
“What’s your name?” Sinjun asked.
“Winifrede.”
“You don’t look like a Winifrede,” Gray said. “Thank God.”
“No, you don’t,” Sinjun said. “Gray’s right. I like ‘Jack.’ It has grit. My mother wouldn’t like it; she’d claim it would wither a female’s charms and shrivel a man’s interest, but I disagree. Yes, ‘Jack’ has fortitude.”
Gray laughed at the look of complete bafflement on her face. “All right. Let me wrap you up and Sinjun here will take us back to London.”
8
THEY MADE it to the front yard of the inn. Gray was carrying Jack, with Sinjun giving him instructions he didn’t need, when a man’s furious shout made them stop in their tracks.
“Oh, dear,” Sinjun said, “I believe I’m about to be brought low.�
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Gray, who alternately looked up at the heavy dark clouds overhead and down at Jack’s pale face, said, “I thought you left Colin a very sweet letter.”
“It was. It was mawkish it was so sweet. It wasn’t a thing like me. Perhaps he didn’t have a chance to read it. Or perhaps he saw I was gone, read the letter, and decided to strangle me anyway. But you know, Gray, Colin is a lot like Ryder and Douglas. One minute he’s yelling his head off and the next he’s laughing and—”
“I know when a man is gathering himself up to yell his head off,” Gray said, “and your husband is on the very brink.”
The man striding quickly toward them was waving his fist and yelling, “Damn you, Sinjun, don’t you move. Don’t you even think about taking another single step away from me. Just stand right there and be calm and don’t fidget. And don’t breathe too deeply, it might shake something loose.”
Jack, all wrapped up like a package and held in a man’s arms, against a man’s chest—something that had never happened to her in her life—looked up to see a tall black-haired man nearly running across the inn yard toward them. She forgot how weak and light-headed she felt and asked, “Why can’t you breathe too deeply, Sinjun? Shake what loose?”
“Because she’s pregnant, dammit.” Colin Kinross, the earl of Ashburnham, came to a halt in front of his wife, very gently clasped her upper arms in his big hands, and yelled, “Are you all right?”
“Yes, Colin, I’m healthy as a stoat.”
“You look flushed, dammit.”
“If I am flushed, it’s because my husband chased me down in an inn yard and is shouting loudly enough for the entire town of Grindle-Abbott to hear. Look, there is Mr. Harbottle coming out of the inn wielding an empty tankard over his head.”
Colin jerked his head up and stopped Mr. Harbottle with a look. His eyes were back on his wife’s face in the next moment. “You left me, Sinjun. After I told you to remain very prettily arranged on your bed, reading those ghost stories I bought you myself, you had the gall to leave me. You managed to slip out past the servants, who know you well enough to be forewarned, but you still managed it. They are upset, but not as upset as I am.”
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