The Earl's Bargain (Historical Regency Romance)

by Cheryl Bolen

  As wide awake as if he'd drunk a pot of strong tea, Harry watched as the coach rolled into Polperro, a quaint fishing village. The coachman went into the local inn to procure their rooms. Harry's eyelids began to grow heavy.

  * * *

  After the second of Jeremy Bentham's speeches, Edward was seeing Miss Sinclair home when she startled him by asking him if he carried a weapon.

  "I have no need, ma'am. We are in Mayfair."

  "Is that supposed to assure me that there are no cutthroats in Mayfair?"

  He thought for a moment. "You will be quite safe here, Miss Sinclair."

  "I don't feel quite safe. Just this morning I read in the Gazette that a woman's throat was slashed in Whitechapel."

  He laughed. "If I were to go to Whitechapel -- which I'm not likely to do -- I would carry a weapon. The borough is notorious for crimes of every sort. I hear there are prostitutes on every corner, selling themselves for a penny."

  Miss Sinclair's mouth opened to a perfect oval, and crimson crept into her cheeks.

  "I beg your pardon, I should not have spoken so in front of a lady."

  As they drew near Grosvenor Square, he glanced at her and spoke again, "I thought perhaps tonight you would do me the goodness to accompany me to Vauxhall Gardens. With your. . .er, cook to chaperon, of course." Demmed if he'd ever heard of young lady being chaperoned by her blasted cook! Edward would be only too happy to have his cousin return. It was most embarrassing traveling about London – and to a neighborhood he would not normally visit – with Harry's gig rattling behind him with the plump cook, who must be sixty years old, demmed near spilling out of the seat. Most embarrassing indeed.

  The young lady's face turned white, and she grew stiff as a poker. "Miss Grimm said Vauxhall was no place for gently bred ladies."

  He turned the corner that would take them to Grosvenor Square. "I take that for an insult, Miss Sinclair. Was just there last month with my sisters, and if they ain't well bred, I'll eat your bonnet."

  "I mean no offense, sir. I am only repeating what was told to me by Miss Grimm, whom, as I have told you, had been with Sir Sedgeley's daughters the year before she came to me." Miss Sinclair said that as if he was supposed to know who the demmed Sir Sedgeley was.

  If ever he met Miss Grimm, Edward would take great pleasure in throttling her.

  When he pulled up in front of Harry's old house, Edward leaped from the vehicle and assisted Miss Sinclair in alighting from it.

  Though he was not nearly so tall as his cousin, Edward towered over Ellie Sinclair. The top of her head barely reached the center of his chest. She looked up at him, her blue eyes smiling, and he was deuced glad he had spent the afternoon with her. Her blush had completely disappeared, leaving her skin the color of fresh snow. She was dainty and fair and had such a helpless quality about her that he would have been here with her even if Harry had not instructed him to do so.

  "I cannot tell you how grateful I am that you have taken me to see Mr. Bentham. I don't know what I would have done if it weren't for you," she said.

  He inclined his head. "It was my pleasure."

  "Wasn't Mr. Bentham enlightening?"

  He hadn't understood a word the man said. Bloody intellectual. "Oh, most enlightening."

  "Poor Louisa, I know she must be sorry, indeed, to miss Mr. Bentham."

  "Quite unfortunate," he agreed as the chubby cook swept past them.

  * * *

  Louisa woke from her nap when the carriage stopped. She was disoriented at first. She had been dreaming that she was in a warm bed at home in Kerseymeade, her mother bending over her lovingly.

  When she awoke she realized she was in Lord Wycliff's coach. Then she realized Lord Wycliff's head was in her lap. Which seemed terribly out of character for him. She peered down at him. He seemed to be sleeping like the dead.

  Unconscious of her own movement, Louisa gently swept her hand across his brow.

  He was burning with fever!

  Chapter 16

  Had Harry been cold instead of hot, she would have taken him for dead. For his body, blazing with heat, had gone completely limp. She looked down into his face. Rivulets of perspiration streaked it. Her breath grew short and she seemed paralyzed with fear. His arm! The infection had spread to the rest of his body. He was going to die!

  She couldn't have said for how long she sat there in a frightened stupor. No, God! she kept saying until she finally realized her utter helplessness was doing him no good. Running her hand across his forehead once again, she called his name.

  He did not respond.

  She raised her voice and called him again. "Harry! Harry! Wake up!"

  When he did not respond the second time, she poked her head from the window and yelled to the coachman. Not that he could restore Lord Wycliff to good health. With her pulse racing, she sat there waiting, stroking Harry's heated face.

  Finally the coachman opened the carriage door. His eyes darted first to his lifeless master, then up into Louisa's frightened gaze.

  "Lord Wycliff's terribly ill."

  The coachman's dark eyes passed sympathetically over the lifeless form of his employer. Louisa realized the servant must have been as frightened as she.

  "It's a good thing we've reached the inn." He flung the door open wider, then bent forward to help Harry out. But it was too much of a job for one man. Harry was too large.

  "I'll help," Louisa said calmly, knowing that she must remain level headed for the sake of Lord Wycliff.

  She extricated herself from him, and Harry's upper torso fell back into the soft leather seat, his legs sprawled in front of him. Then she stooped over him and wedged her left arm between his sides and his arm and heaved upward. She succeeded in bringing him to a sitting position while John gripped him from under his other arm. Together they hoisted Harry from the carriage, and with one of them on either side of him, walked toward the inn.

  "My master's sick and has urgent need of a room," the coachman informed the innkeeper.

  The swarthy innkeeper glanced behind them where the door was still open, affording a view of Harry's impressive carriage. "Come, put him in my room. There's a fire in there."

  Located on the first floor, the innkeepers' room was far less tidy than Louisa supposed his guests' rooms were -- because of the personal items littering the room -- but the bed had been made, and at the hearth a fire blazed.

  The innkeeper took over for Louisa and helped the coachman lift Harry onto the bed as soon as Louisa had pulled the covers back. Then he turned to her. "I'll send for the doctor."

  Moving swiftly to Harry's side, she thanked him. She stood solemnly over Harry, wiping his brow. Though he was perspiring, he began to tremble as does one with chills. She pulled the blanket up to his chin and smoothed his brow once more.

  John stood at the other side of the bed. "I don't understand it. He was right as rain this morning."

  She looked up at him, her eyes hooded with shame. "It's all my fault. He took an injury rescuing me the day I fell, and I fear the infection in his arm has spread to his whole body." Her voice broke on the last few words.

  John folded his mouth into a grim line. "I'll stay here with you, ma'am, in case the master needs anything."

  She wished he weren't so nice to her. She deserved his wrath for her foolishness that had caused Harry to . . . she couldn't even think that her carelessness would lead to his death.

  Yet as she stood there beside his bed, stroking his brow and trying to force water between his parched lips, she knew he was terribly sick. He had been one of the bravest, most vibrant men -- no, amend that to the bravest, most vibrant man she had ever known -- and because of her he was reduced to a shivering, helpless mass.

  Impatient and frozen with fear, Louisa thought it was hours before the doctor arrived when in reality it had been less than one. The stooped old man wearing spectacles and sporting longish hair strode into the room, the innkeeper on his heels. "Well, what do we have here?" he asked.
r />   Her words choked, Louisa said, "A very sick man."

  "I don't understand it none," the coachman added, "he was fit as a fiddle this morn."

  The doctor gently pushed John aside. "Let me take a look."

  Louisa stood at the other side of the bed. "You might wish to examine the wound on his left arm. I believe it has become infected."

  "Let's get this shirt off," the doctor said, leaning down and beginning to unfasten the pearl buttons. He carefully lifted the shirt away from Harry's fevered body, then proceeded to unwrap the bandages on his arms. When he saw the yellow liquid oozing from Harry's left arm, he winced. "Nasty it is, I'll say. However did he come to bruise himself so badly?" He looked up at Louisa.

  "He fell down a Cliffside."

  "And lived?" the doctor joked. "Think I'll bathe the wound in a decoction of winter cresses and rebandage it. See if that will help stop the infection at the source." He turned now to John. "Fetch me a bowl of hot water, will you?"

  By the time the doctor had removed his own coat and rolled up his sleeves, John was back.

  Louisa stood helplessly watching the doctor clean Harry's wound.

  When he finished he looked up at Louisa. "Now I'll bleed your husband."

  Ignoring that he had addressed her as Harry's wife, Louisa stiffened and regained her sternest voice. "I will not allow you to bleed my husband."

  "You don't want him to get well?" the doctor asked.

  "Of course I do, but after reading the works of Dr. Heidbreder in Germany, I have decided that bleeding not only does no good, but it can also be harmful."

  "Heidbreder, Schneidebreder. Never heard of the quack. I've been bleeding patients since I was a lad of twenty."

  Anger flashed in her eyes. "And I'll wager you've lost many of those patients."

  "I cannot keep to the earth what God desires in heaven," he defended.

  Now she glared at the man. "I do not wish my husband to be in heaven, doctor." Her voice was harsh. She made eye contact with John. "Pay the doctor, John, for his services."

  John removed a pouch from his pocket, and gave the doctor a half crown. He waited until the doctor had packed his bag, donned his coat, and left before he spoke to Louisa. "Are you sure the doctor should not bleed Lord Wycliff?"

  Her face was grim when she answered. "I am sure." She fervently wished she were as convinced as she sounded.

  For the next several hours, Harry went from hot to cold. She would hold and rub his hand and cover him snugly when he shook with chill, then she would take off his covers and wipe his heated flesh with cool water when he was hot. Hot to cold. Cold to hot. The hours dragged on. And Louisa's fear mounted.

  Harry couldn't die! Although they had known each other less than a month, he was the only man -- the only person -- she had ever been truly close to. He understood her as she understood him. She knew his secret -- as he knew hers.

  Louisa couldn't think about the immeasurable loss it would be to lose his voice in Parliament. That seemed as insignificant now as her foolish pride over the Philip Lewis' essays. All that mattered in her life right now was that Harry get well.

  She tried to remember when she had ever been so frightened. She had been too young when her beloved mother died and too filled with scorn when the sixty-year-old gout-ridden Godwin had died. But were she to lose Harry. . .

  She tried to tell herself that she would lose him anyway once he found Godwin's benefactor. But at least his vibrancy would not still. All that really mattered was that he live. She would always carry a place for Harry within her heart.

  As midnight came, a parlor maid brought more wood for the fire, and Louisa told John to get some sleep. "I'll need you fresh in the morning to watch out for Lord Wycliff while I catch some sleep."

  The tired old man nodded, then trudged off to his room.

  Louisa took his warm hand within her own and sat down. She prayed some more until he began to flail about, tossing his soaking sheets from him. Then she stood up again and took the bowl of water in her hands and began to rub his burning flesh with her wet hands, oblivious to the fact her tears were dropping into the bowl.

  As the hazy light of dawn began to squeeze into the room,

  Louisa set down the bowl of water and stretched her arms high above her head. Her feet throbbed with pain, her back ached, and her wounded knee had begun to swell.

  Then Harry opened his eyes, and Louisa thought she had never felt so wonderful.

  "Harry?" she said softly, moving closer to his bed.

  "Where in the bloody hell are we?" he groaned.

  Giving no thought to what she was doing, she took his hand and squeezed it. "We are in an innkeeper's bedchamber in Polperro. You, my lord, have been very, very sick."

  "Harry, not my lord," he corrected, a smile on his face as he squeezed her hand back.

  "Yes, Harry, dearest," she said in a breaking voice, her eyes moist.

  He smiled, turned over, and went back to sleep.

  He was going to make it!

  She climbed in the bed beside him and went fast to sleep.

  In the days that followed, Harry showed a little more improvement each day. He grew stronger with each passing day, and the swelling on his arm -- like that of Louisa's knee -- diminished each day. His fever stopped on the third day, but his appetite had not returned, nor was he strong enough to get out of bed.

  Louisa continued to sleep with him. After all, she had told everyone he was her husband.

  As he regained his strength, he listened to John's tales of how he had been at death's door. During his recovery he gave a lot of thought to Louisa's slavish devotion toward getting him well. He pictured her standing over him, gently wiping him with cool water. And he kept remembering her words when he awoke. She had referred to him as Harry dearest. No accolade on earth could have been more welcome than those two words uttered by a sweet little blonde bending over him with worried eyes.

  Despite her kindness to him in those days when he was recovering, he found himself growing short tempered with her and knew it was not because of anything she had done. It was his own self he hated. He wasn't worthy to touch the hem of her skirt, such an angel was she. He had no right to be the recipient of her kindness. He deserved to die.

  Instead of keeping his feelings of self loathing within him, he took them out on her. He treated her with gruffness and displayed a consistent bad humor.

  And at night when she would lay her weary body beside him on the big feather bed, he would shudder with his need to take her within his arms.

  Then he would awaken the next morning and begin lashing out angrily at her. The porridge was too cold. She'd awakened him up with her comings and goings to and from the kitchen. Why couldn't she let things bloody well alone? Was she obsessed with her ridiculous notions of ruling the world with her possessive ways?

  He winced and turned away to avoid seeing the pain in her face. Despite his own remorse, he knew his unconscious had its own way of keeping someone as pure as Louisa Phillips out of his sordid life.

  * * *

  One afternoon after Louisa was convinced Harry was on the mend, she left him in the coachman's care as she went to the church on the outskirts of Polperro.

  She would be the only person at the church for it was a Tuesday. She opened the creaking timber door, entered the dark church, and strolled down the nave. She fell to her knees on the stone floors and gave thanks that Harry had survived.

  A noise beyond the altar startled her. She raised her lowered lids to see a young cleric – concern on his face – moving toward her. "Is there anything I can do to help you?" he asked in a gentle voice.

  She shook her head. "I've never been better. I'm here to give thanks to the Almighty."

  The young man smiled. "You're not from around here."

  He had obviously determined a great deal from her voice. "I've come from London."

  He nodded. "I'm the vicar here. Rouse is my name."

  She stood up and curtsied. "I'm .
. . " She started to say Mrs. Phillips. Then quickly said, "Mrs. Smith." Suddenly an idea occurred to her. "Does Lord Treleavens provide your living here in Polperro?"

  His green eyes flashed with good humor. "He does. Do you know him?"

  "No, but my husband may. Is he an older gentleman? Tall and lean?"

  He chuckled. "Not at all. Trelly and I were at Oxford together. He's my age and rather portly, I'd say."

  "Oh, dear. Perhaps it was his father my husband is thinking of. Was he tall and rather thin?"

  "Actually, Trelly inherited at the age of twelve from his uncle. I never met the chap."

  Then the uncle had to have been dead at least fifteen years, Louisa reasoned, for the vicar looked to be far closer to thirty than to twenty. Which meant neither the current Lord Treleavens nor his predecessor could have been Godwin's benefactor -- and the previous Lord Wycliff's menace.

  "My husband will be so disappointed that Lord Treleavens is not the man he had thought he might know."

  "Did your husband attend Oxford?"

  Louisa had no idea where Harry had gone to university. Then again, Harry would not want to be confronting anyone who might recognize him. "I'm afraid not. Mr. Smith went to Cambridge." She flashed the vicar a smile. "Thank you, Mr. Rouse, for your concern and for answering my questions." She curtsied and left.

  * * *

  Early the next week Harry was strong enough to travel. The weather had turned mild and sunny, and Louisa regained some of her feistiness.

  In no uncertain terms she refused to let him sit on her side of the carriage. "To put it bluntly, my lord, I have no desire for you to touch me even in the most innocent way. If I had my choice, I would refuse to share a room with you at the inns, too, but I fear that might lead to the discovery of your true person, which would foil our plans."

  Our plans. Despite everything, it came back to the simple fact that, like it or not, desire it or not, he and Louisa Phillips were as drawn together as those united by clergy. His heart's desire lay within the grasp of her small hands. And her heart's desire did not lie with him, he thought bitterly.