Amanda Scott (52 page)

“Your head aches, does it not?”

“Truthfully?” When he only twinkled, she sighed. “Rather fiercely, I’m afraid.”

“I will give you some powders to take. If you take them as you ought, without thinking that you know better than I do, you will be much better by Friday. You need stay in bed only until your head stops hurting, though I warn you, your bruises will ache a good deal longer than that. You took quite a clout on your hip and shoulder, you know.”

She didn’t know. Her whole body ached, to be sure, but her head was the worst. She watched out of the corner of her eye while he stirred a packet of powder into a glass of water. As he turned to bring it to her, there was a hard knock on the door.

Lady Cadogan opened it to find the earl standing there impatiently. She smiled at him. “You may come in, Marcus. The doctor tells us there has been no great harm done. He is giving her some medicine now.”

When Gwenyth tried to sit up just then to take the glass, only to fall back with a sharp cry in a wave of pain, Lyford hurried forward, stepping past the doctor without ceremony. He bent and slipped his arm behind her shoulders, lifting her before taking the glass from the doctor’s hand to hold it for her.

She took a sip and made a face. “That is awful stuff.”

The doctor chuckled, but the earl said, “Drink it, Gwen. If you drink it down quickly enough, you won’t notice the taste.”

“You have not tasted it, Lyford. You cannot know.”

“Don’t be troublesome,” he said.

Glancing at him, she saw that he was looking stern, and remembering that he did not always consider himself bound by the normal codes of a gentleman, she could not doubt that he would tip the foul-tasting stuff down her throat for her if she did not obey him rather quickly. She tried another sip; then, holding her breath, she took the glass from him and drank the rest.

“Good girl,” he said, removing the glass from her hand and laying her back against her pillows. “Lady Cadogan, you may ring for her woman now.” He stood looking down at Gwenyth, and she felt comforted by the tenderness in his gaze.

The doctor said, “She will need to rest, my lord, but I can discover no real damage. She’s got a bump on her head and a number of bruises, so she aches all over, but there’s no real cause for concern. She’ll be full of bounce in a week or so.”

“Can she travel?” Lyford asked without taking his gaze from her face.

“In a few days, I suppose,” the doctor said. “Dashed hot in town. No doubt she’ll be more comfortable in the country. Wait until the headaches stop. Then you may do as you think best.”

Lady Cadogan waited only until the doctor had departed before ringing for Annie, saying to Lyford as she did so, “Your grandmother might not wish to return to the abbey, you know.”

“She’ll do as I tell her,” the earl said grimly, without so much as glancing at the viscountess, “or she may henceforth frank her own way. But in truth, I don’t care whether she goes or not. You won’t fail me, ma’am, and Gwen will recover more quickly in the country than here in the heat and bustle of London.”

“Gwenyth would do as well with her sister in Maidenhead or with her brother Davy here in London,” Lady Cadogan said in a tone that in anyone else would have suggested provocation.

Lyford dismissed her words with a gesture. “Davy won’t look after her properly, and Lady Meriel must look after herself. Unless …” He looked more closely at the viscountess. “Are you telling me that you prefer to remain in town?”

She shook her head. “No, but have you considered Pamela?”

His countenance hardened. “Certainly. I will have much to say to Pamela.” When Gwenyth moved as though to speak, he looked down at her again. “What is it?” he asked in a gentler tone than she had yet heard from him.

“You mustn’t scold her, sir,” she said. “She only accepted your grandmama’s invitation when it was offered. Even you would not have expected her to remain obediently at the abbey with only my company or even my aunt’s after the countess had invited us all to come to town with her.”

He was silent for a long moment before he said, “I think we will not discuss just now what I ought to have been able to expect.” The door opened, and he looked up. “Here is Annie now. I daresay she was awaiting your summons. The doctor’s instructions are on the table yonder, by your packets of powder. See that you follow them exactly.”

“Yes, sir,” she said meekly.

He smiled then and leaned close to murmur for her ears alone, “Practice those two words and that nice submissive tone. I shall expect to hear them more often in future.”

Her eyes twinkled. “Expect what you like, sir. The reality may be rather different.”

“We’ll see,” he said, turning away to hand the doctor’s instructions to Annie. “She is to be very careful, Annie, and if she gives you any backchat about following these instructions, I shall expect you to come to me. We must see that she gets well again as soon as possible.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“See, Gwen, that’s how it ought to sound.”

She laughed, then wished she hadn’t. Her ribs hurt, and her head ached. “Good night, Lyford.”

He was soon gone, and Lady Cadogan followed him, leaving Gwenyth to Annie’s tender care. Since this consisted of getting her mistress into her nightdress while muttering her candid opinion of folks who thought attending a riot to be a proper evening’s entertainment, Gwenyth was glad when she, too, had gone. But, perversely, once she was alone, she found she could not sleep. The room was hot, and her head ached abominably, yet her brain seemed to buzz with activity. Her nerves seemed to have developed a life of their own, making her skin feel prickly all over, and she could not get comfortable in her bed. Whatever way she turned, she rested on a bruise. She was still wide-awake when her door opened and Pamela stepped hurriedly inside.

“Gwen,” she hissed, shutting the door behind her.

“Yes, I’m awake.”

“Oh, thank heavens. I was afraid you’d go right to sleep. What did the doctor say? I didn’t want to ask Lady Cadogan, for fear Marcus would come upon us while we talked. I daresay I ought to stay out of his way for a bit, you know.”

“I know, Pamela, but I think that if you don’t exert yourself to put him out of temper, he will not say much to you about tonight’s activities. I told him the notion to come to town was the countess’s.”

“Did you? Good. Then perhaps he will let me stay.”

“He has already said we are to return to the abbey,” Gwenyth said, speaking carefully. Talking made her head ache.

“Well, if that is not the outside of enough,” Pamela declared. “It is just like him to deny me pleasure, so I ought to have known he would spoil things now.”

“I believe he thinks it will be better for me to be at the abbey,” Gwenyth said. “The heat in town—”

“Oh, that is just the sort of thing he would say to make his wishes more acceptable to others,” Pamela said scornfully. “You can get better just as well in town as anywhere else.”

“Well, it is very hot—”

“Then you ought to go to your sister, but it is not fair to make me leave London just because you hurt yourself a trifle.”

Gwenyth said nothing to that, and the silence that followed grew heavy before Pamela said in a small voice, “That was a dreadful thing to say. I didn’t mean it, you know. It is only that Marcus makes me so angry that I don’t think about anything or anyone else. I hope you were not badly hurt, Gwen, and if you wish to return to the abbey, we will go, and I shall not say another word about it.”

“That’s very kind of you, Pamela. The doctor has said I will be fine. Perhaps we might discuss all of this further in the morning.”

“Oh, are you very tired? I shall leave you to sleep, then. Is there anything I can do for you before I go?”

“No, thank you,” Gwenyth said, rejecting the notion of having her ring for Annie to have the sheets on the bed changed. New ones would soon become just as wrinkled and uncomfortable.

When Pamela had tiptoed from the room after furtively checking to be sure the coast was clear, she tried to find a comfortable position but was no more successful than before.

Fifteen minutes later the door opened again, less furtively this time, and Lyford came in, carrying a book and followed by a chambermaid bearing a tray. In the glow of the corridor’s candlelight, Gwenyth could see that the tray held a pitcher and two glasses. When the chambermaid had set it upon the table and lighted a branch of candles there, Lyford dismissed her.

Gwenyth nearly asked him if Pamela had told him she was still awake, but fortunately he spoke before she could do so. “I doubted you would sleep after so much excitement, so I asked the sawbones if lemonade would do you any harm. He assured me it would not. Would you like some?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, trying to sit up in her bed.

“Be still. I’ll help you as soon as I’ve poured out.” He turned to attend to the lemonade, saying over his shoulder, “I’d do nicely at a tea party, don’t you agree?”

She chuckled, content to wait for him to help her. First he opened the window.

There was no breeze, but just the fact of having the window open made the room feel less confined. Nevertheless, she said provocatively, “My aunt disapproves of night air, sir, and she would certainly disapprove of your presence here in my bedchamber at this or, indeed, any hour.”

“I trust you do not hold similar views,” he said, opening the curtains wider to let in as much air as possible. “This window overlooks the garden, you know, so you won’t be disturbed by street noises, and it is as stuffy as a tomb in here. You must be sweltering.”

Since she could not deny that, she said no more, having all she could do to affect an attitude of calm dignity when he moved close to the bed and bent toward her. He lifted her, propped pillows behind her, and settled her back against them. Then he handed her one of the glasses, drew up a chair to the table, and sat down, opening the book in his lap. Shifting his body so that the light from the candles would fall upon the pages, he looked up at her, his eyes twinkling.

“I thought about bringing something you would like, one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s tales, or Fanny Burney’s, but I decided that you would benefit much more from a truly improving work.”

She grimaced. “Benefit?”

“It ought to put you straight to sleep,” he said. “Now, drink the lemonade down and get comfortable. The first essay in this book is entitled, ‘Self-Control.’ How appropriate. No, no, do not speak. You are meant to sleep. I promise you, I shall not be offended if you nod off straightaway.”

She smiled at him, thinking he was being singularly foolish, but once he began reading, she found herself listening to him with pleasure. Had she been asked to comment upon the content of the book, she would have been unable to do so, but the sound of his voice was pleasant. Low-pitched, calm, and very, very pleasant …

When she awoke it was still dark, but he was gone and she was lying flat in her bed again. That he had touched her without her knowledge gave her brief pause, but the feeling of concern soon passed, though the memory of his visit lingered teasingly. She had no idea what time it was, but the darkness made it clear that it was too early to ring for Annie, so she indulged herself by turning her thoughts to the earl.

The experience of three London Seasons told her that despite his obvious attraction to her, his interest might result from nothing more than that she had told him she intended never to marry. It was odd, she thought, the effect that declaration had on most gentlemen. Her attitude was a challenge to them. Even those who could have no earthly desire to marry her found it necessary to try to make her change her mind, for each wanted to be the one to win her, though she was certain that not one she had met before now would be satisfied with her as his wife.

Could she be satisfied with a husband? Certainly she had discovered of late that a gentleman’s presence in her life could be both stimulating and comforting, but the fact remained that marriage was another matter altogether. And Lyford wouldn’t like being married to her either, she decided with a sigh. He thought her heedless about money, and his attitude toward extravagance was well-known to all who lived beneath his roof. And he disapproved of her notions about managing the abbey. No doubt, were they to wed, she would express her opinions far too often for his comfort. But they would not wed. She had not changed her mind about that. She would remain a spinster, in control of at least some aspects of her own life, and one day, when she had obtained her brother’s permission to do so, she would set up her own household and hold interesting receptions there.

Not that Lyford had asked her to marry him, but he soon would. Of that much she was certain, if only because he doubted her desire to remain single and had a pronounced habit of assuming that everyone around him would do his bidding. Before she could decide whether she wanted him to propose in order that she might give him the set-down he would deserve for doubting her sincerity, she fell asleep again and did not waken until the sun was shining brightly through the open window.

It was Annie’s entrance into the room that awakened her, for the abigail was muttering darkly under her breath as she strode to the window and shut it with a bang. “London air! Worst thing I can think of for a body trying to get well.” Noting that Gwenyth was awake, she continued in a louder tone, “What was you thinking of, m’lady, to get out of bed like you did and open this window? Dangerous, it was. You might have got dizzy and fallen, and then where would you be? And night air too. Might of been the death of you.”

“I was hot,” Gwenyth said, feeling entirely unable to deal with the ramifications of telling Annie that Lyford had opened the window.

“Breathing that London air in the daytime must be right dangerous too,” Annie went on. “It fair stings the eyes today. Dreadful. The sooner his lordship has us out of the city again, the better I shall like it, and no mistake.” She moved to ring the bell for the chambermaid.

Gwenyth moved carefully in the bed. Her headache had subsided to a dull throb, but her bruises were still bothersome. Nevertheless, she had no intention of remaining in bed until Lyford decided she was well enough to leave town. “I shall get up, Annie,” she said decisively.