Barbara Metzger (5 page)

Ty was already snoring softly when Mags left, telling the sleeping gentleman, “An’ the sooner you’re out of here and on your way the better, I’m thinking.”

* * * *

“He won’t be a-lingering long,” Mags reported to Delia before she left.

“You mean he is going to die?” Delia asked with a quick intake of air. She could not bear to think of another death. Not his lordship, not now. “How could he die, such a big, strong man? He’s so young and
...
and ...”

“Manly?” Mags snorted. “He is that, a fine broth of a fellow. No, he’s not going to stick his spoon in the wall, not that I can see, anyways. But he’s not the staying kind, so don’t you go thinking he is, missy.”

“Of course not. He is a soldier and a lord. He’d never wish to recuperate here, in some pawky back parlor.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Mags muttered, not wanting to speak of London ladybirds, not to a young lady like Miss Croft. Of course, Miss Dilly was already seeing more of the grimmer sides of life than a gently bred female ought. “He doesn’t seem high in the instep. But the man has business in the City.”

“Naturally. As soon as he is well enough to give us his direction, I’ll inform his people to come fetch him.” She turned to go down the hall to the rear parlor, but Mags put a hand on her sleeve.

“Nay, he’s sleeping. Don’t disturb his rest, Miss Dilly. In fact, you ought to keep out of there altogether. Let Mindle look after him.’’’

“But you said he was not contagious.”

There were more catchy things than the influenza, Mags knew. “Just keep away from him. You don’t belong in there.”

“What, did he swear at you, too? Nanny gave me strict orders to stay away from his sickroom, declaring the major’s language fit only for barracks and barrooms. I suppose that comes from being a soldier. I daresay I have heard as bad from the stable hands.”

No, the officer had given Mags a sweet smile, in fact, despite his pain and suffering. It was that smile that worried her more than curses or contagions. “I, ah, was worrying about your reputation.”

Delia had to laugh. “The man is already in my house. How could my reputation be any more tarnished by speaking to the major—and who is to tell?”

Mags fussed with her basket, sudden color in her lined cheeks.

“Why, Mags, I do believe you’ve heard talk and fear for my virtue, that my head will be turned by the major’s handsome face!” She laughed outright. “As if I believed a word of his dunder-headed declaration. The man was out of his mind, and I’d be out of mine to believe an officer, a titled gentleman at that, could be interested in me.” She held out her arms, emphasizing her too thin form, the dreary black gown, the dark smudges under her eyes. “Why, I even have freckles. No, I will speak with our guest about George, and then send him on his way as soon as he is fit. And do not worry, Mindle and Aunt Eliza have agreed to take turns sitting up with him tonight, while Nanny and I keep watch over Belinda.” The humor left her eyes. “I don’t suppose there is any change.”

Mags could only shake her head. “I’ve tried every remedy I know, and a few I can only guess at. Nothing seems to help.”

“Then the sooner we are rid of George’s friend, the better.”

Chapter 6

Weeping
.

Ty decided he must have died and gone to Hell after all, for his notion of Purgatory was a parlor filled with crying females.

How many old women lived in this house anyway? This one was quietly snuffling into a frivolously useless lace handkerchief at his bedside, her needlework forgotten in her lap. She had a lace cap tied under her chin, but Ty could see the long reddish braid on her shoulder, even by the soft candlelight and the glow from the fireplace. George’s aunt, if he did not miss his guess.

He cleared his throat, and the woman hastily lowered the handkerchief and tried to give him a watery smile. “You’re awake.”

Definitely George’s relation, for while Lieutenant Croft had an obvious space between his top front teeth, this woman had a gap wide enough to drive a coach through. He wondered if George’s sister had the odd defect. Hell, he wondered if George’s sister had an odd kick to her gallop. “Miss Croft?”

“Oh, no. I am Miss Linbury, on George’s mother’s side, you know. No, you wouldn’t, would you? I am Miss Eliza Linbury, but you can call me Aunt Eliza. Or Aunt Lizzie. Everyone does. Not the servants, of course, which would be disrespectful, but you are not. A servant, I mean, although I am certain you would not be disrespectful, either. Of course I suppose I have no way of knowing, since some young gentlemen do not have the proper regard for their elders, or— Where was I?”

Tending the pigeons that were roosting in her cockloft, if Ty had to guess. She did not wait for an answer, luckily, or he would be hard-pressed, indeed, to show the proper regard.

“Oh, yes, I recall. I was telling you to call me Aunt Lizzie if you are to become part of the—that is, if you are going to— Oh, dear.” She began to whimper again, and to twist the handkerchief between her hands.

“Miss Eliza will do for now, ma’am, don’t you think?” Ty quickly told her. He was exhausted already, without another sleeping potion. “And I am Tyverne.”

“Of course you are, dear boy. I would not be quite so in alt if you were not. La, I mean to say I would not be so pleased if you could not recall your name. Fevers do that to a body occasionally, you know.” She briefly smiled again, then fluttered her handkerchief in the direction of a china tea set on a nearby table. “I was just about to have a dish of tea. Will you join me?”

Ty nodded. He’d give anything for a cup of tea, not barley water or the broth they’d been spooning down him. Actually he’d like a beefsteak, but the poppy seed cake he spied would do for now.

“Cream? Sugar?”

“Both, please.”

“Good, that’s just the way I like my tea.”

She added twice more of both than he wished and then, to Ty’s dismay, tucked a serviette under his chin. At least Miss Linbury was not intending to feed him, he was relieved to see as she took up her own cup and saucer. Once she had taken a sip, though, she asked, “Yes, but is that Viscount Tyverne or Major Tyverne? I mean, should we address you as major since you were in uniform, or my lord, since you are not now? Of course, you were a viscount before you were an officer, and will be after, one would hope. On the other hand, yours is an honorary title, while your army ranking—”

Ty was not certain what the future would bring. The War Office would gladly keep him on in London as an administrative officer or a liaison, but the army Ty belonged with was the one in the field, with his men. He was no longer fit for that life. Lud only knew if he were fit for civilian life, but he did have responsibilities to his family. To this family, too. “I am not sure about selling out yet,” he replied while Miss Croft was in mid-blather. “But I think I would prefer Tyverne or Ty to either rank or title.”

Miss Linbury daintily patted her lips. “I shall call you Tyverne, then, until you become—That is, are you married?”

He almost spilled the tea down the front of the nightshirt. “Lud, no.”

She beamed at him—Ty thought he could see her tonsils through the space in her teeth—and held out the platter of cake slices.

Ty choked on a mouthful of poppy seed cake when George’s maiden aunt, a gentlewoman he had never seen before this day, asked: “What about the female you have under your protection in London?”

He gulped down the rest of his tea, to clear his throat. Then he almost had to bite his tongue to keep from telling this attics-to-let auntie that his affairs were none of her business. Except that he had no affairs, and he was by way of being a guest in her house. “I assure you, madam, that I have no woman in my keeping, in London or elsewhere.”

Ty’s tone of voice would have frozen a soldier under his command into rigid attention. Miss Linbury clapped her hands. “I knew Mags had to be wrong when she mentioned a girl named Nonny. A fine gentleman like yourself, come to offer— That is, George would never. Or if he did, we never heard of it. Of course, there were those rumors about Clarence and—”

“Nonny is my younger brother, Agamemnon. I might have mentioned that I have to return to London to assist him in a personal matter.”

“Your brother, how lovely.” She put a second slice of cake on his plate, then a third, and asked, “So what are your intentions toward my niece?”

While Ty brushed more crumbs off his shirt—he’d need another sleeping powder, dash it, to sleep in this bed tonight—Miss Linbury rattled on: “Nanny and Mindle and I feel it is my responsibility to ask now that George cannot look out for his sister’s interests, and Sir Clarence will not.”

The Bible-reading nursemaid, the butler, and this old biddy wanted to know his intentions? Ty would have called out a gentleman for questioning his motives. But this was George’s aunt, after all. Besides, perhaps he could get some answers to his own questions.

“My intentions depend entirely on Miss Croft,” he said. “Does she need a husband?”

“Oh, yes!”

Miss Linbury’s fervency took him aback. It was no more than he expected, but to have his worse fears realized
...

“And the child?” he had to ask.

Aunt Eliza started to weep once more.

Ty lost his appetite, “No, no. We do not have to speak of it, if the subject is too painful. Please, ma’am.”

George’s aunt went back to wringing her handkerchief. “Oh, we have all concluded Dilly cannot keep the child. You need not worry on that score. No one would foist—I mean, you don’t have to—”

Well, that was a relief, Ty thought, not to have to claim another man’s get as his own. Now his debt to George did not have to run counter to his obligation to the St. Ives name. “I will speak to Miss Croft as soon as possible.”

Aunt Eliza bobbed her head up and down in approval, sending the red braid into the plate of cake. “Time grows short.”

“Indeed. I promised my brother to return to London within the week.”

She began to blubber. “Did you promise George to take care of us?”

In horror, Ty watched a tear trail down the lady’s lined cheek. “No, I promised myself.”

“Oh, you dear, dear boy.”

It was bad enough that the old woman threw herself into his arms. Worse, she was weeping on his chest, on the only night raiment he had. Worst of all was that barley water and broth and tea. Ty really had to relieve himself.

* * * *

Delia helped herself to another slice of toast. “I suppose you are going to tell me to keep away from Tyverne, too?” she asked her aunt while Lizzie buttered her breakfast muffin.

“Oh, no, dear.”

Delia’s aunt looked almost cheery as she crumbled a slice of bacon for Belinda’s dog. Delia was anything but, after half a night at Belinda’s bedside. Aunt Eliza had spent part of hers keeping watch over the injured officer, and Delia had been expecting another diatribe. “No? You mean you aren’t going to tell me Tyverne is a godless pagan, or a here-and-thereian, just waiting to despoil innocent maidens?”

“La, as if I would use such talk. Perhaps when speaking to myself, which I fear I am wont to do, but never—That is, no, Dilly. Dear Tyverne is none of those things.”

“Dear?” Had the major managed to cozen one of her watchdogs?

“A friend of George’s, don’t you know.”

Delia was certain many of George’s friends were everything Mags and Nanny labeled Tyverne, and worse. “You’re not worried about my reputation or my virtue, then?” she asked, spreading strawberry jam on her toast.

Aunt Eliza took a sip of her tea and sighed her contentment. “No, at last. I trust dear Ty.”

“Ty?”

“Yes, such a dear boy. He understands about family. Very devoted to his brother, he is. You should ask him about it, when you speak to him, of course. Perhaps when you’re done with your breakfast?” She snatched the last piece of toast off the tray and fed it to the dog. “You were almost finished, weren’t you?”

* * * *

Blessed quiet.

Even better, no one but a young boy was keeping vigil at Ty’s bedside when he awoke. He was weak and fuzzy-headed, and his shoulder ached, but Ty thought the worst of the fever had passed. He eyed the boy and the covered tray on the nearby table.

“If that is gruel, be warned that I shall throw the bowl at your head if you come near me with it.”

“No, guv’nor, it be Cook’s best steak an’ kidney pie, what Mr. Mindle ordered special for you, figurin’ as how you’d be sharp set. Mr. Mindle, he’s our butler.”

“And a wise man. I am hungry as a bear. Bring it on, my boy.”

The youngster grinned, showing yet another dental divide. This one, Ty decided, was from a missing tooth, not a family trait. The dark-haired boy was watching him intently, ready to hand Ty his knife or a cup of coffee or a mug of ale, obviously under orders to see to the guest’s needs. Ty blessed the absent Mindle, and the absence of the Faircroft females. “Who might you be, lad?” he asked the boy between mouthfuls of what had to be the best meal since his return to England.

“Dover, guv.”

Ty frowned, so the boy added, “Milord.”

“Sir is fine. But Dover, as in the harbor?”

“Right, they named me Dover at the foundling home, Dover Church in full, on account of that’s where my mum dropped me an’ they were plumb outta names. It’s better’n my friend Dusty, what got left in a dustbin.”

Ty could sympathize, being encumbered with Archimedes on his own mother’s whim.

“And the Crofts took you in?”

Dover beamed with pride. “Miss Dilly, she hired me to be a reg’lar page. That’s what she calls it, runnin’ errands an’ carryin’ packages an’ helpin’ old Mindle. I get to do whatever needs doin'." His grin faded. “When I’m not at school.”

“We all have our burdens to bear, Dover. We all have our burdens.” Some were heavier than others. Ty put down his fork. “Where do you think Miss Dilly, that is, Miss Croft, is now?”

“Oh, she be at breakfast. I got to show you to the necessary if you can manage, an’ then call old Mindle to shave you. I’ll make sure to find his spectacles for him, first. An’ then, if you’re not too tuckered out, I got to tell Miss Eliza, who’ll ask Miss Dilly to sit with you while I’m at lessons. Are you really goin’ to marry our Miss Dilly?”