Cheryl Holt (3 page)

“He wouldn’t,” Anne contended.

“I saw the papers on his desk.”

“You could have misunderstood.”

“I didn’t,” she asserted. “Do you have a brother, Mrs. Smythe?”

“Yes.”

“Would you let your father do such a thing to him?”

Anne wanted to snort in disgust. As if her
father
would ever have cared enough about Phillip to expend the effort! “No, I wouldn’t.”

“Then, help me!” More tears flowed.

“Oh, Lady Eleanor . . .”

Anne sighed, heartsick and discouraged. She’d ceaselessly been too kind, too compassionate. It was her greatest failing, and Lady Eleanor’s plea nettled her, making her want to assist, despite her reservations. Eleanor kept injecting their brothers into the conversation, which weakened her resolve. She had a soft spot for Phillip, and couldn’t conceive of sitting by if he was in trouble.

Her determination was waning when she noted Camilla Warren’s carriage pulling out of the drive. She and her friends were chatting gaily, waving and blowing kisses to the Bristol footmen attending Eleanor’s coach.

The ruckus had Anne snapping to reality. She couldn’t get involved in the Chamberlin family’s problems! Particularly when their father, the Earl of Bristol, was about to dispatch one of his three sons to Bedlam. It was a no-win situation, in which she dare not intervene.

“That bunch is why I have to decline,” she pointed out. “You observed what they’re like. Some of my customers are a bit wild, just as some are very ill, but they’re all women, and this is an establishment where they can relax and be themselves. He simply couldn’t be here.”

“I’ve heard stories about you,” Eleanor implored. “You’re a healer. You’re aware of remedies and methods that others aren’t.”

“The stories aren’t true,” Anne confessed. “I have some rudimentary nursing skills. There’s nothing exceptional about what I do.”

“Everyone talks about you.”

“Trust me: my acclaim vastly exceeds my abilities.”

“The water in your grotto,” she prodded, trying a different tactic. “They say it possesses a magic power that isn’t found in the other hot pools.”

“What they
say
is a fallacy, Lady Eleanor. It’s just water. It bubbles out of the rocks. That’s the only mystery.”

For a lengthy, painful minute, Eleanor studied her. “You could cure him. I can see it in your eyes. You could do it. Please! Save my brother for me.”

“I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“I’ll give you anything you ask. There must be something you’ve always wanted. Something you need.”

“No. There’s nothing.”

Defeated, her shoulders slumped, and she stuffed her envelope of cash into her bag. “If you change your mind—”

“I won’t.”

She held out a piece of paper, and Anne took it, recognizing it as the directions to Bristol Manor. As if she needed to be informed of the route to the estate! She couldn’t have resided in the area since she was three and not known.

“I’ll be there—with Stephen—through the end of September.”

“Don’t count on me. Find someone else.”

“There is no one
else
,” she declared. “I’ve searched throughout the country. You were my last hope.”

The comment cut Anne to the quick, and she pressed her lips together, lest her undisciplined tongue make an offer she couldn’t fulfill. Lady Eleanor rose and left, without a farewell or backward glance, and Anne was rooted to the floor. She lingered, listening to the tread of the lady’s slippers as she exited and trekked down the walk.

There was a protracted murmuring of voices—an apparent argument—a slamming door as she climbed into the conveyance, much creaking and jingling of leather and harness as she prepared to depart. The vehicle rumbled off, the magnificent horses clopping in a perfect rhythm as they promenaded in a circle and journeyed toward the road.

In grave despair, Eleanor approached the coach and Stephen’s friend, Charles Hughes, leapt to attention. He was handsome, in a rough way. Stout and wide, strong as an ox, tough as nails, he reminded her of a pugilist at a fair. With his reddish hair, green eyes, and windburned skin, he exuded a masculinity that might have attracted many women, though not an experienced widow such as herself.

At age thirty-two, he was three years younger than she was, but he seemed so much older and wiser, and he made her nervous. She stiffened, bucking up to insulate herself. When in his presence, she felt smaller, immature, less confident.

While she’d spent her twenties married and engaged in frivolous pursuits, he’d been a career soldier, roaming around Europe. He’d traveled with Stephen, and though neither of them ever discussed what had actually happened in Spain, Eleanor suspected that Stephen wouldn’t be alive had Charles not been by his side.

As it was, Charles had lost a hand, not in the battle, but in medical treatment after it ended. He had a hook strapped where the absent appendage should have been, which enhanced his air of danger and authority, and it was discreetly tucked into his shirt, his arm resting on his stomach. His valor and maiming ensured that he would be on the Bristol payroll for as long as he was inclined to stay. Though the men in her family had many faults, they were loyal.

“Well?” he demanded without preamble.

“She said no.”

Good,
was his unspoken response, and he queried, “Now what?”

“Is he still passed out?”

Charles’s lips thinned to a tight line. He hated it when she referred to any of Stephen’s bad habits. “Yes.”

“Let me see.”

Charles opened the door of the elegant vehicle, and she peered into the dark interior. Slumped against the squab, dirty, unkempt, stinking to high heaven, her once-beautiful, dynamic, charismatic brother snored in peaceful oblivion.

Bile rose in her throat, and she turned to Charles. “Take him out. Leave him on her stoop.”

“What?”

Behind them, the driver and footmen tensed.

“You heard me.”

“Have ya gone daft, woman?” As Charles’s temper flared, his native Scottish brogue poked through.

“She’s a kind person. She’ll help him.”

“I thought she refused you.”

“She’ll relent.”

“Are you insane? What if she doesn’t?”

“I won’t have him at Bristol, where my father will permit those sawbones to remove his leg.”

“The earl will calm down.”

“If that’s what you suppose, then you don’t know my father very well.”

Charles was so angry, he was trembling. “I won’t let you discard him here, like a sack of rubbish!”

“Take him out, Mr. Hughes.”

“I won’t!”

Charles occupied a strange position in their household. Though he was technically a Bristol employee, he answered to no one but Stephen, and he couldn’t be ordered about. A man of lofty morals and principles, he’d quit before he’d
obey a command that went against his better judgment.

She glared at the footmen, who didn’t dare defy her. “Carry him out, gentlemen.”

Near to a mutiny, they bristled, but ultimately, the driver stepped forward to comply with her edict, as Charles shoved him away.

“I’ll do it,” he bit out, and he reached in and gripped Stephen around the shoulders. With only the one hand, he was awkward, and the other men vaulted forward to lend their support.

They hauled him up the walk and laid him down, and he didn’t flinch or make any motion to indicate that he noticed what they’d done. He slumbered in serene indifference.

The men came toward her, and Charles muttered under his breath, “Crazy shrew.”

“Did you say something, Charles?”

She stared him down, evincing an arrogance and rage she never showed to others. He met her look but prudently held his tongue.

In the current heat of the moment, it wouldn’t do for either of them to spew remarks they might later regret.

Charles lifted her into the coach, and the others readied for departure. None too soon, they were away. The horses were maneuvered around, and as they were about to exit the yard, Mrs. Smythe ran out the door, screaming and running after the carriage as though she might catch it and yank it to a halt.

“No, you don’t!” she wailed. “No, you bloody don’t! You can’t do this to me!”

Eleanor leaned out the window. “I’ll return in a month, to learn how he’s doing. Write to me at Bristol if you need anything.”

Clasping her reticule, she retrieved the envelope of money she’d brought. She flung it out, and it landed in the
dirt at Mrs. Smythe’s feet. Her expression of wrath and scorn was wrenching, and Eleanor couldn’t abide her disdain, so she settled inside and shut her eyes.

This is for the best,
she persuaded herself.
It is!

She offered up a prayer. For Stephen. But for Mrs. Smythe, too.

 2 

Stephen awakened in a dark room, unsure of where he was or how he’d come to be there. The only fact he knew with any certainty was that he wasn’t in his suite at Bristol Manor. He’d spent the preceding few months in hiding, demanding a privacy that wasn’t afforded, and battling the incompetent fiends his father hired in the guise of medical practitioners.

In a prior period of his life, he might have been startled by the strange surroundings, might have leapt to his feet, ready to fight or flee. Now, he was simply muddled, his head throbbing, his bones aching, his fatigue grave.

He took stock of his environs. The bed upon which he reclined was comfortable, the mattress soft and cushy. The quilt smelled clean, a sheer contrast to the fleshly odors emanating from his person.

His vision adjusted, and he could see a rocking chair, framed pictures on a white wall, a vase of flowers on a dresser. The furnishings were modest, the decor plain, yet it was cozy, welcoming.

Turning onto his side, he peered out the opened window, and an invigorating evening breeze blew over him. In the
distance, thunder rumbled with the approach of a summer storm.

The moon was up, the golden orb shining down on a quiet, manicured yard, the rolling hills beyond. Off to the left, he could detect a barn and cottage. To the right, the lawn sloped, a stone walk winding to a stretch of hedges and large shade trees. He could hear water gurgling, as though there was a stream nearby.

Had he been here before? Or had it been a dream?

Motion caught his attention, and he narrowed his focus, gazing through the shadows. At the end of the pathway, there was a break in the shrubbery, and he could observe a woman rising to her knees, then her feet.

She was naked! And wet! Water sluiced down her pale skin. She was bathing in an outdoor pool. Unclothed! Not a stitch of fabric covered her.

How outrageous! How shocking! How marvelous!

Pretty, with a heart-shaped face, high cheekbones, and full mouth, her hair was long, ebony, hanging past her waist and deliciously curled. Wide at the shoulders, thin at the waist, then wide again at the hips, she was slender, yet curvaceous, her torso shaped to accentuate her feminine gifts, to capture a man’s eye and hold it.

Her breasts were ample, inviting, the centers dusky and distinct, the nipples erect and pointed. Her tummy was flat, her legs lanky and lean. At the top of her thighs, her enchanting puss hinted at the delights shielded within.

She was flawless, bewitching, ethereal, and in his disordered state, he wondered if she was an apparition. Out of some suppressed, buried need for companionship, had he conjured her up? Was he pining away, subconsciously mourning the loss of his masculine drives?

He thought he’d come to grips with what had happened, with his deformities and impairments, but apparently not. She made him rue and regret in a fashion he hadn’t previously.
He’d always adored women, the taste, scent, and feel of them, and a smile flitted by as he recalled a ravishing mistress, a Sunday afternoon, scones and wine on the table by the bed, the sun shining in . . .

Was the temptress before him a hallucination? A delusion evoked out of misery and desolation? He didn’t think so. She seemed very real.

Though he was a gentleman by birth, nothing about his character indicated genteel tendencies. Without a flicker of remorse or chagrin, he spied on her, and it was obvious this wasn’t the first occasion she’d bathed outside. She was relaxed, at ease, unperturbed by the circumstances.