Make Me Love You (29 page)

The single rap on the door was startling it was so loud.
Now
they were knocking? But Dominic was in no hurry to open the door. He picked up Brooke’s pelisse first to help her put it on.

The door still didn’t open. Maybe that was a good sign, courtesy. But Dominic moved to open it now. Rory was out there, and he looked a bit abashed before he waved an arm in a flourish, indicating Dominic and Brooke should leave the hut. Most of the highwaymen and their families were standing nearby to witness this exchange.

“I’ve decided to accept your last offer,” Rory said, though he didn’t look all that pleased about it.

Dominic replied, “One hundred pounds?”

“Two hundred, wasn’t it?”

“Perhaps I recall one hundred fifty.”

“Done!” Rory quickly said, grinning now. “But I’ll be taking your coat to seal the bargain.” When Dominic just stared at him, Rory added, “It’s my only bleedin’ incentive, m’lord, so hand it over. Mum might think you’ll honor our deal, but I ain’t so trusting.”

Brooke was incredulous. Dominic shrugged out of his coat and handed it over. It appeared that Matty had had a hand in gaining their release. She’d thought the argument Dominic had overhead yesterday between Rory and his mother had been over Matty’s getting Rory to bring Dominic to Brooke’s hut, but maybe it had been about this instead.

She saw Matty and went over to her and gave her a brief but heartfelt hug. “Thank you. My fiancé will honor the bargain. You can count on us.”

“M’boy thinks I’m an old softy, but I’m just fond of young lovers. Reminds me of my younger years.” She gave Brooke a sharp look. “And I’m a good judge of character.”

Rory called out, “Do I get one of those hugs?”

“Are we having another row?” Dominic said succinctly, but that just got quite a few laughs.

At the roped horse pen, three mounts were already saddled and waiting. “You’ll need to put these on.” Rory handed Dominic and Brooke each a blindfold. “Axel will take your reins and lead you out of the woods. We really don’t want to build another camp this year, so you understand we don’t want you finding your way back to this one. And here’s my cousin’s address.” Rory gave Dominic a slip of paper. “Deliver the horses and the blunt to her. She don’t know where to find us, so don’t bother asking. Mum didn’t want her involved in our business.”

Dominic accepted all that with a nod and helped Brooke
tie her blindfold and mount one of the horses before mounting the other and tying his own blindfold. “It’s actually been a pleasure,” Dominic said in parting. “Let’s just not do it again.”

Only Brooke, who felt a blush warming her cheeks, and maybe Matty, understood that first remark.

At first, it was slow going through the woods, but they moved more swiftly once they reached the road. A ways down it, Axel finally stopped, told them to remove their blindfolds, and handed over the reins, then disappeared through the woods along the road.

Dominic stared after him for a moment. “They’ll probably move that camp anyway. That lout was no more trusting than I am and really does think all he’s getting out of this is my damned coat.”

Brooke kept the grin to herself, inordinately pleased that they were free! “But his mother trusts me—and I told her she could trust you. Was I right?” she asked as he started them down the deserted road at a fast clip.

“I gave him my word,” he grumbled. Once their pace picked up to a gallop, she heard him snort quite derisively, “They call these
fast
horses?”

W
ITH EVERY OTHER CRISIS
taken care of, Dominic was back to worrying about his mother as they raced to London. He predicted they would get there by tomorrow night. Apparently they’d sailed that far down the coast before their misadventure with the highwaymen for him to think so. Swapping out the horses for fresh ones at several of the towns they passed allowed them to continue at a gallop. They spent the night at an inn and were on the road again at dawn. Brooke agreed that speed was more important than her comfort; she just didn’t bother to say so. And she didn’t complain, not once.

But as much as she loved riding, she was quite tired of it by that nightfall. However, she could have walked into the Wolfe town house. Dominic didn’t need to pick her up and carry her up the front steps and inside.

The butler let them in, a gray-haired, rotund fellow in his nightclothes. Was it that late? She was tired enough to think it might be.

“Hot bathwater, hot food, and wake whoever you need to,
Willis,” Dominic ordered. “But point me to a clean room for Lady Whitworth first.”

Brooke protested, “Just food will do. I’m afraid I’ll fall asleep in a bath.”

“Is the lady hurt?” Willis asked as he hurriedly followed Dominic upstairs.

“No, just tired. I may have overdone my haste in getting here. How is my mother?”

“Worse than when I wrote you, m’lord. Thank you for coming so quickly.”

Dominic didn’t put Brooke down until Willis opened a door for him. She spotted the bed and headed straight toward it, deciding food could wait until morning, too. She glanced back to tell Dominic that, but the door had already closed behind him. She sighed and moved away from the tempting bed. She looked for a mirror to see how badly disheveled she looked, but couldn’t find one so she moved to one of the two windows instead. She had a view of the street out front and a single lamppost. Peaceful, with no traffic this late. London! They’d even galloped through the streets, not giving her a chance to see much of it. Tomorrow, maybe . . .

She was looking at the bed again when Dominic knocked on her door and entered without permission. He held a pitcher of water and a plate of warmed food.

She was too tired to thank him, but she did smile at his thoughtfulness.

“Mother’s sleeping,” he said. “Even her maid is sleeping. I won’t know her actual condition until morning.”

“Nonsense, go wake the maid. You didn’t nearly kill us today riding here to sleep without some news.”

“Her brow is still hot.”

Brooke wanted to put her arms around him. He looked so helpless, and in fact he could do nothing to help his mother other than make sure she had the best physician available.

“Summon her doctor in the morning. See what he has to say before you think the worst. And keep in mind, fever does rise at night.”

Still looking worried, he nodded and left Brooke. She did no more than wash her face and hands, eat half the food on the plate, and collapse on top of the bedcover. Removing her clothes required too much effort, and she was sore from being on a horse all day. She was half-asleep when it occurred to her that she should have invited Dominic to spend the night with her. She could have offered him more comfort than the little reassurance she’d given.

A maid woke her in the morning with fresh water, fresh towels, and a chipper attitude, claiming a guest was exciting news for the staff because they rarely had guests that stayed over other than her ladyship’s son. Bathwater as well as breakfast were apparently already on the way up.

The room she’d been given was quite utilitarian, with less furniture in it than some of the inn rooms she’d stayed at on the way to Rothdale. The bed was soft, but only one night table with a lamp was beside it. The room had a narrow standing wardrobe, a washstand, a small tin tub without a screen, and a single reading chair. But there was no table, no vanity, not even a bureau, and she looked again and still couldn’t find a mirror. It appeared that the lady of the house didn’t want overnight guests and made sure if she had one the guest wouldn’t stay long.

But among the servants who carried in the buckets of water was a footman with a hard-backed chair in one hand and a
small round table in the other, which he set down near one of the windows. Brooke laughed. At least the servants didn’t mind having guests.

As Brooke helped herself to a sausage biscuit, one of the maids promised her a more substantial breakfast when she came downstairs—if she could manage those stairs today, Brooke thought. Good God, she was sore from all that galloping. She had only felt it minimally last night. As Brooke stepped into the tub, she hoped the hot water would ease the ache in her legs. It might have helped if she were bathing in a normal tub. But in the little round one she could barely sit down, having to scrunch up her legs. It was more designed to just stand in, get soaped, get rinsed, get out. But she didn’t have a maid to help with that, and it would be another couple of days before Alfreda arrived with . . .

Brooke gasped with the belated realization that her valise hadn’t been brought to her room yet. She balked at the thought of wearing the dress she’d worn yesterday before it was cleaned.

Then for the second time Dominic entered her room without permission, with just a single rap on the door to announce that he was coming in. Brooke squeaked and tried to sink lower in the little tub, but that was impossible, so she hugged the side facing him, using it as a shield.

“I’m afraid I forgot about this last night, and the footman who saw to the horses merely set it in the foyer.” Dominic set her valise on the bed before he approached the tub and put a hand to her cheek. “Good morning.”

She was speechless, confused, and definitely hot cheeked. He had to know how inappropriate this was. They weren’t married yet—or had he finally accepted that they would be? His attitude had changed since they’d made love, not overtly,
but in little ways. He didn’t hesitate to touch her now, helping her on and off horses the last two days, carrying her into his house, and just now, a gentle caress. And not one dark feral look since they’d left the highwaymen’s camp. She shouldn’t read too much into that, she really shouldn’t, not when he was still so worried about his mother, and yet she couldn’t resist the thought that making love with him might have changed everything between them.

“Do hurry,” he continued. “My mother is awake and I’d like to hear what you have to say about her illness.”

He left, closing the door behind him. She sighed. Maybe he was just being nice and thoughtful because he wanted her help.

She finished her bath, even managed to wash her hair since the servants had left her two extra buckets of water, though she couldn’t be sure that she’d gotten all the soap out.

With his
Do hurry
still in mind, she quickly dried her hair by tossing it about to simulate a breeze, but she almost laughed when she realized she didn’t have a hairbrush. Alfreda had been so busy worrying about tiny boats and Brooke’s falling asleep on horses and falling off them that the maid had forgotten to pack a brush. Brooke was definitely going shopping sometime today for some amenities, and thankfully she wouldn’t have to ask Dominic for money. She had only brought a quarter of her funds with her, leaving the rest with Alfreda, but she had kept the money in her pocket rather than her valise, where the highwaymen might have found it.

With her hair tied back so it wasn’t so obvious it hadn’t been brushed, and wearing a pale apricot-colored day dress, she stepped into the corridor and didn’t even need to ask directions to Lady Anna’s room. It was the only room upstairs with the door open.

She approached the bed where Dominic was standing, holding his mother’s hand even though she appeared to be sleeping again. A single glance told Brooke the woman might be dying. She didn’t need to see Dominic’s expression to know that. Anna Wolfe looked so haggard it was hard to tell what she might look like when she wasn’t sick. The black hair under her nightcap was matted, she was as pale as white parchment, and even the skin of her lips was cracking. She didn’t even have the strength left to open her eyes fully. And it sounded as if she was having trouble breathing.

Brooke immediately filled the glass on the table next to the bed with water and told Dominic to rouse his mother and make her drink it. He tenderly helped his mother to sit up, but she did no more than take a few sips, barely opening her eyes, before she had to lie down again.

Dominic pulled Brooke out into the corridor. “Her doctor just left,” he whispered. “Pneumonia, he said. It’s usually fatal. And my mother is upset with me for bringing you here. Our talk has debilitated her even more.”

“So you explained?”

“She already knew. I sent her a missive from Rothdale right after the Regent’s emissary left. Her doctor congratulated her earlier in the week on our forthcoming marriage.”

Brooke winced. “So it’s become common knowledge?”

“It’s definitely making the rounds if even her doctor heard about it. Prinny apparently didn’t consider it a secret, but mother is now worried that it will become more than curious gossip and speculation. We don’t want anyone to know about Ella.”

“No, of course not.”

“Can—can you fix her as you did me?”

Brooke had a feeling this was the only reason he’d insisted she come with him to London, especially since she could have arrived before Sunday by coach. A high fever was all he’d said about Anna’s illness before they left Rothdale, so Alfreda had given Brooke herbs to treat a normal cold. But pneumonia was a serious illness.

Brow furrowed, Brooke told him, “Alfreda gave me two herbs that might help your mother, but I’m going to need a lot more of both of them, so I need to visit an apothecary today. I also need to talk with your cook to see if your kitchen has the ingredients I need for a broth your mother should drink once a day.”