“First my cottage burned… and now this. His lordship was present on both occasions. Doesn’t that strike you as… odd, Mrs. Laity?”
“What do you mean, lass?”
“You’ve said yourself that he’s mad. He told me he saw someone fleeing the night my cottage burned. I only have his word for that. Now this, another unexplained fire, and talk of another mysterious intruder. I have to tell you, Mrs. Laity, more than once it has crossed my mind that the earl himself might just have burned my cottage down, and now set the fire here as well.”
“Why would he burn your cottage, Miss Melly? Fie! That’s crazy.”
“Exactly.”
“No,” the housekeeper cried, wagging her head. “You’re never going to make me believe that. What could he possibly hope to gain?”
“He forced me to sell quickly enough, didn’t he?”
“No, he done that to help you, lass. What possible reason could he have had to burn out his own study? He nearly died in that fire.”
“Madmen don’t need reasons.”
Cook shuffled in then, with Zoe on her heels, and their conversation became less fractious. They spoke of the salve she had brought, of the Tinkers, and the flaw on the way—anything and everything but what her heart was screaming:
I’ve fallen in love with a man whom another woman has driven mad
.
Hopelessly mad
. This was too terrible to tell, even to Mrs. Laity. And she went through the motions of the morning, sipping tea while she waited for the doctor to appear. Would
he never come down? What could be keeping him?
She didn’t want to be here—didn’t want to see the earl, not like this. She shouldn’t have come. She was just about to bolt—try to reach St. Kevern ahead of the flaw, when the doctor put his head in.
“I need you to come, Melly,” he said gravely.
“I-is he conscious?” she murmured.
“I can’t bring him ‘round,” he replied through a sigh. “He’s got fever. We aren’t dealing with the mild concussion as I had hoped. Unless I miss my guess, his skull is cracked.”
“What do you expect me to do?”
“He’s delirious, calling for you. I’m hoping you can talk him out of it. He doesn’t respond to me… or Griggs.”
She hesitated.
“No harm will come to you, Melly,” the doctor assured her. “I’ll be right there the whole time, and Griggs. We shan’t leave you alone with him, and even if we did, he’s in no condition to be a threat to your person—mad or otherwise.”
But it wasn’t that of which she was afraid. What she feared was playing herself false, exposing her heart for all to view. Thus far, she had kept her secret. No one knew what lay buried in her heart, and she feared that the lump in her throat would dissolve into tears and betray her.
Mrs. Laity broke into a chorus of fresh wails. Cook and Zoe stood like statues, their faces pale as milk. Melly had come, and now there was nothing for it but to try. Taking up the pot of salve she had brought along for the valet’s hands and the earl’s shoulder, she slowly rose and followed the doctor out of the kitchen.
Outside, the wind had risen, rattling the windowpanes in their casings. The rain hadn’t yet begun sluicing down, but Melly knew it was only a matter of time before the coast would be besotted with it. The inevitable flaw, curse of the fading summer, it had never dampened her spirits as it did now climbing the carpeted staircase that she never expected her feet would tread again.
She wasn’t prepared for the vastness of the earl’s bedchamber. It overwhelmed her, and much of the furnishings were lost in the shadows. He lay in the mahogany four-poster bare-chested, his angry, blistering shoulder exposed to the air. His head was wreathed in gauze, and his pillow showed traces of blood.
She moved closer woodenly, forcing herself to put one foot before the other when all the while they were disposed toward retreat. He was tossing restlessly, throwing his head from side to side, and his mumblings were indistinguishable. She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want to see his pain. It stabbed her too, as surely as if she had been in those flames right along with him, and had done since the doctor first broke the news. How much longer could she feign indifference?
She opened the jar and began slathering the balm over his burns with a feather-light touch. His blistered skin was on fire beneath her fingers as she spread the cool salve, and he groaned, but it wasn’t the groan of a man in pain. It was a groan of release—almost pleasure, and the lump in her throat grew larger, threatening. What would he say if he knew that the herbs he so despised had eased his pain, might even spare him scarring? Would he be grateful, or would he rail at her again?
When she’d finished, she handed the jar to Dr. Hale absently, and he moved away to treat Griggs. The earl’s breathing, though ragged, had sought a calmer level. She had left a thin layer of the unction on the blisters. If he didn’t toss about too much, it would aid the healing process. Slowly, she let her hand slip away from his shoulder, though she didn’t leave his side—couldn’t leave him, not like that, so helpless, so vulnerable. She had never seen him that way, and it frightened her more than his madness.
Behind, the doctor had unbound Griggs’s hands and begun treating his burns with the salve. The valet flashed her a smile of gratitude, and she was just about to join them, when the earl’s hot fingers closed around her wrist and tightened. Her breath caught in her throat. She hadn’t expected it, nor had she expected the rippling shock waves coursing through her body that his touch ignited. Her head snapped toward him. His eyes were still closed. The dark, sooty wreathes around them were more pronounced now, as the storm robbed the light from the room, but his skin that had been so hot and dry to the touch had begun to bead with sweat.
“Doctor,” she murmured, calling him from his chore.
Griggs followed Hale to the bedside trailing bandages, and stood beside her while the doctor made his evaluation. The earl’s hand was still clamped around her wrist, but not as a restraint. It seemed more the grip of a man clinging to a lifeline. There was no menace in it, and she made no move to break away, though her knees had begun to tremble, undermined by the sexual energy flowing from those fingers through her body. It threatened her balance. When she started to sway, the valet nudged a Chippendale chair alongside the bed with the aid of his knee, and she sank into it gratefully, still tethered to the earl’s hot, dry hand.
“Ummm,” the doctor grunted. “Looks like the fever’s breaking. That’s a good sign, but I’m not liking this coma. He should have come ‘round by now. His next dose of laudanum is long past due.” One by one, he lifted the earl’s eyelids, and held the branch of candles so close, she feared he would set the bedclothes afire. “Ummm, still dilated,” he said through a sigh. “We’re not out of the woods yet, are we, Shelldrake?”
“It is a good sign, though, the fever going down?” Griggs urged.
“Ummm,” the doctor grunted in reply. He shook the earl’s good shoulder roughly. “Wake up Shelldrake,” he commanded, jostling him again. “Open your eyes, damn you, man!”
“Doctor,” Melly murmured, commanding his attention again. The earl’s hand was tightening around her wrist, and she nodded toward the phenomenon.
“
Shelldrake
!” the doctor barked, jostling him a second time, and his eyes tried to open a crack on their own. “Can you hear me? Do you know me, my lord?”
A grunt was all that responded before the eyes slid shut again. After a moment, the doctor stepped back and set the candle branch aside, but not before soiling the counterpane with a smattering of hot, melted wax.
“All right,” he grunted. “That’s something at least, and it’s come just in time. I can’t stay. I have other patients to see before this blasted storm lets loose. Melly, you’ll obviously have to remain,” he observed, gesturing toward her tethered wrist, “and don’t break contact. That’s the most encouraging sign we’ve had here yet. With your free hand, until he loosens his grip, I need you to do just exactly as I have done once every hour until I return. Is that clear?”
“
Me
? But—”
“No matter what occurs, stay by his lordship’s side. Griggs will stay with you, but with his hands as they are, you will have to be the one to shake him. I’m trying to get him to respond. As long as he does, there’s a chance that he won’t lapse so deep into coma that we lose him. Head injuries are dangerous. The brain swells and the fluid around it causes pressure that could be fatal. As long as he’s responsive, there’s hope of recovery. I’ll have Mrs. Laity prepare some cold compresses. Place them so,” he said, indicating the forehead and the wound itself. “And I want you to talk to him, even though he doesn’t answer. Talk about anything—anything at all, and keep talking. I’ll return just as soon as I can.”
“It will be all right, Miss Melly,” Griggs soothed. “I’ll help you.”
“How are his hands?” she asked the doctor. There was no use to ask the valet, he would only minimize the damage.
“Your balm will mend them,” Hale replied. “And it looks like it’s taken some of the fire out of Shelldrake’s blisters already. You have a genuine talent, Demelza Ahern. Coming from me, that’s a compliment. I don’t give them easily, or often. I’ve seen too many charlatans.”
“It’s what I love to do,” she said emptily, for it was the one thing the earl detested.
“Ummm,” he grunted. “Carry on then. Just see if, between you, you can keep him alive ‘till I get back.”
He marched out then, and Melly leaned her elbow on the bed and dropped her head into her free hand. The gentle strength in the earl’s grip was still constant. Tears welled in her eyes, but she blinked them back. This was not how it was supposed to be. She was supposed to be arranging her new things in her neat, little room at Maud Endean’s. Pascoe would have delivered them by now in the cart. Rosen would have unwrapped the fine paisley shawl she’d bought for her in Lemon Street as a thank-you for her hospitality. Her new life would have begun. Instead, she was literally shackled to a man who despised her, very likely a madman, who would do, the stars only knew what, when he awoke and found her there, treating him with herbal remedies. She shuddered to wonder. The worst of it was that his touch alone had melted her—destroyed her—conquered her. Totally. Admitting that, she moaned aloud in spite of herself, and gave a violent lurch as the valet’s bandaged hand came to rest on her shoulder.
“His lordship isn’t mad, Miss Melly,” he said. “I’d stake my life upon it.”
“I’m not afraid of him, Griggs,” she murmured, “I’m afraid… of myself.”
*
Melly and Griggs spelled each other talking to the earl, and nudging him for a response. The valet rambled on about the bankers, who had not yet arrived, about what had been saved from the fire, and what had been salvaged afterward. He spoke of the Andalusians being boarded at the livery, about their beauty, and excellent health. He spoke of the wine from the Porthallow vineyards that he had taken the liberty of putting away in the wine cellar personally, and of the prospect of helping him refurbish his fall and winter wardrobe, pointing out that Byron black and white was positively
de rigueur
in Town now. He predicted that it was sure to be the hit of the coming Season amongst the
ton’s
most fashion conscious gentlemen, and that his wardrobe simply wasn’t up to snuff; a thing he promised to help him remedy just as soon as he was on his feet.
Melly, on the other hand, was at a loss for topics of conversation. She and the earl were polar opposites, having virtually nothing in common that she could see. He hated everything she loved. Albeit with good cause, she couldn’t help but allow the thought that he was wrong to damn the life-giving, God-given plants of the earth for the heinous crimes committed with them, and, yes,
against
them by one vile, depraved, murderous creature. She would not embark upon a dissertation in that direction, however. That would be suicidal.
Instead, she harkened back to her childhood home in Manchester, mining her early memories for the pleasant ones. The yield was scant. Her mother had died when she was a child of ten, and her passing became the pivotal point that triggered her father’s gambling and led them to ruin. Nonetheless, she resurrected fond memories of the land, the exquisite gardens, the delicate, deep purple French lilacs that bloomed each spring sweetening the air for miles around them. She told him of the bluebells—fields of them—like blue lakes sidling through the patchwork hills, and how her mother warned her not to tread upon them for fear of angering the faeries that lived there and considered bluebells sacred. She told him how she’d gathered chestnuts in the fall, and watched the dainty rowan leaves dance in the spring wind. On and on, she rambled. Whether he heard her or not, she couldn’t tell, but her tales, like the bedtime stories she told to the Tinker children, certainly affected Griggs. He had fallen asleep in the wing chair at the edge of the carpet, his bandaged hands in his lap.
It had grown late. They had both refused to touch the food that was sent up earlier, except for the tea. The storm had worsened. Rain pattered against the mullioned panes, and now and then hail tapped on the glass like anxious fingers demanding admittance. An oddity peculiar to the late summer storms driven landward by the prevailing wind that gave Cornwall its odd climate. Lulled by the rhythm of the rain, Melly began to nod. Several times she shook herself awake before the weight of her head became too heavy for her neck to bear, then finally she gave in to exhaustion, and laid it down on the counterpane beside her tethered hand.
In her dreams, she soared over the bluebells. Her feet never touched them. Mustn’t anger the faeries. The wind, perfumed with lilacs, danced through her ringlets. It was warm, like fingers stroking gently—caressing—feeling the texture. But that was no dream, and her eyes snapped open. Her wrist was no longer tethered, and it wasn’t the wind, but the earl’s fingers that had buried themselves in her hair.
“My lord!” she breathed, searching his face with sleep-dazed eyes, “Y-you’re awake!”
“Demelza?” he murmured. “Are you another dream? You feel so real… this time, not like before. This hair… like eiderdown… no, it can’t be real… so soft… too soft to be real. I’m dreaming again, and you will go… just like you always do.”