Fran Baker (25 page)

“Why? In God’s name, Colin, why did you delope?” he asked again and again, with no answer beyond an occasional low moan.

By the time they drew into the cobbled yard of a small Kentish inn, the sun was nearly overhead and Maret’s clothes clung damply to him where Stratford had lain pressed against him. His neck was stiff and he had long ago lost feeling in his right arm. As he was considering shifting his burden, a tall, broad man emerged at the small window of the coach to proffer a tray.

“’Tis brandy, sir,” explained the innkeeper, rubbing his free hand on his rough apron. “I thought as how Master Colin, his lordship that is, might stand in need of reviving spirits.”

Altering his position in order to accept one of the glasses, Maret disturbed the viscount slightly and the innkeeper gazed in with every appearance of interest. “I’ve always said as how his lordship would go his length one day, but ’tis certain I never thought ’twould end like this, him being such a fine shot and all.”

The look directed at him sent the tall man scurrying back to his door. Maret had no further time to remonstrate with the man, for Stratford once again stirred. Gently cupping the glass to the viscount’s ashen lips, Jacques said rather briskly, “Here, Colin, just swallow a sip or two of this.”

His lordship did so and instantly choked, then lay back weakly. He appeared to be struggling and Maret bent closer. “Just lie still, Colin,” he said gently. “We’re nearly there.”

“You may . . . tell Daniel . . .”

“Save your strength, man!”

“Tell him . . . he can tell me . . . I told you so . . . now,” Stratford finished, a shade of a smile upon his lips.

The coach lurched forward once more and the only sound to disturb the silence within was the labored breathing of the viscount, unconscious yet again.

When at last Harry pulled the horses to a halt in the graveled court of the Keep, it was apparent they were expected, for a swarm of servants descended upon them. The earl appeared at the top of the marbled steps as Stratford was carried from the coach. The old man, shaking and sallow, but still erect, watched the procession in silence, only inhaling sharply when he saw the deathlike mask of his grandson’s face. Together, Maret and Hallbrook followed the small cortege up the sweeping staircase, neither needing to give voice to the grief so vividly felt.

Upon his arrival, Dr. Martin was led directly to his lordship’s bedchamber. Having attended the viscount since birth, the doctor had fully expected to find that the frantic young groom sent to fetch him had exaggerated the seriousness of Master Colin’s latest scrape. But one look at the white face disappearing into the crisp linen told him otherwise.

Without pausing to greet the earl, Dr. Martin rapped out a sharp series of orders, sending servants scrambling for water and fresh linens, while stripping off his jacket. “I suggest, my lord,” he said to the earl when he had finished setting his instruments on a stand by the bed, “that you await us downstairs.”

It was not in Hallbrook’s nature to accept a dismissal meekly, but once he did not demur. At the door, however, he stood with one fist braced against the wood. “Damn the boy!” he muttered heavily. “Damn the boy!”

His step seemed slower as he left the room and Maret would have gone to give him an arm had not Martin commanded him to shed his coat, wash his hands and prepare to extract the ball lodged in Stratford’s shoulder.

This was accomplished with relative ease, his lordship remaining, for the most part, unconscious throughout. But as he dressed the wound with basilicum powder, Martin gravely inquired if it were not true that the viscount had been planning to marry shortly.

“It is,” Maret answered abruptly.

“It would, perhaps, be as well to inform the young lady of the viscount’s condition,” the doctor said, shrugging himself into his coat. “The sooner, the better.”

“What are you saying? Is he dying?” Maret demanded.

“Well, as to that, only God can say,” was the evasive reply. “But he has lost a great deal of blood, a great deal of blood,” he added with a look that sent shivers down the other’s back.

Maret stayed only long enough to eat a small luncheon before again setting forth, this time on the road north. He told the earl to expect his return with Miss Helen in two days’ time, but he doubted if the old lord had understood or cared. Since being closeted briefly with Martin, the earl had subsided to a chair, to sit in stooped and silent anguish.

The long miles were tedium personified, leaving Maret weary emotionally as well as physically. The afternoon gave way to night and still they surged on, making only the briefest of stops. Maret was unsuccessful in his efforts to sleep, as he was in his attempts to drum out the thought that Stratford might already be gone. Again and again, the vision of Miss Helen rose before his tired eyes, but the realization that she might soon be free brought only bereavement into his narrowed eyes. Finally, just as the sky began to lighten with the coming dawn, Maret dozed fitfully, the demands of his body overcoming the torments of his soul.

*****

Noon had barely gone, the sun was dazzling in a sky of gloriously bright blue when Freddy Lawrence dashed into the sitting parlor of Appleton to echo his springtime announcement that a carriage was coming.

“And it’s my lord’s, it is!” he finished happily before darting out, while his audience displayed various degrees of astonishment. Wonderment was heightened when Mrs. Mosley followed Freddy’s words with the disclosure that a Mr. Maret was calling.

Maret halted in the frame of the door, stiffening at the sight before him. Helen stood perched on a small stool, resplendent in a wedding dress of white tulle embroidered with tiny pearls and graced with a long train which fell from her shoulders to dust the floor. The high waist, square bodice and puffed and laced bretelle sleeves set off her petite figure to perfection. Jacques’s heart constricted and he stood transfixed.

He was himself the recipient of a round of stares.  His usually flawless appearance was quite sadly rumpled, the hours cramped in the carriage having creased his dark pantaloons and jacket beyond, his valet would insist, repair. The starch had long ago wilted out of his knotted cravat, which hung limply against his wrinkled and stained shirt.

Rose was the first to recover, saying as she set down the scissors and pins she had been holding, “Forgive us! Freddy quite led us to believe for an awful moment that it was Lord Stratford come to call, and you must know it would be fatal for his lordship to see Helen in her wedding dress before the day!”

Maret winced at her words, but collected himself sufficiently to enter and bow over Miss Lawrence’s hand.

“All me, Mr. Maret, to present my mother and my sister-in-law.”

The elder, delicate-looking lady reclining on the settee received his brief nod with a flutter of the hand, but the spare woman standing beside Helen merely inclined her head slightly, a curtsey seeming unsuitable, in her view, for a mere “mister.”

Maret’s attention had already, however, fixed on Helen. “I am afraid,” he stated flatly, “this is not a call of pleasure.”

Stepping down from the stool, consternation crossing through her vivid blue eyes, Helen asked quietly, “Whatever is wrong, Mr. Maret?”

“Is it . . . Viscount Stratford?” Rose questioned sharply.

“Forgive me, I bring bad news,” he replied grimly. “Lord Stratford has been badly wounded.”

Amidst the loud shrieks of the older women, Helen’s hand flew to her cheek, her eyes widened in shock. But Rose had seemingly encountered Medusa, remaining utterly motionless throughout Maret’s terse explanations. She was suddenly galvanized to action, however, when Helen cried softly, “What shall I do?”

“Do? We must go to him—at once! If there is the least chance we may yet arrive on time, we cannot hesitate!” She pulled her unresisting sister from the room, ignoring Nell’s plea to pick up the train and brusquely begging Mr. Maret to wait.

For twenty minutes, Jacques endured the incessant barrage of questions, interspersed with mournful exclamations from both the Mrs. Lawrences. He sustained himself with port, but even this was inadequate when Nell ventured to suggest a deathbed wedding, should they arrive in time. It was perhaps fortunate that at this moment Rose reappeared with Helen in tow. Each wore a simple traveling dress, poke bonnet and gloves. In addition, Rose carried a single portmanteau.

“We are ready, Mr. Maret,” she said woodenly.

“Oh, my dear, sweet child!” Susanna wailed, clinging to Helen. “That you should suffer the misery of widowhood so soon, so young!”

“She is not a widow yet, Mama,” Rose put in, “as she has neither married Lord Stratford nor as yet confirmed his death.”

“So much the worse!” her mother insisted on a sob, an opinion with which Nell seemed heartily inclined to agree.

In time, they managed to detach mother from daughter and joined young Freddy as he stood talking with Harry and the viscount’s postillions. For once the boy did not wear his merry smile and he knuckled his eyes, determined not to shed any unmanly tears. Rose gave her mother and Nell a swift kiss each, then entered the coach without another word. Helen climbed in beside her, bewildered and not a little concerned at this sister who suddenly seemed drained of all emotion.

As the vehicle jerked forward, it was Helen who leaned the window with promises to write as soon as may be. Rose asked no questions, offered no comments. She sat, erect, immobile, as hour chased hour upon the road. Maret and Helen spoke in the hushed tones of the bereaved, and though the sharing of the grief brought them both consolation, it only increased Rose’s own dull misery.

Their progress slowed considerably after the sun passed into night. The full moon was covered by a haze while dark streaks of clouds skimmed across its face. The golden reflections bespoke a mysterious world of beauty in which Rose could take no interest. For her each mile was sounded out by the horses’ hooves repeating,
Let me be on time—on time
over and over again until her head fairly pounded with the refrain and the hands in her lap clenched in frustration.

When next the coach rolled to a halt in a posting yard, Maret descended and passed into the inn. He soon returned to extend a hand to Helen, and after seeing her to the ground, to Rose. She did not take it.

“Come, Miss Lawrence, you will accomplish little by arriving at the Keep weak as well as tired. An hour’s stop and a good meal will do us all good.” He again put out his hand, which she reluctantly accepted.

The warm aroma of the meal being set upon the table by a sleepy-eyed male and the comfort of the chair to which she was ushered were more welcome than Rose would have admitted. The large brim of her poke bonnet had effectively shadowed her face all day and as she now removed it, Helen was shocked at the drawn look of her sister’s wan face, at the deep circles beneath the sorrowing eyes. Throughout the short meal, Helen made small conversation with Maret, in which Rose took no part, but as the plates were cleared away, she asked him to procure them some scented water that they might freshen up. He glanced knowingly from sister to sister, then excused himself from the private room.

“How long has it been?” Helen asked after a brief silence.

“Has what been?” Rose asked in a tired tone.

“That you have been in love with Lord Stratford.”

Rose’s head bobbed up. She saw a sad understanding in her sister’s gaze, but none of the distress she had feared would be there. “It seems . . . forever,” she finally said in a low voice. “I—I am sorry, dearest.”

“Oh, Rose, ’tis I who am sorry!” Helen cried, rushing to embrace Rose tightly. “I’ve been so blind! So stupid!”

They were still clasping each other when Maret discreetly coughed from the door.

They slept, after a fashion, in the darkness of the closed coach, each to dream of the restless young man with the moody eyes and the charming smile. Helen and Rose held hands and by morning had achieved a new dimension of their love. It was not, however, until well into the afternoon that the wheels of the carriage at last stopped spinning and the three disembarked to enter a house as still as death itself.

Chapter 18

Despite the Keep’s air of sepulchral gloom, Colin Phillips still clung to life. He had been in a state of fevered delirium, Jasper informed them, and the doctor was again due to call at any time. The earl was at Colin’s bedside when the three entered the room, having aged shockingly in the space of two days. Each line on his ancient face stood out with startling clarity. His figure bent with the weight of his woe. He glanced once at the visitors, then turned his eyes back to the still form lying beneath the satin coverlet.

Rose’s eyes swept the room and anger brought some color back to her pallid face. None of the summer day had been allowed into the chamber as heavy drapes covered each window. A few candles cut into the darkness, but most of the room was encased in funereal shadows. Her ringing voice cut through the muted mood. “It is little wonder he is near death when you have shut out all signs of life!”

Shocked faces turned upon her as she ran to rip open curtains, flooding the room with brilliant sunlight. “Open these windows, if you please,” she commanded. “Fresh air is what is needed, not the stifled air of death.”

The footmen standing in attendance looked to the earl, who was staring intently at Rose. “Do as she says, you fools,” he ordered harshly.

She paid him no mind, but moved through the room snuffing candles. When she had thrown off her bonnet and stripped off her gloves, she moved at last to the bed where she bent to lightly touch Stratford’s brow. The dry heat caused her fingers to tremble, but her voice was steady as she remarked, “We need to bring his fever down. I shall require towels and lavender water.” She looked to the group of people surrounding her in wide-eyed wonderment. “Well?” she inquired in a tone of icy hauteur that sent the servants scurrying to do her bidding.

The earl’s eyes met hers across the vast bed. “Do you think to save him?”