Authors: Elizabeth Mansfield
Selby turned to the butler. “Get the south bedroom ready,” he ordered. “Quickly!” And he went to help Wys. “Have you had an accident?” he asked urgently.
“No, no,” said Wys calmly. “It’s not as bad as it looks. Drew took ill—something he ate at my hunting-box in Melbourn. I thought it better to bring him here than to take him back to London. He needs rest and care, that’s all.”
“Oh, my poor Drew,” Hetty said soothingly, brushing the hair back from his forehead fondly. Drew shook his head and focused his glazed eyes on her.
“Ah, Hetty,” he said thickly. “We got here. Didn’t think we’d … make it.”
“Well, you did make it. You’re here, and we shall have you snug and warm in a very few minutes,” Hetty crooned, as if she were talking to a sick baby.
“Don’t … make a … fuss…” Drew mumbled. “I’m just a bit … dizzy … There’s no need to … be alarmed. Doctor said I’ll … be … fi—” At that moment his eyes fell on Gwen. “Good Lord!” he said, and blinked at her in disbelief.
Here was the moment Hetty had been waiting for. She looked across at Gwen, who was standing at the threshold of the dining room, one hand covering her mouth, the other clasping Tom’s hand as if she needed support. She was staring wide-eyed at Drew, but Hetty could not read the expression in those lovely dark eyes. Hetty glanced back at Drew, but he was no longer looking at Gwen. His eyes had become unfocused, and his face was turning quite green. “Wys!” he muttered. “My bedroom! Get me to my bedroom! Quickly!”
Wys nodded knowingly and took Drew’s arm. Without another word, they went quickly up the stairs, Drew’s blanket trailing pathetically behind him. Hetty shook her head in vexation.
This
was the romantic meeting she had gone to such trouble to arrange! If she weren’t a well-brought-up, respectable matron, and if she weren’t surrounded by her husband, her guests and her servants, she would lie down on the floor, right here and now, and have a kicking, screaming tantrum!
Chapter Seven
T
HE HOUSEHOLD WAS SILENT
by eleven, the turmoil stirred up by Drew’s arrival having exhausted everyone, but in opposite wings of the house, the two women were not asleep. Hetty insisted on sitting up at Drew’s bedside, and Gwen lay on her bed unable to fall asleep. The feelings that the sight of Drew had stirred up in her had caught her unaware. She had realized from the first—from the moment he had drawn her into his arms at the Selby ball—that she was more strongly attracted to him than to any man she had met in her life. But she had made up her mind that very night that she would not let the attraction develop any further. He had killed Rowle. For that, he could never be forgiven.
She lay on her side, staring at the embers still glowing in the fireplace across the room and remembering the endearingly-boyish look on Drew’s face as he had stood shivering in the hallway earlier tonight. Her heart had gone out to him. She had felt an almost overwhelming urge to run to him, to help him into a chair, and to cradle him in her arms. She had watched Hetty brush back his hair with a pang which she could only describe as jealousy. She had reached out and grasped Tom’s hand, instinctively seeking some physical support to prevent herself from going to Drew’s side. What had come over her? What was it that she felt for him?
Gwen had never known love—the love that can exist between a man and a woman. She had married Edward Rowle to oblige her family. The family, the Spauldings of Somerset, though well-connected, had never been rich, and her father suffered from a chronic ailment that had eroded much of the capital on which they depended. Rowle had pursued Gwen Spaulding with a youthful intensity that had been engaging, and when he had offered her father a generous settlement, Gwen was urged to accept him. He had seemed charming and vulnerable, and she had put her girlish dreams of love aside and had obediently married him.
It was not long before she learned that she had made a mistake. Edward Rowle could be amusing and likeable when he wished to put himself out, but more often he was moody and sullen. He was addicted to gambling, he drank too much, and his friends seemed to encourage him in his profligacy. He wasted huge sums of money. Sometimes, when he came home drunk and offensive, she found herself forced to lock her bedroom door against him. For this, she felt a growing guilt and began to blame herself for the weaknesses in his character which were growing more and more evident. His mother, Lady Hazel—the one person to whom Gwen could tell her troubles—tried to soothe her by blaming Rowle’s background, his inherited nature, even his upbringing, but Gwen could not rid herself of her growing sense of guilt. In spite of several brave attempts she made to change things, her relationship with Edward worsened steadily. At last, she determined to coax her husband to abandon London entirely. She hoped that—removed from London, its gambling dens and the dissolute cronies with whom he spent his time—they could rebuild the crumbling foundations of their marriage. It was at just this time that the duel took place. At its conclusion, Rowle was dead, and it was too late for her to make amends.
For this, Drew was to blame. She would have liked to believe Rowle’s death was accidental, but she could not. Everyone knew that Drew was a crack shot. There was no excuse for him to have met Rowle at all. It would not have been dishonorable for Drew, universally recognized as the best marksman in London, to withdraw from an encounter with a mere boy who was inexperienced, unsteady from too much drink, and certain to lose. No matter how often she turned over in her mind the circumstances of the duel, she could find no way to exonerate Drew Jamison.
Gwen suddenly became aware that the rain’s tapping on her window had stopped. She got up and went to look out. Opening the drapery she had drawn against the howling wind, she saw that the moon had appeared between two silver-edged clouds. The sight of the grounds took her breath away. Ice had covered every twig, every leaf, every shrub and blade of grass with a thin coating of glassy resplendence which the moonlight touched here and there with a diamond sparkle. It was a scene from a fairy story. Gwen leaned against the window frame and let her eyes drink in the sight. But her mind stubbornly dwelt on the problem with which it had been occupied all night. Suddenly it seemed to her that some of the sparkle of the scene outside crept into the darkness of her thoughts and brought with it an illumination—a realization that was, at one and the same time, a flash of joy and a barb of searing pain: she had fallen in love, but with the one man in the world she
had
to hate.
Drew opened his eyes and watched a circle of sparkling sunlight on the ceiling with mindless pleasure. After a moment, he remembered that he had been ill. With a pleased sigh, he realized that the pain was gone. He considered lifting his head, but the effort seemed greater than he was willing to make, so he let his mind do the work for him. Where was he? If he remembered correctly, he had come with Wys to Selby’s place in Suffolk. Perhaps, if he turned his head and looked around, he might recognize the room. Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath in preparation for this tremendous feat, he turned his head toward the source of the light he had seen on the ceiling. He found himself looking at a bright window, in front of which sat a woman, her head bent over a book. Her hair, lit by the sunshine behind her head, glowed like a halo of gold-tipped curls. He blinked and tried to see her face, but the light behind her was too bright. “Good morning,” he said aloud. The sound of his voice surprised him—it had an unexpectedly shaky croak.
“Oh, are you awake at last?” asked a strangely familiar voice. “It’s afternoon, you know.”
His heart stopped for a second and then resumed with a rapid pounding. He knew that voice. “
Gwen?
” he croaked, and with a great effort he lifted his head. She rose quickly and came to his side, pressing her hand against his shoulder and gently pushing him back against the pillows. “Don’t get up. You’re to rest in bed for a few days. I’ll go and tell Hetty you’re awake. She’s having some excellent chicken broth made for you.”
“No, don’t go,” Drew said quickly, and reached out to grasp her skirt. “I don’t understand. Where am I?”
“Don’t you remember? You’re at Stonehaven. You arrived last night, in quite a state.”
“Yes, I remember that. I
thought
I saw you, but I … told myself it was a delusion…”
“It was no delusion,” Gwen said with a smile in her voice.
“I can’t see you clearly with the light dazzling my eyes,” Drew said pleadingly. “Come around to the other side of the bed and sit down, won’t you?”
“But I promised to tell Hetty as soon as you were awake. We’ve got to get some broth inside you.”
“Please. Never mind Hetty for the moment. And as for the broth, I promise you I intend never to eat again.”
Gwen laughed and did as he asked. She pulled a chair to the side of the bed and sat down beside him. “There, now,” she said, as if to a petulant child, “what do you want to talk to me about?” He didn’t answer. She looked down at him. He was looking up at her as if he didn’t quite believe that she was real. It was a look of such astonishing tenderness that her heart seemed to flip over in surprise. She could not meet his eyes, but turned her own away in confusion. It was the moment Hetty had been waiting for, but Hetty wasn’t there to see it.
“What…? How did…? How is it that you’re here?” Drew asked at last.
“Hetty invited me.” Gwen smiled without looking at him. “She assured me that I would be completely safe from you here in Suffolk.”
“Oh, she did, did she?” Drew asked thoughtfully. Somewhat absently, he reached out and took Gwen’s hand. “Did you
want
to be safe from me?”
“Lord Jamison, you have been ill, and I am a guest in this house. I’ve decided to call a truce between us while we are both under this roof. But you must remember that it in no way changes the real situation between us. And you must make the truce possible by agreeing not to pass beyond the bounds of polite friendship. Please release my hand.”
He held it tighter and looked up at her, his smile a faint counterpart of his old mocking grin. “And if I don’t agree?”
“Then my brother and I will leave as soon as I can arrange transportation.”
“In that case,” he said, kissing her fingers lightly and letting her hand drop, “I give you my word.”
“Good,” Gwen said briskly, and rose. “Now I’d better call Hetty. If she knew you were awake, she’d be furious with me for not calling her.”
“Speaking of my sister, does it occur to you to wonder at the strange coincidence that brings us here together?” Drew asked musingly.
Gwen sat down again. “Well, it
had
. I was furious when I first heard that you’d arrived. But then I saw how ill you were, and all suspicions flew out of my mind. Why do you ask?”
“Hetty and my friend Wystan Farr have been up to something,” Drew said, heaving himself to a sitting position. “I’m sure this meeting of ours is the result of one of Hetty’s little plots.”
“How can you be sure?” Gwen asked. “Please, Lord Jamison, don’t sit up. You’re supposed to be resting.”
“Don’t act as though sitting up in bed is equivalent to riding to the hounds,” Drew said with a grin.
“You are
not
going to be a difficult patient, are you?” Gwen asked him sternly.
“Oh, no, ma’am. Meek as a lamb, I assure you.”
“So I see. Well, Lord Jamison, how can you be so sure it was a plot?”
“I’d be glad to share my suspicions with you, my dear, but I find it difficult when you insist on addressing me in that formal way. Do you think our truce could include your calling me by my Christian name?”
“Oh, very well, I suppose so,” said Gwen with a little smile. “But don’t push me any further. I don’t approve of such encroaching ways.”
“Very well, Lady Rowle. I
was
going to encroach further by asking your leave to call you Gwen, but I see I had better not.”
“Good, because I will
not
give you leave to do so. You seem to call me ‘my dear’ quite frequently. That will have to suffice.”
Drew nodded obediently. “Yes, I can see why ‘my dear’ meets with your approval. It makes me seem so … avuncular!”
Gwen laughed. “Exactly so. An uncle-niece relationship between us will suit me very well.”
Drew grunted. “Well,
my dear
, to return to my theory of the plot against us—”
“I’m rather surprised that you should think of the plot as being against you. I should have thought that you would be a party to it. You
did
threaten, not so long ago, that you would find a way to see me…”
Drew raised his brows in disdain. “If you think I need to devise plots and enlist cohorts to make my case with you, my girl, you have much mistaken your man,” he said coldly.
Gwen lowered her eyes. “I … didn’t give you leave to call me ‘my girl,’ you know,” she said in a chastened voice.
“Sorry,” said Drew, his grin breaking out again. “I forgot myself. Well, let us proceed with our analysis of the plot. It’s clear that Wys invited me to Melbourn on Hetty’s instruction. Hetty was well aware that Wys’s hunting-box is not a very long way from here.”
“Good heavens, Drew, you are not suggesting that Mr. Farr had you
poisoned!
”
“No, no. I’m quite certain he did not. Even
Hetty
would not go as far as that! You said it quite nicely, by the way.”
“What?” asked Gwen in bewilderment.
“My name. ‘Good heavens, Drew.’ It sounded quite lovely.”
“Never mind that, you idiot,” Gwen said with a blush. “If they didn’t plan to poison you, what do you think the plan was?”
“I don’t know. They had to find
some
way to get me here. Evidently my illness did the job well enough to suit.”
“Oh, that Hetty!” said Gwen between clenched teeth. “I could
strangle
her.”
“Can’t say I blame you. I’m surprised you didn’t leave this place the moment you suspected what she was up to.”
“I couldn’t be sure. You were so terribly sick, you know. Besides, the ice is keeping me prisoner here.”
“Ice? What do you mean?”