Authors: Jennifer McNare
“How dare you!” the marquess’ exploded, slamming his fist
onto his desk as he stood up, his reddened face a mask of fury.
Tiffany flinched, but she didn’t flee.
At that moment she didn’t care what he did to
her.
Let him strike her, she thought
rebelliously, it would only prove what she had said.
But instead of advancing toward her, her
father seemed to wobble a bit as he gained his feet.
As she looked on in surprise and uncertainty,
he seemed to struggle for balance.
Then,
clutching at his arm, the marquess’ expression grew pained as he suddenly
dropped back down onto his chair.
William’s eyes grew wide as he attempted to focus them on
Tiffany.
“Send for Dr. Patton,” he
rasped.
“Father?”
Tiffany
took a step toward him, and then watched in horror as he suddenly slumped
forward onto his desk.
“Father,” she
gasped, hurrying around the side of his desk.
Grabbing his shoulder, she struggled to pull him upright, but he was a
dead weight and she was unable to move him.
“Penrose,” she shouted, moving away from her father and
rushing to the door.
“Penrose, come
quickly!” she cried, as she pulled it open.
Penrose was at her side within seconds, his normally
unflappable expression now flustered.
“My lady?”
“It’s my father,” Tiffany said, motioning frantically to
where the marquess lay slumped over his desk.
“Send one of the footmen to fetch Dr. Patton at once.”
Looking over Tiffany’s shoulder, Penrose’s face registered
his shock as he spotted the marquess’ motionless form.
“Yes, my lady,” he uttered, spinning on his
heel.
Hastening back to her father’s side, Tiffany tried once
again to rouse him, but her efforts were to no avail.
The marquess remained limp and unmoving, but
thankfully it appeared that he was still breathing.
“I’ve sent Geoffrey to fetch Dr. Patton,” Penrose informed
her as he hurried back into the room with two burly, young footmen at his
heels.
“Good.”
“I’ve brought David and Henry,” Penrose said.
“Shall we move him, my lady?
Tiffany considered it for a moment, glancing briefly to the
nearby sofa.
“Yes, let’s do,” she
decided, doing her best to remain calm as she motioned the men forward.
“Let’s take him upstairs.”
Surely he would be better off in his bed than
lying upon the narrow sofa, she reasoned.
Stepping back, she allowed the footmen to lift the marquess
from his chair and then carry him out the door.
Following a few steps behind, she and Penrose trailed them as they moved
swiftly to the stairs.
Biting her lower lip, Tiffany eyed the unconscious form of
her father anxiously as David and Henry laid him out atop his bed a few moments
later.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” she said
as the pair stepped back from the immense four-poster bed.
“Penrose, please send Dr. Patton up the
minute he arrives.”
“Of course, my lady,” he replied, casting one last nervous
glance at the marquess before ushering the two footmen from the room.
Checking to see that her father was still breathing, Tiffany
was relieved to see the steady rise and fall of his chest as she moved to stand
over him.
Reaching out her hand, she
placed it lightly against his forehead, but she felt no hint of fever.
“Father, can you hear me?” she asked,
watching his face for any sign of awareness.
“Father?”
Unfortunately, the marquess remained unresponsive.
Frightened by the cold, clammy feel of his skin, Tiffany
pulled her hand away.
In spite of
everything she’d said, he
was
still
her father, and she didn’t want him to die.
Rising from her seat, Tiffany looked expectantly at Dr.
Patton as he entered the front parlor.
“How is he?”
Nearly forty minutes
had passed since the physician had arrived and promptly ushered her from her
father’s bedchamber.
Dr. Patton’s expression was grim as he met her gaze.
“Perhaps we should sit,” he suggested.
“Alright,” Tiffany agreed, feeling an unwelcome tightness in
her chest as she resumed her seat upon the settee.
Settling into one of the armchairs across from her, Dr.
Patton set his black medical bag onto the floor beside him.
“Although your father has regained
consciousness, I’m afraid the news isn’t good,” he stated solemnly.
“He’s awake?”
“He is, though at present he is only somewhat lucid,” Dr.
Patton stated.
“Sadly, it appears that
what your father experienced earlier was an apoplectic seizure, or in layman’s
terms, a loss of blood to the brain.
It’s quite serious I’m afraid.”
The tightness in her chest intensified.
“How serious?”
“Your father has suffered complete paralysis on his entire
left side.
In addition, both his speech
and vision appear to be impaired, though in his present state I was not able to
determine the exact severity of either.”
Paralysis? Impaired
speech and vision?
It was even worse
than she’d feared.
“Is the condition…
permanent?”
“Although some individuals have been known to regain some
degree of lost function,” he began, “the long-term prognosis for those who have
suffered an apoplectic seizure is generally unfavorable.”
Stunned, Tiffany could only nod in response.
“If your father
is
to improve, even marginally, he will require constant nursing care from this
moment on, as well as daily rehabilitation therapy.”
“I see,” she managed.
“I’m sorry to say,
but if your father had heeded my earlier advice and sought preventative
treatment for his elevated blood pressure, this might have been prevented,” he
said, shaking his head as he rose from his chair and collected his bag.
Tiffany stood as well.
“If you’d like, I can arrange for one of the nurses from the
hospital to attend to your father until you are able to make permanent
arrangements.”
“Thank you, Dr. Patton.
That would be most helpful.”
“Fine.
I’ll see to it
at once,” he replied.
“Is there anything more that I can do?” Tiffany asked,
feeling completely helpless.
“Love and support, my dear,” he said compassionately.
“In times like these, those two things are
what truly help the most.”
“Yes, of course.”
“I will return to check on the marquess first thing tomorrow
morning,” he informed her as he moved to the door.
A little over an hour later, as Tiffany sat at her father’s
bedside, a petite, grey-haired woman wearing a white nurse’s uniform and cap
was shown into the room by one of the footmen who’d helped carry her father
upstairs.
“Mrs. Finnley has arrived to tend to your father,” he
announced, his expression solemn.
“Hello, Mrs. Finnely,” Tiffany said, rising to greet
her.
“I’m Tiffany Marlowe.
Thank you for coming.”
“I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, my lady,” Mrs.
Finnley replied, walking forward.
Glancing
toward the bed, she eyed the marquess.
“He’s sleeping?”
“Yes.”
“Dr. Patton has apprised me of your father’s condition,” she
began.
“Has there been any change in the
past hour?”
“Not that I’ve noticed.”
Her father had been drifting in and out of consciousness shortly after
Dr. Patton had taken his leave.
But he’d
been sleeping for the last twenty minutes or so.
“I see.”
“May we get you anything, Mrs. Finnley?
Something to drink?
Some tea perhaps,” Tiffany asked politely.
“No thank you, my lady.
I’m fine for now.”
“Alright then, but if you should change your mind, or if you
need anything at all, you have only to let someone know,” she said, motioning
to the bell pull beside her father’s bed.
Mrs. Finnley nodded in understanding.
“I’ve had a bedchamber readied for you, as well,” Tiffany
continued, stepping to the adjoining door and pulling it open.
“I hope that it will meet all of your needs
during your stay.”
“I’m sure that it will.”
“Henry, could you please take Mrs. Finnley’s bag and put it
into her chamber.”
“Yes, of course,” he said stepping forward.
“Will that be all, my lady?” he asked, as the
older woman handed him the large carpetbag she’d been holding.
“Yes, I believe so.
Thank you, Henry,” Tiffany said, dismissing the young footman and
turning her attention back to the nurse.
Once Mrs. Finnley had been settled, Tiffany left her
father’s room and made her way to her own.
Though it was still quite early, the afternoon’s events had left her
feeling exhausted, both mentally and physically and she needed to lie down, if
even for a short while.
Entering her bedchamber, she kicked off her kid leather
slippers as she walked to the bed, and then promptly lay down upon the silken
counterpane fully clothed.
Resting her
head atop one of the pillows, she turned onto her side, tugging another of the
soft, down-filled pillows to her chest.
Seconds later, the tears she had been struggling so hard to contain
since she’d entered her father’s study, finally began to fall.
Within the space of a few hours, her entire
world had been turned upside down.
Not
only was her father likely to spend the remainder of his life as an invalid,
but with only a few cruel and callous words, he’d managed to break her heart
and crush her dreams as well.
As the
enormity of it all finally hit her, the pain she felt was nearly impossible to
bear.
With gut-wrenching sobs now
wracking her body, she buried her face in the pillow and gave way to the
anguish that seemed to tear at her very soul.
Tiffany had no idea how much time had passed when her sobs
finally began to lessen and her tears eventually began to slow, but when she
opened her eyes at last, it was to see that her room had grown shadowed with
the coming of night.
Rolling onto her
back, she stared morosely at the rose-colored canopy above her bed as she
gradually came to grips with all that she had learned.
With a heavy sigh, she accepted the fact that
her father didn’t love her even the teeniest bit and likely never had, but even
more painful than that, was the crushing weight of her shattered dreams
surrounding Alexander Warrene.
She was such a fool.
How could she have allowed herself to believe that a man like Alex would
so willingly give up his unfettered lifestyle to marry
her
?
She should have known better,
but she was too head over heels in love to see the truth.
He could have any woman he wanted, and surely
had, but only
she
held the key to
something else he wanted.
Sadly, it was
as simple as that.
Oh, he might care
about her a little, she thought glumly, he might even desire her physically,
but he never would have offered to marry her for those reasons alone.
She’d been right the night before, when she
lay tossing and turning in her bed, replaying everything that he had said to
her in the coach.
He
had
chosen his words with great care,
uttering half-truths and artfully misleading her when she’d asked him why he
wanted to marry her.
Knowing
that
was nearly as painful as it would
have been to discover that he had lied to her outright.
The question now, it seemed, was what was she going to do
about it?
Though her eyes were still puffy and red, Tiffany eventually
left the solitude of her room, knowing the household staff would likely assume
that her tears were due to her father’s condition rather than anything
else.
Stopping to check on him, she saw
that he was still sleeping, and after a brief conversation with Mrs. Finnley,
she then made her way downstairs.
Knowing that there were several things that needed her
immediate attention, she summoned Penrose, their housekeeper, Mrs. Higby, and
their cook, Mrs. Wright, to a meeting straightaway.
After discussing a general course of action
regarding her father’s care, including assigning one of the upstairs maids to
assist Mrs. Finnley, modifications to the marquess’ daily meal preparations,
the hiring of long-term care givers and a number of other things, Tiffany felt
reasonably confident that she had the household matters under control.
However, she was well-aware that there were
additional, non-household related matters that would require her prompt
attention as well.