Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Sebastian scowled at the empty place setting opposite him. After their confrontation earlier, he had half expected her to avoid him by skipping dinner, but now that she had, he found he couldn’t abide it.
After all, he was the duke. She should not ignore his request that they eat dinner together.
He didn’t even know why he was so insistent on this point. But he had passed the point of reason, and her defiance infuriated him.
He nodded toward the footman stationed by the wall. Jones? Devil, he really ought to learn their names—impossible, when they seemed to rotate out of the household like playing cards. “Send for Her Grace.”
“At once, Your Grace.” He peeled away like a poorly-tacked ornament and opened the door to find the butler standing behind it.
“Fellows,” Sebastian said, finding himself increasingly irritated with this rigmarole. “What is the matter? Where is my wife?”
“She is in her rooms, sir.” Fellows pronounced each word as though it personally offended him.
“And doth she intend to exit her rooms?”
“That, I’m afraid, I cannot say.”
Sebastian pushed his chair back. “Then I suppose I will have to see for myself.”
The old Scot’s face was grim. “I have been informed by her lady’s maid that Her Grace is indisposed.”
Sebastian snorted. “Indisposed, is she? Let’s see how indisposed she is after I pay her a visit.”
Fury had his head now, guiding him as firmly as if he were a horse, up the stairs toward the duchess’s chambers. He should have anticipated that she would have used an excuse to get out of the dinner. Perhaps she thought he would condone this level of disrespect.
He was the duke, blast it. Until she left, he would eat with his wife when he requested her company—and he would not investigate within himself why he required her company the way he did!
The point was, he did, and he had been denied.
Sebastian would not tolerate being denied.
He reached the door to her bedchamber. A maid emerged just then, carrying a basin of water and some wet towels. At the sight of him, she went pale, which told him a little of how his face appeared.
“I am here to see my wife,” he hissed through clenched teeth, the only request for admission he allowed himself before throwing open the door.
A small sitting room lay empty, the door beyond into his wife’s bedchamber hanging ajar. He strode in like fury made flesh and stopped cold at the sight of Aurelia in bed.
No, not just in bed. He had expected her to either be sitting in an armchair reading or reclined gracefully, or perhaps to be posed provocatively by the hearth, all as some kind of point or punishment.
Instead, her pale face was overly flushed, and her eyes were shut and fluttering. Her chestnut hair was loose, tangled on the pillow above her, and a maid sat beside her, carefully dabbing at her damp forehead.
This was not a punishment.
A new emotion gripped him—he took two steps before forcibly stopping himself. “What… is this?”
The maid glanced up at his arrival, deep concern in her brows. “She has a fever, Your Grace.”
His jaw snapped shut. “And why was I not apprised of this?”
“Her Grace hoped to be up in time for dinner. I sent a message with Mr. Fellows that she has fallen ill.”
Ah, yes. And Fellows had, no doubt, made the same erroneous assumption he had: that she was pretending in order to spite him.
He closed his eyes for a second. Damn his pride, his reckless arrogance, assuming the worst of her merely because she had dared to stand up to him. The air left his lungs, and he counted to three before inhaling again, chasing out the worst of the bad feelings.
There was no time for this.
He had felt a version of this—far, far worse—when Kate hadn’t returned home, but here, there was something he might do to help.
He shrugged off his coat, revealing his waistcoat and the arms of his shirt. Those, he rolled to his elbows. The fire was high already, the room sweltering; he knew little of fevers, but suspected this to be the best course of action.
“Send for the physician,” he barked at the nearest maid. “Inform him that Her Grace is ill.”
“Yes, Your Grace.” The maid scuttled away.
Sebastian returned his attention to the maid. Jane, he thought; he had seen her perhaps once before, and he had given her little mind, but now he gave her the weight of his full focus. “Tell me in no unclear terms what led to this.”
“There’s little to tell, Your Grace. She returned upstairs an hour or two ago, claiming a headache. I could see in a moment that she had a fever, and I got her into bed, promising to wake her in time for dinner, but as you can see—”
“I understand,” he said curtly. “She is in no position to rise.”
“I don’t think I could wake her if I tried.”
Cold fear gripped him immediately at that, but he forced it down. She was not Kate; he would not live through that again.
“What can I do?” he demanded, gesturing for Jane to rise so he could take her place. He dipped the rag into water and rested it back on Aurelia’s forehead. She tossed her head, eyes drifting behind her eyelids as though she was dreaming.
Perhaps she was. He hoped they were pleasant dreams.
“This is because she left the house in the mist this morning.” The words scraped out of him, half to himself. He had made his usual trek to the lighthouse and back, trusting to her that she would find her way back to the house.
The path was simple enough. Even without landmarks, it was clear.
Unless it wasn’t.
Unless she had wandered in the cold until her limbs ached and her body gave out. Until the chill sank too deep to shake.
The thought landed hard, crushing his chest with guilt.
Of course it was his fault. It always was. He would drive everyone away in the end—through carelessness, through pride, through the same selfishness that had brought him here in the first place.
Yes, she oughtn’t have followed him, but he should have walked her back. Should have noticed. Should have cared more, sooner.
He stared down at her milky complexion. Her lips parted faintly, skin far too pale.
Squeezing the cloth, he let the water drip between her lips. “Come on…” he murmured softly. “Swallow.”
With a little coaxing, she eventually did.
“Your Grace,” Fellows called from behind him. “What would you like me to do with your dinner—”
“Blast the dinner, man!” Sebastian bellowed out, before catching himself slightly. Devil take it. He pinched the bridge of his nose as another idea sprang to him.
“Just… just send it up on a tray,” he said instead. “I’ll eat it here with Her Grace.”
“Very good, sir.” Fellows bowed, though he couldn’t hide the disapproval on his face.
Well, what did that matter? All that mattered was that Aurelia was well.
How long would the physician take to get there?
“What else can I do?” he demanded of the lady’s maid, regretting it almost instantly when she flinched back.
“I don’t know, Your Grace. Keep her temperature down where you can. Comfort her if she wakes.”
Comfort her. He hardly thought he was the right person for that role. But the idea of leaving her side now, especially after the way they had left things—and with the ghost of Kate haunting his thoughts—seemed utterly untenable. He would not.
As though on cue, Aurelia’s eyelids fluttered. Her lips parted, and he squeezed her hand gently.
“I’m here,” he murmured, and when her lids opened to reveal eyes hazy with confusion and pain, he forced a smile. “Don’t you worry, little mouse. I’ve got you.”
Her mouth turned down in a frown. “…Sebastian?”
“Yes, it’s me. I’m having dinner with you here instead.” On impulse, he pressed her fingers to his mouth. They were hot against his lips—everything about her was burning up. “You’ll be well soon enough.”
“I’m not ill…” she mumbled.
“Of course not.”
“Why are you here?”
“When you didn’t come down for dinner, I came to see if you were all right.” He neglected to mention the fact that he’d assumed her illness was a ploy. That wouldn’t help either of them now. “And when I saw you were in bed, I thought to keep you company. If you recall, you did the same to me.”
Her frown only deepened. “But you were angry.”
“I was—” He took a breath, dismissing the remainder of the servants with a wave of his hand. When they were gone, he whispered, “I was wrong.”
Her eyes still searched his, but her pupils were blown, and he couldn’t be sure she saw him instead of whatever image her delirium was providing for her. “You’re really here,” she breathed, as though in wonder. “I thought you despised me.”
“No! No, not despised.” Merely desired—and badly enough, it scared him a little. “I’m sorry, Aurelia.”
“I had so many things I had ready to say to you.” Her eyes closed, and her head moved back and forth on the pillow. “But I can remember none of them.”
“Enough now. Sleep. You can yell at me for however long you want in the morning.”
She let out a sigh that seemed to come from her core. “Yes. Tomorrow. I will tell you everything tomorrow.”
Sebastian watched over her as sleep finally took her again.
The physician didn’t arrive for another few hours, during which Aurelia’s condition merely worsened. Sebastian felt the coil of panic unfurl, but he refused to give in to it, merely bathing her forehead and holding her hand.
The next few times she woke, she didn’t appear to recognize him, delirium having truly settled in. She had conversations with shadows on the ceiling, and at one point, appeared to think he was the Duchess of Fenwick.
The physician arrived half an hour later and encouraged the fire to be built up and prescribed a small tonic. “Citrus, too, is good, if you can source any.”
Sebastian nodded to a maid by the door. “See to it. Send for London if Cook has none in the kitchen. Price is no object.”
She bobbed a curtsy. “Yes, Your Grace.”
The physician held up the bottle of tincture. “Give this to her every three hours or so. A spoonful at a time until her fever calms. If it has not eased by tomorrow evening, send for me again.”
“Of course.”
“Avoid wine at all costs, too.”
Sebastian nodded. He had originally thought to put the orange peel in some wine, but now he changed his mind. Whatever would be best for her.
“The fever will get worse before it gets better,” he warned. “It seems she has been overworked for some time. Perhaps stress has been contributing. Ensure she has nothing to distress her when she wakes.”
Sebastian grimly wondered if he might be classified as something that would distress her when she woke. But he refused to give the thought any mind. There was no chance of him remaining elsewhere and leaving her care to another.