Chapter 25
“Catherine, you must stay in bed!” Cecelia scolded as her sister tried for what felt like the hundredth time to escape her confinement.
“But I feel fine!” Catherine protested, her tone little more than a whine.
Cecelia and Mary glanced at each other, rolling their eyes before Cecelia urged Catherine back beneath the sheets with one word, “Bed.”
Catherine threw herself back into the mountain of pillows and crossed her arms across her chest.
“You two have never been any fun,” she snapped, sticking out her tongue like a petulant child, and Cecelia was once more reminded of her tender age, of the young age at which they might have lost her yesterday.
“I do not think there is anything fun about your near drowning, sister,” Cecelia sighed. She perched on the edge of the bed and brushed back her sister's hair from her face. “If you were to catch a chill now, Mama would never let you leave the house again.”
“If you do not let me up and about soon, the lake shall thaw, and I shall not be able to skate for another year,” Catherine protested.
Cecelia's insides tied in knots. “I do not believe there shall be any skating for the rest of us, ever.”
Catherine's eyes widened.
“Do not say such a thing!”
“If you do not listen to Cece, Mama will surely prevent us from doing anything fun for the rest of our lives,” Mary insisted. She crossed the room from where she had been warming her hands beside the fireplace.
“Besides, the weather is terrible this morning,” she continued, perching on the opposite side of the bed. “I am quite envious of your being allowed to stay abed.”
At that, Catherine looked hopeful. “I shall gladly swap with you.”
Mary offered a stern look, shaking her head. “Well played.”
Together, all three sisters laughed.
They were disturbed by the sound of gentle knocking upon the door.
“Come in,” Cecelia called as Mary clambered closer to Catherine on the bed and wrapped her arms around her.
“If you cannot get out of bed, I shall join you.” She laughed, and Cecelia smiled as she playfully began to tickle their youngest sibling.
Cecelia rose from her seat on the bed as the door opened to reveal a maid.
“My Lady,” the woman greeted her, dipping a low curtsey. “I wished to know if you might have need of anything.”
Cecelia suspected that, no doubt, her mother had sent the poor young woman all the way up there to enquire, and so she did not have the heart to turn her away without instruction.
Though they had no desperate need for anything, she suggested, “Perhaps another blanket?”
“Of course, My Lady,” the maid said, and with that, she left the room once more, returning only a few minutes later with said blanket.
“Your mother also wished me to remind you of Lord Greystone's visit, My Lady,” the maid said as she placed the blanket on the end of the bed and positioned it so that it covered Catherine's legs.
Cecelia grimaced. “Do not tell me he is still here.”
The nobleman had arrived just after dawn to enquire as to Catherine's health, and though Cecelia herself had gone to tell him she was well before excusing herself to tend to her sister, it appeared he had not got the hint she had no time for callers right now.
The maid's face paled.
“Forgive me, My Lady,” she said, “I do not wish to cause any upset.”
“The fault is not yours to bear, Daisy,” Cecelia assured her, feeling a little guilty at her previous tone. “I ought to have been more direct.”
“Perhaps you should go to him,” Mary suggested, her arms still wrapped around Catherine.
The two sisters looked awfully cozy in bed, and Cecelia wanted nothing more than to slip in beside them and hold them both until the rest of the world simply went away.
With a sigh of exasperation, she said to the maid, “You may tell my mother I shall be down presently.”
The maid dipped her head and left, and when Cecelia turned back to her sisters, she found them both watching her expectantly.
“Why are you looking at me that way?” she asked, hiding her hands in the folds of her skirts.
“Why are you avoiding the viscount?” Mary asked, her brow furrowed.
“I am not!”
Cecelia knew she had spoken too quickly when her sisters started to chuckle.
“Poor James,” Catherine said, tutting. “What has he ever done to deserve your avoiding him?”
Cecelia's chest tightened. It wasn't what he had done but rather what he hadn't.
Yet, how could she explain such a thing to her sisters without sounding entirely foolish?
“He has done nothing,” she said, shaking her head. “I am merely concerned with you, dear sister.”
Catherine pulled herself from Mary's arms, looked Cecelia in the eye, and said, “As you can see, I am well.”
Cecelia had to admit that given the circumstances, she was in perfect health. Compared to the rest of them, who were still shaken after the ordeal, nobody could ever have guessed that Catherine had almost drowned the day before.
Cecelia rolled her eyes and looked to Mary as she said, “You will ensure she stays in bed, won't you?”
“Yes, ma'am,” Mary said, almost mockingly, and Cecelia scowled.
“This is no time for amusement. Mother will forever be on our backs if she becomes unwell,” Cecelia pointed out.
It had taken her all her effort to encourage her mother not to be the one to tend their sister after her own illness.
Though she was certain she could not catch such a chill, she did not wish to take the risk, not after their dear father.
“I swear on every book in the library,” Mary reassured her.
Knowing there was nothing that Mary held more precious, Cecelia was satisfied. Yet, she sighed deeply to know there was nothing else keeping her from Lord Greystone's attention.
“I shall be back as soon as I am able,” she said, leaning over the bed to kiss each of her sisters affectionately upon the cheek.
“Do not rush,” Catherine insisted. “We are perfectly capable of entertaining ourselves.”
Cecelia shivered at the image her sister's words conjured, their bouncing on the bed and causing all kinds of mayhem. Yet, she was hopeful that Mary might have more sense than that now, given her willingness towards more lady-like pursuits where Walter was concerned.
“Behave,” she said sternly as she made her way to the door.
“Do say hello to Lord Greystone for us,” Mary said, and Cecelia shivered again.
A part of her wished she could send Mary in her place.
Before she could give herself some other excuse, she left the room, leaving Daisy with instructions to stay without and listen for anything untoward.
Making her way down the hall, down the stairs, she tried to come up with some excuse or another to encourage Lord Greystone to leave.
She had barely made it midway down the stairs before the butler appeared in the foyer below.
“Is all well?” she asked when she saw how hurried he was.
“Oh, My Lady, I did not see you there,” the old man exclaimed, pausing with his hand upon the front door handle. “A carriage approaches.”
Cecelia grimaced. They had not given any reason to suggest that they should be accepting any callers. She suspected most would remain away after having heard of the ordeal the day before.
Hurrying the rest of the way down the stairs, she stopped at the window beside the door and twitched back the net curtain.
Her heart stopped when she immediately recognized the carriage.
George!
He had come to surprise her a great deal in recent days, and his approaching carriage gave her an awful giddy feeling in her stomach.
“Lady Cecelia, how glad I am to finally see you,” Lord Greystone said from the drawing room doorway. “Won't you join your mother and me for tea?”
A shiver ran down Cecelia’s spine.
The butler had already opened the front door, and Cecelia heard a familiar tone from outside.
“I have come to enquire as to Lady Catherine's health.”
Just hearing his voice made that giddy feeling inside her grow.
She remembered all too easily his heroics the day before, and desperately, she wished to thank him.
Yet, she could not ignore her duty to the man standing in the doorway, watching her expectantly.
“My Lady?” the butler said before she could respond to the viscount.
“Yes?” she said, over willingly.
“His Grace, the Duke of Cumberland, is without,” the butler said, and Cecelia's heart skipped another beat.
“Please, allow him in,” Cecelia insisted. After his heroics the day before, she could not bring herself to deny his entrance, even after their conversation at the theatre some days earlier.
The butler stepped out of the doorway, leaving room for George to enter, and Cecelia found herself holding her breath.
“Lady Cecelia, I am glad to see you well,” George said, meeting her gaze before dipping a bow, “I do hope I am not intruding but—”
Before he could finish, Lord Greystone cleared his throat.
George's head snapped up, and Cecelia watched how his face twisted at the sight of Lord Greystone.
“Lord Greystone,” he seemed to speak through gritted teeth as he dipped his head to the viscount before he turned back to Cecelia and said, “I see I am interrupting.”
Cecelia opened her mouth to argue, beginning to think better of it as she heard her mother call from the drawing room, “Nonsense! Join us, Your Grace.”
Cecelia had never been so conflicted as she was at that moment, unsure whether she wished to kiss her mother or scold her for putting her in such an awkward position as to sit in a drawing room with both of them.
The tension between the duke and viscount was so thick that she thought she might have been able to cut it with a knife, like a cake that had been left to bake too long and had gone hard as stone.
“Please, Your Grace, won't you join us?” Cecelia asked, gesturing to the drawing room.
“Yes, Your Grace, do join us,” Lord Greystone insisted, though his tone was not in the least inviting.
George glowered at the man, and for a second, Cecelia feared they might come to fisticuffs in the foyer.