Chapter Five
“Sorry,” Lord Durward said cheerfully. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Not gone. Not gone... She swallowed.
He said, “I hoped you would sleep, so I left the back door unlocked.”
“You went to the market,” she said stupidly. Not gone.
“Just breakfast,” he said deprecatingly. “I’ll put it in the larder, shall I?”
Not gone. “What happened? Did your ship not sail as planned?”
“Sailed without me,” he said from the larder. He didn’t sound remotely upset by the fact.
“But what will you do? Is there another ship? Can you obtain a refund from the company?”
“No idea,” he said, striding out of the larder and filling her suddenly too small kitchen with his large, young, devastatingly male presence.
Dear God. She had always acknowledged his attraction, right from the moment she’d told him to bugger off, and his eyes had danced with laughter rather than outrage. But now, for some reason, the feeling rushed upon her in a welter of heated confusion, gratitude, and anguish.
She hung on desperately to the important part of all this. “But what if they come for you?”
“I’ll have warning,” he said comfortably.
“You missed it because of us. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said in apparent surprise. “I’m not. In any case, I didn’t miss it precisely. I chose not to go. Foster’s still alive. What shall I do? I’ve never cooked anything in my life, but I can probably finish scrubbing the table if you like.”
In spite of all the feelings battering at her, she smiled. “I doubt you’ve scrubbed anything either.”
He leaned one shoulder against the larder door and folded his arms. “I can learn from watching you.”
Her face burned. Was he flirting? Over scrubbing a table?
“If you wish to help, you could look in on my father,” she said shortly, then regretted her tone almost immediately.
But he only smiled and pushed away from the door. His arm brushed against hers as he sauntered past her out of the kitchen, and she caught her breath.
What is the matter with me?
His absence was a relief, giving her space and time to pull herself together. And yet, ridiculously, she missed him. She finished cleaning the table with unnecessary speed and aggression before sorting through the new foodstuffs in the larder.
He had brought fresh supplies of tea. She had been reusing the leaves for a week. With pleasure she threw out the old leaves she’d hoarded and warmed the pot with the water beginning to boil on the fire.
“His Majesty requests a cup of tea,” Lord Durward said, strolling back into the kitchen. “I told him to get up and come down for it.”
“He must be as weak as a kitten,” Carina said reproachfully. “He was ill enough last night for us to call in the doctor.”
“He won’t remember that if you coddle him.”
She scowled, pouring the boiling water over the precious new tea leaves. “Are you so strict with your own self-discipline?”
“Of course not.”
She cast him a significant glance, then reached above her head for the frying pan hanging on the hook.
It meant she had to stand on tiptoe, and she did so with the efficiency of practise.
Nevertheless, he was there at once, his hand closing around hers on the pan handle before she slid it free.
He stood so close to her back that she could feel his body heat, the brush of his chest against her hair. She could not breathe.
Slowly, she dropped her heels back to the floor and turned.
She expected him to step back, from the courtesy he had always shown her.
Instead, he met her gaze with intensity and a terrible thrill swept downward through her stomach.
She could drown in those warm, profound eyes and die happy, and she didn’t even know why, except that they seemed peculiarly beautiful, at once sensitive and reckless and appreciative. ..of what?
His breath caught and he stepped back, offering her the frying pan with the flicker of a half-rueful smile. Even that caused a further flight in her stomach, like butterflies soaring.
She tore her gaze free with a mutter of thanks and moved away. She set about assembling the ham and the eggs she meant to fry for breakfast, then defiantly poured a cup of tea for her father and left the kitchen.
Durward said nothing.
“Sorry to trouble you, my dear,” Papa said weakly when she entered the room. “I can barely move. The boy—Durward—said I was ill. What is he doing here?”
“He found you on the beach about to be swept out to sea and brought you home. He fetched the doctor and sat with you through the night. You were quite ill.”
“So I was,” he said in a self-congratulatory sort of way.
She scowled, placing his tea on the old bedside table. “You brought it on yourself, Papa. What were you even doing on the beach away out there at that time of night?”
“Just walking,” he said vaguely.
“Just lying in the water,” she snapped. “And drinking. No more, Papa.”
“No more,” he said meekly, when she had expected a fight.
With the wind snatched from her sails, she closed her mouth and turned away. “Breakfast should be ready in a quarter of an hour. Come down if the tea revives you enough.”
With fresh hope for her father rising, she returned to the kitchen to find Lord Durward making a decent job of slicing the fresh loaf he had brought in.
“Why, you are quite skilled in domestic matters,” she said with light mockery.
He brandished the knife. “You should see me with a duck. Command me—what should I do next?”
“You could take the bread and butter to the dining room.”
“By all means, but I’m happy enough to breakfast here, if that is your habit.”
It was, and she had no reason not to give in. He already knew the worst of them, that they had no servants and no money but the eternally shrinking savings and the pittance she could occasionally extract from Lady Mansel.
So he placed the cutlery on the freshly scrubbed table, added the crockery and the bread and butter, and a jug of cream which had become something of a luxury, along with the sugar and honey which had somehow made their way into her larder.
The mundane domesticity took on strange significance. She was not used to help, let alone help from him, a viscount of ill-repute. The bizarre intimacy was interrupted by a knock on the front door.
It was the doctor, who had, under Durward’s orders, promised to return this morning.
“How is the patient?” he demanded, stepping briskly into the house.
“The fever seems to have left him as suddenly as it came on,” Carina said, “and he slept peacefully the last couple of hours. But he seems very weak still.”
“I’m not surprised,” the doctor said drily. “I’ll just step up and look at him. You needn’t show me the way—I remember.”
Allowing her father his privacy, she went back to the kitchen and began to heat some fat in the frying pan, while she worried how much two doctor’s visits would cost. The last of the savings, she presumed, at the very least. But it would be worth it if only her father were well. And stayed well.
The doctor was quicker than she expected, which she hoped was a good sign. As soon as she heard his heavy tread descending the stairs, she moved the pan off the heat and wiped her hands on her apron.
But Durward said, “I’ll go. You’ll still hear what he says.”
Leaving the door open, he walked out to the hall. She heard him say, “Doctor,” and slipped nearer to the door to hear better.
“Oh, you’re still here, are you?” the doctor said, disapproval in every word.
“Someone had to be,” Durward drawled. “Would you expect any other gently bred young lady to carry him about and perform the duties of valet as well as nurse?”
“Well, well,” the doctor said, clearly flustered and torn between dislike and reason. “I’m sure you are of considerable help to them both.”
“How do you find him?”
“With no visible lasting damage. A day of rest and a lifetime off the bottle and he should be fit enough for work again by tomorrow.” The doctor did not lower his voice, and it struck Carina that Papa was meant to hear it too.
“Thank you, Doctor,” Durward said politely.
The front door opened, and Carina hurried into the hall in time to see the doctor step over the threshold and clap his hat back onto his head.
Durward stepped out with him. “Good day.”
“Good day.”
The doctor vanished from her view, but Durward did not immediately come back in. In fact, from the way he turned to his left, inclining his head, she presumed, with plummeting spirits, that her neighbours were on their own steps, all agog.
“That’s the doctor there again,” Mrs. Felton’s voice noted loudly. “And yourself, sir?”
Durward denied her the introduction she so clearly sought. “Yes, I’m here again, too. Someone had to be, when the captain was taken ill. His neighbours and friends were nowhere to be seen.”
Carina almost giggled, for it was a fine set-down, and she could almost see Mrs. Felton and the others bridling.
“How is the captain?” Mr. Felton asked in dignified tones.
“He will recover, but he is very weak,” Durward replied.
Someone said in outrage, “He drinks!”
“Miss Jasper,” Durward said silkily, “does not. Good morning, ladies. Sir.”
Hastily, Carina backed into the kitchen once more and pushed the pan back over the fire. Frying the bacon and a few eggs would provide the excuse for her flushed cheeks. But she would not deny to herself the warm glow spreading through her. Because he had stood up for her.
When was the last time anyone had done that?
Or even performed the smallest kindness for her without expectation of payment in some sort, whether in gossip or labour.
And yet this stranger with the reckless eyes, who had killed—almost killed—a man over some trifle or other, had saved her father’s life, fetched the doctor, missed his ship, and told off her judging neighbours.
The cynic she had become should ask Why?
The stupid, dazzled girl she barely recognized, dropping rashers of bacon into the frying pan, smiled secretively and listened to the wild beating of her heart.