Chapter Eighteen
T he Dowager Lady Riese lingered on the edge of eternity for two days and nights. She was no longer vomiting or soiling herself, but she still slept most of the time and was too weak to lift her head when she was awake.
Maman was reluctant to leave her bedside, allowing Pol or Jackie to sit with the dowager for no more than a few minutes while Maman saw to her own needs, and an hour or two while she slept. She fed the lady frequent small sips of barley water or warm milk, gave her a measured dose of laudanum every few hours, kept her clean and comfortable, and talked to her in French and in English.
“She needs to hear a friendly voice, cherie ,” Maman told Jackie. “She sleeps better if she can hear that she is among friends.”
Since Jackie was only needed for an hour here or there to sit with Lady Riese, she undertook more of the sewing and called on the draper to assure her they would deliver the garments they’d promised, even if they were a day or two late.
Pol was working mornings at the squire’s, but when he noticed how busy Jackie was, he took over the care of the house and proved that he could cook. He even made a thin chicken soup and strained it so Lady Riese could sip it easily from the invalid cup that Maman was using for other drinks.
Jackie, who had admired him from the first, tumbled even further in love.
The doctor visited each morning, approved what Maman was doing, and left again. And then, three days after he had seen her first, he declared that her heartbeat was stronger and her color better. “Keep doing what you are doing,” he said. “I make no promises, but she appears to be improving. Mr. Allegro, may I have a private word?”
Pol took the doctor to the parlor. He came to the kitchen after escorting the doctor to his horse. “Jackie, the doctor fed some of Gran’s medicines to some rats. Two lots died.” Pol looked a little green, as if he had not believed the wickedness of his aunt until now. “He wants to know what I am going to do about bringing the perpetrators to justice.”
“But how?” Jackie asked. “Your aunt will deny everything. She will blame the maid, or the doctor, or just insist that none of it is true and you put the poison in the medicines yourself.”
“The doctor has suggested we hire someone to investigate. He knows some people in London who might be able to help.” Pol frowned, looking more worried than uncertain. “A Mr. and Mrs. Wakefield. Maybe…” He trailed off, biting his lip.
“I have not spent all the money you gave me for the rent,” Jackie offered. “I’m sure Maman would agree we should spend it on your investigators. Perhaps they can find out enough to put the bad Lady Riese and her son behind bars.”
Pol shook his head. “It isn’t the money. Depending on what they charge, I can pay for it.” He chuckled. “Or Oscar can, actually. I robbed the goose while I was back at the Hall.” He frowned again. “It is just that I was wondering if it would be worth asking them to look into whether I should be viscount, and whether or not the viscountess knows it.”
Jackie’s heart sank. If Pol was a viscount, he was out of her reach. Oh, her birth was appropriate enough. The daughter of a French Comte was the social equivalent of an English earl. But long before Papa had died, the family had lived on the tattered fringes of respectability, and now she was nothing more than a seamstress and sometimes groom.
But her own selfish romantic fantasies didn’t matter here. Pol, if he was indeed the viscount, deserved a wife who moved in the Ton and could raise his status among his peers. “That is a good idea,” she said. “Will you write? Or go to see them?”
“It would be best to see them, do you not think? I will go to London on the mail coach once I know that Gran is well again.”
Ah, how Jackie wished that she could go, too.
*
After those first few days, Gran improved day by day. The leech wounds had almost healed and the bruises from the nurse’s pinches were fading. She began to spend longer and longer awake, and even to sit up—at first in her bed, and then in a chair by the window, while Madame de Haricot du Charmont sat in the facing chair with her sewing.
The two older women were so absorbed with one another that Pol and Jackie might have been alone in the house. Pol constantly fought the temptation to touch his beloved, to kiss her. More than that, he would not do until they were wed, or at least until she had accepted the proposal he had not yet made. With his future so uncertain, it would be unfair, possibly even dangerous. He shuddered to think what Oscar might do to Pol’s wife. That is, if he had been told that Pol was the rightful heir to their grandfather.
Should he kiss her, though? She was attracted to him, he was certain. He was not the rake his cousin was, nor was he a complete innocent. She wanted him, unless he was imagining the signs of her desire—the way her body tilted toward his, the husky tone when they were alone and she spoke to him, her habit of touching her tongue to her lips, her enlarged pupils.
As for him, he yearned to hold her, to kiss her, and everything that followed. In his dreams, they enjoyed the greatest of intimacies. He slept restlessly and woke hard and aching. Would kisses make it all worse?
Surely not. He had learned self-control in a hard school. He could kiss her and do no more. Day by day, he became more certain that a private kiss or two would do no harm. More than that, it felt inevitable.
In the end, though, there was no question. He stepped out of his little bedchamber off the kitchen just as she hurried past, and suddenly she was in his arms. He made no conscious decision to lower his head and press a kiss to her lips. One tender but gentle kiss became another, the heat building in him as she responded.
“Jackie,” he murmured.
“Pol,” she replied, or he assumed that was the word she intended, for as soon as she opened her mouth after pronouncing the “P”, he slipped his tongue past her lips to explore her mouth. It was clear she’d never been kissed before, but she was a fast learner, as he might have guessed she would be. Everything he did to her, she did in return to him, stroking his tongue with her own, brushing her tongue along the inside of his cheeks and pressing it far into his mouth and then retreating so that his tongue followed hers into the warm cavern of her mouth.
They were pressed together as tightly as two people could be with clothes on, he with one hand on her buttock and one in the middle of her back, and she exploring his chest and his back with hands that stroked and caressed.
His own hands stayed where they were, though it took every ounce of self-control he still possessed not to use them to shape her breasts, to reach for her feminine core. Not here. Not yet. Not in the kitchen where her mother might appear at any moment.
The thought was enough to slightly temper his ardor, but rather than step away, he backed into his bedchamber, bringing her with him. He wouldn’t close the door, because even in his current state—especially in his current state—he didn’t think it wise to be kissing Jackie in a room with a bed in it.
“Beloved,” he said to his dear delight. “Jackie, my heart, my love. You cannot know how much I want you.”
“Perhaps nearly as much as I want you,” she replied, which made him chuckle. Trust Jackie to challenge him.
“I’ve no right to ask you to marry me when my future is so uncertain,” he admitted, taking the leap toward his heart’s desire—if only part way.
But half a leap was never going to satisfy his intrepid darling. “The future is never certain, Pol. I’ve learned that. Anything can happen. We should snatch what happiness we can.”
“Then you will promise to marry me?”
“Pol, I can’t. If you are a viscount…” she began.
He pressed another kiss to her lips as a prelude to arguing with her, but the sound of feet on the stairs had them springing apart.
Pol stepped into the kitchen and closed the door, leaving Jackie to tidy and compose herself. I can’t. Not I won’t . He would have to convince her, but in words, not in the heat of passionate kisses, and he supposed he’d better speak to her mother first.
In fact, here was Jackie’s mother now. “Ah, Pol, there you are. And where is my daughter?”
Was he blushing? He hoped not. “She was here a minute ago,” he said. “Would you like me to tell her that you need her?”
Madame shook her head. “No need. I see she has prepared the tray I came down to fetch.” There it was on the kitchen table, covered by a cloth.
“I shall carry it up for you,” Pol offered, seizing the chance to get his darling’s mother out of the kitchen so Jackie could leave his room.
But apparently the Comtesse had seen more than Pol thought, for she looked directly at Pol’s bedroom door, smiled, and called out, “Come out when you are ready, cherie . And when you do, take that basket of petticoats to the drapers.” She smiled a satisfied cat-in-the-cream smile then and said, “Bring the tray, Pol, and after I have served your grandmother, you and I shall have a little talk.”