Chapter 3 #2
“Are you awake, sir?”
At the soft, remembered voice, he almost wept with relief.
Why this mad panic? What had happened to him?
“Sir?” She was coming over and he realized he hadn’t answered.
“Yes, I’m awake. Don’t come closer. There’s glass on the floor to the right of the bed.”
She stopped, only a gray shape now, for she’d closed the door. He reviewed matters with a suppressed groan. First he’d thrown up. Now he’d created a dangerous mess. He’d better crawl away from here as soon as possible and never return.
“Are you feeling sick again?” she asked. “The chamber pot’s down there.”
He tested the idea, and was pleased to be able to say, “No. I must thank you for your care of me.”
“It’s no trouble. Did you need something?”
My mind back. He could hardly say that. “Perhaps a light?”
“It’s the middle of the night.”
How could he say he was suddenly afraid of the dark? “I’m sorry for disturbing you.” He wished he could remember her name, remember what they were to each other. Anything.
She came closer, round to the left of the bed. He watched the ghostly paleness of her hand and arm reach out so she could lay a hand on his forehead, and remembered the pleasure of her earlier touch.
“I’m much better,” he said. A smooth hand. A lady’s hand, though many doxies had soft hands, too.
“Certainly you have no fever.”
“Where did you say this is?”
“Gillsett.”
Gillsett. He repeated it to himself a time or two, determined not to lose it this time. “And where is Gillsett?”
“Arkengarthdale.”
One of the more remote Yorkshire dales. Mostly sheep country. Strange to know geography and land use, but not where he had been recently and why. He felt strangely certain that he had no business reason to be in Arkengarthdale.
He had to ask the obvious question. “And you are … ?”
“Miss Gillsett.”
He must certainly have dreamed the business of having this composed, well-bred lady in his bed. Miss Gillsett of Gillsett was doubtless a kindhearted lady of sensible years and impeccable virtue. She’d likely faint if she learned he’d imagined her in his bed.
“Have you remembered your name, sir?” she asked.
From embarrassment and a dislike of being fawned on, he’d rather not say. But he had no choice. “Malloren.” When she didn’t react, he relaxed and added his first name. “Brand Malloren.”
“Do you have family or friends who will be worrying, Mr. Malloren?”
He was actually Lord Brand Malloren, but certainly didn’t mind being thought a simple mister in this embarrassing situation.
The question was an interesting one, however.
If his family knew he was sick they certainly would worry.
They were far away, however, and he’d left his entourage in Thirsk.
With luck, neither family nor staff would ever find out about this debacle.
“No. I’m traveling alone on business.”
And, with another shift of the veils, he suddenly remembered some of his affairs. Visiting his brother’s estates around England. Checking accounts and the care of the land. Arguing with conservative tenants about change. Reviewing breeding programs and the yield of experimental crops.
He remembered, too, that he often left his staff dealing with routine matters and visited suspect or interesting places without warning. Something about that snagged, like a painful jerk on a new scar—
“Business in the dales, Mr. Malloren?” Her voice distracted him before he could grasp what had snagged, and why it was important.
“Damnation!” He bit off more angry words. “I’m sorry. My nerves are on end. Truth is, dear lady, my wits are scrambled and I don’t know enough about myself to make a sensible story of it. What happened to me?”
“I don’t know. I found you by the roadside, unconscious, miles from anywhere. You were soaking wet with night coming on.”
That was not the story he’d imagined at all.
“By the roadside … in Arkengarthdale?” He knew enough of the land to see the picture.
Sheep-dotted fells climbing up to boggy moor.
Scattered, rugged farms and little traffic.
“Then I most sincerely thank you, Miss Gillsett, for saving my life. I apologize even more for the trouble I’m causing you. ”
Rosamunde stood there, considering his dim shape in the dark. Diana always said she loved honesty too much, and it was true. She could dance along a lie for a while, but then truth would swell up in her like a pot boiling over. As it did now.
Was it possible to do this thing at least partly based on truth?
“Are you sincerely grateful, Mr. Malloren?” she heard herself say. Her hands were clasped tight together and her heart pounded.
“On my honor.”
She swallowed. “Then would you consider doing me a service in return?”
After the briefest hesitation, he said, “How could I refuse?”
“You can,” she assured him. “I don’t want you to feel obliged if it is impossible for you.”
“Why not tell me what it is you want?”
With truth in control she almost blurted out, “A baby.” She had sense enough, however, to know she mustn’t say that.
What, then?
Diana had said some women wanted men just for themselves. For the act.
What where the right words, though?
“I want …” When it came to it, she could only think of the sheep. “I want tupping,” she blurted out, then covered her mouth with a horrified hand. “I’m sorry. Of course you wouldn’t—”
“I don’t see why not,” he said, remarkably calmly. “I have to point out, however, that it can have implications, especially for an unmarried lady.”
She thought for a moment, then said, “I’m not unmarried.”
“Ah. Not Miss Gillsett.”
“No.”
“Widow?”
“No.” That truth spilled out before she could stop it.
“A neglectful husband, then.”
She hesitated. In most ways Digby was the sweetest, kindest man, but she knew what he meant. “Yes,” she muttered, hand still half over her mouth.
Then she realized how this would look to him, and felt her face flame. She must appear to be a woman with a flaming hunger for carnal matters, a woman so desperate for it that she’d proposition a stranger she had found drunk by the road!
She almost fled then, but reminded herself that it was true. Not in the way he’d think, but true all the same. And what did it matter what he thought? After this, they’d never meet again.
He was silent, clearly thinking just what she expected.
“So?” she prompted, and it came out harshly.
“Now? ’Struth, no.” She heard him mutter something she couldn’t catch. It was doubtless just as well. A tear leaked from one eye, and she fought the urge to sniff. She was making a thorough mess of this.
“You have been kind to me,” he said, as if weighing each word. “I will gladly be kind to you in turn, dear lady. But my head still aches like the devil, my brain feels scrambled, and I’m not at all sure I won’t cast up my accounts again if I try to move.”
Of course he wasn’t well enough. Rosamunde wanted to crawl under the bed in the hope that a monster truly did live there, ready to gobble her up. She also wanted it done and over with so she could get him out of the house tomorrow, and out of her life forever.
It didn’t matter what she wanted, though, or how this embarrassed her, or how much she disliked it. She just needed to get it done and hope and pray that a baby resulted. Clearly, however, she’d have to be a nurse before she could be an adulteress.
“If your head hurts,” she said, as coolly as she could, “would you like a powder?”
“I can’t guarantee that my stomach will tolerate it, but I’m willing to try.”
He sounded so calm. Was he not shocked to his soul by this?
She was.
“I’ll be back in a moment then.”
When she left, Brand eased back onto his pillow with a groan that wasn’t entirely pain. Plague take it. But how could he say no? He was not unaccustomed to frustrated wives, and if he liked them out of bed he was happy to give them pleasure in it, but this case….
He had no idea what she even looked like.
It didn’t matter much, but it made him uncomfortable.
Oh well, by the time he was in a fit state to tend to her, daylight would resolve that.
Nor should it matter that he didn’t know her.
He couldn’t with truth say that he’d been well acquainted with every woman he’d bedded, and what he did know of this one was only kindness.
With a rueful smile, he accepted that it was his weakness here that bothered him. He wasn’t used to dealing with amorous women when naked, sick, and half out of his mind.
He heard her return, and watched her shadowy figure fumble across the room. She’d doubtless had light in her own room and had lost her night vision. Why, then, hadn’t she brought the light in here? Did she have something to hide?
“Here you are,” she said, rather breathily.
Their exploring hands connected on the glass, and she started. Then he heard her give it one last stir with a spoon. “It’s bitter, but it works. Get it all down.”
He obeyed, then almost choked at the taste. “Perdition!”
“Will it stay down?”
He lay back and still. “We’re arguing about it. What is that stuff?”
“Mostly willow bark.”
After a moment, he said, “I don’t think the chamber pot will be needed.” He wished she would go away. “You don’t need to hover over me.”
She moved a few steps back. “Very well. Till tomorrow, then?”
Suppressing a groan, he said, “Breakfast and a toothbrush, dear lady, and I’ll be entirely at your service.”
She left and he feared his tone had been unfortunate, but plague take it, he’d nearly died, his brain was scrambled, and he’d just swallowed what tasted like deadly poison.
What did she think he was, a damned sexual automaton?
He drifted back to sleep imagining a scrawny harridan turning an enormous key that gradually raised and expanded his penis to quite terrifying dimensions.