CHAPTER TWO #2
Firm hands on his upper arms eased him back down.
He opened his eyes and found that the owner of the determined hands and voice possessed a pair of beautiful eyes that were inches from his own.
He could not determine their colour in the dimness except that they were light and framed by a veritable thicket of long dark lashes.
As he stared in fascination, the face receded a bit and became that of the horse-grooming angel of his dreams. He frowned in confusion, wondering if this was still his dream.
“Would you like some water, Mr. Johnson?”
Water sounded wonderful, but she was likely just a part of the dream. She did not seem to know who he was. He made an assenting motion and found he could speak. “Am I dreaming?”
“No,” she replied, lifting a pitcher from a table beside the bed. He turned his head slightly to follow her movements as she poured water into a glass. It certainly seemed quite real. The water made a soft gurgling sound.
“I am going to raise you just enough to swallow,” she explained, catching his glance. “Do not try to assist me.”
An arm eased behind his shoulders as she did just as she had promised, presenting the glass to his lips.
He drank gratefully, savouring the refreshment while aware on another level that his pounding head was resting against her neck and shoulder.
A faint, vastly agreeable scent arose from her hair or person, contributing to the aura of peace and contentment surrounding him at the moment.
His aching head notwithstanding, Jack would have stayed there forever, suspended in time and space, but his preference was not consulted.
The glass was withdrawn and his head was lowered to the pillows again.
“Will you marry me?”
The question hung in the air for an instant like a wisp of smoke, no less surprising to the asker than to the recipient.
A soft chuckle above his ear was his only answer, but her hands paused for an instant before resuming their task of smoothing the bedcovers up around his shoulders, and one was placed on his forehead for a moment before she straightened away from him.
“I am not delirious,” he said.
“No,” she agreed with unshaken composure, “merely funning.” A little smile echoed the twinkle in her eyes as she replaced the glass on the tray before going to pick up a lamp from a table against the wall containing a door.
“You have not answered my question,” Jack said, casting prudence to the winds a second time in as many minutes when he perceived her intention of exiting the room.
Again that throaty little chuckle. “Ask me again when we are better acquainted. I am going to leave you to rest now, Mr. Johnson. I hope you will sleep well and that you will feel more the thing in the morning.”
His protest that he was not Mr. Johnson was made to a closed door in a darkened room. Awake or sleeping, he seemed to have entered a strange new realm where nothing was as usual. Had he really asked a complete stranger to marry him? Did the girl even exist outside of his dreams?
There was sufficient light from the embers in the fireplace to distinguish the door through which she had vanished and the table on which a lamp had stood.
Was this proof that she and the lamp existed?
Or was her presence in his dreams proof that she did not exist?
Jack frowned in concentration, and the pain in his head redoubled, convincing him that he at least was real.
The girl had held him within the curve of her arm and helped him drink; he had smelled her scent.
Could one smell anything in a dream? He pondered this profound question but drifted off to sleep without resolving the burning issue.
Jack awoke to the relief and promise of daylight, any and all dream fragments dissipating rapidly as he surveyed his surroundings.
The bedchamber was of a generous size and comfortably furnished with sturdy pieces from another age, mostly oak or walnut like the big four-poster bed that he occupied in splendid isolation at the moment.
Lightweight curtains were drawn back under heavy bed draperies that might have been a deep rich blue in their day.
Similar draperies at the window had been opened, allowing sunlight to stream across a worn Turkey carpet on to a corner of the bed.
He could see a few darns in the sheets, which were made of a good quality linen, but they were snowy white with a hint of lavender still clinging to them. All in all, he had fallen softly.
His head still ached abominably and his right shoulder was stiff, but he must count himself fortunate to have got off so lightly.
The busy little fire in the fireplace and the uncovered window were proof that someone had been in this room while he slept.
He had no idea of the time, but his grumbling stomach told him it was many hours since his last meal.
His ministering angel had offered only water during the night.
Lord, he devoutly hoped the doctor who had pronounced him concussed did not subscribe to any theories that advocated fasting until the patient recovered.
A welcome tap on the door sounded before this awful possibility had taken full possession of Jack’s mind.
The stab of disappointment when his visitor turned out to be a middle-aged male servant instead of a lovely young woman was alleviated in part by the sight of the large tray bearing several covered dishes that was clutched in the man’s hands.
Relieved that fasting was not included in the recuperative regimen, Jack greeted the servant cheerfully and assured him that he would be able to feed himself in bed if he were propped up against the pillows.
While Burns, as the man had introduced himself, went to locate some extra pillows, Jack, disregarding the pain, sat up, positioning himself so he could peek under the pewter covers on the tray.
The first dish contained some sort of porridge, but his nose had not deceived him.
Thick slices of ham reposed on a large plate, accompanied by three fried eggs.
Under another cover were several slices of toast.
Jack was on the point of extracting a slice of toast from its nest when Burns returned, carrying a coffee pot in one hand and several pillows under his arms. Thanks to the butler’s artful disposition of the pillows, Jack managed to feed himself, doing full justice to the cook’s offerings, awkward though the exercise was.
By the time Burns had shaved him, however, the initial spurt of vitality had spent itself, and he found to his disgust that he was completely exhausted despite his automatic denials.
The butler had not been forthcoming about his employers, and all Jack’s energy had been expended in taking nourishment.
He was asleep before he could martial the wit to request that a message be taken to his mother at Belfort.
When Jack next awoke it was with a sense of urgency, immediately assuaged when his eyes lighted on the woman seated in one of the fireside chairs busily plying her needle.
Today her bright hair was nearly covered by a dainty lace cap, but the serene profile was as charming as he remembered.
The small hands that had held him so firmly and yet touched his forehead with delicacy were beautiful as well as capable: smooth and white, with slender fingers.
As if sensing his regard, she turned her head toward the bed and smiled. “Good afternoon. I hope you have had a good sleep?”
“Yes, thank you, very good.”
Jack’s reply to the polite inquiry was mere mechanical civility as he tried to master his confusion.
The woman setting aside her stitching and rising from her chair was as beautiful as he remembered her, but she had looked younger last night in the lamplight.
As she crossed over to sit beside the bed he saw with a sense of dismay that she was in all likelihood his senior by some few years.
“Is your headache at all improved now, Mr. Johnson?”
“My name isn’t Johnson.”
“Isn’t it? I beg your pardon. I … I thought —”
“Yes, you called me that last night too.”
“I…?” The woman’s eyes widened, then she smiled. “I fear we are both labouring under misapprehensions, sir. This is the first time we have met — at least, you were unconscious when they brought you in last night,” she amended.
Jack put up a hand and kneaded his brow. “Then it was all a dream? You did not come in here last night and help me drink some water, or put your hand on my forehead?”
“I did not, but my daughter may well have done so. It was she who sat with you last night.”
Sudden exultation made Jack lightheaded. He laughed and asked, “And is your daughter enough like you to be taken for your twin, ma’am?”
Responsive laughter sprang into her face, but she said with assumed severity, “Only by the most unprincipled of flatterers, sir.”
“Ah, no, ma’am; you wound me to the heart,” he declared, placing a hand over that organ in a dramatic gesture of protest. “To question the veracity of a guest in your home, even an uninvited guest, is monstrous cruel, I vow.”
“But not so cruel, surely, as to assign susceptibility and gullibility to women of a certain age,” she replied with arched brows.
“I should be quite desolated to ever suspect that one of us has not a clear conscience on these points.”
“I too, sir,” she agreed smilingly, putting a stop to this elegant dalliance by adding, “I still do not know whom I have the honour of addressing, if you are not Mr. Johnson.”
“Jack Hastings — Lord Hastings, very much at your service, ma’am. And you are…?”
“My name is Annabelle Marsh, and you have already met my daughter Laura.”
“And shall I have the pleasure of meeting Mr. Marsh in due course?”
“My husband died over a year ago. Laura and I constitute the entire Marsh family now.”
“I am very sorry for your loss, ma’am. My father died fairly recently also. As you will understand, it has been a great loss for my mother and me. She is staying with Lady Crofton at Belfort at present. Are you acquainted with her ladyship?”
“I fear I can claim only a nodding acquaintance with Lady Crofton, but I shall be happy to have a message taken to Belfort immediately apprising them of your present whereabouts.”
Jack thanked his kind hostess profusely, explaining, “I am an only child also, and my mother tends to worry overmuch about my health and safety these days since my father’s life was claimed in an accident. I should be very grateful if you can send word to Belfort. It will relieve her mind.”
Mrs. Marsh was already on her feet, but at that moment Burns entered the room after a tap on the door and informed them that someone in Lord Hastings’ employ had just arrived inquiring for his master.
“That would be Huckston, my groom —”
“Send him up at once, Burns,” Mrs. Marsh said.