“No,” Deborah agreed, with a furtive smile fleeting across her pretty face. “After all, you may have to stay here indefinitely if you hurt yourself again, and Phaedra would not like that at all!”
Hardcastle grimaced. “I hate being helpless. Damnation, but this hurts!”
“I will get you a tisane Old Mary sent for the pain.”
Deborah pulled a chair to the bedside. “And I will keep his lordship company until you come back,” she said with a determinedly bright smile. “Run along, Phaedra. I will talk about London with Lord Hardcastle.”
Fuming, Phaedra retreated to the kitchen, where she threw around a couple of pans until she felt ashamed of her temper outburst and heated some water to infuse the herbs. What was wrong with her? Even now, she was worried about what was going on in the room upstairs. Was Hardcastle becoming enchanted by Deborah’s indubitably pretty face and bubbly charm? Was she falling under the spell of his dark eyes and husky voice? Were they even now finding small ways to touch each other, the brush of a hand, the eloquent glance—
What utter rubbish! She must stop this foolishness. Lord Hardcastle was her patient, and nothing more. Deborah Daintry, for all her silliness over the presence of a real live rake in their midst, was as in love with Charles Fossey as ever, and it would end in marriage, no doubt. That was Deborah’s plan and dearest wish. Though entranced by Hardcastle’s charms, she was not so foolish as to throw away the love of her life for, in her own words, a “debauched rake.”
She carried the cup of herbal pain remedy up the stairs in time to hear Deborah’s charming voice retailing a story of London life, ending with, “—and so in the end, Lord Jeffrey lost both his horse and his fiancée to Mr. Battleston!”
Gripping the mug tightly, Phaedra entered the room to find Hardcastle with a frozen look of dismay on his handsome face. He cast her a look of such pleading that her heart was touched. And pleased. For she understood him in that second.
“Deborah,” she said gently, “I think Lord Hardcastle needs to rest after his ill-fated effort to get up.” Gratitude flooded his expressive, dark eyes.
A little huffily, Deborah stood. Phaedra handed the earl the cup and bade him drink it, and said, “I will return in a moment, after I have seen my guest out.”
At the door, Deborah, having regained her equanimity, said, “Do be careful of him, Phaedra. His reputation is fact, not rumor.”
“Don’t worry about me, Deborah. I’m a sensible female, not one to have my head turned by Spanish coin.”
With a flash of her occasional insight, Deborah said, “Do we ladies ever grow out of our love of flattery? We’re frail creatures in some regards, Phaedra, and yet so very strong in others.” A sad expression crossed over her face and she took Phaedra’s hands in her own. “You will tell me if you hear anything about Charlie, will you not? I’m starting to get deeply worried. This is so unlike him.”
Phaedra squeezed her hands. “I’ll let you know if I hear anything.” She closed the door behind Deborah and mounted the stairs, to find her patient asleep, with the empty mug in his strong hands. She gently took it from him, covered him, and tiptoed out of the room.
Chapter Nine
Morning prayers with her father, a habit left over from his days as the vicar of Ainstoun, were done and he had retreated to his library. Phaedra sat by the open window in her morning parlor watching the barn swallows swoop and glide over the field by the old barn behind the cottage. As always, she had been moved gently into a quiet, contemplative mood by the reassuring rhythms of morning prayer, and she went to that calm, still place within her soul to ask herself a few questions, questions she had been avoiding.
Was she jealous of her friend, Deborah Daintry, and that girl’s glowing future as a wife and mother? Perhaps. It was something Phaedra had hoped for as a girl. And she could have married, if she was brutally honest with herself. There had been young men who showed an interest in her, but she had always frozen their advances with an aloof manner, for various reasons. She worried about her father and felt an obligation toward him that time would never erase. Always she would be there to look after him.
But in truth not one of the young men who showed an interest in her had engaged her own interest, nor stimulated her mind or imagination, nor come close to the dream she had once had of marrying a man whose intelligence, wit and gentility matched her own. It was not that she felt herself above others in Ainstoun, it was just that she dreaded an unequal marriage. She had seen the results of that, and it was a sad vision of dwindling hopes and dreams, so much worse than staying a respectable spinster. Unlike some poverty-plagued spinsters, she felt confident that in her own village she would never be a spectacle of ridicule, even after her father passed on and she subsisted on whatever was left of their savings from her mother’s modest inheritance and what she could earn taking in young girls to teach, perhaps.
Was she a fool? Some would say yes. Some would say a respectable marriage to a good man, even if he was not of her class, would be the answer to her lifelong quest to find what her destiny was. A husband, children, a home of her own; were those not the concerns and occupations that were ordained as her lot in life, as a woman? Phaedra sighed and folded her hands over her prayer book. Yes, that was what she had been taught all her life. She gazed blankly out the window, but her eyes no longer took in the blue of the sky, nor the pleasing symmetry of their old barn.
Instead, the doubts that had plagued her throughout her adult life came back; was there not more to marriage than a respectable settlement, a mild tolerance for one another, as husband and wife? Was there not a fire that burned between a man and woman who loved one another, a fire that was not extinguished with time and all the cares and worries that came with life and family? With her mother gone, there was no one of whom she could ask such intimate questions.
Her thoughts inevitably turned to Lord Hardcastle, and how she felt in his presence. A frisson raced through her, a thread of excitement when she looked at him and touched him and spoke with him. But that was merely the agitation of the flesh, nothing to do with her soul. It was just the animal reaction of male and female in close contact, or perhaps the womanly weakness that seemed to be prevalent, the fatal fascination with a rogue. Was it the challenge to reform or “tame” a man that women seemed to seek in a rake? Was it the feminine version of hunting wild prey, the thrill of the chase, the bloodlust of the kill?
She jumped up and laid her prayer book aside. There was too much to do in a day to spend time idly pondering unanswerable questions. It was pointless in the end anyway, for there would never be anything more between her and Lord Hardcastle than the relationship between patient and nurse. The moment he was able, he would leap onto his horse and leave Ainstoun behind in a cloud of road dust.
With renewed determination to not let the enigmatic man upstairs disturb her equilibrium, Phaedra headed to the kitchen and set about putting together a tray for him for breakfast.
• • •
The sun stole across the bed coverlet and onto his face, and Hardcastle felt the warmth as he crept toward awareness. He stretched, groaned a little at the tightness of sore muscles, but then awoke more fully to the realization that he felt better than he had yet upon awakening since the assault. He opened his eyes to the now-familiar sight of the papered ceiling and homely furnishings, the tatted covers on the washstand and dresser, the hand-sewn curtains that dressed the window.
Why had he not summoned his valet from London and traveled back there, to his Mayfair house, to recuperate? He should be resting between covers of Irish linen, and awakening to his butler’s customary opening of the grand red velvet curtains in his own huge bedchamber. His head would be aching from too much wine, and his lungs from the foul air of London. Instead he was here, in a modest vicarage.
At that moment his door swung open and a small, rounded bottom pushed in, followed by Miss Phaedra Gillian, bearing a tray with a teapot, scones, jam and eggs. Ah, yes, he thought. That was why. Like spring wate
r to a jaded palate, she had awoken him to the possibly fleeting charm of simpler tastes. Her fresh prettiness contrasted favorably with the painted faces of London doxies and even the practiced expressions of society belles. She was like the bracing breeze of the Lakes when contrasted with the stuffy miasma of London.
“Good morning, my lord. I trust you slept well?” she said cheerily.
“I must have. I remember nothing after that ridiculous fall yesterday. Whatever was in that potion of Old Mary’s must have knocked me out. I should take that foul decoction to London with me and have it analyzed and bottled. Many would pay much for that kind of sleep.”
She eyed him critically as she set the tray on a table. “You do look better. Or is that just my imagination?”
“No, you’re right. I feel better. I should take that awful brew every night if it has this affect.”
Phaedra shook her head as she poured a cup of tea for him. “No, Mary was very specific on that point. A person should only take that particular potion once in their life. Don’t ask me what’s in it. I don’t know and she won’t tell me, but she says it would be dangerous and foolish to take it more than once.”
He shivered melodramatically and quoted, “What, no friendly drop left to help me after?”
“Wrong play,” Phaedra retorted, laughing. “But right author. I have always wondered if Old Mary is one of the original three weird sisters from Macbeth, living still, through the ages!”
Hardcastle caught his breath as her laughter knifed through him down to his very soul. What was there in her simplest expression that twisted his insides until it hurt? She was just a country girl, a parson’s daughter, and yet there was something magical about her beyond the angelic looks and sweet voice. Something in her lack of pretension, the honesty that came from her very soul.
Her cheeks were staining with a soft rose; she had caught his expression. He must be gazing at her like a moon-calf!
“So,” he said quickly, shifting up in the bed and wincing at the slicing pain that shot through him at the movement. “Do you think I will be able to get up today?”
“After that experience yesterday? We’ll see,” Phaedra said.
Their conversation turned to prosaic things, her duties for the day, which included a trip into the village to help out an elderly Mr. Ferguson, and his own recovery. But when he could, as he ate and drank with more appetite than he had yet summoned, he stole glances at her. She was pretty and sweet-natured and clever. How had a girl of such sterling quality failed to marry? Were the men such dolts in Ainstoun that they could not see a bright gem in their midst? Even her poverty should not have turned away the ardent affections of at least a few of the village gallants. Was there no suitable young man nearby, no squire’s son or handsome vicar?
Not that he was complaining. He would have her for himself, if not in honorable marriage—perish the thought; he was not and never would be the marrying kind—at least in his arms for a few minutes of stolen bliss. He had been called a great many things—rake, rogue, seducer among them—but he always persuaded, never demanded, and he never, ever left a lady unsatisfied. Lately he had not been earning his reputation, becoming circumspect and boring in his love life, not able to summon up the energy or enthusiasm to pursue a new lovely.
They were monotonously alike after a while, painted and perfumed, cosseted and corseted. In his invalid’s bed he had found a new object, Phaedra Gillian, vicar’s daughter. His juices were flowing, his interest was high, and his body already anticipated the warm closeness of little Miss Gillian’s sweet, soft form.
She turned back from the window where she had been drawing back the curtains and opening the sash, and brightly said, with just a hint of high color, “It is time you had your wash-up now, my lord.”
“Hardcastle. Just Hardcastle.”
“Yes, well, Hardcastle, then. Mrs. Lovett is not able to come until this afternoon, and I think that with a little help from me you should be able to take care of your own, hmm—needs, now.”
Warring within him was his innate honesty and his desire to have her close, even to further the intimate contact they had been in the last few days. Until now he had been in too much pain or a laudanum fog to enjoy the closeness, but now he was feeling more himself, just as she would back away from him.
“I suppose I could try,” he said. He shifted up in bed and was almost happy to feel a twinge of pain shoot through his back. An unfeigned groan issued from his lips.
“I will help you,” Phaedra said hurriedly. “But only so far.”
She disappeared for a few minutes and reappeared with a ewer of steaming water. Her hands were shaking, he saw, and misgivings welled up in his heart. She was a maiden, after all, and an innocent.
“Miss Gillian,” he said gently, “I will do what I can for myself, but why do you not call your father? He can—er—help me with things of a more personal, masculine nature. I would not for the world have you troubled.”
“I cannot disturb my father,” she said with a shocked expression. “He is engaged in research of a most important and deep nature. He needs undisturbed peace to work.”
“Though I honor your filial respect, I’m sure he would not mind shielding you from the kind of intimate contact with a male that my needs would necessitate.” Would he disgrace himself, he wondered, with his reaction to her touch, or would he be able to conceal from her the way she was beginning to affect him? And ultimately, would it further or hinder his cause if she found out how her touch stirred him?
She visibly braced herself and said, “Sir, I have nursed many gentlemen in my time. I am seven and twenty, not seventeen, and there have been times when I was the only one in the village with adequate medical knowledge. I can certainly give you the aid you require.”
What would be would be. But in the end he couldn’t bear appearing weak to her. He did what he could for himself, even though the back pain started up again as he looked after his personal needs and cleanliness. What was wrong with him? He could not accept her help without some measure of guilt.
He should hire a servant to help her. He was rich enough to purchase the help of a dozen servants, and yet he let this girl toil for him, do laundry for him, feed him, even. And she did it all knowing him to be an earl, indubitably knowing he had money, without a hint of reproach or any suggestion of asperity.
“Miss Gillian,” he said, watching her as she rinsed out the cloths she had given him to wash himself with. When her back was turned he had slipped on the clean nightshirt she had provided for him, and noticed that it was bigger and longer than the one he had been wearing.
“Yes?” she said, wiping her hands on her apron and turning toward him.
“I should leave. I’m a burden to you, and truly do have the wherewithal to leave.”
“Do you want to go?”
“No, I don’t. There’s something so healing in this household. I don’t think a raft of servants and a dozen Harley Street physicians could help me recover faster than you and your painfully horrid herbal decoctions.”
She chuckled. “Then don’t leave until you feel better enough to,” she said with an open expression and a shy smile. “You truly are no burden to me. I like your company.”
Hardcastle settled back against the newly fluffed pillows and sighed. With warmth budding within him, he said drowsily, “And I like yours, Miss Gillian. I like your company, and your laughter, and your sweet . . . sweet . . . smile.”
• • •
Phaedra stood staring down at him long after sleep had claimed him. Without thought she reached out and ran her fingers through the silky coal-black hair, pushing it off his brow. Was this what all London rakes were like? What an entrancing breed, then, and how understandable was female infatuation with them. He was by turns boyish and manly, helpless and indomitable, harmless and seductive.
“Is our patient sleeping, my dear?”
Phaedra jumped back from Hardcastle as if she had been singed and whirled to see her fa
ther standing in the doorway. “Yes, he’s just now asleep.”
“And is he getting better?” Mr. Gillian moved into the bedroom. He had the chess board with him but laid it aside.
“I think so. But the morning routine exhausted him. Mrs. Lovett says that he is a well-knit man, though, and should recover from the beating in time.”
Mr. Gillian put his arm around his daughter’s shoulders. “You’re not tiring yourself out, my dear, are you?”
Phaedra threaded her arm around her father’s waist and leaned her head on his shoulder. “No, Papa. This is not tiring to me.”
“You’re like your mama. You like helping people as much as she did. He’s a handsome young man, is he not? Though I’m no follower of feminine tastes, I would say he’s a gentleman to appeal to ladies.”
“He’s very handsome, Papa. Almost as handsome as you.”
He chuckled and laid a kiss on her hair, squeezing her shoulder. “Do you like him?”
Phaedra pulled away from her father and gazed into his innocent blue eyes. “Whether I like him is neither here nor there, Papa. He will heal and then he will be on his way, wherever that may be.”
“You do like him. He is an intelligent lad, and he has the good taste to think you as lovely as I do.”
“Papa!” Phaedra turned away in confusion and poured the soapy water into the slops basin under the washstand. But she straightened and turned back to her father with a serious and determined expression on her face. “I will not pretend to misunderstand you. If you have any thoughts of a match between me and Lord Hardcastle . . . oh, it sounds ludicrous to even say it out loud! He’s an earl . . . and a rake!”
“Is he now? That I did not know,” Mr. Gillian said, his gaze straying to the slumbering earl. “Do you know that as a fact?”
“I’m not sure. But there’s nothing to worry about, so don’t concern yourself. He’s been very respectful toward me; as much as any lady could want.”
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