Gilbert whimpered, nodding as best as he could, and Jeremy yanked the wood out, eliciting another howl of pain.
“Now,” Jeremy said calmly, turning away, “we can’t have you taking a fever from an infected wound before I have time to turn you over, so we must clean it properly.”
Gilbert groaned and panted in agony.
“Being an army man,” Jeremy continued conversationally, moving to the table at one end of the room, “I know some basics of battlefield medicine.” He picked up a bottle and turned back to Gilbert. “Cleansing the wound requires liquid. I’ve been told alcohol dulls the pain of this.”
Gilbert swallowed and seemed to sigh.
Jeremy strode over and uncorked the bottle, sniffed it, then made a face. “Oh, dear. The man said it was strong stuff, but whisky has never smelled like that to me. Lord knows what it tastes like.” He smirked at Gilbert. “Pity neither of us will know.”
He stepped forward and poured the bottle into the wound, and Gilbert screamed, his neck straining with the pain.
“This is for the attack on my carriage,” Jeremy hissed, “and for threatening, frightening, and upsetting Miss Dalton, of whom I am exceptionally fond, and for whose cause I would mete out far worse justice than this.”
He lifted the bottle and stepped back, letting Gilbert moan, groan, and hiss in his chair as the wound burned with the agonies of hellfire. There was still whisky in the bottle, and Jeremy looked at it for a moment, then shrugged and downed it, shuddering as he did so.
He smacked his lips together, then gave Gilbert a disparaging look. “Definitely not what whisky should taste like. Must be local, and all whisky should be from Scotland or Ireland, right? Right.” He tossed the bottle against a wall, and it shattered resoundingly.
“Now then, Gilbert,” Jeremy said, wiping his hands off, “I have several more questions for you, which you are going to answer while that wound still burns so as to recall what fate awaits you if you lie. After that, I will kindly give you the closest shave you have ever had, and once you are appearing more respectable, you will favor me with ‘God Save the King’ in your proudest voice, all verses, three times through.” He smiled and took up his chair once more, clasping his hands neatly before him. “Shall we begin?”
Helen had never understood the purpose of elaborate embroidery on one’s canopy, let alone why one would have that embroidery represent a scene of a Greek tragedy or Shakespearean play.
Given that one was to sleep in their bed, and not stare up into the fabric hanging above, it seemed all too excessive.
But if one were up all night with swirling thoughts, it might be pleasant to have something to look at, and a scene such as that would surely be better than staring up at a family crest.
Even so, lying in her bed at Leighton, head throbbing, nose pounding, chest burning, she could not have wanted anything less than to see a scene of Hero and Leander hanging above her.
She coughed, sniffled, moaned, and rolled over, looking out of the window to the grounds behind Leighton, sighing the most mournful sigh of her life.
It was too cruel to catch a cold after the disaster she’d endured, but frighteningly apt. She could not have said with any real honesty that she would not have kept herself abed, or at the very least secluded in this room, without the illness, but being forced into that behavior was less than ideal.
She already felt despondent, why must she endure a further misery besides?
She closed her eyes, exhaling roughly through her mouth, as her nose was currently of no use to her.
Three days in bed, hardly able to move about her room except for the necessary things, finding less and less desire to even stir. Here in bed, she was waited on hand and foot. Her meals were all brought in on trays, she could have a fresh warming brick whenever she wanted, and endless amounts of tea. Her nieces had brought her flowers, though whether they were truly wildflowers or just weeds was unclear.
The thought was a precious one, no matter the details.
Her nephews had only brought her word of a toad, and as soon as she was well, she was to come see it.
Which, naturally, made her more inclined to remain in this warm, comfortable, toad-free bed.
Fanny was doting, but remarkably without curiosity as to the melancholy that had accompanied Helen’s illness. The two were not usually connected, she was sure, and yet her most intuitive sister-in-law had said nothing on the subject. She came and read to Helen every day, doing a remarkable job with the voices, and ensured Helen never wanted for anything. It was beginning to grow rather tiresome, if not downright annoying.
Wasn’t anybody curious as to what was going on with her? She was not a despondent sort, this was very much not like her, and yet it seemed perfectly commonplace for them. Perhaps her illness wasn’t as severe as it ought to have been, but there wasn’t anything to be done about that. She’d seen a physician twice now, and, short of bleeding her, which she’d refused, he had no reason to return.
Well, she was not above subjecting herself to bleeding if it came to it, but it seemed uncalled for.
Bleeding her would not bring Jeremy back.
She sighed again, this time with a heaviness to her heart.
Jeremy.
She’d seen his face in her mind’s eye a hundred times, if not more, while she’d laid here with nothing to do, dozing fitfully. His smile, his laugh, the mischievous twinkle in his eye, even the horrid disguise he’d worn at first. All made her smile, then weep, and then smile again.
Mr. Pratt the fop. Mr. Perry the ruffian. Jeremy the tease. She loved all of them, all of him, and yet he had let her go. He had abandoned her to her family as though she had been no more than a charge to him.
As though it really had been just an assignment.
Surely that could not be true. Surely he had been honest with her when he’d told her of his feelings, his sincerity, and when they had kissed…
Surely that had all been real.
But there was no way to know, she supposed. He had acted a part for her before, why should he not again?
Was she a fool for believing him? Or had that been truth, and he’d turned coward when it became too much?
She winced and buried her face in the mattress. Now she was growing even more dramatic and fanciful. Jeremy Pratt was anything but a coward, as his actions during the attack had proven. If he had left her behind, and what he had said to her was true, as she had to believe, then she could only presume that he was doing so because he felt it was right.
Because he had to.
But why should he have to? Had she said or done something to suddenly make a romance between them impossible or unwise? Had the attack somehow changed his mind?
Too many questions, not enough answers, and no way to change that. She had no idea where he had gone after he’d left here, and she could not ask the one person who knew Jeremy Pratt had seen her to York.
Rafe would kill Jeremy if he had any idea that he and Helen had shared anything resembling a romantic encounter when unaccompanied, especially if Rafe had been the one to bring Jeremy on.
But Rafe could also tell her more about Jeremy, as he knew the real Jeremy and not the version everybody else did.
Or she could write to Mr. John Pratt, and see if he might be more forthcoming about his brother’s whereabouts and intentions, but that seemed somehow even more farfetched. Jeremy had said that his brother was reserved, and the questions she would ask would be of a rather personal nature.
Jeremy had said once that he had to be sure of himself as no one else was, and she, so headstrong and caught up in the moment, had said that she was. At that moment, she had been.
But was she now?
What should she believe? What could she believe? Jeremy had been so many people, so many versions, and there hadn’t been time enough to be certain of anything but her own inclination, and there wasn’t much to recommend that to anyone in any regard.
Helen was as human and fanciful as any gir
l in the world, no matter what she would have claimed, and Jeremy Pratt had turned her completely silly.
She rolled to her back and stared up at Hero and Leander, clearly miserable without each other, though not yet dead from their extreme longings.
Helen could relate to that sentiment, but she wondered if Jeremy would. Longing for her love, wishing he could brave the dangers to be with her, fearing what would become of her without him… Poor Hero. Helen had never felt much sympathy for her before, nor any of the romantic heroines with tragic tales to tell, but now she felt a strange kinship with the damsels.
Lord, what would Margaret and Rosalind say if they knew how maudlin Helen had grown? Rosalind might not even recognize it, as she was blissfully engaged in her new marriage and sailing off to adventures elsewhere with the man of her dreams. She was the victorious heroine whose resistance had given way at last, and her dashing hero had swept her off her feet.
Margaret had her hero, too, and made the most of it. Happily ever after was her reality, as her young daughter and impending second child indicated, and her eyes needed no sight but that of her adoring husband.
Yet another man who was more than he appeared.
By all accounts, it was Helen’s turn. By rights, this should have worked in her favor. But here she was, without a man, without love, and without hope.
What a perfectly dismal thought.
She would be a spinster. An eternal spinster who had known a grand total of thirty-six hours of love, if that, and no more. Never expressed out loud, never truly fathomed beyond her own acknowledgment of the sensation. No proof that it existed in any way beyond the memory.
Never more than a memory.
Her friends had reality. She had memory.
Stop comparing yourself with anybody else, Helen, love. You’re not like any other person in this world, let alone any woman, or any of your friends. But I’ll be damned if that means there is anything at all lacking in a single part of you.
Helen whimpered and closed her eyes as Jeremy’s voice resonated in her mind, just as strong and fervent as it had been the day he had said it. It ought to have pained her to hear it, but she took strength and comfort from it instead. She felt her heart warm, and it had nothing to do with sickness.
Jeremy would have healed her. His smile, his laughter, his deprecating humor, his incessant teasing, all would have sunk into her with more efficacy and nourishment than anything a doctor could give her. One kick to her shins, and she would have been up and out of this bed and waltzing about the house.
But he was not here, only in her memories.
So, she would take that and run with it.
If Jeremy Pratt had loved her, did love her, or had any chance of loving her in the future, she had to be a woman worthy of the love of Jeremy Pratt. A woman he could love. A woman who could match him in vitality, effort, and substance.
Not this weak and simpering creature lying in her bed bemoaning her state.
She was Helen Elizabeth Dalton, and she was better than this. She could be the woman Jeremy deserved. The woman she would want the man she loved to be married to. The woman he would not wish to live without.
The woman he would swim the Hellespont for.
Helen grinned and nodded to herself, sitting up and swinging her legs over the edge of the bed.
A wave of dizziness swept over her and her head pounded furiously.
Right. Illness.
She moaned and fell back down to the pillows, though her feet still hung off the bed, and she swung them in a half-hearted attempt to take on the energy she was feeling, though her body was not yet strong enough to endure it.
But it would be. She would take the broth, and the baths, and the tea, and she would let her body heal. Then she would find the strength to be herself, with all the faults and failings she’d ever had, but with a renewed sense of who she was and what she wanted. She would clear her mind of the clouds, gloom, and despair and find a way to smile and laugh.
Or, at the very least, refrain from crying so much.
Even now, her eyes filled with tears, and her will weakened.
Poor, pitiful, pathetic Helen, sick in bed and missing a man who might not miss her.
She had to believe he missed her. She had to.
Or else she couldn’t believe a single word he’d said, and she couldn’t bear that. She would never be able to trust again if he’d been false to her, and she could not go through life being suspicious, cynical, and cold.
No, Jeremy had meant it, every word, she was sure of it.
And the moment she had any indication he was ready to act as such and take her on, she would be ready for him.
But for the moment, she was still ill. He was still gone. And it still hurt.
So, she could cry the welling tears without rebuke.
Just this once.
Chapter Eleven
"All this time, and no one thought to clean the place?” Jeremy snorted and looked around, rubbing at the back of his head. “If Trace isn’t dead, he’d wish he was the moment he set foot in here.”
He shuddered, looking around the filthy, dark, mostly-in-shambles entryway of Parkerton Lodge, wondering what in the world he was doing here.
Of course, he knew very well what he was doing here, he’d been assigned to come here and find something. Not anything specific, just something.
Parkerton Lodge had been turned over and practically destroyed in the attempts to find whatever something they seemed to think Trace had left behind, every secret unearthed from top to bottom by members of the Foreign Office, Home Office, War Office, and even the Convent contingent, not to mention Trace’s brothers in the League. All of them had tried to find something.
The best covert operatives and investigators England had to offer, and he was supposed to find something they all missed?
Not bloody likely.
But from the state of things, it had been quite some time since anybody had looked for anything in this place, except perhaps for animals seeking shelter. The tapestries had mostly been torn down, now riddled with dust and moth, and in some cases eaten away. The gilded ceilings were faded and strewn with cobwebs, stained from water and crumbling in places. The wallpaper peeled, cracked, and had some mysterious stains that Jeremy had no desire to investigate. Furniture was overturned and broken, sheets that had once covered paintings and fabrics were now strewn on the filthy floor, and at least half of the paintings had either been taken down or stolen, but shadows of their placement remained on the walls that had borne them.
Jeremy’s footsteps echoed eerily in the house, though without the crispness they should have done, had the debris and grime beneath him not muffled the sound. He said nothing more aloud, even in jest, for there was something disconcerting about being in a place like this. Haunting, really. The master of this house had died a violent death that had yet to be avenged or understood, and yet something must have felt off about that, if the Shopkeepers, or at the very least Tailor and Weaver, thought there was a chance he was alive.
This house had nothing within it to indicate its master might not have met his death that night on the docks. It had been abandoned all that time, the servants shuttled off to other employment, the estate never sold or razed. It was curious indeed, considering Trace’s death. But then, it would not have surprised Jeremy one iota if the League, or the Shopkeepers, or one of the national offices had some ownership or authority where their operatives’ holdings were concerned.
Still, he doubted he would find anything new in this place, he thought as he wandered each and every room, his eye scouring the place for details. Everything was faded, as though whatever life had existed here was some distant memory, and whatever secrets had been in place no longer could be.
The sideboards had all been stripped of doors and drawers. The once-stately desk in the study was overturned, a secret compartment exposed, and two drawers on the floor beside it. All throughout the halls, random floorboards were ripped up, exposing
nothing but the structural work beneath. Every single bedroom had been overturned, and the master’s chambers were in utter shambles.
Amateurs. As if an operative of Trace’s caliber would have kept his most important documents and information in such obvious hiding places.
Surely, they ought to have known that.
But it was clear from the complete abandon with which they had taken on the investigation that no one who had truly understood Trace as a man or an operative had been involved. Or if they had, there was no evidence of it left behind.
Jeremy had met Trace once before, back when he was being recruited for covert operations. Trace had been just a few years older, though he had seemed decades beyond him. He had been a very intense sort of man, his eyes holding a depth and gravity to them that spoke of a hard life, or perhaps that he had seen too much, and yet there was nothing remotely resembling fatigue in his features or his manner.
He was always alert, and the fleeting interaction had left an indelible impression on Jeremy.
In a way, he was honored to have taken his place, though the reason for it was disturbing, and he was honored now to be trusted with finding the truth, though he felt fairly unworthy to do so.
He exhaled now, having made a cursory study of the entire house. “All right, Trace. Tell me where to go.”
He thought back over the place from top to bottom, room by room, putting everything back the way it must have been when it was inhabited.
Trace hadn’t entertained much, from what he understood from Weaver, who had given Jeremy every file they had on him. He had been a reserved man, though hardly stoic. He’d always taken the most dangerous assignments and completed them with unusual thoroughness. He could inhabit the darkest realms without anyone suspecting him, and yet he’d been well thought of by his local associates. Never quite part of the upper crust, but an orphan with minimal fortune and prospects would endure that.
By Hook or By Rook (London League, Book 4) Page 13
