by Lisa Kleypas
Dumbfounded, Luke rubbed the lower half of his face. “Before Keir MacRae arrived, everything was normal. Now there’s been stabbings, explosions, and debauchery, and my sensible older sister is engaged to a Scottish whisky distiller. What’s happened to you? You’re supposed to be level-headed!”
Merritt tried to sound dignified. “Just because one is usually level-headed doesn’t mean one is always level-headed.”
“You won’t be compromised if no one knows about it,” Luke said. “And God knows none of us are going to say anything.”
The duke intervened, his voice so dry one could have struck a match off it. “My boy, you’re missing the point. Your sister wants to be compromised.”
Ethan Ransom, who had been inching toward the stairs, ventured, “I don’t need to be part of this conversation. I’m going up to see my wife.”
Kingston motioned for him to leave with a graceful flick of his hand.
Luke was staring at Merritt with a deep frown. “I’m going to take you to Hampshire. The warehouse fire was a shock. You need rest and fresh air, and maybe a good long talk with Father—”
“The only place I’m going is with my fiancé,” Merritt said.
Uncomfortable color rose in her brother’s face. “Merritt . . . God knows I don’t blame you for wanting . . . companionship. But you don’t have to marry for it. Only a lunatic would decide to spend the rest of her life with a man she’s just met.”
“Not necessarily,” Kingston said mildly.
Luke sent him an aggravated glance. “Uncle Sebastian, you can’t approve of her marrying a stranger.”
“It depends on the stranger.” The duke glanced down at Merritt. “Apparently there’s something special about this one.”
“Yes,” Merritt said, relieved that he seemed to be on her side. “He’s . . .” But the words died in her throat as she noticed something she had missed until now.
Having known the duke for her entire life, Merritt had never thought about his looks. She was aware he was handsome, of course, but she’d never paid particular attention to his individual features or spent any time at all dwelling on them. To her he had always simply been Uncle Sebastian.
But in this moment, as she stared up at him, she was struck by the distinctive pale blue of his eyes, like a winter sky, like moonlight . . . like Keir’s.
Shaken, she stared up at this complex, powerful man, who was so familiar . . . and yet so full of mystery.
“Let me stay with him,” she whispered. “Take me with you.”
Those light, piercing eyes stared into hers, kindly but not without calculation. Appearing to come to a decision, Kingston said slowly, “I’ll send for Phoebe to stay with us at Heron’s Point. Her presence will satisfy the proprieties, and I daresay you’ll want to chat with her about . . . recent developments.”
“Thank you,” Merritt said, and let out an unsteady sigh of relief.
Their gazes held as they settled on an unspoken pact: When it came to the issue of Keir MacRae, Uncle Sebastian would be her ally, just as she would be his.
“I’d like a brief word with Dr. Gibson,” the duke commented, “before I leave to make arrangements.”
“I’ll go up with you,” Merritt said. She turned to Luke, who looked surly and exhausted. With a pang of affection, she went to him, stood on her toes, and kissed his cheek. “Will you stay in London to take care of Sterling Enterprises?”
Luke accepted the kiss but didn’t return it. “Do I have a choice?”
“Thank you. If there’s anything you need to ask, you know where I’ll be.”
“What I need is for you not to behave like a resident of the local madhouse,” he muttered. “Tell me, Merritt, if someone you knew were carrying on like this over a stranger—one of our sisters, God forbid—what would you say to her?”
At the moment, Merritt didn’t feel like justifying her actions to anyone, least of all a younger sibling. But during the past year, she and Luke had formed a working partnership and friendship that made their bond unique. She would tolerate more from him than from nearly anyone else in her life. “I would probably caution her that she was acting impulsively,” she admitted, “and advise her to rely on the counsel of those who love her.”
“All right, then. I’m counseling you to stay in London and let Ransom and Uncle Sebastian decide what to do with MacRae. Whatever it is you feel for him, it’s not real. It happened too fast.”
In her weariness and strain, Merritt’s temper had a lower flashpoint than usual. She could feel it beginning to ignite, but she grimly tamped it back down and managed a calm reply. “You may be right,” she said. “But someday, Luke . . . you’ll meet someone. And from one breath to the next, everything will change. You won’t care whether it makes sense. All you’ll know is that a stranger owns your every heartbeat.”
Luke’s mouth twisted. “God, I hope not.” He heaved a sigh. “I’m going home for a few hours of rest. Tomorrow’s going to be busy.”
Merritt felt a strong twinge of guilt, leaving him to manage the company on his own at the worst possible time. “I’m sorry for abandoning you in the middle of a crisis,” she said.
Luke looked down at her with a hint of reluctant amusement. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I can handle this. If I can’t, I have no business running the company.”
After her brother had collected his hat and coat and departed, Merritt went upstairs with Kingston.
As they ascended the staircase, the duke remarked, “You handled that well. I doubt Phoebe would have been able to summon as much restraint in the face of a younger brother’s criticism.”
“Well, you see,” Merritt said ruefully, “Luke wasn’t wrong. I . . . I think I have gone a bit mad.”
The duke gave a soft huff of amusement. “I wouldn’t worry. If you can say you’ve gone mad, or at least allow for the possibility, you’re not.”
They reached the guest room, and Merritt tapped on the door before opening it cautiously. In the dim light shed by a small lamp, Keir lay on his side, eyes closed, while Garrett stood at the bedside and talked quietly to Ethan.
Upon seeing Merritt and Kingston, Garrett came to the doorway and curtsied. “Your Grace.”
“Dr. Gibson,” the duke said. “A pleasure to see you, as always.” His gaze went to the shadowed figure on the bed. “What is his condition?”
Garrett described Keir’s injuries succinctly, and added with a frown, “I understand the necessity of moving him, but I certainly wouldn’t recommend it. He’s in considerable pain, and he needs rest and quiet.”
“Can’t you give him something?” Merritt asked.
“Not while his breathing is so labored. Morphine tends to depress lung function.”
Kingston’s attention seemed riveted on the injured man. “I’d be obliged, Doctor, if you would make a list of what he’ll require on the trip down to Sussex. You’ll accompany us, of course.”
Garrett frowned and caught briefly at her lower lip with her teeth before replying. “I’m afraid I must remain here. I have surgeries scheduled, and also . . .”
Ethan came to his wife’s side and added, “My wife and I have an agreement that whenever one of us travels, the other will stay at home with the child. And I’ll be away from London, working on the investigation.”
“If you like,” Garrett told the duke, “I can recommend a colleague, Dr. Kent, who has a practice near Heron’s Point. He was trained according to Sir Joseph Lister’s methods, just as I was, and will provide first-rate care to Mr. MacRae.”
“Very well. I’d be obliged if you would contact him on our behalf. I want him waiting at the estate when we arrive.”
“I’ll wire him in the morning, Your Grace.”
The duke took one last glance at Keir’s sleeping form, his face inscrutable. But as he turned to leave, the mask of composure slipped to reveal a flash of anguished tenderness. Merritt blinked, and the expression vanished so quickly, she wondered if she’d imagined it.
Once they were out in the hallway, the duke told her, “You need pack only a few essentials. We’ll send for more in a day or two.”
“I should send a note to my family,” Merritt said, trying to collect her scattered thoughts.
“You can write one on the way and dispatch it from Heron’s Point.” With a wry quirk of his lips, he added, “I beg you to word it carefully. Despite my deep and abiding affection for your parents, I’d rather not be overrun by Marsdens for the time being.”
“Neither would I,” Merritt assured him. “Papa would ask a great many questions I have no wish to answer, and Mama . . . well, as you know, she’s as subtle as a marauding Viking.”
The duke laughed softly. “In the interest of self-preservation, I’ll withhold comment.”
The brief grin reminded Merritt of Keir, and nearly made her heart stop. “His expressions are so like yours,” she said impulsively.
Kingston followed the abrupt turn of thought without needing explanation. “Are they?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder in the direction of the guest room. He turned back to her with a faint, pensive smile, and headed to the staircase.
Chapter 15
In the morning, Garrett decided Keir’s lungs had improved sufficiently to allow for a light dose of morphine. He was suffering from such a severe headache that he didn’t object to the hypodermic syringe, and hardly even seemed to notice it. To Merritt’s relief, the injection eased his misery enough to let him sleep.
“Poor chap,” Garrett said quietly, settling an ice bag against his ribs. “He’s in for a rough few days. He’ll have to be up and moving before he feels like it, and in spite of the injured ribs, he’ll have to do deep breathing exercises to prevent pneumonia.”
“If you write out the instructions,” Merritt assured her, “I’ll see that it’s done.”
“I’m sure you will.” Garrett smiled at her. “Don’t neglect your own care, my friend. You’ll need rest if you’re going to be of any help to him.”
They traveled in the duke’s private railway carriage, a handsomely appointed vehicle trimmed with the blue and cream of the Challon family coat of arms. Merritt stayed at Keir’s bedside to watch over him as he slept in one of the carriage’s staterooms. Kingston, meanwhile, sat in the main compartment, poring over the instructions and medical records Garrett had sent with them.
Halfway through the journey, Kingston appeared at the stateroom’s threshold. “May I come in?” he asked quietly.
Merritt looked up with a smile, trying to conceal her weariness. “Of course.” She wrung out a cloth that had been soaking in ice water, and folded it in a long rectangle.
The duke approached the bedside. Very gently, he reached down to lay a hand across Keir’s forehead. “He has fever,” he commented.
“Dr. Gibson said the wound on his back will probably have to be cleaned and drained.”
Kingston nodded with a frown. “I bloody hate fever,” he muttered.
Merritt draped the cold cloth over Keir’s dry, hot forehead. He made an incoherent sound and turned toward her, seeking the source of coolness. She murmured a few soothing words and used another iced cloth to stroke his face and throat. Keir subsided with a soft groan.
Kingston’s eyes narrowed with interest as he saw the fine steel chain among the fleece of chest hair. “What’s that?”
“A token from his . . . from the woman who bore him. He always wears it.”
Kingston’s long, elegant fingers slipped beneath the chain and carefully tugged upward. As the little gold key emerged, the duke’s breath caught. He picked it up for a closer look, and he began to draw the chain over the sleeping man’s head.
Merritt reached for it reflexively. “Wait.”
“I need to borrow this,” he said brusquely. “I’ll return it to him safely.”
“Uncle Sebastian—”
“You have my word.”
“No.”
To say the least, it was not a word the duke was accustomed to hearing. He went still, regarding her with an arched brow.
Merritt stared back at him calmly, doing her best to conceal how incredibly uncomfortable she felt at having to deny him something he wanted. But the key was precious to Keir, his only link to the mother he couldn’t remember, and she couldn’t allow it to be taken from him. Not for a day, an hour, or even a minute. Not while he was helpless.
She didn’t let herself look away from those piercing light eyes, no matter how she wanted to cringe.
“This is a matter of personal significance to me,” Kingston said coolly.
“I understand. But until Keir is able to give his consent . . . I’m afraid you’ll have to wait.”
The duke didn’t like that, she could see. And she knew how easily he could have demolished her with just a few words. Instead, he said, “I’m the last person you need to protect him from.”
“Of that I have no doubt, but . . . the key is sacred to him. He wouldn’t want you to take it.”
“Borrow,” Kingston muttered.
Merritt made her voice soft and cajoling. “Of course, Uncle. But . . . it’s important that you and he start off on the right foot, isn’t it? What difference would a few days’ wait make in the grand scheme of things?”
His mouth tightened. But to her vast relief, he let go of the key.
After another forty-five minutes, the train reached the station at Heron’s Point, a seaside town located in the sunniest region in England. Even now in autumn, the weather was mild and clear, the air humid with healthful sea breezes. Heron’s Point was sheltered by a high cliff that jutted far out into the sea and helped to create the town’s own small climate. It was an ideal refuge for convalescents and the elderly, with a local medical community and an assortment of clinics and therapeutic baths. It was also a fashionable resort, featuring shops, drives and promenades, a theatre, and recreations such as golf and boating.
The Marsdens had often come here to stay with the duke’s family, the Challons, especially in summer. The children had splashed and swum in the private sandy cove, and sailed near the shore in little skiffs. On hot days they had gone to a shop in town for ices and sweets. In the evenings, they had relaxed and played on the Challons’ back veranda, while music from the town band floated up from the concert pavilion. Merritt was glad to bring Keir to a familiar place where so many happy memories had been created. The seaside house, airy and calm and gracious, would be a perfect place for him to convalesce.
A trio of railway porters came to collect their luggage, and a stocky young man, smartly dressed and carrying a doctor’s bag, boarded the railway carriage.
“Good morning, Your Grace,” the man said with a pleasant smile. “I’m Dr. Kent. Although Dr. Gibson suggested I meet you at the estate, I thought I might accompany the patient directly from the station. I have an ambulance stocked with medical supplies waiting on the other side of the platform building. If the porters would help carry Mr. MacRae on a stretcher . . .”
“My footmen are at your disposal,” Kingston said.
“Thank you, sir.” Dr. Kent turned to Merritt. “And this charming lady . . . ?”
“I’m Mr. MacRae’s fiancée,” Merritt said before the duke could reply, and smiled serenely at the doctor as she added, “I’ll be in charge of his care.”
Although Kingston didn’t contradict her, he sent her a glance of unmistakable warning.
Watch your step, my girl. I’ll be pushed only so far.
Chapter 16
There was no escaping the pain, not even in sleep. It coiled in every jointure, bone, and ounce of flesh. Keir had never been sick like this before, in control of nothing, devolving into something less than human. Except when she was there.
She . . . her . . . He couldn’t hold on to her name . . . it kept darting away from him . . . but he was aware of her soft presence, her voice like honey, her hands bestowing cool, sweet calm on his tortured body.
But for all her softness, there was steel in her. She was
unrelenting when it came time to dose him with medicines he didn’t want. She made him sip water or broth despite his struggles to keep anything down. There was no bloody refusing her. This was a woman who would keep him anchored safely to the earth, to life, with the force of her will.
During the worst of it, when Keir was maddened by suffocating heat, and every breath felt like someone was stabbing a peat knife into his chest, the woman packed ice around him, or bathed him all over with cool cloths. It mortified and infuriated him to lie there helpless and naked as a wee bairnie while she took care of his intimate needs, but he was too damned sick to do anything for himself. He needed her, both the softness and the steel.
She assured him that he would be better soon. He’d fallen, she said, and his lungs had been injured, but they were healing. A wound on his back was causing the fever, but that too would heal.
Keir wasn’t so sure. The hot, pulsing place on his back seemed to be worsening by the hour, spreading poison through him. Soon he couldn’t keep even water down, and instead of worrying about dying, he began to worry about not dying. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t stop writhing from pain and nausea. He’d have welcomed any escape.
He felt a touch on his forehead and slitted his eyes open. A stranger stood beside him, tall and stern-faced, blindingly handsome, with silvery-gold hair. He looked like an angel. Not the kind offering comfort—the kind sent to smite people. Almost certainly this was the angel of death, and about time he appeared. Even hell would be better than this.
But instead of escorting Keir to the hereafter, the man pressed a fresh iced cloth to his forehead. As Keir writhed and panted in a red welter of fever, he felt the covers being drawn away, and someone began to lift the hem of his nightshirt. Riled by the indignity, he struck out blindly, trying to knock away the unfamiliar hands.
“Keir. Rest easy, boy.” The stranger was leaning over him, speaking in a low, lulling voice that would have caused an entire sounder of wild boars to curl up like kittens. “We have to bring the fever down.”
