Never Kiss a Notorious Marquess

by Renee Ann Miller

  “Morning, madam.” He set the tray on the corner of the mahogany desk.

  “Thank you, Langley. Do you know if his lordship is with his steward?”

  “I believe so, madam. Will that be all?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  She flipped the pages of the newspaper. Front to back. Back to front. Her article wasn’t in there. Had Hinklesmith decided not to run it? Heaviness settled in her chest as she set the publication down. She tugged her lower lip between her teeth and reached for the teapot.

  Her hand stilled as an envelope on the upper right corner of the blotter caught her eye. Her gaze zeroed in on the familiar handwriting. Her handwriting. Pulse elevated, she snatched up the envelope addressed to the London Reformer.

  Her article! What was it doing here? A sheaf of paper was fastened to it.

  My Lord Huntington,

  As requested, I have not published the latest article from C. M. Smith. Enclosed you will find her correspondence. If you wish the newspaper to veer in a different direction with regard to its political views, you have only to direct me to do so.

  Your obedient servant,

  Cuthbert Hinklesmith

  Caroline sprang from the chair.

  A different direction? Hinklesmith was a turncoat. A coward! And James was a snake in the grass! When she got her hands on her husband, she would . . . Well, she didn’t know what she’d do, but she wouldn’t hold her tongue. He wished for honesty. Ha! One must beget it to receive it.

  With the letter clutched in her hand, she stormed from the room. Langley was setting a vase of flowers on a hall table.

  “Where is the steward’s office?” she asked, attempting to modulate the tension in her voice.

  Langley blinked. “Next to the dairy, my lady. Do you wish the carriage brought about to take you there?”

  “No, that’s not necessary.” She marched down the corridor and stepped onto the back terrace. When touring the parkland, she’d seen the dairy—a massive stone building near a large grazing field. With quick strides, she followed a gravel path east.

  Once away from the terraces and the structured gardens with statues and topiaries, the land lost its formality and turned more natural. During her tour of the grounds, Anthony had said the famed architect Capability Brown had designed the parkland in the eighteenth century. Lifting her skirts so as not to gather dirt and leaves on her hems, Caroline moved through a copse.

  A half mile later, the dairy and the meadow with grazing cows came into view. On the opposite pasture was an enormous bull, pawing at the grass, sending tufts of sod into the air. Near the entrance to the dairy, a group of men stood in a cluster, lifting a man onto a stretcher. Peering past them, she noticed a flat-bedded dray approaching at a fast clip, most likely to transport the injured person.

  Biting her lip, Caroline wondered what had happened to him and if he was seriously hurt. As she stepped closer, it took her mind several seconds to register the man’s identity.

  James! The anger clawing at her insides over discovering her article on his desk shifted to a remote place in her brain. Heart thundering, she pushed her way through the crowd to his side.

  He lay still, eyes closed, face ashen.

  Bile traveled up her throat.

  “What happened to my husband?” Oblivious to the muddy ground, she fell to her knees and frantically moved her hands over James, looking for an injury.

  “He collapsed,” one of the men replied.

  “Collapsed?” she echoed, setting her palm to James’s cheek. The warmth of his skin practically scorched her hand. “He’s feverish.”

  “Might have Malta fever,” an old, grim-faced man said. “’Tis because of that bull. That beast’s been trouble ever since he arrived. The animal’s cursed, I say. Sent from the devil himself.”

  “No, it ain’t that, Harris, you ol’ suspicious fool,” another fellow said.

  “Could be cholera.” A third man moved back as he spoke.

  Cholera! Caroline’s heart skipped a beat.

  The chatter among the men escalated and panicked expressions flashed on their faces. Several men stepped back as if concerned for their own health.

  The bitter taste in Caroline’s throat filled her mouth. No one else in the house was ill, but they’d not been working in the trenches on the new water system.

  “Are any of the other workers sick?” She tried to stem the panic that made her want to retch.

  The men shook their heads.

  The fellow who’d suggested it might be cholera cleared his throat. “No, but a couple of days ago, a dog fell into a dirty, water-filled trench we’re excavating. His lordship didn’t hesitate to jump in to save the animal. If he swallowed some of the water . . .”

  The rumble of the dray’s wheels and the rattle of the horses’ harnesses filled the air as the vehicle pulled up. Through tear-filled eyes, Caroline watched a man jump down from the driver’s perch. Unlike the other workers, who were dressed in shirtsleeves, this one wore a sack suit.

  Concern flashed in his eyes when he saw her. “Lady Huntington?”

  “Yes. Are you Mr. Warren?”

  “I am, m’lady,” the land steward replied.

  “Some of the men think my husband might have cholera. Is it possible?” She heard the quiver in her voice.

  “I’m not sure, m’lady, but I’ve sent someone to fetch the doctor. He’ll know what ails his lordship.” He grabbed one of the stretcher poles and peered at the men. “Help me get his lordship into the vehicle.”

  Several fellows shifted farther away.

  Mr. Warren scowled at them. “Lord Huntington has worked tirelessly beside you. He’s paid you a fair wage. Improved your living quarters more than any lord before him. Treated you with respect, and this is how you thank him?”

  Another rumble of low conversation arose from the crowd, and a handful of men stepped forward to lift the stretcher onto the dray.

  Setting her foot between the spokes of the muddy wheel, Caroline hefted herself onto the flatbed. Her sleeve caught on a metal rail, and she tugged it free. “Everything will be fine, dear,” she whispered, resting her head on James’s chest. “Everything will be fine,” she repeated, trying to ignore the fear gripping her.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Fifteen minutes later, the men carried James into the house. He’d not moved since, except for the slight rise and fall of his chest.

  As they neared the top of the stairs, Anthony came dashing down the east corridor. “Good Lord, what’s happened?”

  “James collapsed.” A sob caught in her throat. “He’s ill.”

  “Ill?” Anthony echoed. “James has never been sick a day in his life.”

  “A workman said he went into one of the water-filled trenches to save a dog a couple of days ago. If he swallowed the water and it’s contaminated—”

  “What is all this commotion?” the dowager snapped, stepping out of her bedchamber. Her eyes veered to her grandson on the stretcher. The old woman’s already pale complexion turned a ghastly shade of white.

  Anthony rushed forward and grabbed the dowager as she started to slump against the wall. For a moment, she let him steady her, then, as if someone had thrust steel into her spine, she straightened. “Is he . . . dead?”

  “No. He shall be fine,” Caroline replied, praying that speaking the words aloud would make it so.

  “This way, men.” Anthony motioned to the west wing. “Has the doctor been summoned?”

  “Yes, someone was sent to fetch him,” Caroline replied.

  In the bedchamber, the men laid James’s body on the counterpane. Reilly rushed into the room. The valet’s gaze volleyed from her to James, but he said not a word.

  As soon as the men left the chamber, Reilly positioned a high-backed upholstered chair by the bedside. “Sit, my lady.”

  Anthony took her arm. “Yes, Caroline, you look ready to swoon.”

  She fought the urge to wrench her arm free. They were acting like
she was an invalid and James was going to die. He wasn’t! Ignoring the offered chair, she swallowed the lump in her throat.

  A footman rushed into the room, the doctor on his heels.

  Caroline stepped back. The physician, the one who’d treated her after her fall at the suffragist rally, blinked at her as if trying to recall where he’d seen her. His eyes widened.

  Anthony touched her hand. “While the doctor is with him, why don’t you go freshen up?”

  “No, I won’t leave my husband.”

  Her brother-in-law lifted her hands. Mud caked her fingers from where she’d grabbed the flatbed’s wheel to help lift herself onto the vehicle.

  Anthony turned to the valet. “Reilly, tell her ladyship’s maid to come here.”

  The valet looked hesitant to leave the room but did as Anthony bid.

  Caroline squared her shoulders. “I won’t leave, Anthony. I won’t. I shall wash my hands in a basin.”

  He touched her arm where her sleeve was torn. Blood stained the ripped cloth. “You’re cut. Best to get it cleaned. You need to bathe.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “When James comes to, he’ll not wish to find you sick with fever as well because you ignored your own health.”

  “Go on, child,” the dowager said, stepping into the bedchamber and sitting in a chair by the door. “Anthony and I will stay with him until you return.”

  “I will go, but if he wakes before I return you must come and get me. Promise me that, Anthony. Promise me.”

  He nodded.

  * * *

  The warmth of the lit grate didn’t stop Caroline’s body from shaking as she fastened the last button lining the front of her lavender day dress.

  Maggie stepped toward her, a brush in hand.

  Caroline waved her off and darted toward the doorway.

  The lady’s maid tsked. “You should sit by the fire. You might take a chill walking about with a head of wet hair. Your teeth are already chattering.”

  Fear, not cold, caused her body to shiver. “I must return to my husband’s bedside.”

  With the hem of her dress lifted, Caroline ran back to the other bedchamber. Her long, wet hair dampened her cotton dress. She must look a mess but didn’t care. She stepped into the room, clinging to the hope James might have awoken in her short absence.

  All hope shattered upon seeing her husband’s still form.

  Someone had removed his clothing and slipped a nightshirt on him. The counterpane was folded down and the creamy silk sheet drawn up to his chest. Sweat prickled his brow and his color looked ghostly. Like her mama’s on the day she’d passed from this world.

  Tears burned Caroline’s eyes.

  The doctor, conversing with Anthony, inclined his head. “Lady Huntington.”

  Anthony must have informed him she’d married James. She approached them. “How is his lordship, Doctor?”

  The man patted her hand. “Do not tax your delicate mind, my lady. You must rest and leave the worrying to your brother-in-law. Perhaps a tonic might serve you well.”

  “I’m a woman, sir. Not a feeble creature in need of a tincture. I wish to know my husband’s prognosis. Does he have cholera?”

  He turned to Anthony as though seeking approval.

  Anthony nodded.

  “No, he has none of the signs of cholera. It could be typhoid fever. Though he doesn’t have rose spots that are common with the disease.”

  Typhoid fever. The same illness that had killed Queen Victoria’s beloved Prince Albert. Caroline briefly closed her eyes, attempting to keep her tears at bay. She wouldn’t let the physician see her cry, helping to perpetuate his belief she was somehow too weak to hear the truth.

  “We will just have to wait and see,” the physician said. “Though he should be quarantined just in case.”

  “No, I will not leave my husband’s side.” She brushed past the man and sat in the chair by the bed.

  The dowager got up from her seat by the door. “Anthony, I wish a chair set next to Lady Huntington’s.”

  It was the first time the matriarch had addressed Caroline by her new title with such reverence.

  “You shouldn’t be in here, Grandmother,” Anthony said.

  The woman thumped her cane on the rug. “I’m too cantankerous to die.”

  Releasing a slow, frustrated breath, Anthony set a small gilded chair next to Caroline, then addressed the physician. “Dr. Clark, I wish to converse with you in private. Follow me, please.”

  The door clicked closed behind the men. Caroline placed her hand over James’s and squeezed his fingers. Their warmth, along with the rise and fall of his chest, proved that life still coursed through his veins.

  A sniffle shattered the silence.

  It appeared the matriarch wasn’t as coldhearted as she wished everyone to believe. Caroline withdrew a handkerchief from her pocket and handed it to the woman.

  Gnarled fingers took the offered linen square. The dowager dabbed at her eyes. “You think I wanted him to marry you because he needs an heir. It is not true. I wanted him to finally find happiness. I believed he might find it with you.”

  The old woman’s hand flexed against the gold knob of her walking stick. “I wished to right a grave wrong. It is my fault Huntington married Henrietta. By the time James reached his majority, my son, Harold, had botched up the family’s coffers. Harold never understood money, or investments, or that one must be prudent. When he died, I could see no solution besides James marrying some wealthy cit’s daughter. Henrietta’s dowry was to save us all. I knew James would turn the family finances around. And he did, but at too great a cost.”

  “Was his marriage to Henrietta doomed from the beginning?” Caroline tightened her grasp on James’s hand.

  “Yes, he thought her quite lovely, but lovely outside is not always lovely inside. She was spoilt and insecure. He couldn’t leave the house without her accusing him of some infidelity. Some clandestine meeting with some highborn woman. I’ve never seen anyone so bitten by jealousy. Even his sessions at the House of Lords were questioned. Needless to say, they argued a great deal, and with each passing day he smiled less and less. I’m sure he was faithful to her. James always despised his father’s infidelities and the heartache it caused his mother.”

  The dowager’s words of jealousy echoed what Anthony had said.

  A tear trailed down the matriarch’s papery cheek. “If I was to venture a guess how she came to fall down those stairs, I’d say Henrietta threw herself.”

  Caroline’s breath snagged in her throat. “What you say implies madness.”

  “Yes.”

  “It seems incomprehensible,” Caroline replied.

  “You didn’t know Henrietta. She was enceinte. For the first time in months, my eldest grandson was smiling again. The child growing in Henrietta had lifted his spirits. Perhaps she thought it the only way to hurt him. To punish him for his supposed infidelities. I’m sure she only wished to end the pregnancy, not snap her neck.”

  Caroline blinked, releasing the tears blurring her vision. James must have been devastated. She recalled the sad expression in his eyes that night in Lady Randall’s garden when he’d talked of his wife’s death. How cruel life could be.

  The dowager leaned forward and straightened the sheet covering James. “The child might not have been his.”

  Caroline swallowed the thickness clogging her throat. “She betrayed him with another?”

  The old woman shrugged. “It’s possible, but he would have loved the child anyway.” She handed the handkerchief back to Caroline. “You’re crying, child. You love him, don’t you?”

  Caroline brought James’s hand to her lips and kissed it. “I do.”

  A slow smile curved the dowager’s mouth. “Then he will pull through this. He will return to you. I do not doubt it.”

  Anthony and the physician stepped back in the room. The old woman’s stoic mask fell back into place.

  By nightfall there was no
change. The dowager, still sitting in the chair beside Caroline, snored softly. Anthony, who’d also kept vigil throughout the day, stood and walked over to his grandmother.

  The dowager’s eyes drifted open. “I’m fine,” she snapped.

  Ignoring her words, Anthony clasped her elbow and drew her to a standing position. “Come. You need to retire.”

  The chair the dowager sat in creaked as she unfolded herself from it.

  The matriarch looked like she wished to argue, but the set of Anthony’s jaw made it clear he would stand firm.

  “You will inform me when he wakes?” the dowager asked.

  Anthony nodded, and they left the room, leaving just Caroline and the physician.

  She brushed a lock of hair off James’s moist forehead. “Please wake up.” She pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Tomorrow, you will be recovered. Won’t you? Yes, I’m sure of it.”

  The following morning passed in a blur. Restlessly, Caroline paced about the room, touching James’s possessions. His pocket watch on the night table. A book on finances she’d found on his dresser. She glanced at Reilly.

  The man had stood by the door all morning, as stiff as a sentry. He’d left only once and returned with one of James’s freshly pressed white shirts that smelled of starch. Did the man do these things out of habit or did he believe James would wake soon?

  She stepped up to the bed and clasped her husband’s hand again. His fingers were warm. A spark of hope ignited within her. Mama’s hands had felt like ice before she died.

  Someone tapped on the door. The housekeeper entered the room and addressed Anthony. “Luncheon is ready, my lord.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Anderson.”

  “Grandmother? Caroline?” Anthony said.

  Caroline rubbed at her tired eyes. “I’m not hungry.”

  Anthony kneaded the back of his neck. “You must eat something. You didn’t touch a stitch from your breakfast tray.”

  “I said no.” She heard the sharpness in her voice, but she was tired of him treating her like she might break. She wouldn’t. At least, she prayed she wouldn’t.

  “I’ll have a tray sent up,” Anthony replied. The door clicked closed behind them.