by Mira Stables
Chapter Fourteen
“Though I’d have something to say to my husband if he went off and left me with strangers, and me so sadly out of kilter,” concluded Mrs. Burton, straightening the quilt and beginning to put away Anna’s clothes. “I’d best wash this petticoat for you, ma’am—milady, I should say—and I’ll try soaking the dress in cold water though I doubt if the stains’ll come out. Let’s hope that husband of yours’ll have the sense to bring you some clothes when he comes back, though Doctor Underwood did say that you was to stop in your bed until he called again tomorrow.”
The doctor’s visit and the examination and dressing of her arm had left Anna too limp to make much conversational effort. She had simply permitted Mrs. Burton’s flood of chatter to wash over her soothingly. But this could not be allowed to pass.
“But Sir Aubrey is not my husband,” she corrected.
“Not your husband?” exclaimed Mrs. Burton, her eyes rounding in surprise.
“No. Just the gentleman who was driving me back to Town after a visit to my father,” explained Anna, hoping wearily that this sounded sufficiently respectable. “He will have gone to tell my husband about the accident.”
“Then no doubt we can expect his lordship here in a fine pelter,” decided Mrs. Burton. “Though where he’s to sleep is more than I can think. There’s no room for him here. P’haps he’ll drive on to Turnford once he’s satisfied himself that you’ve taken no serious harm.”
“I daresay he will. That is, if he comes at all.” Then, seeing the good soul’s shocked expression, she hastily added, “Sir Aubrey may not be able to find him, you know, until it is too late to set out. I do not really look for him until tomorrow.”
“Then you may as well settle yourself down and try to catch a little nap,” pronounced Mrs. Burton, draping the stained garments over her arm and picking up the bowl of water that the doctor had used for his task. “I’ll bring you up a morsel of chicken and some apple tart for your supper. It’s not just what you’d call invalid fare but I daresay you’ll take no hurt from it. Doctor Underwood said you wasn’t feverish.”
She clumped awkwardly down the stairs with her burden, meditating the while on the strange ways of the Quality. Who ever heard of a husband not setting out immediately when he heard that his wife had met with an accident? Especially when there was no question of expense to stop him, and his wife was young and bonny. Not long married, neither. Mrs. Burton, having finally noticed that her guest wore a wedding ring, had also marked that it was still shiny-new. She shook her head sadly over such heartless behaviour.
Her opinion of the Quality was to rise considerably when she met ‘her young lady’s’ husband. He arrived some two hours later, driving himself in a curricle, the exhausted state of the horses testifying to the speed he had made. He waited only to discover that he had found the right place, cast a swift, assessing look at its style, and bade the groom see to the horses himself and, if the stabling was not to his liking, take them on easily into Turnford as soon as they were rested.
“I shall not need you again tonight,” he finished curtly, and a rather indignant Mrs. Burton who had overheard this exchange, wondered where he thought he, or the groom, were to sleep.
He rose a little in her estimation when he turned to her with a pleasant smile and asked her name, saying that he understood he was indebted to her for giving shelter and care to his wife in her need.
“The name’s Burton, sir. Milord, I mean. And I did no more than my duty. But your wife’s a gentle, pretty creature that makes duty a pleasure. You’ll be thankful to know that Doctor Underwood found little amiss with her beyond the shaking up and the loss of blood. A day or two in bed will set her to rights, he reckons, nor he doesn’t think she’ll be scarred. I’ve just brought her supper tray down and she’s eaten most all of it so you can go up and see her right away. The door on the left at the top of the stairs.”
The gentleman did not immediately avail himself of this permission. He said simply, “I cannot thank you enough,” and put out his hand. Mrs. Burton hesitated for a moment, then awkwardly rubbed her own hand on the skirt of her dress and put it into his. She expected him to shake it with becoming gratitude but was completely stunned when he raised it to his lips and gently kissed it.
She found herself staring at her hand as though it had suddenly undergone a magical transformation. When she was again capable of speech she muttered shyly, “Sir, you shouldn’t have gone for to do that. Me skin’s all rough and not overly clean.”
Whereupon his lordship smiled down at her in the kindest way, as she later told her awed spouse, and said, “Your hands were good enough to tend my wife, and that is more than good enough for me.”
The voice that bade him enter when he tapped on the door of Anna’s room was heavy with weariness. He walked in quietly and said gently, “My poor dear!”
Anna who had been drooping against her pillows wishing that she had something to read to distract her miserable thoughts from a throbbing arm and an unsatisfactory husband, sprang erect with a jerk that made her head begin to throb too. For a long moment the two stared at each other.
Julian saw a wife very different from the delightful vision on which he had turned his back only that morning. In a plain white linen nightgown borrowed from the landlady, high to the neck and long-sleeved, her lovely hair carefully brushed and braided by those work-worn hands, she looked like a little girl. There were dark shadows under her eyes and her cheeks were pale. But as she saw the look of tender adoration writ plain on his face, colour began to steal into hers. Unconsciously she clasped her hands to her bosom as though to calm her quickened breathing.
Julian came forward quietly enough and sat down on the side of the bed, just as he had done this morning, but now held out his hands and Anna put hers trustfully into them.
“I don’t know whether to hug you for relief that you are still alive or to scold you for tumbling into such a scrape when I was not at hand to get you out of it,” he said thoughtfully. “But first I think, this.”
He let go her hands and, with due care for the injured arm put both of his about her and drew her close. She made no attempt at resistance but yielded herself to his hold and held up her face like a child for his kiss. It began gently enough, for it was indeed a kiss of thankfulness that she was alive and safe. But her innocent response and the warmth and sweetness of her in his arms so went to his head that it very soon developed into a kiss of a very different kind. Indeed kisses, for there were those lovely smooth eyelids to be caressed and the curve of cheek and chin to be outlined with gentle lips before he came again to that warm responsive mouth.
“And you may thank heaven for Mrs. Burton’s nightgown,” he told her, smiling, his first longing assuaged. “It is hers, I take it? Very proper and modest, too. If it were not for that, I might forget all about your wounded arm and your need for rest and quiet. If it were that confection that you were wearing this morning, now, I really could not be answerable for the consequences.” And smiled to see her colour rise.
But Anna was already recovering her poise. “It was very kind of Mrs. Burton to lend it to me,” she said defensively. “And it is beautifully white and smells of lavender.” She giggled suddenly. “I don’t think she meant to be funny. She told me in such a solemn voice that it was her laying out gown.” And then, at his puzzled face, “I didn’t understand, either. It’s her shroud. She had it all ready, beautifully laundered and put away for when she dies. To be laid out in. But she also meant that it was her very best. She said her every day ones weren’t good enough. She is the kindest creature.”
“Yes. And I can quite see that it is just the sort of gown that one would choose when one had finally renounced the world and the flesh. But I have not. Very definitely. So you will understand my preference for your yellow nonsense—if you call it yellow. But now my love, you really must rest. Remember that, a very long time ago, I promised to cherish you, and now, thank the Lord, I am free to begin d
oing so.”
“Yes, that is all very well, and I look forward to the fulfilment of the rest of those promises,” returned the invalid, mischief gleaming in her lovely eyes. “But meanwhile, where are you going to sleep tonight?”
“Here,” announced her husband calmly. “You don’t imagine that I am going to shab off like your other beau? I’m sure Mrs. Burton will be able to find a chair or a truckle bed or something in which I shall do well enough.”
He quelled her protests in the most convenient—and delightful—way, and then drew away from her to smile a little. “Do you know,” he said quizzically, “I have just realised that I ought really to be grateful to the ineffable Sir Aubrey? If it were not for his services today, it might still have been weeks before we came about. As it is, my dear and only love (this with an admonishing little shake) will you now surrender your freedom? Will you be in very truth my wife?”
And Anna, her cheek against his shoulder, answered by holding up her face for his kiss.
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