Miss Lottie's Christmas Protector

by Sophia James

  Today he needed no prop to aid him, the leg much less swollen and discoloured than it had been.

  Raising his nightgown, he felt around the area and sure enough there was the edge of the offending metal in a place he had never felt it before. It was also close to the surface and away from the deep blue vein that it had been right under.

  Calling for Hutton, he ordered a bath and his clothes. After his toilette had been completed he sat at his desk and ate a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs and crispy potatoes. It was like an awakening and his gratitude was boundless although he wished Charlotte might return.

  He had found her necklace on his desk this morning. His valet had said it was discovered beneath the pillow when he had remade his bed, tucked away in secret.

  He could imagine Charlotte doing that when he had almost ordered her gone, her sense of honour unquestionable. She would have left it because of its personal worth to him, the fact that it was also a priceless heirloom probably barely considered. He did not know of one other woman of his acquaintance who would have secreted it away unbidden and never mentioned it again.

  He wished she was here. He wished he might ask her about the doctor and his expertise. A night’s good sleep had opened him to the possibility of having this piece of metal removed, a hope that was tempting, especially if the physician could use brandy instead of morphine to knock him out.

  * * *

  When the doorbell rang an hour later he tensed and looked at the clock in the corner. He had come downstairs to the green salon to wait, wanting to meet her out of the confines of his bedchamber. The humiliation of her seeing all that he had been made him uncomfortable, but he could change nothing now and here she was still giving him another chance. The dog sat beneath his desk. He’d locked it out of his room when he was struggling with his pain and Hero had not let him out of his sight since.

  When his butler showed her in he stood, the ease of it gratifying.

  ‘Miss Fairclough.’ Far too formal, he knew, but in the circumstances he stuck to convention.

  ‘Mr King.’ There was a lilt in her voice, her gaze taking all of him in. ‘You look so much better this morning.’

  ‘I could hardly look worse.’ These words came even as he thought not to say them and she laughed.

  ‘Oh, I work at the Foundation and hardship and illness is our stock in trade.’

  And therein lay the difference, he thought. She was a woman without guile or deceit, a woman who might tell it as it was without frill or fuss and he liked it. A lot.

  The day became brighter and the heaviness of his heart lifted. Suddenly it felt as if he might be able to find the ground he had been upon before she had seen him yesterday afternoon, grovelling on the floor in agony and naked.

  The memory of their lovemaking also rose again into the equation because with his strength recovered he could imagine it might happen again and he wanted it to. Desperately.

  ‘I asked Dr O’Keefe to call in on you this morning as well.’

  His libido fell sharply on hearing this.

  ‘I have had other physicians telling me of the possibility of success and it has always come to nothing.’

  ‘Doctor O’Keefe is the most talented physician we have ever employed at the Foundation.’

  He stayed silent. She’d told him that yesterday, too.

  ‘He reiterated his hopes for a complete cure to your leg. It seems to me you should at least listen to what he has to say.’

  ‘Charlotte.’

  The use of her name had her eyes darkening.

  ‘You forgot the necklace I gave you.’

  ‘I thought perhaps that you might not wish for me to have it.’

  ‘After the gift you gave to me the night before last? Hardly.’

  A heavy blush covered her cheeks. ‘I do not regret the giving of my...gift, either. No matter what happens.’

  ‘Then I am glad.’

  And just like that they were back to how they had been, the air between them shimmering with possibility. He reached down and brought the green-velvet box out from a drawer beside him.

  ‘Could I give this to you again?’

  When she nodded he stood and she did, too, waiting as she came to him and then fastening the piece around her throat.

  ‘I know it is a bit formal for daywear, but...’

  She stopped him. ‘It is perfect.’

  ‘And so are you.’

  He kissed her carefully and as if he had all the time in the world. He did not hurry or pressure her, he simply gave her himself, without any sort of restraint. He knew she would read an apology into the kiss, but he hoped, too, that she might understand something else.

  I love you.

  It was too soon to say it perhaps, but he wanted an echo of it, after the hardship and the shame. He wanted her to know of his honesty, lost yesterday in the blackness of pain, but here now, today, after the storm.

  * * *

  The kiss was sweet and measured and truthful. There was lust there, but it was bridled and underneath that was another emotion, one she had not known from him before.

  Care, if she might name it, delicate and cautious. When she moved back just a very little she saw that he watched her, his velvet eyes burnished with feeling.

  ‘I thought I may have lost you...’ He could not go on.

  ‘I am not a wilting flower, Jasper.’

  He laughed at that and she was glad because a tension was broken as well as a wariness that had kept him distant. Now when he leaned forward to kiss her, the edge of it was as sharp as she remembered and as beguiling.

  The worry of the last day began to subside and the gold in the topaz necklace warmed her skin. His mother’s necklace—she had seen the same piece of jewellery in the portrait on the staircase.

  Jasper’s mother had his eyes and his colouring, a beautiful woman with a strength in her stance.

  ‘How old was your mother when she died?’ Lottie said this as he brought her into his chest, his arms about her.

  ‘The same age as I am now. Thirty-three. My father was never the same afterwards.’

  ‘A hard reality for a child who had just lost a mother.’

  When she went to speak again he simply laid his fingers on her lips to stop her and then his head fell lower, across the skin at her throat.

  ‘You are so beautiful, Charlotte. Inside and out.’

  She smiled because she wasn’t really, but was glad that he thought so.

  ‘I am too tired to do much more today, but could I hold you for a little while?’

  She nodded, but came back with an observation of her own as he brought her close.

  ‘You should have told me about your leg, Jasper, instead of trying to deal with it all alone. I could have been there to help you.’

  He was quiet for a moment and then he started to speak. ‘Verity saw me in the throes of an attack once not even half as bad as this one was and, although I thought she loved me, she sent a note to say that she could never marry a cripple.’

  ‘And you thought that I might think the same?’

  She felt his uncertainty like an ache and understood.

  ‘I am not Verity Chambers, Jasper.’

  ‘I know, but—’

  She didn’t let him finish. ‘Would you leave me if I had an injury?’

  * * *

  Her question caught him sideways, the truth in it blinding.

  ‘Of course I wouldn’t.’

  He felt her take in a breath and when she raised her face to his he saw tears filling her eyes.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I love you and because there would be nothing that you could do to make me leave you.’

  Her chin quivered and more tears came.

  ‘You love me?’

  ‘With all my heart and what is
left of my broken body.’

  Her fingers around his face held him there. ‘Say it again. The love part.’

  ‘I love you, Miss Charlotte Fairclough.’

  Her whisky eyes brimmed with joy and wonder and disbelief, all mixed with the tears.

  ‘I love you more than I have ever loved anyone and I always will. Until my very last breath.’

  He waited for her to speak, but it appeared that she could not, her emotions too raw and new, and so he simply held her, the firelight playing on the gold and browns of her curls.

  After a moment, though, she pulled away.

  ‘My family always said that I am too independent for my own good.’

  He waited, not quite sure where she was going with this.

  ‘But when I love, I love for ever, fiercely and protectively, and I do love you, Jasper King, and I have done since I was fourteen years old and my sister danced with you and I was wildly jealous. I have loved you from the moment I saw you through the stair banisters at the Foundation when you came to visit Amelia and I have never loved anyone else. Never. I promise to God that I haven’t.’

  Her fingers ran across her heart and he caught them, bringing them to his lips, and he was about to say more when a servant knocked and brought through Dr O’Keefe, the doctor looking much more rested this morning than he had seemed last night.

  Jasper stepped back from Charlotte and stood still, tipping his head to the newcomer. His timing could not have been worse. He had just proclaimed his love for Charlotte and her own declarations were barely finished. He wanted to take her hand and haul her off into another room to finish such a conversation, alone, but of course he could not.

  Charlotte’s expression held the same frustration and he was glad of it.

  He noticed the doctor had brought a large case with him indicating the tools of his trade. Did he think to elicit a response from him now regarding extracting the metal fragment? God, what if it all went wrong and the blood lines were punctured? He would not have any time to enjoy the love they shared.

  Yet if he waited the piece of metal might shift again to a more inaccessible place or a position that was much more dangerous. Or he might have another attack and this last one was the very worst he had ever had by far. Could he survive a further occurrence?

  ‘I hope that Miss Fairclough has talked to you, Mr King, about the small operation that could be performed this morning. It should take no longer than fifteen minutes once you are under the influence of brandy or whisky or whatever liquor you choose. There would only be a little cut and a few stitches.’

  A decision? The man was waiting for one, a busy doctor with other patients to call on and little time to spare.

  He looked over at Charlotte and saw in her eyes all the concern that would be in his own and another hundred thoughts ran through his head.

  He could not keep on as he had been and he could not expect her to do the same. He wanted a life with Charlotte, one that would be free of the jeopardy he now lived under, but he could not ask her to share such a life if it was all so precarious. He needed to be healthy. He needed to take a chance and live.

  ‘Very well.’ The words were wrenched from both fear and hope. ‘Where would be the best place to perform the operation?’

  ‘I would need you to be lying down so a bed would be ideal. It would take me about twenty minutes to be ready for you.’

  ‘My chamber is upstairs, then.’ He bent down to ring a bell and Larkin came in. ‘Please show Dr O’Keefe up to my room. He will be attending to me in the capacity of a doctor so he might need a few things to be provided.’

  When the doctor had left he turned to Charlotte.

  ‘Join me in a drink, my love? It seems I have twenty minutes to be completely non-sober.’

  * * *

  Her world spun. Everything had happened so fast. His declaration of love for her, his assent to have the operation and now this. How many glasses constituted enough? She had no idea at all.

  Please God, let Christopher O’Keefe be right in his declaration about the ease of the operation. Please do not let there be complications, for she wanted Jasper for a lifetime and not just one day.

  She tried to smile, to find her braveness, but it was a lot harder with so very much at stake.

  ‘He is a very good doctor.’

  ‘You’ve already told me that. Twice.’

  Jasper’s voice sounded stronger now that he had made his decision and when he passed her over a glass of what Lottie presumed was brandy she took it gladly. She also needed some fortification.

  ‘I think it will go well, Jasper.’

  He was already beginning on his second glass, the first having been downed quickly.

  ‘Well for us both?’

  She did not quite understand his meaning as she waited for him to speak. One moment passed and then two.

  ‘I don’t want to be a burden. To you.’

  ‘You could never be that.’

  He was on his third glass now and his voice was softer, a sense of dislocation heard in the words.

  ‘When it happens...’ His hands indicated his leg. ‘When this happens...and the pain comes... I think that perhaps it will all stop. Life. And it never mattered before because I did...not have you. Before I almost welcomed it, but now...now I want to live, Charlotte. I do.’

  She walked across to him and straight into his arms.

  ‘You will. I promise it.’

  He smiled and tipped her head to his.

  ‘I...want...you. I want to make love to you, but...’ He swayed and she led him over to a chair and sat him down. ‘I want to make love so much that it hurts. Here. And here. And here.’ He pointed to his head and his heart and then to his groin. ‘But I also...think that right now a kiss will have to do.’

  He simply waited as she crouched in front of him and bent to his mouth.

  She could taste the brandy on him.

  ‘You are...beautiful, Charlotte.’

  More words.

  ‘And lovely and brave and stubborn...and I will take you to Liverpool to see where I work and then...we will go to America. I have never left England because my father was sick for a long time.’

  ‘But you read books of far-off adventure stories? Like the one you gave me?’

  ‘A way...of...escape. Responsibilities held me here.’

  He took another swig of the brandy, this time simply lifting the bottle that stood on the table beside him until there was nothing at all left.

  ‘Drunk,’ he said. ‘Enough,’ he added and leant back to close his eyes. ‘Once upon a time I was drunk for months. Did I tell you that? Once it was the only thing that saved me. Now it is you, Charlotte. You are my...salvation. I hope I can be yours.’

  ‘You are already.’

  ‘No.’ An urgency was back. ‘Not like this.’ He smiled then and tried to stand. ‘If I don’t go upstairs soon...might not get there.’

  Lottie understood and rang the bell on the table beside him. A servant she had not seen before came immediately and seemed to know exactly what to do even before she spoke.

  * * *

  She had been waiting here for an hour already and her worry was rising. Jasper had asked for her to go as they had got him into bed.

  ‘Easier,’ he drawled as she tried to speak. ‘For both of us.’

  Two of the King servants had stayed to assist Dr O’Keefe and she had come back to the green salon, her brandy still on the table and barely touched.

  She wished Mama might have been here, or Millie, the bravery she had shown Jasper suddenly gone.

  If he died...

  She shook the thought away and concentrated on the positive. It was a small operation, Dr O’Keefe had said, and he was very certain he could remove the metal fragment without complication.

  Complication. The word
sat on her tongue like a bitter pill. Jasper believed he could bleed to death if it was touched, he had said as much to her, and some of the doctors before O’Keefe had not been hopeful.

  Who was right? Who was wrong?

  Please, please help us, she beseeched in a prayer, the reality of a patient dying in what she hoped was a relatively simple procedure suddenly there. She stood and walked to the window. The park opposite was empty, the rain driving everyone away. Further away rooftops could be seen, chimneys smoking to ward off the cold.

  In this salon the fire was warm and well stocked. Someone had seen to it while she was upstairs and she was thankful.

  She mulled over the words he had said. He had felt the responsibility of looking after his father to be his own? A man of honour and integrity. For how many years had he done that, she thought, and where had his sister been?

  A noise from above had her tilting her head, her heart speeding up so much she could feel the beat of it in her throat as she heard footsteps on the staircase.

  Then a servant was there a wide smile on his face.

  ‘The doctor said it was a success, Miss Fairclough, and he asked if you would like to come upstairs?’

  Within a minute she was in his room. Jasper was asleep and peaceful, the blankets drawn across him and the bed tidy. The dog was asleep on the floor beside him, one wary eye opening as she came in.

  ‘Mr King was the perfect patient,’ Dr O’Keefe explained as he caught sight of her. ‘He slept through the whole thing with barely a murmur. The brandy he consumed must be one of a good quality.’

  ‘So you managed to extract the metal?’

  ‘I did and with little trouble.’

  ‘So he is...’ She couldn’t say it.

  ‘On the road to a full recovery,’ O’Keefe supplied. ‘He is indeed. When he wakes there will be some pain and he will need to favour his right side for a week or two, but other than that...’

  Reaching for the large leather bag, he snapped the clasp at the top closed. ‘I doubt if he will need to see me again today, Miss Fairclough, though I will call upon him tomorrow just to see that everything is as it ought to be.’