by Syrie James
After another few minutes of tromping back and forth, Lance arrived at an intriguing conclusion. He smiled to himself as the plan formed in his mind. Yes. That might work. Why hadn’t he thought of it before?
Surely, after all the time he and Kathryn had spent in each other’s company, and all the intimacies they had shared, she’d more be open to the idea of marriage now than she had been the first time he’d asked, when they’d barely known each other. This time, if he asked with this new offer in place, he felt there was a good chance she’d accept.
He didn’t want to trick her into marriage, though. That had never been his intention. He’d put off telling her about his financial situation before now because he hadn’t wanted to stack the deck against himself. He’d wanted her to want him, before risking the truth.
His grandmother’s warning rang once again in his ears:
Open yourself up to her. Women appreciate a man who isn’t afraid to show his vulnerable side.
Maybe he should just get it over with. Tell her about his debts up front. He’d considered the situation too embarrassing to reveal. But maybe it might actually raise her sympathies, help her to see the good she could do with her fortune. If she understood the whole, horrendous state of affairs, maybe she’d want to help him. To stand at his side. To be his bride. To save the castle for future generations, as well as the village that came with it.
Yes, he decided. That was the proper course of action. He had put this off long enough. This time, he’d do it right.
He would go to her. Make her take a break. Then escort her to his favorite bench on the cliff path. He would let her know in advance what she was getting into, signing up for. Then he would get down on one knee and ask for her hand.
Kathryn lay down her pen on the table and leaned back in her chair. Her head was pounding. It felt as if her brain cells were being attacked by armies of tiny knives. And she was so incredibly exhausted.
She gave in to a yawn, briefly closing her eyes.
It had been three days since her wild encounter with Lance in his brother’s secret room. It was the billiards room and the bathroom all over again, except this time they’d gone even further. She had never been so aroused in her life, or so . . . satisfied.
The duke’s own state of arousal had been all too evident. If Woodston hadn’t walked in when he did, Kathryn felt certain that she and Lance would have completed the act.
Thank goodness we didn’t. At least, that’s what Kathryn had been telling herself for the past seventy-two hours. But another voice in her head, equally as loud as the first, was lamenting that she had missed an opportunity to finally discover what lovemaking was truly about.
She suspected that what she and Lance had shared in their earlier encounters had just been the first course—an absolutely delicious first course, to be sure, but nonetheless just a preliminary taste—of an epic feast that was still waiting to be enjoyed. In the secret room, although she might have had dessert, she had a feeling it was just a sample of the delectable dessert that she and Lance would experience were they ever to make love all the way to its inevitable conclusion.
Kathryn covered her eyes with her hands, unable to believe she was even thinking about this. Again. It seemed to be the only thing she had thought about for weeks now. Her attraction to the duke was obviously too powerful to resist. Were they ever to find themselves alone again, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to restrain herself from following the same impulse that had led her to kiss him the other day.
Kathryn thought about Lance all the time, wishing she were with him. She loved talking to him about just about anything. Loved the look in his eyes when he gazed at her, especially when he didn’t think she was looking. Her knees wilted whenever he was near. Her entire body pulsed whenever he touched her. And she wanted him to do so much more than touch her.
These were feelings, she believed, that should be reserved for a husband and wife. But Kathryn had no desire to be a wife! She certainly could never be the wife of the Duke of Darcy. He needed a woman who would be happy to play duchess at St. Gabriel’s Mount and raise a passel of children. He’d made it clear, the day he’d proposed, that to be his duchess she’d have to give up her career. And she couldn’t do that. She just couldn’t.
Kathryn only had one course of action open to her, and she knew it. She must finish this job as quickly as possible and leave this place. Which was why she’d applied herself to the task with such diligence and ferocity the past few days, working day and night, only pausing when absolutely necessary to eat or sleep. The way she figured it, in a few more days she’d be completely done. She could present all her drawings, obtain Lance’s approval, and return to town.
Kathryn removed her hands from her eyes and let go a sigh. A few more days. She could get through a few more days. She had to.
Despite the pounding in her head.
And the fact that her throat felt scratchy.
A sudden cough erupted from her chest that took over for a good long minute. Damn it. She picked up her pen and stared down at the drawing on the table before her. The lines of ink seemed to be swimming before her eyes. Strange.
A chill came over her, which was even stranger, considering that it was early afternoon and a warm summer day. She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself, wishing she’d brought her shawl down to the parlor with her.
She suddenly realized that someone was approaching. She knew the cadence of that determined footfall. It was Lance.
A flush rose to her cheeks at the thought of seeing him again. A reminder that her body’s response was in complete contrast to the dictates of her mind. She forced herself to remain calm. She was going to finish this job. And then she was going to go home.
A sharp rap drew her attention to the open doorway, where the duke had stopped and was looking in at her.
“Kathryn? Might I come in?”
“Of course.”
He strode toward the mantelpiece, where he paused with a distracted air. Then, seemingly rethinking his position, he crossed to her and stopped by the table where she was sitting. “How are you?” For some reason, he looked nervous.
“Fine.” Kathryn struggled not to shiver. “And you? I hope you are well?”
“I am,” he replied in a clipped tone. Clasping his hands behind his back, he regarded her intently. “Let’s go for a walk.”
“I, um . . . I don’t have time.”
“Make the time. Please. This is important. I have something I wish to say to you.”
Kathryn struggled to focus on his face. But the image before her began to grow cloudy, as if she were looking through a lens covered with gauze. He continued to speak, but his words didn’t connect into patterns that made any sense. All at once, the room started spinning and tilting sideways.
She noted a startled look on the duke’s face, and then all the light was sucked out of the room and everything went black.
Chapter Seventeen
“She has a high fever, Your Grace,” the physician explained in hushed tones in the hallway outside Kathryn’s bedroom. “I suspect a chest infection.”
“Is it dangerous?” Worry seeped into Lance’s bones. “Will she recover?”
“That remains to be seen. One never knows with this kind of thing. Let us hope that bed rest and medicine will do the trick.”
The doctor left several bottles of medication with instructions about how to administer the next required doses, and advice as to how her temperature might be controlled. He departed with a promise to return the next day, and to come at once should an emergency arise.
Lance returned to Kathryn’s bedroom, where Ivy was arranging the medicine bottles on the bedside table. Kathryn lay in bed beneath a light quilt, her face flushed and bathed in perspiration. Her hair was also damp and spread across the pillow like a golden wave.
He silently cursed himself. He’d been aware of the long hours she was working. She’d always had a tendency to work too hard, but now she’d push
ed herself beyond any acceptable limit.
He could guess why. After their encounter in the secret room, she’d probably been so upset with the professional boundaries she had passed she’d decided to burn the midnight oil and return to London. Now she was lying here as sick as a dog.
And for what? To produce drawings for a renovation that might never happen? This is my fault. All my fault.
“I’d be happy to sit with her, Yer Grace,” Ivy said. “I’ve got six younger brothers and sisters, and I’ve took care of ’em all at one time or another when they was sick.”
“Thank you, Ivy, but I will take care of Miss Atherton myself.”
“Yerself, Yer Grace?” Ivy was astonished.
“Myself,” he repeated. He wasn’t going to leave Kathryn’s care to anyone who might botch it up.
“But you’re the duke, Yer Grace. Dukes never . . .”
“Dukes never what? Dirty their hands? Do any actual work? Lower themselves to take care of the sick? You forget that I spent nineteen years in the Royal Navy. I have seen illness in every imaginable form. I’ve spent hour upon hour belowdecks in the infirmary, observing the ship doctor’s methods. I assure you, I am equal to this task.”
Ivy nodded slowly, her expression overtaken by an internal struggle over some other issue. The look in her eyes clued him in as to the possible problem.
“Don’t worry, Ivy. I am aware that this means I shall be left alone with our patient,” Lance stated calmly. “But there is no impropriety here. I will simply care for her. And sleep in that chair.” He gestured to an easy chair nearby.
Doubt lingered in Ivy’s eyes, which made Lance frown with impatience. “Look, I am the duke. This is my house. What I say, goes. I am going to take care of this woman, end of discussion. If you value your position in this household, you will wipe that look off your face this instant. There are some aspects of her care, I realize, where I will require help. I will let you or another member of the staff know when I require that assistance. Now bring me a pot of tea, two cups, an empty glass, and a washcloth. And fill that pitcher with fresh water.”
“Very well, Yer Grace.” Ivy made a swift curtsy before exiting the chamber.
Lance sank down onto the chair by Kathryn’s bedside, clasping his hands together as he studied her prone form. Her breathing was raspy, and when she swallowed in her sleep, her face contorted with pain.
“I’m so sorry,” Lance said softly. He was fairly certain that she wasn’t conscious, but felt the need to speak to her, anyway. “I should have stopped you. I should have insisted that you put down that damn pen and pencil and join me for dinner every night as we did before. I should have insisted that you take breaks every afternoon and get a full night’s sleep every night.” He hung his head. “But you kept turning me away. I thought you didn’t want my company anymore. I didn’t want to force you. So I left you to your own devices. A huge mistake.”
He had been so focused on his own problems, his own worries—the need to save St. Gabriel’s Mount, the need to get her to agree to marry him—that he hadn’t really thought about her needs.
You’re not going to die on my watch, my lovely. I promise you that.
For the next two days straight, Lance kept up a vigil at Kathryn’s bedside, taking catnaps in the easy chair and hastily downing meals Ivy brought up on a tray.
His grandmother stopped in several times to offer sympathy and express concern. “I wish I could do something,” she said helplessly, “but tending to the ill has never been my strong suit. I prefer to trust these things to nurses and physicians.”
Kathryn slept almost the entire time and continued to be feverish and wracked by coughing fits. There were certain bodily functions which, for propriety’s sake, he felt were best handled by his female staff. But he did everything else himself.
He followed all the doctor’s instructions. He applied cool compresses to Kathryn’s brow. When it was time for her medicine, and whenever she awoke and begged for water, Lance gently raised her head and fed her the requisite potion, pausing between sips to make sure she didn’t choke.
On one such occasion, her eyes fluttered open and she said feverishly, “Where am I?”
“At St. Gabriel’s Mount,” he replied, offering her medicine on a spoon. “Swallow this, Kathryn.”
She obediently swallowed, then murmured hazily, “What’s wrong with me? Am I ill?”
“Yes, but you will get well,” Lance insisted, gently laying her back upon the pillow.
She fell asleep so swiftly he wasn’t sure she’d actually ever been awake.
Although she was oblivious to his presence, Lance read aloud to her from Ivanhoe—the chapters featuring Robin Hood, which she’d said were her favorites. He played violin concertos, and—although her eyes remained closed—he could swear a smile crossed her face. He talked to her, even though he knew she wasn’t hearing a word he said, sharing stories from his days on board ship.
The doctor came twice. On each visit, he pronounced the patient no better, but thankfully no worse. The news did nothing to allay Lance’s fears.
When dawn broke on the third morning, Lance was so exhausted he could barely stand. Kathryn was still no better. What if, despite all his protestations to the contrary, she were to perish from this illness? He couldn’t bear it. But were that to happen, he was not the only person who would suffer.
He needed to tell her family.
Lance sent word via telegram to the Countess of Longford and the Countess of Saunders, informing them of their sister’s illness, and requesting that they make haste to St. Gabriel’s Mount.
Both women immediately replied by wire and arrived later that same afternoon with their maids, having traveled together from their Cornish estates.
Although Kathryn still slumbered on, her fever broke just hours before her sisters came, and the doctor pronounced the patient at last on the road to recovery. Lance was relieved to be able to greet the countesses with this news upon their arrival.
After spending an hour or so with Lance in Kathryn’s room, quizzing him about their sister’s state of health, and satisfying themselves that she was not at death’s door, the newcomers turned to him with gratitude in their eyes.
“We cannot thank you enough for all you’ve done for our little sister,” said Lady Longford.
“We are eternally grateful,” agreed Lady Saunders, “and so glad you wired us, Your Grace.”
“Please, call me Darcy.”
With all three sisters in the same room, it was evident how much they resembled each other. All three were beautiful, with the same slender figures and peaches-and-cream complexions. Their most distinguishing feature was their hair color. Lady Saunders’s was a lustrous brown. Lady Longford’s was more reddish in tone. Both were a contrast to Kathryn’s golden locks, which her sisters said were inherited from their father.
“Kathryn fell ill while working for me,” Lance told them with chagrin. “Working too many hours, I might add. I blame myself for that.”
“Please don’t blame yourself,” remarked Lady Saunders. “All her life, Kathryn has been prone to working compulsively at the expense of other pursuits, as well as her health.”
“Once, when we were children and on holiday at the beach, all the rest of us were swimming and picnicking,” Lady Longford interjected, “but Kathryn was so focused on the sandcastle she was building she never stopped to go in the ocean or to eat.”
“She kept working on that sandcastle all day long until the sun went down,” Lady Saunders added.
“It must have been an impressive sandcastle.” Lance felt himself wavering a bit on his feet, and realized he looked forward to sitting down.
“Oh, it was. But she got the most ferocious sunburn.”
“And the next morning,” Lady Saunders said, “when she saw that it had all been washed away by the tide, she cried her eyes out.”
“Her first year at Vassar College, she went without sleep for three days straight in order
to finish a paper for our History class.”
“Her fever lasted a week that time. She was utterly done in.”
“I see that you, my dear Darcy, are absolutely done in yourself,” Lady Longford said pointedly.
“I am fine.” Lance shrugged.
“How much sleep have you gotten the past two days?” she asked.
“Not much,” he admitted. “I have rarely left this room.”
“Well, we can take it from here,” said Lady Saunders. “You must go to bed, Lord Darcy. We can’t have you getting sick, too.”
Although Lance maintained that he would rather not leave his patient’s side, the sisters were adamant that he leave matters in their hands. Too spent to protest further, he gave in and took himself off to his own chamber, where he threw himself onto his bed fully clothed and fell instantly asleep.
“My my my,” Lexie said.
“My my my is right,” Maddie agreed.
Kathryn had awakened two days ago from what she learned had been a dangerous fever, to find her sisters sitting by her bedside. She’d been as shocked to discover she’d been ill as she had been by her sisters’ presence.
Eventually, a few hazy memories of her bedridden days had surfaced. Kathryn vaguely recalled the duke feeding her medicine at one point. And that violin music had accompanied her feverish wanderings. She presumed the duke had been responsible for that, too. He had stopped by her room several times a day after she’d awakened to say hello and to make sure she was all right. The dowager duchess had come, too, expressing her wishes that Kathryn would soon be well.
This morning, Kathryn’s cough almost gone and, feeling significantly better, she had at last been allowed to leave her bed.
She and her sisters were sitting in the conservatory, surrounded by tropical plants and flowers. Lexie and Maddie weren’t looking at the plants, though. Nor did they seem to be interested in the sea view outside the windows.
Their blue eyes were focused exclusively on her. And huge, knowing smiles were plastered on their faces.
