by Jo Goodman
She had meant only to set him back on his heels, but perhaps she had succeeded in knocking him down. He had grown quite still, revealing nothing save for the fact that he was a patient man. Cybelline wondered then, as she wondered now, if she had reason to be afraid.
She abandoned that notion when the Sharpe house appeared before her. Her heart lightened, and she lifted her head in spite of the icy air that greeted her. The structure looked rather grand for something that had been sadly neglected these past six months. Snow covered the patching on the roof that Mr. Henley had never been able to complete, and icicles hung all along the eaves so the chipped paint was not the first detail one noticed. Heavy dollops of snow lay across the boxwoods and shrubbery. The evidence that all of it was wildly uneven and badly in need of trimming was not to be found.
The steps had been swept, but they were all that was uncovered. Snow had even been driven into the mortar between the ochre bricks. It veiled the windows and capped the lintels. It crested on the lip of the roof and mounded around the chimneys. Cybelline found herself enchanted by what she saw and wondered if Lady Beatrice Sharpe had ever known the same feeling of contentment upon coming home.
“Mrs. Caldwell?”
Cybelline was belatedly aware that Ferrin was standing beside the mare, waiting to assist her dismount. She could not say how long he had been there or what he thought about her daydreaming. He was as still as he’d been at the kitchen table, a man in expectation of something she did not properly understand.
“Your hand, if you will.”
Cybelline had to smile to herself. She understood that well enough. She placed her gloved hand in his and did her best to ignore the frisson of awareness that crept up her spine.
Ferrin helped her down from the saddle and pressed the upturned collar of her pelisse against her cheeks. “You are cold, Mrs. Caldwell. Go inside. Quickly.”
She didn’t move. Couldn’t. He did not seem to be aware that his hands remained on her collar. The fur pressed warmly against her cheeks, but it was as if his palms were there. She knew what it was to have his hands on her face. In the dark stairwell, his fingers had traced the shape of her nose and fluttered across her eyebrows. He had placed his thumb on her bottom lip and separated it from her upper one. Her tongue had touched the pad of his thumb. She recalled that he had shivered then, just as she shivered now.
Ferrin’s hands dropped away suddenly. He stepped to one side and began to unstrap the valise. Cybelline knew she was supposed to take advantage of his apparent preoccupation, but like the statuary in the park, she stayed just as she was, frozen in place.
“Go!”
Cybelline jerked. He had fairly growled the command, but it had taken all of that to move her. She hurried away, not daring to look back. The door opened under the pressure she applied and she disappeared into the entrance hall.
Out of the corner of his eye, Ferrin watched her go. If he’d had Boudicca’s spear with him, he would have gladly thrown himself on the sharp end of it. Just now it seemed as good a solution as any to what he faced.
Then it occurred to him to wonder if perhaps Nicholas Caldwell had once felt the very same.
Chapter Seven
“Come away from the door, Miss Anna.” Nanny Baker delivered the instruction firmly, with every expectation that she would be obeyed. When the little girl continued to tug at the door handle, Nanny picked her up and gave her a direct scold. “Your mother is ill, Miss Anna, too ill to receive visitors. Come, we will go to the kitchen and see if Mrs. Minty has a treat for you.”
Listening from her bed on the other side of the door, Cybelline could not make out her daughter’s reply. Anna’s voice did not carry into the room in the same manner that Nanny Baker’s did. She strained to hear more but caught only Nanny’s retreating footfalls. Cybelline had managed only to throw back the covers and sit up during that time. She hadn’t been able to put her legs over the side.
She collapsed back on the bed, exhausted by this small effort. It was just as well that she hadn’t left the bed. She could not have traveled the distance to the sitting room without assistance. Her breath was ragged and rough from what little she had done. Her heart raced. She lay quietly, unmoving, trying to calm both.
She had given instructions that Anna must not visit her, so she could not fault Nanny Baker for carrying them out, yet when her child was removed from the door, it seemed more punishment than protection. Cybelline had no hope that Anna could be made to understand why she was being kept away. No child could grasp the danger of being in the same room with a mother who was as ill as she was.
The physician concurred with her decision upon his first visit and had not changed his mind. He had come again this morning, listened to her lungs and heart, and announced that she must be bled again. Cybelline offered a mild protest that the treatment was not improving her health, but Dr. Epping explained that in cases such as hers it was not unusual to require a dozen treatments to release all the bad humors from the blood. She gave over her arm to the procedure and watched her blood pool in the bowl under her elbow with hardly any sense that she was the donor.
Cybelline pulled the covers up to her neck again and turned carefully on her side. Webb had been there, she remembered, standing stoically at the bedside while the doctor inserted the sharpened glass straw to begin the blood flow. She could not say whether Webb watched, but when the doctor departed, Cybelline noted that Webb’s countenance no longer held any color. It begged the question as to which one of them was bled.
The door to the bedchamber opened and Webb appeared carrying a tray with the post on it. She brought it to the bedside table and set it down. She stood over the bed, regarding her mistress.
“I was thinking of you, Webb,” Cybelline said. It was a strain to speak loudly enough to be understood. Laryngitis had claimed her voice not three days earlier. Dr. Epping had suggested tea with honey and a dram of whisky and a warm compress to place across her throat. Like every other aspect of her illness, her voice had not improved. “Thinking of you and you have come. Perhaps I am developing powers of the mind to compensate for having no corporeal strength. Did you feel me will you here?”
“What a lot of nonsense,” Webb said. “As if I hold with such. And you should not be speaking. Resting your voice is what’s called for.”
“You sound like Nanny Baker scolding Anna.”
“God’s truth, I hope not. But it must be said that you are as willful as your daughter. Can you not remain quiet?”
Cybelline found strength enough to smile. “You should not ask questions then.” She closed her eyes. A moment later she felt a warm, damp flannel pressed against her forehead. Light fingers brushed her hair back; the flannel touched her cheeks, the underside of her chin, and was wiped gently down her throat. “You are good to me, Webb.”
“I’d do better by you if I could keep you from talking.” She removed the flannel. “Shall I brush your hair?” The maid added quickly, “You’ve only to nod or shake your head.”
Cybelline nodded.
Webb retrieved Cybelline’s brush from the adjoining dressing room, then helped her sit up. She crawled onto the bed behind her mistress and employed the brush with a steady hand. “It’s a nest for birds,” Webb said, carefully working out the tangles. “All your lovely hair come to this. And after what we did to get all that devil’s red out. There’s a shame.”
“Mmm.”
Cybelline’s eyes remained closed while Webb worked. A languor spread across her shoulders and limbs that was entirely different from the fatigue she’d experienced earlier. She could have submitted to this particular treatment for hours yet, so she was disappointed when the sense of contentment vanished as Webb became more hesitant in the application of the brush. “What is it, Webb? You have something to say. I can tell.” Behind her, she heard her maid take a deep breath as though bracing herself for some unpleasantness. When Webb remained quiet, Cybelline used a threat to achieve results. “I shall recite the enti
re “Quality of Mercy” speech from The Merchant of Venice if you do not—”
“Stop!” Webb underscored this uncharacteristic sharp tone with a hard tug of the brush. “Please, Mrs. Caldwell, you will have no voice to use at all.”
Cybelline was not unaware of the depth of her maid’s distress. She remained quiet and waited her out.
“I have it in my mind that I should take it upon myself to write to your aunt and brother. I know you have expressly forbidden it, but I cannot help but think it is wrong for you to do so. It seems to me that they will want to know that you are ill. It has been a fortnight since you took to your bed, and I am not—”
Cybelline had heard quite enough. Without conscious thought, she touched her throat with her fingertips as though in support of her voice. “I have corresponded with both of them. You know I have. You posted the letters yourself.”
“I suppose I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.” Webb squared her narrow shoulders and went on. “I know you’ve written but not what you’ve written, and this last seems to be the important thing. It’s my opinion that one or other of your family would have arrived already if you’d told them the truth, and since you will not permit me to write to them, I think you have not been honest.”
“I take it you are not alone in this opinion.”
“I haven’t discussed it with anyone. It’s not my place.”
“But you hear things.”
“No, I don’t. I make it a point not to hear things.” Webb gathered up her skirts and moved off the bed. “Please, will you not at least write to Lord Sheridan?”
“After Christmas. If I am not improved by Christmas, I will inform him.” Cybelline saw Webb’s mouth thin disapprovingly, but her brief nod suggested she accepted this decision. “And you will not write, either, Webb. I am set on this matter.”
Webb’s lips were now pressed so tightly together that her mouth disappeared.
“The quality of mercy is not strained, it droppeth—”
Webb capitulated. “Enough. It will be as you wish. You know I will not disobey you.”
Cybelline nodded and reached for Webb’s hand. She missed on her first attempt, and her maid had to step closer to the bed and take up the hand when Cybelline tried again. “I rely on you, Webb. Perhaps too much. Am I such a great burden?”
“No, m’lady. Nothing of the kind.”
Cybelline felt a heaviness steal over her limbs again. The hand that Webb held went limp. She found her voice, but it was little more than a thread of sound now. “I think I will lie down.”
“Of course.” Webb released Cybelline’s hand and supported her shoulders, helping her lie back. She eased one pillow from under Cybelline’s head, plumped it, then replaced it. Even after Cybelline’s eyes closed, she did not leave her side. “He was here again this morning,” she said quietly, “not long after Dr. Epping left. Mrs. Henley told him that you would not see him, that you were ill. I don’t think he believed her.”
Cybelline nodded faintly. “Mr. Wellsley has a suspicious nature.”
Webb had to lean close to make out her mistress’s words. She straightened slowly, shaking her head. “I think it is something more. He comes every other day. Mrs. Henley is finding it more difficult to turn him away; he is most insistent. He brought crutches for Mr. Henley, if you can believe it. I think he made them himself, or perhaps Mr. Lowell crafted them and they were Mr. Wellsley’s design. I do not know all the particulars, but I could see for myself that Mr. Henley is getting around ever so much better than before.”
Webb drew a breath to say more, then held her tongue. Cybelline’s breathing was labored and harsh, but she was sleeping. Webb laid the back of her hand against her mistress’s forehead. She was warm to the touch, and Webb sensed another fever would soon be upon her.
“Forgive me, m’lady,” Webb whispered, withdrawing her hand, “but I cannot allow you to go so easily as he did.”
It was nightfall when Ferrin arrived at the Sharpe house for the second time that day. This trip was by invitation, though not by the mistress of the house. Webb had dispatched Mr. Kins to the Pembroke cottage to fetch him. Mrs. Lowell quickly packed a valise for him, and Mr. Lowell offered to bring the rest of his things by wagon in the morning, as Ferrin would accept no delay in departing.
An unexpected spell of warm weather, highly unusual in December, had melted much of the snow since the storm. The road was passable, even bare in some places, and only where trees closely bordered it and blocked the sun was there still evidence of the drifts that had impeded travel.
In expectation of Ferrin’s arrival, Mrs. Henley watched from the window in the front drawing room. As soon as she spied him breaking through the trees on his great Irish beast, she hurried to the door and threw it open. One of the grooms ran from the stable to assist Ferrin and take his horse.
Inside, Ferrin handed over his hat, gloves, and crop to Mrs. Henley. “Is she up there?” he asked, lifting his chin toward the stairs.
“Yes, sir. I’ll take you right away, sir.”
Webb appeared at the top of the steps. “Do not trouble yourself, Mrs. Henley. This way, Mr. Wellsley. I’ll show you to her room.”
Ferrin did not bother to remove his coat. He unbuttoned it as he climbed the stairs. When he reached the top it was to discover that the maid had placed herself squarely in the middle of the hallway. Ferrin towered over her, but she was unmoved by the disparity in their heights. One hand rested on her hip; the other held a candlestick. She raised it slightly, while she gave as good as she got, studying him as if she meant to have him for dinner if she did not approve of what she saw or heard.
“You are Miss Webb,” he said. She could be no other. Ferrin had read that on the grass plains of Africa such fierce protectiveness could be found in a lioness for her cubs. In society, one had to look no further than a lady’s maid for evidence of the same. “Mr. Kins said you are the one who requested that I come.” Though he was out of all patience for civility, he inclined his head. He judged it was to his advantage to win this woman over. “I am Mr. Wellsley.”
She curtseyed but did not give ground. “I fear you will find me impertinent, Mr. Wellsley, but I cannot apologize for it. My mistress is very ill, and I will do whatever is necessary to make certain she regains her health. She will not permit me to send word to either her aunt or her brother, and neither will she put the truth of her condition to paper.”
“But surely a physician has been summoned.”
“Yes. Dr. Epping from Bell’s Folly. There is no one else. He is the same doctor who treated Mr. Henley after his fall.”
Far from inspiring confidence, this intelligence made Ferrin want to pick up Miss Webb and put her out of his way. “Then you will show me to Mrs. Caldwell immediately.” This was apparently the response she was hoping for, because she turned on her heel and began walking away. Ferrin followed her through a series of connecting sitting and sleeping rooms until she came to a door left slightly ajar. She placed her hand on one of the raised panels and held it there, glancing at him over her shoulder. He could see clearly that her handsome features were sharpened by concern. Whether it was doubt she harbored about him or some question about her own course of action, he couldn’t say. He judged that she was most likely only a few years older than he, yet it was difficult to know given the finely etched creases at her eyes and the corners of her mouth.
“She will not want you here,” Webb said, her eyes anxious.
“I know.” He removed his greatcoat and folded it over his arm. “You have done right by your mistress, Webb. Go on. Open the door.”
Nodding, Webb gave it a slight push. She stepped aside to permit Ferrin to precede her.
He passed her his coat and went straightaway to the bed. He thought he had adequately prepared himself for what he would find. He had not been able to imagine this.
She had dropped a stone’s weight, and that was a kind estimate. The bones of her face stood out sharply. There were de
fined hollows in her cheeks and the same at her temples. Her great abundance of honey-colored hair was scraped back from her forehead in such a fashion that it gave clear form to the shape of her skull. Even the candlelight at her bedside could not lend color to her face. Her skin was very nearly translucent. Just above the neat fold of the quilt that covered her torso, he could make out the thrust of her collarbone through her thin cotton shift. One of her arms rested outside the blankets. He regarded the fragile overturned wrist and the starkly outlined webbing of blue veins.
He gestured Webb over to the bed. She placed his coat across the back of one of the chairs and joined him. “How is she called by her family?” he asked.
“Cybelline, sir.”
Cybelline. He hadn’t known. Ferrin circled Cybelline’s wrist with his thumb and forefinger and raised it slightly. With his other hand, he pushed up the sleeve of her nightgown so that he could examine her elbow. “Bring the light closer.”
Webb stretched forward and held the candlestick steady.
“How many times has she been bled?” he asked. “I count at least three scars.”
“The doctor does it every time he comes and he’s been here five times.”
Ferrin rolled the sleeve down and reached under the covers for Cybelline’s other arm. He made the same examination of it. “Two more. It is a wonder that she has not been exsanguinated.”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“Bled dry.”
Webb shuddered as much at the darkness of his tone as the import of the words themselves. “It did seem rather like a lot of blood to me. My own mother was bled, so I know the efficacy of the treatment, but my poor lady, she never seemed to recover the way a body should.”
Ferrin suppressed his own shudder. The more he read in the medical journals, the more he doubted that bleeding had anything to support it. If patients recovered, it was because they had a constitution capable of surviving the treatment, not because the treatment itself was proven. He was acquainted with several physicians who no longer practiced it and cautioned others against it. They were radicals, according to many of their colleagues, especially since they had no certain course of treatment to replace it, and their thinking had not gained wide favor.
