Autumn Rain

by Anita Mills

  She'd thumped, bathed, spooned sustaining broths, and watered him, held his hand to soothe him, listened while he raved until she almost felt a common bond with him, a common struggle for each labored breath. But this night just past had been the worst—for his fever had soared, and he had cried out at unseen demons, denying them. Finally, she'd summoned two of the stouter footmen and between them, they'd managed to soak him in a tub of cool water. He'd calmed then, slipping into a quieter sleep, and she'd come to bed.

  Every muscle ached, every limb was weak from wrestling him down. And to make matters worse, her father, announcing he did not mean to stay where the house was at sixes and sevens, had finally managed to drag her mother home with him, so that for the last two days the ordering of everything had been hers. Even now, when she thought of her parents, she felt guilty, for she'd been too tired to protest, too tired to weep even when they left. She could scarce remember her mother's tearful embrace, her whispered words of encouragement.

  "My lady—?" Mary inquired tentatively from the doorway.

  "I'm not asleep."

  The maid came into the room. "I think we ought ter send fer Beatty." Elinor sat up on the instant, her heart in her throat.

  "He—he's not worse?"

  "He ain't doing nothing."

  Throwing back the covers, Elinor hit the floor running, her mind racing silently, praying. Please—not now—not after what he's been through—not after Charley. You took Charley—surely Longford must not go also.

  When she got there, the room was strangely silent, and she knew the worst had happened. She turned back to Mary. "Tell Dickon to run for the doctor."

  "Already did," the maid admitted.

  Elinor approached the bed gingerly, afraid of what she would find. The flickering light of a hastily lit candle cast an eerie orange and yellow glow to pale skin. Longford looked as though he'd been carved from white marble. Very cautiously, she reached to touch his forehead. It was cool, almost cold, and her stomach knotted.

  "My lord—" She'd lost the battle, and now she was losing what little control she had over herself. She caught at his shoulders, shaking him, screaming at him, "You cannot die! Not now—not after all I have been through!" Her head went down, buried in his shoulder, and she began to weep hysterically. "Why? Why Charley? Why this?" she sobbed. "If there is a God, He does not listen to me!"

  "Lady Kingsley!" Mrs. Peake gasped, shocked. "It's blasphemy!"

  But the sobs racked the girl's body. "I tried—I tried!" It was then that she became aware of movement beneath her. He breathed.

  "Cannot"—it was the merest croak—"breathe," he finished. "Heavy."

  She sat up and wiped at her streaming eyes. "Longford— ?" she whispered.

  "Aye. Been to—hell." He coughed, and the loose rattle was like music to her ears. The congestion was breaking up. "Hell," he murmured again. With an effort, his eyes fluttered open, staring up into hers. "Mistaken—heaven." And he closed them again, leaving her to wonder if he was still out of his head.

  "Gown's soaked," a still-dressing footman observed from behind her shoulder. "Ought to get him dry."

  "Oh—yes, yes—of course." She rose self-consciously, aware now that she'd not even put on her wrapper over her nightgown, that her hair tangled in wild disarray, falling over her shoulders nearly to the dark circles of her nipples beneath the thin lawn gown. "Uh—if you will change him, I shall make myself presentable for Dr. Beatty," she mumbled, crossing her arms over her breasts. Her eyes flitted to Mary. "I think he's better," she offered in understatement. But even as she spoke, she exulted. Longford lived.

  Half an hour later, the physician was confirming it— the fever had broken rather precipitously and showed no sign of coming up again immediately. And a new examination of the shoulder wound revealed that it had all but ceased draining. But most encouraging of all was that awful cough, for it was now producing, bringing up the congestion from his lungs.

  "That'll be with him awhile, I expect," he decided, "but the inflammation's breaking up. Oh, that don't mean to say he's out of the woods yet, you understand, but I'd say he's got a damned good chance of living." He stopped. "Sorry—shouldn't have said that—forget sometimes—should have said 'deuced good chance,' I guess. Mrs. Beatty's always a-getting on me for it."

  "Doctor Beatty, as long as you are telling me the worst is over, you can say anything you want," Elinor insisted gratefully. "Thank you. Thank you." Overwhelmed, she choked back tears.

  "Lady Kingsley, if there is any credit to be given, it's to the Almighty—and you. And so I mean to tell his lordship." He looked at her and smiled. "Best brace yourself, though—fellow's a long way from well. Be weeks before he regains his strength, and in the meantime, he'll run a fever now and again. Still have to keep the lungs draining also, but God willing, he'll soon be able to help you."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Hang himself over the bed while the phlegm is being loosened. Got to keep that up, you know." He gave her a kindly pat on the shoulder. "Best get yourself off to bed and sleep while you can. He'll have bad times yet."

  When she emerged into the hall, Mary was waiting, her lower lip quivering, and then the maid burst into tears. "We done it, my lady! We done it!"

  "It's not over yet," Elinor cautioned her. "Dr. Beatty says it's weeks before he is well."

  "But Dickon was a-listening at the door," the girl admitted. "Heard him say his lordship was a-going ter live!"

  "We hope so." Elinor felt her own heart was nearly filled to overflowing, and she could maintain her calm no longer. "Oh, Mary! We did do it, I think!" She felt a hand on her arm, and when she turned around, there was Mrs. Peake, her sharp features quivering, her eyes red. Wordlessly, Elinor embraced her, holding the thin, stiff body. "Thank you," she whispered.

  "Here now—it was nothing," that woman muttered gruffly. "Christian duty, that's all."

  And there was Daggett waiting also. "My thanks, Mr. Daggett," she told the valet. "I know how very difficult this has been for you, what with my husband and—"

  He nodded. "His lordship would speak with you, madam."

  For a moment, she thought he meant Longford, then she realized it was Arthur. Arthur. In the week past, she'd scarce spared a thought for him. Well, whatever he said to her, whatever names he cast at her, he could not dampen the exhilaration she felt now, the exhilaration of knowing she'd actually done something worthwhile.

  "Yes, of course," she murmured.

  This time, her husband's bedchamber was dark not from being closed up, but rather from the gloomy rain outside. As early as it was, he was sitting, his thin body wrapped in a blanket, looking out the window into the garden below. She sucked in her breath, then exhaled it slowly before she approached him.

  "Good morning, my lord."

  "I hear Longford lives," he rasped.

  "Yes—at least for now."

  "Cannot see you." He lifted a bony hand, motioning her to come around him.

  She moved to face him, standing at the side of the window. For a moment, she looked down, seeing the red roses that climbed the garden wall. When she looked back, her husband was watching her.

  "Look like the very devil—I've seen harridans in the markets as were more kempt than you," he declared sourly.

  "I've not had much time to attend my toilette, I'm afraid."

  "Still got your tongue, I see."

  "My sword and buckler, I suppose."

  His hand reached for what appeared to be a tall, slender book in his lap. "I considered burning this, Elinor," he admitted, "but having read it, I have decided to let you have it."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "The foolish ramblings of a foolish boy—no doubt worth more to you than to me." He held it out and looked away as she took it.

  "What—?"

  "Charles's journal," he said simply. "I collect Longford meant to bring it to you."

  Her exhilaration, her exultation evaporated as she looked at it. Opening it almost caut
iously, she saw the familiar scrawl and felt the painful tightening within her chest. She closed it quickly, not wanting Arthur to see her cry.

  "Thank you, my lord," she whispered.

  He stared out into the rain, and for a moment, she thought he'd not heard her. But finally he spoke. "It's sad reading, you know. I cannot recommend it."

  Her chin quivered and the lump rose in her throat. "He loved you, Arthur."

  "Aye—but you more than me."

  The bleakness in his voice was unmistakable. "Arthur—"

  "I scarce knew him, I'm afraid—or his father either," he mused slowly. "It was always my fortune as came first, and now it was for naught." He looked up at her, his blue eyes rheumy and reddened. "You behold a man with an empty empire, Elinor. A man builds for his heirs, and now I have none. It's all gone but the money."

  For all that he'd railed at her, for all that he'd accused her, calling her whore and worse, she pitied him now. "Arthur, there is yet good to be done." She moved closer, laying a hand on his shoulder, and was surprised when he reached to clasp it.

  "I did not build a fortune to establish hospitals or schools, Elinor—I built it for the Kingsley name—I built it for my blood. I'd thought to know there would be a Kingsley at Stoneleigh after me."

  She let Charles Kingsley's journal slip from her other hand and very gently she brushed the wispy gray hair back from his forehead. "We cannot always have what we would, my lord," she said softly. "God—"

  "God!" he spat. "Pfaugh! What sort of god takes Charles and lets the likes of Longford live?" he demanded angrily. "Do not speak to me of God!"

  Having felt much the same herself before, she had no answer. Instead, she continued smoothing his hair. He stiffened as though he meant to recoil from her, then both his hands came up to hold her waist. His thin shoulders shook, and it was as though their roles were reversed, as though she were the elder and he were the child. For a moment, he wept against her.

  Abruptly, he collected himself and pushed her away. "Go on," he ordered curtly.

  The brief intimacy was over, leaving her once again separate and alone in her grief. She bent to pick up Charles's last recorded words and started to leave.

  "Ought to have burned it," Arthur muttered behind her. "But I could not."

  When she reached the door, she turned back, but he was once again staring out the window, mumbling something more about his empty empire, about how the only relations he had were distant, and every one of them smelled of the shop. What she did not hear was his avowed determination to see that they did not receive a farthing. To him, the notion of a clerk or worse as Baron Kingsley did not bear thinking.

  CHAPTER 23

  While Longford slept, Elinor sat by the window reading Charles's journal for the third time in as many days. The first time, she'd wept bitter tears, the second, she'd tried to picture him as he'd written it, and now she listened as his voice seemed to echo in her ears. Her heart ached terribly, but as she imagined he spoke to her, his words were a sort of catharsis, a healing purge, giving her not memories of a sealed box being lowered into the ground but rather of a boy full of life.

  Mrs. Peake entered the room, her mouth pursed in disapproval. "Lord Townsend is most insistent, my lady, and he will not be denied."

  Bellamy Townsend. Elinor colored guiltily, thinking of how many times she'd sent him away in these ten days past. She started to rise, then thought better of it. "Send him up—no doubt he will wish to see how Longford fares."

  As she heard his footsteps on the carpeted stairs, she laid aside Charles's journal and waited. He crossed the room quickly, his concern evident, and took both her hands.

  "Dear lady—" He stopped, shocked by the fatigue etched in her face. "Oh, my dear—had I only known—"

  "I am quite all right, my lord," she murmured, repossessing her hands. "At least he rests comfortably enough that we can sleep at night."

  "You should have allowed me—or hired assistance," he chided her. "It's beneath you to nurse a man of his stamp."

  "He was dear to Charles," she replied simply. She gestured to the journal. "Charley idolized him, you see. That was what made him wish to be a dragoon."

  From the moment he'd heard that the earl had collapsed at Stoneleigh, Bellamy had denied his jealousy, telling himself that Elinor Kingsley was a paragon merely doing the decent thing. Still, he felt an acute unease. It was one thing to rival a dead man, quite another to have to compete with a wounded hero who had the advantage of the field.

  "Yes, well, the boy was an innocent—too decent to know what he was about yet. Terrible, terrible tragedy— my heart aches for you—and for Arthur, of course." Pulling a chair up beside her, he sat down. "How is Kingsley, by the by?"

  "Better, I think. He seems less inclined to blame and more intent on disappointment."

  He couldn't follow her. "Disappointment?"

  "Yes. Now he is obsessed that he has none to leave his fortune to but me, I think."

  "There must be other heirs surely."

  "None that I have heard of." She sighed. "It's all so pointless, isn't it? After all these years of currying favor, of striving to be other than what he was born, he has achieved a title he is unable to pass on and a fortune he cannot take with him."

  "Poor devil."

  She looked up at that. "I suspect his awareness of those circumstances will make him determined to outlast all of us."

  "I had thought him in serious decline."

  "If I had learned naught else, my lord," she said tiredly, "it's never to underestimate my husband." Then, realizing how she must sound, she smiled wryly. "You must forgive me—I did not mean that I wish him to die."

  "You could not be blamed if you did."

  She was too weary to dissemble. "Oh, I cannot deny there was a time—when first Papa forced me to wed him—that I quite counted on his demise. But now—"

  "Yes?" he prompted.

  "Now that Charley is gone, it does not matter."

  Once again, his hand sought hers, clasping it. "While that first youthful passion is seldom entirely forgotten, Lady Kingsley, I assure you it can be replaced with something far more lasting. Indeed, but I—"

  He got no further. Longford roused, moaning loudly, crying out, "I thirst."

  She pulled away and rose to tend him, leaving Bellamy Townsend in the awkward position of intruding in the sickroom. He rose, saying rather stiffly, "Under the circumstances, dear lady, I ought to take my leave. Perhaps on the morrow you would care to drive out? You have been cooped up far too long, you know, and the air would do you a great deal of good." When she did not answer immediately, he came up behind her as she poured a cup of water, putting his hands on her shoulders, massaging them lightly with an intimacy that ought to have gotten him a sharp set-down. "It will be fall before you know it. Come out while the flowers are still on the hillsides," he coaxed.

  She had scarce breathed any air beyond the sickroom and certainly had had no conversation beyond Longford's illness and Charley's death. For a moment, she considered the invitation, then she nodded. "If it does not rain." As she looked up, she caught the warmth of his smile and added hastily, "And if you promise you will not behave improperly."

  He dropped his hands and stepped back. "My dear Elinor, I shall be whatever you would have me. Indeed, but you must surely know of my regard—that I—"

  Longford moaned again and tossed as though he were in great pain. "Your pardon, my lord," she murmured to Townsend.

  "You know, I meant my earlier offer—I should be happy to attend him to spare you. For all that is in the past between us, I still count him a friend."

  She started to tell him that there was nothing, then relented. "Perhaps you could help me clear his lungs."

  "Anything, my dear—anything." He watched as she sat beside Longford and tried to lift him. "Allow me," he insisted, bracing Lucien while she held the cup to the other man's lips. "Weak as a newborn pup, isn't he?"

  "Yes, but each day is better
than the last one."

  Longford swallowed, then began coughing, holding his sides against the pain. It was a deep, loose rattle. He looked up at Bell. "God's punishment for living," he managed.

  She set the cup aside, ordering, "Lie him down and turn him over, will you? And if you do not mind it, I'd have his head over the side."

  "Why?"

  "We've got to bring that up else he will not get better."

  Bellamy did as she asked, then watched curiously as she began pounding on Longford's back, cupping her hands so as not to hurt him, moving them rhythmically over his ribs. The coughing increased until the earl began to choke and spit.

  "Catch that in the basin," she ordered brusquely.

  "What?"

  "The spittle. Dr. Beatty would see it."

  The viscount was thoroughly revolted, but somehow he managed to slide a small basin beneath Longford's head. His eyes met hers. "Egad. I had no idea—is this what you do?"

  "Yes. It's not precisely pleasant, but it helps."

  "I'd think one of the maids—or a footman—"

  "No. It must be done just so."

  Finally, the earl ceased the awful coughing, and Bell laid him back. "Sorry, old fellow—didn't know."

  "You'll need to turn him over and pull him up onto the pillows," Elinor advised him. "Otherwise he cannot breathe."

  "And you do this by yourself?"

  "Much of the time."

  "You must be fagged nigh to death."

  "Sometimes I think I am," she admitted. "But it keeps me from thinking of Charley."

  "Yes, well, had I known it was like this, I should have been here to assist you, dear lady. As it is, I mean to come back in the mornings that you may rest."

  "Oh, I don't—"

  "Nonsense. I can contrive to keep him tolerably amused as he recovers, I assure you."

  "But there is no need—that is, I—"

  "Longford and I are old acquaintances, my dear." He reached to cover her hand with his. "And I do not mind it." He rose from the bed and started for the door. "Until the morrow, then. And if you have need of me, you have but to send to Leighton's." He looked to Lucien. "I shall look in on you in the morning. Is there aught that you would have me bring you?"