Marquess of Fortune: A Lords of Fate Novel

by K. J. Jackson

  “Good,” Garek said, his eyes closing for a long breath as he tried not to inhale the scent of her hair. Citrus. Lemons. She always smelled bright, even in this sickly room.

  She turned her face to him, her nose almost touching his cheek as she smiled. “I want to strangle the infection away. That is my problem, I have determined.”

  He looked down at Brianna’s leg. Lily had finished wrapping the two cuts. How long had she been waiting for him to move from her? Garek’s hands left the back of hers, his fingers trailing even as he abruptly took a step away from her body.

  He exhaled, instantly regretting having to move from her, and hoping she never got good enough at the wrapping that she wouldn’t ask for his help.

  Garek walked back to the table, picking up the pestle. “That could very well be—you have been nothing but angry at that leg of Brianna’s, so I do not think your problem is confidence.” He smirked at her. “So to temper your annoyance with her leg, how about moving onto draining the next two cuts?”

  Lily wrinkled her nose, turning to pick up the syringe. She hated draining the pus and infection, he knew. But each time he asked her to do it, she did so without complaint. Tortured faces, yes, but no complaints.

  She pulled the side table close to her and set to work on clearing the next two cuts. It only took a few minutes for her voice to interrupt the clacking of his pestle against the mortar.

  “Take my mind away from pus, Garek. If I have to do this, at least I can be thinking on something else.”

  “What would you like to think about?”

  She paused with the syringe, pulling herself straight and looking out the window at the grey sky. “How about this?” Her hand swept over his set of surgical tools splayed along the side table. “Tell me what you meant last week when you said it was easy to become a surgeon after you witnessed what you have.”

  Garek’s look slipped downward from Lily’s face to the gleaming silver tools as she turned back to work on Brianna’s leg.

  “My uncle had paid for my education at Oxford, and I had earned my physician’s license only six months before I disappeared into the war on the continent. I quickly learned the only useful doctor on those battlefields was a surgeon. Tapping upon one’s chest and taking a pulse did little good for a man with his leg blasted to pieces. So as fast as I could, I learned everything and anything I could about how to properly put a body back together after trauma.”

  Garek’s mouth went to a grim smile. “So many deaths. But I was actually useful. Saving men in a very real way. When I returned to England, I wanted to learn everything I could in the field of surgery. So I apprenticed for years with a doctor who was both a physician and a surgeon—the best in the country, a genius.”

  “Dr. Halowell?”

  “Yes. But it was expensive, his tutelage. And then I had to leave.”

  Lily glanced up at him, her eyebrows arched. He recognized he had abruptly cut his story short. But he wasn’t about to speak to why he had left London.

  For all the questions in her eyes, she let the topic slide. “You have only mentioned your uncle. What of your mother, your father?”

  Garek’s hand on the pestle sped. One testy topic to the next.

  “My father died when I was three, I then had a stepfather until I was seven when my mother died.” His voice was curt—too curt and he knew it.

  Lily’s eyes whipped to him, but then she hid her face, setting down the syringe to grab a wet sponge. She concentrated on cleaning one of the cuts on Brianna’s leg. “Your voice softens when you mention your uncle, Garek. I assume he was kind to you?”

  “He was a good man, my uncle—my father’s brother. He raised me after my mother died. He taught me what it was to be a man. To take responsibility for my life.”

  Lily nodded, not looking his way. “And your stepfather?”

  “Not a good man. But he did teach me how to fight in his own way.”

  “His own way?” She set the sponge down and expelled dark pus from the syringe into a bowl on the table.

  “He enjoyed beating me several times a week. But those were the good days.”

  Lily turned fully to him on the chair, her blue eyes focusing on him. “And on the bad?”

  Garek’s hands stilled, and he dropped the pestle and mortar to the table. “He would beat my mother.”

  Lily inhaled, her lips sucking inward as her hand went to her belly.

  “She died at his hands, thrown into a brick wall—it was why I became interested in medicine. She died with her head in my lap. Her bloody head. Bruised cheek. Temple split open.” His eyes shifted to the fire, his head shaking as memories of a little boy filled his mind without warning. “I could do nothing. My hand over the wound on her head. The warm blood squeezing through my fingers. Begging her to wake up. Begging.”

  He heaved a breath, his eyes shutting hard as he pushed long dead images from haunting his mind. “But she didn’t. And I could not help her. I did not know what to do.”

  Lily’s voice, soft and sweet, eased into the air. “So your uncle took you in?”

  Garek realized she had moved from the bedside to stand in front of him. He opened his eyes to see her gaze liquid with tears, one slipping down her face as she looked up at him. Not only sympathy in her eyes, but true, guttural pain at what a little boy had suffered. What he had suffered.

  He swallowed hard, nodding. “Yes, my uncle did. The first time I met him was at my mother’s burial. He came up to me, a big, burly man with lots of furs around his neck. ‘You can come with me boy. Get in the carriage,’ he said. He sat me down across from him as we rolled away, and all I could do was look back to the mound of dirt, the dark grey headstone disappearing from the corner of the window.”

  Garek’s fingers went to the back of his neck, rubbing. “He stared at me for at least ten minutes, and then he banged his cane on the floor of the carriage, his booming voice filling the air. ‘You are of age soon, boy, so what is it that you want most in life?’ he asked.”

  “What was your answer?”

  Garek shrugged. “That I never wanted to have to watch someone I love die again.”

  “Garek—”

  The pain echoing in the one word made him cut her off. “My uncle smiled at the answer—big and rollicking, and then he settled back on his seat. ‘Well then, boy, let us make that happen,’ he said. And that was it. I have been on no other path since.”

  “Garek—”

  He opened his mouth to cut her words short again, but her hand went onto his chest, stopping him.

  “No. Let me speak. I can see you do not want me to expound on how horrible her death was for you—we can both clearly recognize it was. I just wanted to say that your mother must have been a remarkable woman, to raise a boy that would take what could have been a lifetime of anger and instead, turn it into a lifetime of compassion.” Her fingers curled on his chest. “You do her honor, Garek.”

  His throat clamping, Garek nodded, having to force words. “She was remarkable, Lily.”

  “Then you were lucky.” Lily’s hand dropped from his chest and she spun, slowly walking over to Brianna. Her voice was thick as she stopped by her sister’s leg. “You said no salve on these two cuts, correct? They are ready to wrap if you would observe again?”

  Garek followed Lily, assuming the same position behind her as earlier. His hands slid along the back of her hands—smooth still, even if her skin was slightly rougher from the many washings in the past week.

  Lily started to wrap the linen around the middle two cuts in Brianna’s leg.

  Perfect.

  Garek contemplated for a moment on correcting her on some minor thing, just so she wouldn’t abandon his help.

  Instead, he cleared his throat, his voice low over her shoulder. “What happened to your mother, Lily? You never speak of her.”

  “She died in childbirth.”

  “How old were you? Do you remember her?”

  “She died having me.” Lily loo
ked over to Brianna’s face, rushing on. “But Papa and Bree made sure there was never a moment where I felt I missed having a mother. Bree has always taken care of me, and Papa—he was the best father, always had time for me. And the viscount was the best uncle, even if we were not related.”

  “Did you always live here at Weadly Hall?”

  “Yes, always. We have always been this happy family. Well, at least until…”

  Her hands sped, tightening the linen strip. Garek squeezed her knuckles, stilling her.

  Her chin dropped. “Too tight?”

  “Only for the last go around.”

  She loosened the cloth, going around Brianna’s leg again, this time, agonizingly slow, but in control.

  “You miss him, your father?”

  “Every day.” At the end of the cloth, Garek’s hands dropped away and she leaned forward, pinning the wrap so it didn’t unwind. She stood straight, her eyes on Brianna’s face as her back brushed across the front of Garek. Her fingers fiddled on the sheet of the bed. “I miss him until my heart pains me.”

  She spun, looking up at Garek. Tears had flooded her eyes again, even as her mouth stretched wide in a flat smile.

  “But missing Papa is not going to bring him back. Not going to heal Brianna. So I am trying to move, and keep moving, whether I want to or not. I have to—Bree needs me to.” She glanced over her shoulder to her sister. “Even if everything within me is dark—heavy, I can move. I can put on a smile. Fake life.”

  He needed to resist.

  He knew it.

  Yet Garek lifted his hand, slipping his fingers along her cheek, his palm cradling her jaw.

  She didn’t resist, her head tilting, her blue eyes closing as she leaned into the touch.

  “You do not need to fake anything in front of me, Lils.”

  Her eyes flew open. “That—Lils. It is what Bree calls me.”

  “I should stop.”

  Her fingers came up, wrapping along the back of his hand cupping her face. Holding him in place. “No. Please do not. It is a comfort. Just as you have been every minute since you appeared by the abbey.”

  A tear escaped out past her eyelids, sliding down her cheek. Garek’s thumb moved up, swiping it away.

  She offered an apologetic smile. “You must be tired of wiping my tears. Again and again when I break.”

  “I am tired of nothing, Lils.” Garek stared at her lower lip, thick and plump. Waiting to be kissed, whether she knew it or not. Waiting to be sucked, bitten, loved. He inhaled, calming the sudden throb between his legs, the urges he had no right to even broach.

  She nodded, her blue eyes wide, watching him.

  He needed to leave this place.

  Leave before he couldn’t. Leave and finish what his responsibilities demanded of him. Leave before he failed this woman.

  Garek cleared his throat, the only thought in his head spilling from his mouth before he could stop it. “What if your sister does not come back, Lily—what if I cannot save her?”

  Her smile at him widened. A true smile, crinkling the corners of her eyes. “You will save her, Garek. There is not a shadow in my mind that doubts it.”

  He tried to hold the frown from forming on his face before he dropped his hand and turned from her.

  Staring at the small jars from the traveling apothecary on the table, Garek let the frown settle.

  If Brianna died.

  Hell.

  What Lily would go through.

  The look she would give him.

  He gave himself a shake.

  He could not watch Lily suffer like that. Could not watch her be destroyed.

  { Chapter 4 }

  “You lied to me.”

  Left hand landing on her hip, Lily skidded to a stop, her stance wide in front of the main entrance to Weadly Hall.

  Her right hand flattened onto her chest as she gasped for air, craning her neck to stare up at Garek atop his horse. She had seen him approach from the window in Brianna’s room, and running through the house to meet him on the gravel drive had left her little breath for words.

  His face darkened, grave concern etching his brow. “I did?”

  “You told me two weeks ago you thought Brianna would wake.” Lily kept her voice even as she squinted, the cloud-covered sun a wispy orange spot behind his head.

  He offered one slow, careful nod. “I did say that.” He swung his leg over the horse and jumped down from the saddle.

  “But you did not just think it—you knew it.” A smile spread wide across her face. “You must have known it.”

  “What?”

  “Bree—she woke up, Garek. She talked to me. Not fevered mutterings. True talking. Her eyes are clear—lucid.” Lily could hold it in no longer. She ran at him, her body crashing into his as she tackled him around the neck. “She is awake. Awake, awake, awake.”

  Lily could feel the relief sweep through his shoulders as he laughed, wrapping her in his arms and swinging her in a circle.

  He set her to her feet, his hands going to her shoulders to pull back and look at her face. “She woke while I was in town?”

  Lily nodded, giggling at the disbelief still in his eyes. “She did, Garek. She woke and we talked—she is sore all over—weak—but she smiled at me. Said I looked horrible. Asked me why my hair was in such disarray. She is confused, but awake—truly awake.”

  Garek’s eyes closed, his head shaking. A smile crept onto his lips.

  Lily clamped her arms around his neck again, smothering him in another hug with a laugh. His arms hesitated and then went around her back, clasping her to his chest.

  “You did this, Garek. You.” Lily turned her mouth to his ear. “You brought her back to me. Thank you—I owe you so much—everything.”

  He peeled away from her again, his hands moving up to cup her face. “No, you did this, Lily. You are the one that saved her from Dr. Rugbert. The one that has not left her side. The one that has refused to give up on her. The one that brought me here and convinced me to stay—against my own better judgement, I must say.”

  Lily stared into his dark hazel eyes, the blue flecks vibrant in the warm glow of the sky. “And your judgement now?”

  His lips were on hers in one swift motion, kissing her.

  Shock fired through Lily, but she didn’t pull away, didn’t resist the sudden tingle down her spine. Didn’t resist because it felt so natural—so exactly what she should be doing in that very moment.

  Even though she had been consumed with Brianna the past weeks, she knew full well she had grown overly attached to Garek.

  It had been impossible not to.

  Minute after minute, hour after hour they had spent together in Brianna’s room. What had felt like a lifetime with this man.

  And though Lily hadn’t allowed her mind to fully drift into these waters—into thinking of Garek as more than her sister’s physician—there had been far too many nights, deep in the dark, where she had watched him, imagining this very thing.

  Imagining his arms around her. His lips on hers. His voice low and heated, uttering her name. In the darkness of night, in weakness, she had not been able to stop her wandering thoughts.

  In a rush, every denied thought of Garek flooded her mind and she let her lips mold under his, the sensation sending her dizzy and leaning into him for support.

  He drew away. Soon. Too soon. But then he looked down at her with heat so clear in his eyes she wondered how he managed to break the kiss.

  “There. That is my judgement, Lily.” His fingers pressing into her back, his voice dropped to roughness. “I was very wrong to have doubted staying here, to helping your sister. And I have found myself at the maddening point where I have been denying myself this very act—kissing you—for days. Do I need to apologize?”

  Her eyes dove downward, staring at the lapel of his great coat as her fingers moved to her own lips, gently touching the warmth of where his skin had been. “No. No apology. Not in the slightest.”

  Her
look crept up to meet his. “I was curious how that would feel, how you would feel. I imagined this—late at night, watching you in Bree’s room. I was curious, but I never imagined it would be so…breathtaking.” Her fingers slipped off her lips. “And I had never dared to think you would want the same of me.”

  He smiled, one of his hands releasing her body and coming up to brush a loose lock of hair from her temple. “Do you always say exactly what you are thinking, Lily?”

  “You have not yet learned that about me?”

  “I have, but with this—I am surprised by such candor—the lack of coyness.”

  “Well, I can attempt to be more coy, if you would like. It would make Bree happy—she hates my inability to filter my words.”

  “I do not mind. Especially in this instance.”

  Her fingers went to the lapel of his great coat, fingering the edge. Head tilting down, she looked up at him through her lashes. “You have been waiting how long to do that?”

  “Quite coy.” Garek chuckled, squeezing her to him as his free hand slipped along her jaw. “But if you must know, I have been staring at you for days over Brianna’s bed, Lily. Watching every movement you made. Looking forward to the smirk you get on your face when you want to ignore death and tease me to lighten my mood. Make me smile.”

  Without warning, his hands dropped away from both her jaw and her waist to cross behind his back. He moved a step backward, leaving her suddenly very cold in the chilly air.

  “But you do not owe me a thing, Lily. I did what I did for Brianna because I could help, not because I wanted something from you. If you tell me that this, that what I see in your eyes, how you look at me, is not there—is not true—then I will never touch you again. I swear it.”

  Her heart pounding at his words, at the mere thought of him never touching her again, she took a step forward, leaving no space between them. She looked up to his eyes. “You already have your answer, Garek. You see the truth far too clearly in me.”

  “And you are far too honest, Lily.” His arms withdrew from behind him, and his hand went to her temple, his fingers following the line of her hair into the simple braid she had weaved. “Then you should know I have wanted to do this for weeks—hell, since the moment I saw you swinging that hammer in the moonlight. And then these last two weeks—every second has only magnified my want of you.”