Persistent Earl : Signet Regency Romance (9781101578841)

by Eastwood, Gail

  Minutes later, Phoebe knocked softly on the door of the guest room that had been prepared for the earl. Edward himself admitted her. She had wondered if Devenham would be awake, but she saw at a glance that he was not. She was pleased to find only two others in the room with them. Edward introduced her to the doctor and to Mullins, who did not leave his post by the bed, but bowed respectfully.

  Phoebe’s eyes strayed back to the earl, taking in again his handsome features. He did not look like any of the things he was said to be—rakehell, card shark, womanizing officer, daring hero. He looked like an overgrown boy. She forced her gaze away when the doctor addressed her.

  “I understand from Sir Edward that you are a widow, Lady Brodfield. Forgive me, but may I ask if you nursed your husband before he died?”

  “No, my husband died quite suddenly and unexpectedly,” she answered with only a small tremor in her voice. Apparently the doctor knew nothing about it. She was surprised by the calmness with which she was able to reply.

  “I do apologize.” The doctor was obviously nonplussed. “The only reason I asked was—”

  “It is all right, doctor,” Phoebe interrupted him. If he fussed and spluttered, it would only make the conversation more painful. “I understand completely. You are just trying to ascertain whether or not I have any nursing experience. I can tell you that I spent much of my childhood in the country. We did a good deal of our own physicking, of both animals and humans. I am familiar with most of the usual remedies and procedures, if there is nothing out of the ordinary required?”

  “Lady Brodfield seems to have a natural gift, Doctor Fortens, although she is too modest to say so,” Edward added approvingly. “I think you will find her an able assistant.”

  The doctor looked at Phoebe dubiously. How well she recognized that look! She had become accustomed to it almost as soon as she was old enough to catch a man’s eye. She had learned that men found her attractive, and that look said, “Can a woman this attractive also be capable?” She forced an encouraging smile.

  “I see,” said the doctor, turning his eyes toward his patient and the loyal servant beside the bed. “Well, I suppose we must be grateful for your help. Mullins here cannot care for his master around the clock, although he is inclined to try.

  “As you know, Lord Devenham was wounded at Waterloo. I have no wish to offend you. Will you permit me to speak frankly? He has a deep saber cut in his upper right thigh, really just a few inches below his hip. He was very lucky that such a vicious cut did not break the bone. In fact, he was doubly lucky. He was wounded in the left shoulder covering the retreat from Quatre Bras the day before. He patched himself up and went on as if nothing had happened. I don’t know why the damned fool didn’t bleed to death after the second wound,” he added softly, shaking his head as if talking only to himself. Recovering suddenly, he said, “I beg your pardon, Lady Brodfield!”

  “Pray go on.”

  “He was fortunate enough to find a bed in Brussels, where he and Mullins have been these many weeks since the battle. He survived the fever from the infection, and his wounds seemed to be healing well, as I understand it. He believed himself strong enough to make the trip home. Unfortunately, the rigors of the journey have set him back. His shoulder is doing well, but the leg wound opened again, and he is back to the state he was in at Brussels, having only come this far on his journey.

  “I have dosed him rather heavily with laudanum so he would not suffer too greatly the discomforts of this move. His dressings need frequent changing, and he needs constant attention to combat the fever. I will leave you some basilicum for his wound and some laudanum for the pain. You know that it is essential not to exceed the number of drops that I prescribe?”

  Phoebe nodded.

  “I regret to say that he is not a very cooperative patient.”

  Phoebe smiled a genuine smile at that. “Do you not find that to be the case with most of your male patients, Doctor Fortens?”

  The good doctor had the grace to return her smile. “Perhaps I should not say so, but I find the earl to be particularly stubborn. It seems only fair to warn you. The laudanum will be a helpful ally, as long as you are careful with it. It is essential that Lord Devenham be kept quiet and inactive. The blood loss and the ravages of the fevers have left him weaker than a newborn.”

  The doctor paused and began to arrange on the table beside him a small collection of bottles. “I have no wish to frighten you, but you must know the seriousness of what you are undertaking. He is not altogether out of danger yet. I have told him this myself, but he does not seem to care.”

  The doctor suddenly sounded tired and discouraged, and Phoebe felt sorry for him. At the same time, she heard in his words the sound of a challenge. If Devenham didn’t care to get well, why had he bothered to put Edward and Judith to such trouble as to have him here?

  She glanced at Mullins and for a moment their eyes locked. In his she thought she could read both hope and determination. Obviously, he cared, even if the earl did not. That in itself was interesting, something to be tucked away for later consideration. Meanwhile, she could be determined, too. No patient in her care would be allowed to languish if she could help it. She tried to convey that message to the manservant in her steady gaze and was pleased to see him smile. She did not have to like the earl to want to make him well.

  ***

  The forces at work in the earl’s body were every bit as much at war as the grim armies conjured up by his brain. The restless, tortured dreams from his fever mixed with otherworldly opium visions both fantastical and soothing in an ebb and flow that mimicked perfectly the varying tides of battle. He somehow knew that the dreamworld was of his own making; nevertheless, he could not escape from it.

  He had been surrounded by flames—no matter which way he turned, he had faced walls of fire. Choking on smoke and nearly drowning in the sweat that poured off his body, he knew there was someone beyond the walls of flame—someone who needed him. Somehow he had to get through. Then, as he moved through the fire, the leaping flames had become horses pounding toward him and past him with wild, rolling eyes. French cuirassiers’ blades flashed in the strange light.

  He saw his friend Brownell riding through the smoke ahead of him, going the wrong way, he thought, but he couldn’t go after him, for his own horse had been shot out from under him. So he shouted, lost in the dark chaos—shouted for Brownell, shouted for a horse, shouted for an end to the nightmare. And then before him he saw his friend Fitzmorris, pinned to the ground by a French bayonet, reaching his arms out for help.

  Blood and sweat mingled as he cradled his dying friend. The dream seemed too real, for he could even smell the putrid odor of the smoke and sweat. Yet suddenly the grotesque dancing shadows around them were chased away by a flood of light, and a sense of soothing comfort came over him. He smelled rosemary, only it wasn’t rosemary, for it was mixed with something else, a light, airy, delicate scent he couldn’t identify.

  He surrendered to it gratefully, exhausted, and for a moment he floated. He floated through clouds and looked down upon vast cities that appeared to be made of gold. Through their streets marched processions of great personages he thought he might know. His sense of relief was so great, he wondered if he had died. He saw eyes watching him—cool, gray eyes filled with sadness and anxiety. But then the clouds seemed to darken and roll in upon him.

  When he adjusted his eyes to the thick, heavy darkness, he was in his father’s stables, and now it was not Fitzmorris cradled in his arms, but a dog—the too-still form of a young spaniel who had failed to take his brother Jeremy’s instruction. Jeremy was there, standing over them, the smoking pistol still in his hand. The weird, green smoke curled upward with a peculiar, twisting motion and seemed to illuminate the scornful expression on Jeremy’s face.

  “Do you want me to tell Father that you cried over a dog?”


  Each word cut like a French saber.

  “Do you want me to tell Father that you cried?”

  The same words came out each time the apparition of his dead brother opened its mouth. “Do you want me to tell Father?”

  Yet Devenham could not stop his tears—they flowed down and seemed to cover him all over. They were as cold as ice—as cold as the chill in his heart.

  “Cried over a dog . . .” echoed his brother’s voice, but the stable had faded, and now he saw eyes again instead—not just eyes, but a sea of faces. He saw his parents, looking at him with intense disapproval, and a dozen laughing young women with eyes as empty as the poor dead pup’s. He saw Fitzmorris’s face, and a dozen French soldiers, all dead, all empty eyed. He began to shake and to feel the anger inside that warned him he was still alive, in hell. He knew for certain it was hell when the darkness closed in on him again and he heard the sound of hundreds and thousands of wings, flapping all around him. Cold terror gripped his heart so hard it seemed to stop altogether, and for a moment he could not even breathe.

  ***

  Phoebe had been awakened by her abigail gently shaking her shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, my lady. Mrs. Hunnicutt says I’m to wake you. Goldie says it’s the earl—seems he’s worsening again, and his man is asking for you to help him.”

  Phoebe pulled on the dressing gown the young woman handed her and pulled the sash tight in a decisive gesture. She lit her bedside lamp from the abigail’s candle and carried it out into the hall, her mind already racing ahead.

  “Ask Mrs. H to heat some of the milfoil tea I made for Lord Devenham, and have Goldie bring a large basin of cold water. I will need more linens and cloths, too, Mary Anne.”

  She felt sorry that the servants would lose sleep, but she silently blessed the rigid hierarchy that required the footman to wake the housekeeper to wake the abigail to wake her mistress. She would need all of their help. She tapped softly at the door of Devenham’s room and let herself in.

  Mullins had been seated as close as possible to the earl’s bed, obviously intent upon his master, until Phoebe entered. As she did, he jumped to his feet and came toward her with alacrity, showing a face haggard from exhaustion and worry.

  “Please f’give me for disturbin’ your rest, milady.” Mullins was small and dark, and looked to Phoebe about as un-English as a man could appear. It surprised her each time she heard him that he did not speak in the accents of an Italian or a Spaniard. He spoke instead with a broad, flat country accent.

  She waved his apologies aside. “You did the right thing,” she assured him, feeling her breath catch in her throat as she approached the bed.

  The major lay sprawled in the tent bed, to all appearances quite lifeless. The bedsheet was pushed down to his waist, and not a scrap of clothing covered the lean, muscular display of his upper body. Her gaze took in the curling hair that covered his chest and arms, and the angry red scar that marked the injury to his left shoulder. Every inch of his exposed skin was glazed with sweat.

  Phoebe swallowed hard, trying to hide her shock. It was not so much the sight of his body that caused her to tremble. She had been married, after all. It was a sudden, tingling memory of touch—the excruciating memory of intimacies shared with Stephen, the only other man she had ever seen so exposed.

  She tried to cover her reaction by adopting a detached, efficient attitude. “The next few hours will be critical,” she said, although she guessed Mullins already knew that. She hesitated as she bent to put a hand on the earl’s forehead. She scarcely needed to touch Devenham to register how hot he was—the heat radiated from him in waves. In the face of such a fever, concern for propriety was quite rightly brushed aside.

  “Have you been applying damp cloths to his skin?” she asked needlessly. On the floor beside Mullins’s chair sat a basin full of damp wads of cloth. “I have sent for some fresh ones and a new basin of water.” She reached for a wad and, smoothing it out, spread it gently across Devenham’s chest. “Let us apply another one to his poor head,” she told Mullins. “Although they are warm now, they are still cooler than he is.”

  But even as Mullins handed her the second cloth, the earl began to stir and moan softly.

  “’E’s still havin’ these spells o’ restlessness,” Mullins said, “It’s the delirium. ’E had it bad before, in Brussels.”

  Phoebe nodded, attempting to place the cloth as Devenham rolled his head on the pillow. “We must keep him cool. We may even need ice. When is he due for his next dose of laudanum? We could increase the dose by a few drops, to help calm him.”

  “Not for another ’alf an hour,” Mullins answered, his doubts written clearly on his face.

  Devenham was becoming increasingly restless. Even as his servant and Phoebe watched, he suddenly began to shout, flailing his arms as if warding off unseen assailants.

  “This won’t do,” said Phoebe, helplessly retrieving the damp cloths. “Sh-h. It’s all right.” She hoped somehow her soothing tones might penetrate to her patient’s fever-wracked brain. She glanced anxiously at the bottles of medicine on the bedside table. “If he moves too much, he’ll disturb the dressings, or even reopen his wound.”

  “Aye.” Mullins was wrestling with the earl, trying to get him to lie still again. His task was not easy, for Devenham was considerably larger.

  “We will give it to him now,” Phoebe said decisively, moving to the table and picking up the bottle of laudanum. As she did, there was a tap at the door, and the footman they called Goldie entered with a basin of water, followed by Mary Anne with an armful of towels, her eyes as big as saucers.

  “Thank you, Mary Anne. Would you see if Mrs. H would bring up the tea?” Phoebe wanted to get the young maid out of the room as quickly as possible. She had no doubt that a full description of the earl’s appearance would soon be circulating among the younger women servants, between embarrassed giggles. “Goldie, would you stay? We may need another pair of hands.”

  She measured out the dose of laudanum and mixed it with water from the decanter on the table. “Now, gentlemen. If one of you would hold down his arms and the other hold up his head, let us see if I can coax Lord Devenham into drinking this. I’m afraid we have another long night ahead of us.”

  Chapter Three

  Devenham had dreamed he was lying in a wind-ruffled field, watching clouds borrow worldly shapes as they paraded across the sky. The air teased him with the delicate, unidentified scent tinged with rosemary that was by now familiar to him, and nearby he had heard the sound of children’s laughter, full of joy and innocence. He awoke to the featherlight touch of a hand upon his forehead.

  With consciousness came the headache and lingering fatigue that plagued his waking moments. Despite the discomfort, he knew at once that the scent and the touch were real. He knew they were a woman’s. He opened his eyes.

  The hand withdrew instantly. All he saw above him were the generous muslin draperies of the tent bed in which he lay, surrounded by softly filtered morning light. He shifted his head on the pillow so he could see who was there.

  The young woman had retreated several paces from the bed with an audible intake of breath. Was she afraid of him? As his vision slowly focused, he saw she was dressed in a sleeveless, dark gray morning dress with a deep square neckline; her arms and throat were covered by the gathered white fabric of her chemisette. A simple lace cap concealed only part of her dark hair. Her face was oval and small featured except for a large, fine pair of eyes. He could not make out their color, but he thought he knew what they would be.

  “I won’t bite,” he managed to mumble, “despite what you may have been told.”

  She did not move any closer, but merely shifted the cloth she had been holding in one hand to the other. He felt gratified to see that at least she smiled. “You have been in no condition to, my lord, up until
now,” she said in a soft, pleasant voice. “Welcome back to the world of the living.”

  He grimaced. “‘Thank you’ would be the proper response, I am sure, but I suspect the dream world I have just been in was more pleasant, present company excepted.”

  She did not seem to notice the compliment. A look of concern immediately crossed her face. “Are you in pain?” She glanced quickly at the watch pinned to the bodice of her dress. “’Tis nearly time for your medicine. Perhaps I could—”

  “No.” The response came out more sharply than he intended. “If it is laudanum, I do not want it,” he added. He was in pain, but he would not admit it. Just being awake was precious to him, and being able to think was even more so. For now, he was willing to pay the price. In a gentler tone he commanded, “Come closer, where I can see you.”

  She took one cautious step toward the bed. She was really quite lovely.

  “It is only reasonable that we should study each other,” he said, pausing to gauge the effect of his words. “But you have had the advantage over me.”

  She took another step closer, which brought her within an arm’s length from the bed. Her eyes were gray—the lovely, luminous gray that he had expected from his haunted dreams. Finely shaped eyebrows as dark as her hair arched gracefully above them.

  “I gather that we have been companions for some time,” he added with a mischievous inflection.

  A tint of pink washed across her cheeks and her eyebrows drew down into a stern frown.

  “I have been helping your man, Mullins, nurse you for the past three days, my lord, while you have been senseless with fever. That is all.”

  “Of course.” He treated her to his infamous lopsided grin. Ladies usually found that devastating. “That is precisely what I was referring to. Coming from a man in my condition, what else could I possibly have meant?”