Harlequin Historical November 2015, Box Set 2 of 2

by Lynna Banning

  My father is worse. I have hired a full-time nurse, and while he is in good spirits—at least he claims he is—he grows weaker by the day. It breaks my heart to see him this way, so worn and thin. I never want to grow old. Never!

  I must close, as an extra rehearsal has just been called for tomorrow’s performance at the new opera house.

  Winifred

  May 12th

  Dear Zane,

  My father has passed away. It is all I can do not to rail at God for taking him. Everyone at the conservatory is being very kind, and it eases somewhat the awful ache I feel inside.

  The funeral is tomorrow afternoon.

  Winifred

  May 16th.

  Dear Winifred,

  You must know how much I grieve with you for your father’s loss. Death is such a blow that I sometimes wonder how we human beings manage to go on with our lives. Celeste’s death left me numb for days. I hope this will not be true for you, for it is hell to get through.

  I am thinking of you.

  Zane

  PS: I am still expecting you in June. Do you promise?

  May 29th

  Dear Winifred,

  I have heard nothing from you for weeks. Are you all right?

  Zane

  June 7th

  Dear Zane,

  I have been teaching nonstop and have two more concerts before the end of the term. I plan to arrive on the seventeenth. I am so tired I will have to sleep for a week when I get there.

  Winifred

  Chapter Ten

  The train from St. Louis pulled into the Smoke River station with a blast of its whistle and squealing brakes. Zane tied the buggy reins to the brake handle, climbed down and strode onto the platform. He scanned the passenger car for a glimpse of Winifred through the windows, then watched the people debarking. Person after person stepped off the train but there was no sign of her.

  The platform cleared. Had she missed the train? Could he have misunderstood the date? Convulsively he clenched his fists.

  And then a slight figure in a pale green skirt and matching shirtwaist stepped down onto the iron step. A uniformed conductor set a valise behind her and handed her a green paisley shawl.

  Her face looked flushed. She paused, holding onto the handrail for support, and Zane surged forward. “Winifred!”

  He reached her just as she took an uncertain step toward him. “Zane.”

  And then her knees gave way and she crumpled. He caught her up into his arms. “Winifred, are you all right?”

  She opened her eyes. “Valise,” she murmured. “Can’t lift.”

  He swung toward the train and nodded for the conductor to set her luggage onto the platform. “Charlie!” He yelled for the stationmaster, then halted a young boy racing toward the station house. “Get Mr. Kincaid, will you, son? Ask him to keep that valise over there behind his desk.”

  “Sure, Doc.” The boy trotted off.

  Zane carried her to the buggy, slid her onto the seat and hurriedly climbed into the driver’s seat. Before he even lifted the reins, Winifred tipped over against his shoulder. Her teeth were chattering.

  For the first time in his life he whipped a horse, but even so it seemed to take hours to reach the house. He reined up, set the brake and jumped out.

  “Sam!”

  He pulled Winifred into his arms and started up the porch steps. “Sam!”

  The front door swung open ahead of him and without a word Sam reached out to help him. “Take the buggy back to the station. Get her valise from Charlie.”

  Inside he brushed past a wide-eyed Yan Li, climbed the stairs two at a time and laid Winifred on her bed in the room next to his. She was barely conscious. Hurriedly he unbuttoned her shirtwaist, yanked his stethoscope from his back pocket where he always carried it and bent over her.

  Her skin was too hot. Her heartbeat was thready and irregular, but the rales he heard in her lungs told him everything.

  Her eyelids fluttered open. “Am I ill?” she whispered.

  “You have pneumonia, Winifred. Both lungs.” He straightened and shouted over his shoulder. “Yan Li. Bring a basin of cool water and some towels.”

  He turned his attention back to Winifred and finished unbuttoning her blouse. “I’ve got to bring down your fever. Need to sponge you off.”

  She nodded. Her lids drifted shut. “Thirsty,” she muttered.

  Yan Li stepped into the room, a china basin of water in her hands and two clean towels draped over one arm. “Sam here now,” she said.

  “Ask him to bring up the valise. See if you can find her night robe.”

  A soft patter of footsteps echoed down the stairs and then returned. “Robe,” Yan Li said. She laid the silky garment across the single chair in the room. He recognized it, the blue one with long sleeves, and his breath caught.

  “Winifred, I’m going to remove your clothes and sponge you off.” She nodded but her eyes remained closed.

  Zane pulled her shirtwaist off her shoulders, then unlaced her corset and unbuttoned her skirt. He drew it off, along with the single lace-trimmed petticoat she wore.

  “Not very romantic,” she murmured.

  “Don’t talk.”

  He hesitated, then stripped off her chemise, but left on her ruffled drawers. Damn, she was beautiful. He dipped a towel in the water and laid it over her chest.

  “Feels good,” she muttered.

  Yan Li hovered at his elbow. “Help?”

  “Yes. When I lift her up, pull the blankets off the bed. Leave just the sheet.”

  Sam stepped in as Yan Li finished. “Maybe make soup?”

  “No soup. Got any cold lemonade?”

  The Chinese man grinned. “Make fast, Boss.”

  When he was alone with Winifred, he drew down the sheet and bathed the hot skin of her neck and chest, moved over her bare shoulders and down her arms, then her legs. If he weren’t so worried about her, he’d stop to admire them—long and slim and well-shaped.

  He dipped and sponged until Sam brought the lemonade and discreetly withdrew. Gently Zane helped Winifred sit up and pressed the glass to her lips. “Lemonade,” he explained.

  She drank greedily. “Good. More.”

  Oh, thank God, she could still swallow. He set the empty glass outside the door and went back to sponging her down.

  “Zane,” she whispered. “So hot.”

  He shoved up the window, praying for a cool breeze. No luck. The afternoon temperature had soared. He slammed it shut and loosened his shirt collar in the stifling air. Then he pulled the chair close to her bedside, rolled up his sleeves and set himself to saving Winifred’s life.

  At times Winifred opened her eyes and saw Zane’s face above her, other times it was Yan Li or Sam who bent over her, soothing her sticky skin with cool water or helping her sip some refreshing liquid.

  In her dreams she saw Papa, and then Mama, too, only she was young and Cissy was still in diapers. Orchestra conductors turned from their podiums to cue her; piano students played scales, over and over until she wanted to scream but found she could not make a sound. Then her father’s nurse was speaking to her about Papa but she couldn’t hear the words. The gardener brought bouquet after bouquet of yellow roses, and Papa’s cook, the one he never liked, kept urging her to drink.

  Her chest ached. Her head throbbed as if something heavy were smashing into her temples. Her eyelids burned underneath. Once she heard a man’s voice and the word “hospital.” Another man said “No.”

  And once a pair of tiny hands patted her arm and said her name, “’infred.”

  Oh, she wanted to wake up! Other times she wanted to sink into the soft blackness that settled around her.

  On the day she finally opened her ey
es, Zane stood over her, his stethoscope in his ears, the cool metal part pressed against the center of her chest.

  He glanced into her face. “You’re better,” he said.

  “How long have I been here?”

  “Four days. And nights.” His voice sounded grainy, as if he hadn’t spoken for years and years.

  “How did I get here? I remember boarding the train, but I don’t remember getting off.”

  “You did. You were very sick, Winifred. And you’re going to feel weak for some time.”

  “When is the wedding?”

  He frowned down at her. “What wedding?”

  “You know, Sarah Rose and Rooney...”

  “Ah, I remember now. The twenty-ninth.”

  “What day is today?”

  Zane’s frown deepened. “Hell, I don’t know. You arrived on the seventeenth... I’d say maybe it’s the twenty-first?”

  “I will be better by then, won’t I?”

  “Better, yes. Strong, no. We’ll see about attending the wedding.”

  She laughed. “You sound like my doctor at home.”

  “I am your doctor, Winifred. And right now this is your home.”

  Men were so strange at times, she thought. Zane wasn’t anything like Dr. Marcus in St. Louis. Zane was much more...well, outspoken. Pushy, even. He had undressed her, she realized, right down to her corset and chemise. Dr. Marcus would never...but of course she didn’t have pneumonia then.

  Or did she? She’d caught a chill two days before she left, but the doctor had never listened to her chest through a stethoscope.

  “You are a wonderful doctor, Zane.”

  He laughed. “Not so wonderful. I spent a good many hours on my knees, asking God for help.”

  “You are wonderful,” she contradicted. “Everyone says so. Even me.”

  “Were you sick before you left St. Louis?”

  “Probably. I had a chill. I’d gone on a picnic, down by the river, the day before.”

  “A picnic? Who with?”

  “With Dr. Beher. A professor from the conservatory. He teaches bassoon.”

  Zane just looked at her. “Bassoon,” he echoed. “Not very romantic.”

  “Oh, no. Herman and I are just friends.”

  Zane’s frown was back. After a long minute, during which he paced to and from the door, he asked, “Are you hungry? Yan Li made those little pancakes you like for breakfast.”

  “Is it breakfast time?” The sky outside her window was very blue, the sun well up.

  “It isn’t, no. But they warm up nicely. I’ll just ask—”

  “I must get up, Zane.” She sat upright and tried to swing her legs over the edge of the bed, then realized she was naked under the sheet. “Oh! Where is my night robe?”

  “You don’t need it. You’re not going downstairs.”

  Winifred just looked at the man. His expression was implacable. She’d seen it before, but it still surprised her how determined he could look. Like a bad-tempered watchdog.

  “Besides,” he added with a chuckle, “at the moment the cat is sleeping on your gown.”

  She followed his gaze to the chair, where the white cat was curled up on top of the blue silk.

  “And besides that,” he continued, his voice stern but his gray eyes twinkling, “you couldn’t walk that far even if the house caught fire.”

  Oh, she couldn’t? Well, Dr. Dougherty, just you wait and see.

  Chapter Eleven

  It was two whole days before Winifred could talk Zane into letting her come downstairs for breakfast. But he’d been at the hospital most of the night, Sam told her. That, she thought, was just as well. He would never have agreed to her breakfast venture, but she was so weary of lying in bed and staring out the window at the blue summer sky she couldn’t stand it one more minute.

  She was unprepared for the effort it took to draw on her camisole and petticoat. Good heavens, she felt as weak as Sam’s kitten. Just bending to lace up her shoes left her gasping for breath, and as for her corset, well, she just couldn’t.

  But she was determined to test her strength. She wanted in the worst way to attend Sarah and Rooney’s wedding, and that was less than a week away. She dressed carefully in a pale blue dimity skirt and a short-sleeved white lawn waist.

  She came down the stairs holding tight to the banister and placing her feet carefully on each step. Before she was halfway down, she felt light-headed. She seated herself at the dining room table, admiring the poached egg on toast Yan Li had made for her and listening to Rosemarie’s baby talk as she petted the almost full-grown cat.

  With a conspiratorial twinkle in his black eyes, Sam poured Winifred’s coffee. How good it smelled! She hadn’t been allowed anything stronger than tea for days and days.

  After breakfast she watched her niece toddle unsteadily about the kitchen and the dining room. Yan Li dogged her steps but wisely let her try to walk. Most entertaining was the child’s prattle. She caught “’infred” a number of times, and “’at,” which she supposed meant “cat.” The stream of unintelligible syllables flowed on, ending with “Yee” for Yan Li.

  Winifred finished her coffee and rose to move into the library, but Rosemarie grabbed onto her skirt and tugged.

  She bent down to pick her up but found she hadn’t the strength to lift her. Oh, what now? She wanted to weep with frustration.

  Instead, she took the girl’s tiny hand in her own.

  “Come with me, little one. Let’s go into the library, shall we?” She matched her steps to Rosemarie’s small ones and together they got as far as the doorway before Winifred had to stop and rest. My heavens, was she not strong enough to walk from one room to another?

  Suppressing her annoyance, she knelt on the floor and invited Rosemarie into her arms. How warm and sweet-smelling she was! And she never stopped her happy chatter. Yan Li came to offer a pretty rag doll with a red gingham dress and Rosemarie scrambled out of Winifred’s arms to grab for it.

  “I watch,” the Chinese girl said. “You rest?”

  Yes. Winifred realized suddenly how short of breath she was. She rose, then had to grab for Yan Li’s arm to steady herself. Her legs had turned to mush.

  “I think I will go upstairs and lie down for a few minutes.” Yan Li nodded and crouched beside Rosemarie to offer the doll again.

  Winifred made it as far as the staircase, but then her legs began to shake. She felt dizzy and suddenly had to grab onto the banister. She leaned over the polished wood and tried to catch her breath and heard the front door open behind her.

  “Winifred! What the hell...” Then Zane’s strong hands were at her waist.

  “I—I got tired all of a sudden.”

  “That’s not surprising,” he said, his voice stern. “You’re not ready to get up.”

  “Yes,” she interrupted. “I am ready. I just need a little time to—”

  “You most certainly are not ready. I can see you’re going to be a difficult patient.”

  She sucked in a breath. “And I can see you are going to be a difficult doctor.”

  He laughed at that. “I am, yes.”

  “Oh, Zane, let me try. I’m so tired of being sick.” She straightened and set her foot on the first stair step. She tried, she really tried to heave her body up just that one four-inch step, but she couldn’t manage it. Once again she leaned against the banister, gasping for air.

  “That’s it,” Zane snapped. He hauled her up into his arms and strode up the stairs.

  “Whoever thought climbing a single step would be so tiring?” she said against his neck.

  He elbowed her door open. “Your doctor,” he said shortly. “Who’s seen enough pneumonia patients to know.”

  He laid her on the still unmade bed.
“Now, close your eyes and think restful thoughts.”

  “Did anyone ever tell you that you are bossy as an old-maid schoolteacher?”

  “Many times. I’m going to remove your shoes. And,” he said after an awkward pause, “your skirt and your—”

  “You will do no such thing!”

  He laughed again. “It’s a bit late for maidenly modesty, Winifred. After all, I’ve taken off your—”

  “Don’t say it.” She rose up on one elbow. “It’s positively scandalous to think that...” Her voice trailed off.

  Zane pressed her back down onto the pillow. “Winifred, listen to me. I’m a doctor. I’ve seen hundreds of women unclothed.”

  “Yes, but did you unclothe them?”

  He chuckled low in his throat. “Some, yes.”

  “How did you ever face them afterwards?”

  “Like I’m facing you,” he answered. “Good God, don’t you remember that night you were so sick? No, apparently not. Winifred, sometimes you’re more of a child than Celeste ever was.”

  “A child?” Now she was not just embarrassed, she was outraged. “A child?”

  “I meant to say virginal,” he amended.

  Instantly she was up on her elbow again. “How do you know I am a—” She clapped her hand over her mouth and Zane smothered a grin.

  “You mean,” he said, his voice warmer than he might have liked, “your Professor—what was his name? Bassoon? That you and he, picnicking by the river on a warm summer afternoon, did not—?”

  “Most certainly not,” she snapped. “Herman Beher and I are just friends.”

  Zane laid his hand on her forehead to check for fever. “You and I are ‘just friends,’ Winifred. That doesn’t preclude—I mean...”

  She gazed up at him, her blue-green eyes widening. “Doesn’t preclude what?”

  “You have no fever,” he said flatly.

  “Doesn’t preclude what?” she pursued. She waited, unblinking, for an answer.

  Winifred, Zane acknowledged with an uncomfortable tightness in his chest, was as unlike Celeste as kittens were from cheetahs. Cheetahs chased their prey until it dropped.