“I believe so. The fever has abated. He’ll make a full recovery.”
“God bless you, Miss Becket,” Lady Leathorne said with a trembling smile, tears still shining on her cheeks. “If there is anything in this world you want, anything I can ever do for you . . .” She left it unsaid, for words did not begin to express the emotions that filled her eyes.
• • •
Over the next two days Drake continued to recover, spending most of his time sleeping, and groggy at best when he was awake. At first, though, True insisted on staying by his side and feeding him still the herbal tea, as well as nourishing gruels and meat broths. She was taking no chance that the fever would return.
Lady Leathorne noted with concern that as her son recovered, so did the rumor and innuendo surrounding Drake and Miss Becket intensify. She blamed herself and the shortsightedness that had led to her sending in that chatterbox, Bess, with food for True. And she could not address it head-on, for that would only justify it in the minds of her staff. She knew as well as anybody that gossip had a life of its own, and ignoring it was one’s only option. As long as Miss Becket stayed closeted with her son she was shielded from it, but soon, very soon, she would be faced with the knowledge that she was hopelessly compromised.
And they would handle that when Drake was better. She had wanted more for her son, wanted a woman of status and culture, social position and elegance, but Miss Becket, with no pretensions to elegance or status, had something much more important in the end, a good heart. She was the soul of kindness, and her son could do much worse. Now was not the time to make that decision, but soon. Very soon.
• • •
Drake watched True bustle around his room, fussing with some bottles, folding cloths. He had awoken just minutes before from what seemed like a long dream of burning desert sands or fiercely hot tropics, he couldn’t decide which. And True was there, telling him all the while that they would get through it together. He had been sick, he supposed, and it seemed that Truelove had come back sometime during his illness. Why? he wondered. Had her cousins asked her to come back? And why was she in his room, alone? Surely his mother would not allow that.
“Truelove,” he whispered, shocked at how weak his voice sounded.
She had just been opening the curtains to let the sun in, and she whirled at the sound of his voice. “You’re awake!” she cried. “Really awake!”
“You sound as though that were a miracle,” he said. He tried to raise himself but found he had not the strength of a kitten. He slumped back on his pillows. “I’ve been ill.”
She crossed the room and stood by his bed, gazing down at him. “You have,” she said, reaching out and brushing back his hair. He felt a shiver go through him at her light touch, a touch so familiar it was as if he had felt it hundreds of times.
“How long?”
“Altogether? Six days.”
“Six days? I have been sick for that long?”
“You had a fever, influenza. We think you caught a chill and were susceptible.”
Memory flooded back to him. It had been after a particularly bad night of torturing nightmares. Somehow, knowing True was to be married to her vicar, he had not given a damn about anything and so when the nightmares came back even worse than before, he had gone out riding and gotten soaked by a drenching rain. He had ended up at a hedge tavern with some very disreputable customers, had drunk for several hours with them, and then had made his inebriated way back to Lea Park. He had done nothing so very irresponsible in a long, long time, since he was a boy, in fact. And the result, he supposed, was that he had been taken ill.
And nightmares! He remembered sweltering through some horribly vivid dreams of devils clawing at his innards, and hands dragging him down to the fires of hell, all manner of frightful apparitions. But then a voice had come to him, to tell him it would be all right. Could that have been Truelove?
“I was careless.” He gazed up at her, her drawn, tired face, pretty blue eyes gazing down at him with some indefinable emotion. She was caressing his cheek, scuffing her fingers against his bristly beard, and he turned his head slightly to kiss her palm. “Did you come back from your home just to nurse me?”
“I did,” she said gently.
“You look exhausted! True, you must take care of yourself.”
“I will, now,” she said, a serene smile on her face. “For now I really believe that you will be all right. I think I’ll go to my room.”
Chapter Eighteen
She slept around the clock. Life went on in the household. In that time Drake gained strength hourly, his former good health helping, as well as a ravenous appetite that proved how well he was, and how rapid his recovery would be. Horace could hardly keep up with his demands. That night, Drake slept uninterrupted, deeply, a whole ten hours, and awoke the next morning again with an insatiable appetite.
At Horace’s suggestion that he be brought weak tea and toast, he snorted. “Not bloody likely, old man. I have a feeling there are kippers and eggs and ham downstairs, and I mean to make my way through my fair share.” He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and grimaced. “I am as weak as a drunken ensign! This will never do. I must regain my strength, for we’ll move to Thorne House in two weeks. We shall contrive to cheerily live among the renovations.”
Lady Leathorne entered the room. “Drake, you get back in that bed! You have no business getting up yet. You’re still far from well.” She bustled across the room and jerked the covers up over his legs, but he put one hand out to stop her.
“Mother,” he said gently. He knew how his illness had scared her, but he was not about to let her coddle him forever because of that fear. “I’m going to be fine. I’m a little weak, but I am not going to regain my strength lying abed. I shall come down and rejoin the company and apologize for my prolonged absence.”
“Lady Swinley and Miss Swinley have gone. Conroy escorted them to . . . well, to his home.”
“What?” Drake frowned. “Conroy took them to his home?” It was against his friend’s nature to take any young lady to his family home, Drake knew, for that implied a relationship that could only lead to wedding vows. Conroy, a younger son, would marry someday, but was looking for a great heiress. The Swinleys must be comfortable, but he did not think them wealthy. Perhaps his friend had fallen in love. There had certainly been a partiality there, from what he could remember, but he could not swear that Miss Swinley had been equally interested. “I wish them well.”
“You’re not disappointed? That Miss Swinley did not stay?”
“No, Mama,” he said, gazing at her with an affectionate grin. “I’m not disappointed or heartbroken, or anything else other than relieved. And now, I’m going to undress, and since you have not been present for that event since I was a very young boy, I think we shall both be more comfortable if you leave the room.”
With a gleam in her eye, Lady Leathorne reached up and ruffled her son’s hair. “You will always be my ‘young boy,’ and do not forget that. I reserve the right to order you back to your bed if I see any sign that you are becoming overtired. I will not have you becoming sick again.” She moved toward the door as Drake slipped off the bed.
“Mother?”
She turned back. Horace had come forward, and was ready to help his former commanding officer should he prove to be unsteady on his feet. “What is it?”
“Is Truelove downstairs?”
“She’s still sleeping, son. She went to bed yesterday and has been asleep since.” She gazed at him with calculating eyes. “She wore herself out, and it is best if she sleeps as long as she needs to, to regain her own strength.”
“She’s very special, don’t you think?”
“I truthfully think I love her as a daughter, Drake,” Lady Leathorne said. Her smile was watery, but she sniffed and swallowed, took a deep breath, and spoke again. “I can never repay her adequately for giving me back my only child. Now, get dressed and I’ll see you at the breakfast table.”<
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• • •
Everything, every dancing mote of dust in the sunlight, every stray scent of floor wax or toast or shoe polish seemed delicious and beautiful and heartbreakingly perfect to Drake. He wandered the household after breakfast—really more of a luncheon by the time he had bathed and dressed, resting between each ordeal while he got his wind back—and gloried in the perfection of everything.
How had he never seen before how truly beautiful something as simple as a single rose in a crystal vase was? He wandered through the house until teatime, and then followed the scent of biscuits into the rose parlor, where tea was being served.
His father was already there, helping himself to the buttered biscuits, spreading one lavishly with strawberry preserves. He stopped dead at the sight of his son, his rheumy eyes fixed on his progeny.
It was not the first time Drake had wondered how two men so close in relation as he and his father could have so little in common as to seem almost strangers. When left alone in the same room they had virtually nothing to talk about. It should not be; this was his father. He had adored him as a child and had followed his strong, young, vigorous “papa” from stable to house and back again every day as a boy.
“Father,” he said, approaching the tea table, “it’s good to see you.” Had his father shrunk, or was it just that he had grown so tall in the years he had been away with the army?
Leathorne looked up at him, putting the biscuit aside, brushing the crumbs from his hand, and thrusting it toward Drake. “Son, good to have you back in the land o’ the living, I must say. Good to see you up and about.” He took Drake’s hand and pumped it vigorously, then clapped his son on the shoulder.
They stood thusly for a few minutes. Drake thought, for one brief moment, that he saw a hint of moisture in his father’s eyes, but he could not be sure. “It is good to be up and about. I was very ill, I guess. It all seems one long nightmare to me, until Miss Becket came, at least.”
At the word nightmare, Leathorne dropped his son’s hand and looked hastily away. “Not, er, not having the nightmares again, are ye?”
“It has only been a couple of nights since my fever broke, I understand, but I don’t think I shall, no. I think I have conquered the blackness and come out on the other side. I cannot be sure, of course, but I hope it is so.” It was strange to speak of it openly, for he had tried to conceal them for so long that it amazed him his father was even aware. But then his mother had known, and she would have said something, perhaps. He was not going to hide from his own frailty anymore, though. There was something to be said for an open admittance of weakness, for then one could truly be strong, rather than waste energy hiding things from people.
Leathorne cleared his throat. “Never said this, uh, son, but your mother and me, we’re . . . well, we’re demmed proud of ye, demmed proud! I know ye went through some kinda hell out there—Waterloo, dontcha know—and we’re just glad to have ye back safe and sound.”
It was the longest speech his father had ever made regarding Drake’s military career, and it touched the viscount’s heart. “I did what I felt was right, but much of it I am not proud of,” he said honestly. He picked up a biscuit and layered butter and jam on it and took a bite. Ambrosia! He rolled his eyes at the utterly exquisite taste of cook’s strawberry preserves; it was like captured summer.
“How can ye not be proud o’ yourself?” the earl said, his eyes squinted in puzzlement. “You’re a hero! Got Wellington’s own word on that, don’t we?”
Drake knew well enough to leave it alone, and thanked his father with a smile. A hero. He had done what he had to do to preserve his own life and the lives of those in his company, and he had not always succeeded. So many good men had paid the ultimate price, and for what? Could victory have been purchased with no other currency than human lives? He didn’t know if he would ever become reconciled to the butchery he had witnessed and taken part in. It was over, thank heaven.
At that moment the parlor door opened, and True came in, a ready smile on her face. He was staggered by the emotions that raced through him pell-mell, and by the choking sensation in his throat. She was so very beautiful. Did she have any idea of how truly lovely she was, with that deep blue gown matching her eyes, and the baby softness of her hair dressed in a simple style so that it caressed her neck in long soft curls?
She said something but he could not respond, he just stared. Fevered nights came back to him, and the feel of a cool hand on his brow, pushing back his curls, always doing just what he needed as he existed through a long nightmare of burning heat and an ache through his body that felt like someone was squeezing his very bones.
How much of his memory of that time was real, and how much was his fevered imagination? He would have sworn he felt kisses on his brow and his lips, and heard murmured words of love, unutterably sweet, keeping him sane, pulling him back from the nightmares every time they would threaten to invade his mind again.
She was chatting to his father and throwing brief, anxious glances toward him, but he could not speak, could not even swallow.
She turned to him. “I’m so glad to see you are better, Wy,” she said, her voice a low murmur.
His mother had come in, too, and was speaking to Lord Leathorne.
There were dark circles under Truelove’s gorgeous eyes, and he prayed she had taken no lasting harm from what must have been days and nights of nursing. He must ask her, must speak before she thought he had been made an idiot by the fever. “I . . . I can never thank you, never repay you—”
“Hush,” she said, and he could see her hand move as if she was about to reach out to him, but she restrained the urge and picked up a cup instead. “I did very little, really. It was your own strength that brought you through.”
“You will minimize it, but I know. I was there, and I do remember. It was only your voice that chased the demons away.” He looked down at the biscuit in his hand. “I was being dragged to hell, I felt, but you—your voice, your words, your touch—sent them flying away. And every time they threatened to come back, you would just speak, and you would break through; all would calm in my mind.”
He didn’t realize he had remembered so much, but it was true. The nightmares had been the worst torment of the fever because unlike when he was well, he could never get away from them. When he was well he could get out of bed and ride until they had fled his troubled mind, but as sick as he was they had taken permanent root in his fevered brain, and until True arrived, threatened to drive him mad. He laid the biscuit down, his appetite gone for the moment.
This time she did reach out to him. Her small hand rested on his sleeve, and he imagined he could feel the warmth through the double layer of cloth. “Wy, you’re better. Don’t torture yourself with memories and remembered pain. I’m so grateful you’re better!”
He gazed down at her small tanned hand on his sleeve and covered it with his own hand. It disappeared entirely. Strange that such small hands should come with so much competent skill, and so much loving tenderness. He glanced up and smiled into her eyes. “I remember, too, some foul-tasting decoction that you insisted on dripping down my throat.”
She giggled. “That, sir, was my willow bark tea, and a brew of feverfew. It played no small part in your recovery! So a little respect for my ‘foul-tasting decoction,’ if you please.”
“I would gladly drink a yard of it to hear you laugh like that again,” he said, and then shut his mouth, alarmed at the fervency in his tone and the way his voice had broken. She would think him a great looby if he started spouting such drivel. He had never been one to woo the ladies with fine words or tender sentiments. Poetry escaped him. Lovemaking was a foreign skill. And yet he found himself wishing he could compose sonatas on her eyes, like Shakespeare. Shall I compare thee to a summer day? That was Truelove Becket, all the warmth and beauty of a summer day.
She had quieted, and stood gazing up at him. She must have read his panicked expression, because a quirky smile lifted h
er lips. “Wy, don’t worry, a little over-emotionalism is the price one pays for recovery. I have long noticed that for a few hours or days the patient, after recovering from a serious illness, finds everything and everyone beautiful and wonderful and unbearably perfect. It’s almost overwhelming. You will regain your normal senses soon, I promise you, and all will fade into humdrum reality.”
He laughed out loud at that. How like her to see right through him, and yet minimize her own attractions, the music of her laughter, in this case. “I don’t think I will ever see you as anything but absolute perfection, True, for that is reality.”
• • •
It could not be put off any longer, Lady Leathorne thought. She must broach the subject now. It was morning. Drake had gotten up after another sound and dreamless night’s sleep and had ridden off with his father to visit some of the tenants. His strength was returning, and his mother knew who she had to thank for that.
But that was not why she could not put off this conversation any longer. She had caught the maid, Bess, gossiping about Miss Becket’s “nights alone with the young master,” as she put it, and had threatened her with dismissal if she ever heard the girl saying such things again, but she feared it was far too late. In truth, she had known all along what would happen, for it was impossible to control rumor. It seemed to take on a life of its own. If it could have been confined to Lea Place it would not have signified, but that girl was sure to have a sister in service at some other house, and she would pass on such a juicy piece of tittle-tattle. It would spread from there in the mysterious fashion of downstairs gossip. She would protect Miss Becket from that. She would have no matter who the girl was, but Truelove Becket was infinitely precious to her, and this was the least she could do.
She found her in the small parlor, putting the final touches on a monogrammed handkerchief. “What exquisite work,” Lady Leathorne said as she sat down beside her guest. “I never had patience for such elegant stitchery.”
Miss Truelove Beckons (Classic Regency Romances Book 12) Page 19
