by Abby Ayles
Chapter 14
Kitty knew she would have to take more care than ever before to spend time away from Earl Sinclair. Nothing but the bare minimum. She had been giving him too much time, allowing him to take too many liberties.
This was a man she barely knew! She was there solely in the capacity of a carer for him, nothing else. Doing a favour for a friend, not serving herself. She was not there to woo, court, or even befriend this man. And any attempts to do any of those things would not just be overstepping her boundaries, but would be incredibly humiliating to her.
After all, he was not interested in her that way and if she were to approach him in any capacity other than as his nurse, she was at risk of being rejected, insulted, or having rumours spread which would no doubt ruin her life. She had to behave herself, wait for the right man and leave Delilah's brother alone.
After making sure he was well and comfortable following his lunch, she prepared to leave the room. There was no reason for her to be with him all day, after all. Just stop by from time to time, make sure he was doing well, was fed and was doing his exercises.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“I have a few matters to attend to. Some letters, putting away my dresses. I will not be long,” she replied.
“You can write your letters in here, you know that,” he said, sounding mildly offended.
She shook her head. “I think you need some privacy, to aid in your recovery.”
“Please stay a little, you know that our conversations give me strength,” he said, clasping her hand so that she could not leave his bedside.
“Lord Stamford, I must insist that you unhand me,” she said.
He made eye contact with her. “Lord Stamford? Is this because of my sister again?”
Kitty hesitated. “No,” she lied, “this is because I have realized that our relationship is most improper for an unwed man and an unwed woman and that if word were to get out about how you are around me, Lord Stamford, there would no doubt be talk the likes of which ruins a young woman.”
He fell silent and released her hand. “My apologies, Miss Langley. I did not intend to offend you.”
“Your apology is most welcome and heartily accepted,” she replied, feeling her heart break at the sad tone of his voice. “Now, if you do not mind, I shall attend to my letters.”
But she could not write. As soon as she sat down in front of her dresser she felt nothing but sorrow. She knew it was wrong, but she really, truly cared for him. And she hated lying to him and rejecting him, when in her heart of hearts, she wanted to please him.
The knock at her bedroom door startled her, leaving her somewhere between alarmed, concerned and excited. “Yes?” she asked. “Who goes there?
“It is me, Delilah,” came the reply. “My brother needs to see you.”
“How is he?” Kitty asked, standing up.
“He says he is in immense pain and requires your company, to support him through it,” Delilah said. “Please help him.”
Kitty could hear the pain and urgency in Delilah's voice. She knew this was genuine. She knew that whatever had happened was distressing Delilah very much. “I shall be with him immediately.”
She made her way to Earl Sinclair's room, fully expecting to see him doubled over in pain, quietly denying that it was all that bad, then begging her not to get doctors involved. So she was a little surprised to see him sitting up.
“Your sister said you were in a lot of pain?” she asked doubtfully.
“Yes, my leg is so sore right now.” He let out a groan and leaned back into his pillows.
Kitty had an odd feeling about this. This was not how he usually acted or looked when he was in pain. When he was in serious pain he would keep trying to curl up despite how much it hurt, denying that he was in that much pain and sometimes unable to talk. Besides that, he would be red in the face, sweating and generally a mess. This was not how he was when he was in pain. This was fake.
“I do not think you are in pain,” Kitty replied. “I think you lied to your sister to get me to come here.”
“But I am in pain,” he contested. “Just not as much as I told Delilah,” he added.
Frustrated, Kitty turned around and was about to leave the room.
“Wait!” he shouted at her.
She stopped and turned around, making eye contact with him.
“Wait,” he repeated more quietly. “All I want is for you to stay here talking to me, as you have been doing for the past few days. Is that so much to ask?”
“It is not appropriate, considering our relationship,” Kitty replied.
“Our relationship as a patient and his nurse?” Earl Sinclair asked.
Kitty blushed, wondering if he had read anything more into it. “Exactly. It is my job to ensure you are healthy, not that you are entertained.”
“Does my mental and spiritual well-being have no bearing on my health, then, in your mind?” he asked.
Kitty hesitated. “Whatever do you mean?”
“Your company brings me joy and relief from my pain and an escape from the monotony of being stuck in bed all day,” he said. “Is that not as important as my physical health?”
She was not sure what to say. On the one hand, she agreed wholeheartedly with him. On the other hand, she knew full well that the only reason she agreed with his sentiment was because of her illegitimate affections for him.
“I suppose you are right,” she said, walking over to the chair, against her better judgement. “If our conversations are truly so important for your recovery, then we shall continue to have them.”
He smiled. “Thank you Kitty- I mean, Miss Langley. Where shall we begin?”
She shrugged. “I am not sure. Whatever you want to talk about.”
She could see his eyes light up as he began listing all the different places and experiences he wanted to tell her about. Morocco, America, Singapore; rafting, cave exploring, jungle treks; food, culture and place. He was made as happy by talking as she was by listening. But now it weighed on her heart.
How could he understand what it was doing to her? She could not bear to be his emotional support without receiving anything in return. It was torture.
She was giving and giving and giving to him and he was taking, taking, taking.
Her time, her energy, her attention and her love were being surrendered to this man. And all she got out of it was some stories and a vague hope that perhaps one of these days he might consider her as a potential wife.
But he would not. Even the hope was false. All there was were the stories. And these would eventually disappear when he was healed and it was time for her to return home and carry on with her own boring life.
“Very well, please tell me about India some more,” she said softly.
He smiled warmly and began to eagerly recount his first stay in southern India, his early experiences, the food, the animals... But she slowly tuned him out. She didn't care anymore. She couldn't care. However, amazing these stories were, the reality was that she would never live them.
As he had said from the start, they may as well be fantasies to her. India was as much a fairy tale as Cinderella, as far as she was concerned. And equally fantastic was the idea of her ever marrying a man like Earl Sinclair. It was just a stream of fairy tales, dangling just beyond her reach.
“You are barely listening,” he said. “Do you want me to talk about something else? To tell you about another place?” He sounded so desperate for her attention.
Kitty shook her head. “It is nothing. I am just a little tired today.”
He seemed doubtful, but he smiled and carried on telling his stories. This was what he wanted. To talk to her, to tell her things. And it would help him recover. If he was being truthful and her attention, conversation and company relieved his pain and his mind and encouraged him to rest and heal, then it was her duty to sit there and listen to him.
But she needed to stay professional, to be more distant. She neede
d to make sure that he did not get the wrong message. He had to know that she was only thinking of his health and her own relationship with Delilah. And she also needed to encourage him to back away from her a little. Because his affections, however innocent and brotherly, did not stop giving her hope.
She hoped that he harboured some secret love for her. She hoped that he desired her, or could learn to with time. She hoped that he would defy his own sister and conventions to marry her. After all, many men of standing even higher to his own were marrying women from classes beneath her own. Why could he not do so also?
But no, this was precisely the hope she needed to slay. She needed to eliminate it for good. Because all it did was encourage her to act in an unladylike manner.
So she sat and listened and asked relevant questions. All whilst making the most earnest of efforts to remain calm, collected and emotionally detached.
As the sun set, Earl Sinclair continued to gently bid for her attention, but he was growing weary of it and he would soon need to rest. Kitty felt proud of herself for having shown so much restraint all afternoon.
“I am tired, I suppose,” the earl said, giving up. He wrapped his fingers around hers for reassurance and began to drift off almost immediately.
She didn't have the heart to remove his hand and leave him just then. He was tired and in pain and he still seemed to be in some emotional distress due to her emotional blankness. She would allow him that little bit of comfort so that he could get the rest he needed.
She waited until he fell asleep, but she couldn't bear to spend the night. It was already hurting her chest. She slipped her hand out of his and sneaked out the room. Just a little walk. Up and down the hallway, or to the dining room. To take her mind off things.
So she did. She walked up and down, stopped by to make sure he was still asleep in his bed, then continued walking up and down. She then spent some time in the library, wrote another letter to her father and checked on the earl again. She kept considering sitting at his bedside and yet always found something else to do instead.
Truly, she felt she could not return to the room at all. She would just peer in, make sure he was still asleep and go back to pacing. Sitting beside his bed, watching him sleep, was too much. Being alone with him in his room, even with the door open, was too much. She needed to ensure there was some distance between them.
Looking in again at around seven in the morning, before Delilah was ready to take over, Kitty noticed that the bedding had barely moved the last four times she had checked. That was not usual for the earl.
She felt a tightness in her chest and a creeping dread and rushed over to the bedside. She pulled the covers back.
On the upside, he had not passed away in the night.
But there was a downside also.
The earl's bed was empty. No. Not again.
Chapter 15
“What do you mean he has vanished?” Delilah asked, rushing to put on a bed coat and fitting a bonnet over her still unbrushed hair. “How? Where has he gone?”
Kitty felt her heart beating harder and harder. “I have no idea. One minute he was in his bed and when I next checked he was not. I thought perhaps he had got up to go to another corner of the room, or the bathroom, but both his bedroom and bathroom are empty and I cannot think of anywhere else he could be.”
“There is nowhere else he should be,” Delilah insisted, making her way out of the door. “We need to conduct a search of the entire house.”
Kitty hesitated. “What if he is not in the house?” she asked cautiously.
Delilah stopped in her tracks. “No, he has to be in the house. Where else would he be?”
“Maybe he has gone out again,” Kitty replied. “He did that last time.”
“But we asked the staff not to let him out, or to allow him any horses or carriages without requesting my permission first,” Delilah said.
“He may have found a way around it, or taken a horse himself,” Kitty replied. “That is the first thing we need to do: confirm that he hasn't left the building.”
Delilah seemed more worried now than before. She drew a deep breath to calm herself and then they both went to find the butler.
The butler, who had been overseeing the serving of Delilah's breakfast, was confused to see a dishevelled Delilah and a still-awake Kitty march into the drawing room. “Good morning mistress, Miss Langley, is anything the matter?”
“Has my brother left the house?” Delilah asked. “He is not in his bed.”
The butler did not seem too bothered. “He has not, I assure you.”
“So he has not taken a horse or a carriage this morning?” Delilah asked.
“We have not given him any, you are free to see for yourself, mistress,” the butler said somewhat indignantly.
Delilah glared. “I shall, it is possible that he would have taken one himself, without seeking permission, if he felt desperate enough about the matter.”
The butler nodded. “Shall I delay your breakfast until your brother is found?”
Delilah softened a little. “Yes please.”
“I trust we shall find him in a perfectly usual part of the house, mistress,” the butler reassured her.
And he might have been onto something. Checking the stables Delilah saw that all the horses and carriages were exactly where they ought to be and the stable boy had been there since five in the morning without seeing or hearing anything amiss. Which meant the earl had to still be inside.
“He must be in the house,” Delilah replied. “I thought you were watching over him?”
“I was,” Kitty replied. “I checked on him all night long. I was simply considering your recommendations when I chose not to remain in the room with him.”
“I understand, it must have been quite a dilemma. I did not mean to accuse you. You did the right thing,” Delilah said.
But Kitty was not so sure any more. Could she have done more? Could she have done better? Was it the wrong thing to have done? She left him there to sleep alone for one night and now he was gone. She tried telling herself it was his own foolish action and his own fault if anything happened to him, but it wasn't working.
Kitty felt immensely guilty. Perhaps if she had not been so stubborn, perhaps if she had bothered to stay and check in on him as she was supposed to, he would not have escaped. Perhaps he would not have wanted to if she had continued to be gentle and understanding and to listen to him with genuine interest. Or at the very least he would not have had the ability to sneak out unobserved.
It was reassuring to know that he had not taken a horse to go hunting, or decided to go on some long-distance trip by carriage. At least now she knew he was not going to fall from horseback onto the hard road, further injuring his knee and back, potentially causing a serious bleed or an infection. a
But it was still not a good situation. She knew how suddenly these sorts of problems could flare up. One minute you would be fine, the next you would be unable to move. The pain, too, could come on suddenly, making someone fall over, or sending them into a delirious state.
Even walking about the mansion would be terrible for his leg and back. Kitty hoped that he had found somewhere comfortable and safe to rest. That he was waiting for them in an armchair, feeling a bit of a fool, regretting his poor decision to walk off like he did, apologizing to them for causing so much trouble.
Or at least that he was sitting down, conscious and not injured any further. Or, at the very, very least, that he was in the house at all. Because the more rooms they searched and the more rooms they found empty, the more dread Kitty felt. He had to be in there somewhere, surely?
And yet the house was empty. They searched it again, wondering whether they had missed a room, or whether he had moved from one room to another through an opposite route to them, barely missing one another.
But even after searching the house top to bottom twice and enlisting all the staff to assist with the hunt, he was nowhere. Delilah wanted to hold onto hope at
first. But as she sent the staff out to, once again, check the entire house to see if they had somehow overlooked him, she did not seem prepared to join them. Rather, as soon as the staff had left and it was only her and Kitty in the room, she sat down on the sofa, just staring forward.
Kitty knew that stare. That was the blank stare of someone picturing the worst, of someone who had given up hope, of someone who could not make sense of anything that was happening and had prepared to hand it all over to fate.
They both knew he could not be in the house. Which meant one thing: He had left the house, without a horse or carriage, despite his injuries. The staff would come back and say he was not home, they would set off to find him in a carriage and hopefully, by some miracle, he would be alive, conscious and no worse than he had been the night before.
But Kitty didn't have much faith in miracles.
She sat down beside Delilah and patted her back gently. Kitty herself felt physically sick. She could not bear the thought of him out there, on that leg. He could worsen his condition. He could die. He was useless enough at walking on his leg at home. He was routinely hurting himself during his exercises. He was nowhere near prepared to tackle a stony country road.
“How on earth has he managed to do this?” she muttered to herself.
Delilah turned to face her. “I do not know, but I pray that he is well, whatever ridiculous thing he has done to himself this time.”
Kitty nodded. “I hope so as well.”
Delilah broke down and began to weep. “I am so sorry, I didn't mean to,” she said.
“You didn't mean to do what?” Kitty asked, confused. Had she missed something here?
Delilah just kept crying.
“What did you do?” Kitty asked, suddenly becoming concerned. Perhaps Delilah had managed to say or do something to deeply hurt her brother? Perhaps she had driven him away, or encouraged him to do something reckless?
“I didn't mean to push you away from him,” she said, sobbing. “I thought you might be a bad influence. So I wanted to protect him. But then you weren't there and now he's gone.” She wiped the streaming tears from her cheeks, only for more to replace them.
