by Rebecca King
Aidan looked at his brother. “While under the doctor’s care I was clear headed - most of the time. The only time I was cloudy with my thinking was when I woke up after the accident and being given Laudanum for the pain. When the doctor stopped giving it to me, my thoughts were sharp and back to normal. However, as soon as I left the doctor’s house, and began the journey here, each day has become like walking through a thick fog. I swear that Edwards is putting it in my food.”
“Have you witnessed her slip any into your meals or drinks?”
“I haven’t seen a thing, but that is not to say that it isn’t happening,” Aidan admitted.
“Have you told her you don’t want any?”
Jerry had accompanied them all the way up from London and hadn’t seen anything untoward about the nurse, other than she was alarmingly proprietorial over Aidan whenever the opportunity arose.
Aidan nodded. “Several times, but she, like the dowager, can be really quite annoyingly dismissive at times. I have no doubt that if she considered it in her best interests to give me some then she would, and it wouldn’t be purely for medicinal purposes.”
Jerry’s brows lifted in astonishment. He set that problem aside to mull over later. When Aidan yawned, he took it as his cue to leave and went to fetch his cloak.
“Look, I need to be getting back home. If you need anything, you know where I am. Just send one of the footmen over and I will be here as fast as I can. For what it is worth, I think you are right to get Petal on your side. If she is the one to fetch your meals and drinks, get her to remain with your food from the second it leaves Kempton. That way, if your mind clears and Petal can swear your food is not spiked, you know your suspicions about Edwards are correct. If you are still cloudy in your thoughts, then I think you have to accept it is just the result of your injury you need to recover from.”
“I have to get well again,” Aidan ground out through teeth clenched with impatience.
“You will, but you know this is going to take time,” Jeremiah reasoned. “I can keep my eye on the rest of the estate for you, and will let you know if there is a problem. The house in London is already up for sale, so our dearest mother has got the message that you are turning your back on the ton, and hope never to return. There is nothing for you to think about except for recuperating and getting your strength back. I am just glad you are still alive, Aidan. There was a time there when the doctor didn’t even think you would keep your life. If you walk with a limp, then you walk with a limp, but at least you can walk. Everything else will come about in due course. You just have to be patient.”
Jerry tried to put as much enthusiasm into his statement as he could muster, but even he was worried about the weight of problems that surrounded his brother. The dowager could be a formidable force when determined about something, and Edwards was just plain odd.
Maybe Petal would be the bright spark that Aidan needed to help guide him through the tangle of difficulties.
However Aidan succeeded in solving his problems, Jerry could only hope it all didn’t end in tears.
Aidan nodded. Although he tried, he couldn’t quite mask the huge yawn that escaped. Just thinking about the myriad problems exhausted him.
Taking this as his hint to leave, Jeremiah opened the door. “I will call by in the next couple of days.”
“Rollo?” Aidan called when he realised his butler was waiting just outside the door.
“Yes, sir?” The butler stepped back into the room.
“Make sure that Petal stays with all food and drink from the moment it leaves the kitchen. Under no circumstances is Edwards to get her hands on any of it,” Aidan ordered but didn’t explain why. It just all seemed too exhausting.
Rollo’s brows shot up. He turned to the master’s brother who nodded his acknowledgement that the order was right.
“Of course, sir,” Rollo replied hesitantly. He was bursting with questions but too polite to ask.
Before either man could say anything else, Aidan fell asleep.
In the kitchen, Petal watched the starched nurse storm up the stairs with all the determination of a pit-bull. She had only known Edwards for a short while but already had the impression that the nurse was dour, surly, and obnoxiously rude. She felt sorry for the master for having to deal with her.
At any other time, she could have been considered pretty. Right now, though, with her hair swept fiercely away from her face in a way that sharpened her looks, she looked quite spiteful. Petal had no doubt that if she told the master he was going to take some medication then the master was going to take some medicine.
Petal shuddered and turned away. If she were ill as the master reportedly was, the last person she would want to look after her was someone who appeared so strictly forbidding that everyone took a backward step when she drew near. Still, it was none of her business. She was there to work and work she would. For someone like her, it was a miracle she had managed to get this job in the first place. If she had to endure the occasional meal at the table in the kitchen with the wretched woman, then she would. As long as she didn’t have to take any medication the woman gave her, or talk to her, then everything would be alright.
“What do you think he was staring at you for?” Agatha asked suddenly from beside her.
“I don’t know but it was darned unnerving,” she replied quietly. She threw Mrs Kempton a furtive look and lowered her voice. “Come and help me fold these sheets?”
Both young women scurried into the laundry room and began to fold the baskets of freshly washed laundry. Now that they were alone they were free to talk.
“I don’t like the look of that nurse,” Agatha murmured.
“She looks a bit severe doesn’t she?” Petal replied with a sigh.
“What’s her name?”
Petal scrunched her nose up, “Morgana Edwards, I think. Rollo and Mrs Kempton just call her Edwards.”
Petal had overheard Mrs Kempton discussing Edwards’ presence in the house with Rollo. It was evident that neither of them approved of her, especially since she appeared to be connected to the master’s mother, the dowager. Because of Aggy’s penchant for gossip, though, she didn’t want to discuss it with her friend. She would lose her job if Aggy passed on information about a conversation Petal had overheard to all and sundry, and it reached Mrs Kempton or Rollo’s ears.
Besides, she didn’t want people to think she was a below stairs gossip. It was important to her that people thought she could be trusted in every way.
“I have been told that she intends to eat in her room, so we aren’t likely to see much of her,” Aggy whispered as she cast a furtive look at the door.
Before Petal could reply, Mrs Kempton appeared, wiping her floury hands on her apron.
“Oh, there you are, Petal. Be a dear and go take this tray up to the master. He is asleep at the minute so don’t you go waking him up. Just leave it on a side table where he can reach it.”
Petal handed Agatha her end of the sheet they had been folding and hurried into the kitchen. She lifted the heavy tray and backed through the door to the servant’s stairs, laden with her cumbersome tray. Her burden made climbing the narrow steps tricky, mainly because she couldn’t see her feet. Eventually, though, she teetered onto the first floor. She was breathing heavily by the time she nudged through the door to the landing that led to the master’s suite of rooms.
She was trembling by the time she reached the room only didn’t particularly feel that her nerves had anything to do with delivering the tray. Focusing her attention on the task of turning the knob on the door so she could stagger into the room without spilling anything gave her the time she needed to calm herself.
Thankfully, the master was asleep as Mrs Kempton had said, but she was still very conscious of his presence in the high bed as she crossed the room. She placed the tray carefully on the table as instructed. She wasn’t sure he would ever know it was there or would be bothered with its contents, but at least he had it nearby if he d
ecided he wanted anything. Maybe then he wouldn’t need to ring for her so often.
Eyeing the distance between the table and the bed, she realised that even if he leaned sideways he wouldn’t be able to reach it because he couldn’t get out of bed. Once both table and tray had been repositioned closer to the bed, she turned to leave.
Suddenly, he began to mumble incoherently beneath his breath.
Unsure if he was trying to talk to her, she looked at him. Something in her chest lurched as she stared at his rugged masculine features. The high arch of his cheeks beneath a layer of fresh stubble gave him a dangerous, almost piratical look that gave her the shivers. As much as it intrigued her, she was slightly unnerved by the invisible tug of attraction she felt toward him. It felt as though she was committing some sort of cardinal sin but she was helpless to fight the curiosity blazing a trail of bristling intrigue inside her looking at him so blatantly, this closely.
She was alone in the room, and he was asleep, so what harm could there be in it? She took a moment to study him. She had heard that he had spent the last few months in London, but his bronzed skin hinted that whatever he had been doing there had involved a considerable amount of time outdoors. Nobody who spent their time in ballrooms could gain that healthy glow. The corded expanse of tanned flesh rippled as he breathed. She sighed, almost longingly, and forced herself to look away. Even ill, he had a vibrancy about him that emphasised his masculinity.
While she had been working at the house, she had seen his portrait in the study downstairs, several times in fact. Now that she had seen him in person, she realised that it must have been painted several years ago. She suspected when he had been in his early twenties. He must now be in his early to mid-thirties. The man he was now had an air of maturity about him that only added to his sensual appeal. In fact, the faint lines that bracketed his eyes and mouth hinted at a hard-earned wisdom that made her want to learn everything about him; where he had been, and what he had experienced in life. She suspected the laughter lines crinkled when he laughed or smiled, but knew she was not likely to find out. Her association with him was purely as a maid; and if he were like any of the other masters servants usually worked for, their discourse would be without mirth, and abrupt to the point of total avoidance.
She glanced at the clock with a frown. She was breaking probably ten different rules of the house staring at him so wantonly, but she couldn’t bring herself to stop. Her gaze wandered downward, across the stubble covered sharp blade of his jaw, down the long, corded neck, to rest on the broad, heavily muscled shoulders. She had heard from Mrs Kempton that his accident had been about as severe as it was possible for anyone to survive. The bare skin she could see though didn’t have any bruising or scars on it, though. He was definitely sick, though. Whatever injuries he had sustained had temporarily robbed him of the ability to walk.
The quiet creak of a floorboard outside snapped her out of her musings, and she glanced frantically around the room while she tried to decide what to do to show that she was busy. The last thing she wanted was to be caught gazing at the new master like some love-struck fool. Her heart hammered wildly when she couldn’t think of a single thing she could say to explain why she was still in the room. Thankfully, the sudden crack of a log in the fireplace came to the rescue.
Flying across the chamber, she dropped to her knees and was busy putting new logs onto the fire when Edwards, swept into the room.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded, eyeing Petal as though she was nothing more than a street urchin.
Petal glanced at the master. The nurse had made no attempt to keep her voice down in deference to his sleeping state. It was on the tip of her tongue to remind Edwards not to disturb him but then had to caution herself that it was not her place to do so. She motioned to the fire instead.
“I have been ordered to keep the fire in,” she whispered, and put several more logs on to prove her point.
Edwards watched her as she swept the hearth, but Petal didn’t look at her again before she quietly left. Confrontation with the rather intimidating nurse was the last thing she wanted in her first full day of her proper job. With that in mind, she quietly made her way back down to the kitchens. There was something a little unusual about that nurse, but it wasn’t just her offensive rudeness to the servants. Edwards had an almost predatory air around the master that was too proprietary for someone who was, essentially, also a servant.
It was going to be tough to avoid the woman when she was the one who had to deliver and collect trays, change his bedding, and visit the room regularly to keep the fire in. Mulling over the potential problems that might lay ahead, Petal returned to work but with one thing very firmly rooted in the back of her mind. Now, she understood why Rollo had chosen her to be the upstairs maid rather than Aggy. With Aggy’s rather timid tendency to cry at the slightest provocation, dealing with someone like the arrogant nurse would have been beyond her. At the moment, though, Petal began to wonder if she was up to the job herself.
CHAPTER THREE
“I said, no,” Aidan ground out through clenched teeth.
Even after a couple of hours’ sleep, his entire body continued to ache, but that wasn’t the worst of his problems at the moment. The damned nurse was his biggest pain.
“I have been assured by the doctor that it is best for you to take it so you must,” Edwards replied crisply.
Aidan glared at the woman, whom he had taken to calling by her surname in deference to his genuine disgust with her.
“Edwards, get out of this room,” he ordered in disgust.
“But your mother said-”
“I am not in my mother’s house,” Aidan bellowed. “This is my house, and I am not going to be bullied into taking that stuff.”
Before she could come at him with the spoon again, he yanked it out of her hand and threw it across the room, then snatched the bottle of Laudanum out of her hand and threw that after it. Oblivious to the smashing of the bottle against the hearth, he turned almost wild eyes her and ignored his aching back as he leaned across the bed.
Edwards paused for a moment as though she was contemplating what to do. She hesitated, straightened her shoulders, and glared at him.
Aidan knew, at that moment, that he had a bigger problem on his hands than he had first realised. Edwards was not going to be shifted. Unfortunately, he was not in the position at the moment to be able to march her out of the house, and she intended to use it to her advantage.
Edwards pierced him with a smug look.
“I am not employed by you. The good lady dowager has hired me to take care of you and has told me that I have to remain in this house until you are well again. She said you would try to throw me out. I am here to help you whether you like it or not. I am afraid that until the dowager releases me, I have to remain here to fulfil my duty to her. If you have a problem with that, speak to her.”
Aidan groaned inwardly when her tone turned sultry, and her gaze dropped meaningfully to his bare chest. He ground his back teeth together in an attempt to keep his ferocious temper in check. She had made it clear throughout his convalescence in London that she would be willing to accommodate a much more personal interest should he be prepared but, as far as he was concerned, he would never be that desperate. She just wasn’t his type. There was something cold, almost conniving about her that he didn’t trust, and didn’t like to see in any woman.
He lowered his voice to a growl. “Ring the bell. I want Rollo.”
She didn’t. “I am sure I can cater to your every need,” she drawled silkily.
“You are not my blasted butler. Get me Rollo this instant.” He deliberately kept his voice cold and hard.
Insanely, when she merely continued to gaze raptly at his chest, he felt the wild urge to tug the sheet up to his chin. For the first time in his life, he actually felt like he was being hunted. He now had full sympathy with women who were hounded into marriage by amorous suitors, and could empathise with terrified mai
dens pursued by lecherous men out for what they could get. In his case, the lustful person after his body wore a dress and called herself his nurse.
Over my dead body, he muttered silently.
“Rollo. Now.” He demanded coldly and watched in affronted silence, with his arms crossed over his bared chest, her tug the bell pull.
Later that night, Petal lay in bed, desperate for some sleep. Unfortunately, it was the one thing that eluded her. In the quiet of the bedroom, the only sound that could be heard was Aggy’s soft snoring beside her. The room was cold because the wood within the fire did little to heat the chill within the chamber, but she couldn’t be bothered to leave the warmth of the bed to put more on. Instead, she snuggled deeper into the thick covers in search of heat. While she did warm through a little, it had no effect on her ability to sleep.
She stared at the ceiling with a sigh. Minutes later she turned onto her side. While watching the flickering of the scant flames in the hearth, her thoughts turned inevitably to an aspect of her work she had never thought to consider – laying the master’s fire. It was to be the first thing she did in the morning, and the last thing she did before going to bed. She was reluctant to admit it, even to herself, but it was partly why she was so restless. Having to go to his room so often was proving to be a tad awkward. It was a necessary part of her job, there was no way out of it. Thankfully, today, he had been sound asleep each time she had attended. However, she knew the time would come when he would be awake when she was in his room. What then? What was she to say, or do, if he chose to stare at her again the way he had done earlier?
Everyone had had a different opinion about why he had singled her out. Some had hinted it was because she was young. Others had said it was just curiosity. The men had suggested it was because she was pretty. Then the teasing had begun. She had endured the lot with alacrity, but now hoped he would be awake when she went to his room next so she could stop fretting about what he would do the next time she saw him. She would then be able to decide for herself what it had all been about.
