A Valentine Wedding (35 page)

She set the porringer on the bedside table, continuing in almost the same breath, “I’ll send for you immediately
if there’s the slightest cause for concern, Dr. Baillie.”

“There won’t be,” Emma said, wondering what Maria was going to make of the news that Alasdair also had suffered an accident … an unrelated accident, of course. But nonetheless the coincidence would pique anyone’s curiosity.

“Dr. Baillie has to attend to his other patients, Maria,” she declared firmly. “I shall go on very well now.”

Maria accompanied the doctor to the door. “You must give me your instructions, doctor. I’m a competent nurse, you should know.”

Emma grimaced, listening to Maria’s busy chatter receding down the corridor. She sniffed at the contents of the porringer and shook her head. Maria was a darling, but she was a dreadful fusspot. And she was going to want a great deal more explanation than she’d been given so far.

“Dr. Baillie says you should take laudanum and get a good rest, my love.” Maria hurried back into the chamber. “Now, I’ll feed you some of this broth. It will help you get your strength back.”

Emma declined the offer of being fed, but took some of the broth to satisfy Maria.

“But how did it happen?” Maria asked, hovering anxiously as the invalid spooned up the broth. “Why did you leave without a word? And in the middle of the night?” She was genuinely bewildered.

“I fell asleep and burned my feet. Alasdair thought we should return to London at once to consult Dr. Baillie … I was in some pain, you understand.” Emma was amazed at how glibly the lies, unconvincing though they were, fell from her tongue. “Alasdair was very worried. So worried that I don’t think he
thought of anything but getting on the road. But when we were changing horses at Barnet, he remembered to send you word. It should have reached you before you awoke. I hope it did.” She looked innocently at Maria.

Maria shook her head. “Well, yes, it did, thank heavens for that. Indeed I don’t know what I would have done if I’d found you gone from your bed without a word. Such a shock it would have been, I doubt I’d have recovered.”

“I really do beg your pardon, Maria,” Emma said, reaching out for the other woman’s hand. “It was an infamous thing to do, but I was in such pain and Alasdair was so worried, that I’m afraid all else went out of our heads.”

“Well, I can see how it must have been,” Maria said, still sounding doubtful. “So easy to forget, of course.”

She sat on the end of the bed, still looking very bewildered and rather hurt. “But I do so wish you had woken me. I could have been dressed in a trice.”

“I think Alasdair may have thought the burns to be worse than they are,” Emma offered. It didn’t really matter whether Maria believed this cock-and-bull story or not. All that mattered was that she tacitly agree to accept it.

“Well, to be sure, I don’t know.” Maria shook her head again. “But here’s Tilda to help you into bed.”

Emma decided that meek acquiescence in the role of invalid was probably wise. It would appease Maria and she owed her some appeasement. Maria would enjoy fussing over her, and if left to do what she wanted, would probably soon stop asking questions. Of course, once she heard of Alasdair’s “accident,”
she was bound to be intrigued. But that bridge had yet to be crossed.

Alasdair endured the doctor’s ministrations with tightly clamped lips. He refused to be bled, however, maintaining that he had enough bruises already without adding gratuitously to the sum.

Dr. Baillie humphed a bit but didn’t press it. “A driving accident, your man said, sir.” He wound fresh strips of linen around the broken ribs.

“Yes,” Alasdair agreed through clenched teeth. “Damn fool thing to do. Overreached myself.”

“Racing were you, sir?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Alasdair replied. “Ouch! For God’s sake, man, be a bit more careful.”

“The strapping has to be tight, sir, otherwise the bones won’t knit,” Baillie said, stolidly unaffected by the flow of curses cascading on his head. “There’s danger of a punctured lung from one of these ribs if you move around too much for a day or two. You’ll need to lie flat to give them time to knit.”

Alasdair swore with increased vigor, but he knew the man was right. The stabbing pain he felt every time he breathed was evidence enough.

“I’ve just come from Lady Emma,” Baillie continued placidly. “You were with her when she burned her feet, I gather?”

“If I’d been with her, she wouldn’t have burned them,” Alasdair snapped with perfect truth.

“Quite so, sir. On tike fender,” Baillie mused. “Fell asleep with her feet on the fender.” He shook his head. “Most odd thing to do … almost impossible, I would have thought.”

Alasdair didn’t offer a response. Baillie was a notorious
gossip. He would have a wonderful time regaling his many society patients with the strangeness of these two accidents. The story would be all over town within the week. A dignified silence seemed the only possible response. His own friends would tease him unmercifully at the idea that he of all people had overturned himself in a curricle. But he’d have to endure it.

“A letter has just come for you, Lord Alasdair.” Cranham entered the bedchamber with a silver salver. “The messenger said there was no answer.”

The insignia of Horseguards sealed the missive. Alasdair broke the wafer. Charles Lester informed him that the four parcels had been safely collected and would be unwrapped within the next few hours.

Alasdair nodded grimly. He had little doubt that the men of Horseguards were as skilled and impersonal at interrogation as Paul Denis and his cohorts. It was a satisfying case of the biter bit.

It seemed the business that had begun with Ned’s death was finally finished. Now he could concentrate on Emma without distraction. Or at least, he amended, he could when he stopped hurting so damnably.

It was three days, however, before he was able to get out of bed. He was as weak as an infant, and even without Baillie’s strict instructions to lie flat and give his ribs a chance to knit, he wouldn’t have been able to move around with anything approaching comfort.

His doorknocker hadn’t stopped banging as news of his accident reached his friends, and he’d perfected the rueful shrug and self-deprecating admission of clumsiness, enduring the heavy-handed mockery with as good a grace as he could muster.

Of Emma he heard very little. A message produced
the information that she was feeling much better but still had difficulty walking, so was remaining in seclusion. She and Maria were not receiving visitors. He sent flowers, masses of roses and sweet violets, and received a polite thank-you. He fretted, wondering why this apparent distance. It seemed that every time he thought that they had reached some kind of an understanding, she withdrew from him again.

He wondered if she blamed him for what had happened to her. God knew, she had the right to. He blamed himself every minute of the day. He wondered if the ordeal had so terrified her that she still had not recovered her customary bright spirits, the vibrant energy and sense of humor that were her essence.

For three days he lay flat on his back and fretted and fumed. His breathing gradually grew a little easier, and the sharp stabbing pain lessened. On the fourth day, he got up, managed to walk as far as the armchair in the salon, and collapsed, sweating profusely, cursing and swearing at such ridiculous weakness.

“Give it time, sir.” Cranham hovered over him.

“I don’t have the time to give it,” Alasdair snapped. He didn’t know why he had this feeling that all the while he was immobilized he was losing precious time. That something was going on with Emma and he wasn’t there to stop whatever it was.

Emma was as confused as Alasdair. She didn’t know what was the matter with her. There was a gray patina over everything. She told herself it was the weather, constant dreary English weather at its worst,
a weeping drizzle from leaden skies. She told herself it was just reaction to the ordeal.

But it wasn’t. She knew that she’d come to some kind of watershed. She’d been approaching it for weeks now, and their confrontation in the Red Lion at Barnet had brought matters to a head. But it had still not resolved the only issue that mattered. Now the horror of that night at Paul Denis’s hands had somehow cleared away all the emotional debris so that she could see the one clear truth. Either she agreed to marry Alasdair, or she never saw him again. She could not live on lust and passion alone.

She loved him. She’d told him so and it was the truth. When she was with him, she felt she was wholly alive, living life to its utmost, draining every vestige of emotion and experience from every minute. Whether she was loving him or loathing him, it was the same. And they were after all but two sides of the same coin.

But could she live with a man who kept so many secrets? For whom it was simply natural to keep secrets. A man who resented questions, responded with unmerciful sarcasm to anything that he considered had the faintest suspicion of prying.

On the one hand, she knew him. She knew him very well. But there were also great reaches of his soul that remained closed to her. He had always held himself aloof. Even as a boy, he would on occasion withdraw completely, refusing to talk to anyone, not even to Ned. Then he’d played his music, gone for solitary walks, snubbed with almost vicious pleasure anyone who tried to penetrate his withdrawal.

Ned had always said it was because of Alasdair’s family. Because he never felt he belonged to them. He had cut himself off from them and chosen another
family. But the wounds of a hurt child healed slowly if at all. Emma had understood this even as a small girl herself. And she and Ned had closed around Alasdair, allowing him his withdrawal and his frequently hurtful responses to their efforts to reach out to him in his loneliness.

But could she live with him … be his wife … knowing that he would turn on her if she overstepped the bounds by accident or intent? Could she endure to live with someone who had his own private life that he would share with no one? He said he loved her, and she believed he did. But did he love her enough to share himself with her? Could Alasdair ever share himself with anyone?

She lay awake, staring up at the ceiling, where the firelight flickered and the night crept on. He had promised her she was the only woman in his life now. She was willing to believe that, because Alasdair didn’t lie. He despised lies. If he didn’t want to talk about something, he simply refused to do so.

And he would not talk about the mother of his child.

Lucy. She hadn’t even heard the name before he’d spoken it in the inn at Barnet. She didn’t know whether he had a son or a daughter. How could she marry him if she didn’t know these things and didn’t dare to ask? He would say it didn’t affect her. But of course it did.

He was a wonderful lover. He was obviously a wonderful manager of fortunes. But Alasdair would never make a husband. Not for someone like herself, who needed everything to be aboveboard, transparent, straightforward. She couldn’t abide secrets. She couldn’t bear to think that someone was deceiving her. Maybe it was a character flaw, but Emma knew
herself. She knew that to commit herself to a man who didn’t see the need for total honesty in a relationship would bring her only utter wretchedness. Better to make the clean break now, while the pain would be manageable.

And yet every time she thought she’d made the decision, she found herself rethinking it. Each night as she lay looking up at the firelight on the ceiling, she went over it again and again. Looking for a way to change her mind.

After five nights of this, she could bear it no longer. She rose in the morning and hobbled down to the breakfast parlor, where Maria was at her customary repast. She looked up from her tea with an expression of concerned surprise.

“My dear, why aren’t you breakfasting in bed?”

“I’ve had enough of bed,” Emma said, sitting down at the table. “I’m going out as soon as I’m dressed.”

“But you can’t go out!” Maria exclaimed. “Indeed you can’t! What about your poor feet, my dear?”

“My feet are almost better.” Emma buttered a piece of toast. “I shall wear silk slippers. They won’t pinch.”